Michael: Hello everyone. And welcome to the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is a podcast that helps entrepreneurs and business leaders like you because we care about developing the whole leader for the whole business. And this podcast is wrapped around those two themes of what does it look like to grow a company that's full of what we call passion and provision, a financially thriving and successful company, and you a thriving and successful individual who actually feels fulfilled.
Kathryn: Feels fulfilled. Yeah. Feels fulfilled.
Michael: So how are you today?
Kathryn: I'm great.
Michael: Are you?
Kathryn: Yeah.
Michael: Good.
Kathryn: I'm super excited to be here.
Michael: So as we jump into today and we talk about really vision and, now don't shut off yet. It's not going to be your typical vision thinking about things conversation and all that kind of stuff. But we just got off an interview with a friend of ours, John Ramstead, who is a great leadership coach, consultant, businessman, friend, really wise, lives out in Colorado. And we just had a great, when we have conversations, it's the third time he's been on our show. And when we have conversations like that, they're deep and rich conversations. They're like the things we would have over dinner or...
Kathryn: They're what I would call life giving. Right?
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: They just refresh and replenish and restore. Just really good stuff.
Michael: Yeah. And we talked about in that podcast, if you're listening, we talked about the poem that we had created for us three years ago. Actually it was before COVID.
Kathryn: Yeah, it was before the book came out.
Michael: Yeah, it was. And the whole idea of the poem that was called Perseverance.
Kathryn: It's called perseverance.
Michael: And if you listen to that episode, you heard us read it, but we're going to read it again. And we're going to talk about some of these things, just Kathryn and I on our own because we felt like we really needed to continue this conversation because I think it's pretty powerful. I mean, it was, it felt really powerful as we were talking to John and there's some really good feedback. So why don't you... You want to describe how we met this guy?
Kathryn: Yeah. Let me just tell the story for anybody for anybody, quickly again.
Michael: For anybody who hasn't heard this story.
Kathryn: Because we didn't want to assume you're listening to every episode. So Michael and I were taking a weekend away with some friends and we got there before they did. And we're wandering the farmer's market in Truckee, which if you've ever been to the farmer's market in Truckee, California, it's just delightful.
Michael: It's in the mountains in the Sierra Nevada.
Kathryn: Beautiful.
Michael: Sierra Nevada mountains just north of Tahoe.
Kathryn: So we were, yeah, it was gorgeous. So we're wandering and just looking at all the different vendors and we had quite a bit of time to kill and we weren't hungry yet. So we were working up an appetite. I think we got a reservation at a restaurant. So we had some time to wander up and down a bit. And we kept passing this guy. And I think we'll try and find the photo and maybe post that in the show notes. Can we do that? Can we post a photo?
Michael: I think we can. Absolutely.
Kathryn: So we found this guy, his name was William and we kept walking back and forth with him. And William was seated in a crate and he had this old fashioned typewriter in front of him that literally was so old that the weight, the counterbalance that allows you to move the carriage back and forth was when you hit return...
Michael: You hit return and it goes...
Kathryn: It wasn't working automatically anymore. And so he had this like weight hanging on it. It was just...
Michael: It was totally jimmyrigged.
Kathryn: It was totally jimmyrigged. Anyway, he had this little shindig going and he's a poet where he basically was pitching your topic, your price, right. So you could name your price and be like, okay for 10 bucks. I think that was the minimum he was willing to take, which that feels fair. For 10 bucks...
Michael: 10 bucks.
Kathryn: Give me a word and I will write a poem for you that's specifically for you. So you're getting this completely unique work for $10. That was his pitch. So we walked by and we're like, that's interesting, but we don't have a word and we don't need another love poem. It's okay. And most of the people felt like it was all young couples that were stopping and being right as a poem for our relationship.
Kathryn: So we just kind of were giggling about that. But about the third time we passed the guy, I looked at Michael and I said, what if we gave him the word perseverance? What do you think he would do? And Michael's like, I don't know, but I'm willing to risk 10 bucks to find out, right. It's a low risk proposition. So we did. We walked over and we said, "Okay, we have a word for you." And he goes, "Bring it." And we said, "Perseverance." And he just kind of paused and he looked at it and he said, "Perseverance, okay."
Michael: I'm going to need a few minutes.
Kathryn: I think I'm going to need a few minutes and understand that most of the time when somebody was giving him a word, they would stand there and he would author the poem while they were standing there. And for us, he said, why don't you walk for a while? So, so we walked away, left him with perseverance and wandered down the street, looked at the vendors. I think about a hat.
Kathryn: We came back. We're like, "Are you ready?" He said, "No, I need a few more minutes." And meanwhile, there were other people that were, he was writing other stuff. It was like he was noodling it in the back of his head, but he just didn't quite have it yet. So probably about 20 or 30 minutes later, I don't remember how long, we walked back by and, and said, so are you ready? And he said, you know what I am. And this is what he wrote. So this little poem is called Perseverance and it's literally typed on this tiny little card and there are misspellings all over it because that's what happens when you don't have a computer and white out is not handy. Right?
Michael: If you want to see this, you'll go to the stage or the podcast show notes and we'll have a picture of not only him, but the poem. So poem, by the way, we paid for this. It's trademarked. It's [inaudible 00:05:18]
Kathryn: It's ours. You can't use it. Okay. So the poem is entitled Perseverance and it says this: Like Buffalo standing strong against the coming storm, not easily swayed once the direction has been decided upon. To grow any dream from seed takes incredible devotion and ruthless perseverance to manifest. Let us be like buffalo flow and stay true to our path of growth and becoming. That is our perseverance poem.
Michael: I love that poem and we have blown it up and it's framed and hanging in our office.
Kathryn: And we've probably actually done a podcast about it probably a couple, three years ago when we first came across this, but.
Michael: I'm sure we did.
Kathryn: But at the risk of being redundant and because three years later we're seeing it in different life.
Michael: Different light, refreshed. I think we need to talk about it like that.
Kathryn: Yeah. So this is the poem on perseverance. And so we shared this poem with our friend, John, and had this conversation about this whole concept of how few people know what their path is.
Michael: That last statement really kind of came alive.
Kathryn: Yeah. Stay true to your path of growth and becoming, and how few of us actually have taken the time or done the work to know even how to answer the question, what is my path? What is the journey I'm on? So I think we want to spend a little bit more time talking about this, this question of, do you know your path?
Michael: Well, it fits really well into passion and provision because we talk about the idea of creating a company that is not only profitable, but that you enjoy that stimulates your passion.
Kathryn: I mean, we wrote a book called Fulfilled. Right?
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: So the whole point of the book was how do you run a company that creates an environment where you actually are fulfilled?
Michael: Yeah, and I like the question, John asks his folks. And if you listen to that, this will be a repeat at some level. But I think it's worth thinking about, and that is okay, let's think about life seven years out. And what do you want out of life? If you can achieve the things you to do and all that kind of stuff, what kind of life would you describe? How do you want to feel? What do you want? What do you want out of every area of your life? And he said that ultimately what he saw or what he heard was people saying, I want, they described some kind of, I want to live my best life or I want to be fulfilled or...
Kathryn: I want to live more fully.
Michael: Yeah. And then he asked the question, okay, what does that...
Kathryn: What does that actually mean to you? How do you define that?
Michael: Well, I thought the question was actually, how do you get there? And he said, "I have no idea." They said, "I have no idea."
Kathryn: I thought he actually asked the question, what does that look like to you? And they still said they didn't know.
Michael: Maybe.
Kathryn: They didn't actually know their path.
Michael: You know, what's really good is we have that recorded.
Kathryn: We do.
Michael: We can go back and check and see who's right and who's wrong.
Kathryn: But not right now in the middle of this conversation.
Michael: Pause.
Kathryn: So let's just go with it.
Michael: Pause. No, we won't pause. Okay. So if we think about that and we move forward like that, with that kind of idea, either one, what does that look like? And how are you going to get there? Unless just stay with, how does that look? What does it mean? You know you want to be fulfilled, to live your best life, to be your best self, to really live a full life. But how would you describe that?
Kathryn: Yeah, that's a great question. And various people are talking about this all over the place. And so there's lots of voices, but we definitely talk a lot about what does it look like to have a vision? You've got with core values and a core purpose and a clear direction that you're going that can help you really determine the decisions you're making today. Because if you know where you want to go and you actually have a destination, then that actually allows you to sort out does this thing that's in front of me, this opportunity, get me closer to that or does it not? And it makes decision making a little bit easier.
Kathryn: And I think one of the reasons that we so loved this poem, this perseverance poem is because when we talk about passion and provision and we define passion, right? We talk about what is it that your journey is about? What is it that you are willing to do that you actually are willing to sacrifice for? So this poem where you've got this buffalo, who's standing strong against the coming storm, facing into the storm. The storm's coming, the buffalo doesn't turn and run. The buffalo turns toward the storm and faces it. And that image of taking steps forward in the middle of a storm and pushing forward, that perseverance, that is a big piece of what true passion is actually about.
Michael: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Kathryn: It's not this flimsy whimsy thing.
Michael: Well, and it's the idea that not only that's what passion is about, but that's also the idea of getting there, for us is we all have our unique path. There's not the same path for all of us. Even though you and I have a path that's tied together because we're married and we're business partners and we've said, yes, we're going to do this life together. There are still uniquenesses. So our paths, while we walk along shoulder to shoulder down the same path, our steps are still unique enough. And there are unique things about you and I that are different that are also very complimentary at times. And sometimes it doesn't even matter. They're unique. They're different. You're a girl. I'm a boy. You are this. And I am that.
Kathryn: I identify as, she, her, hers.
Michael: So we talk about these things and we go, okay, this is important. And this excited me because it reminded me what's important to us, to you and I, about how we impact other people's lives and help them to do that. The more people we can help to actually find that fulfilled life and figure out how to define it and how to get there. And more specifically, how do we help entrepreneurs do that? And then how do we find entrepreneurs who want to not only get there, but they take the responsibility of being a leader and saying, I'm going to take as many people as I can around me and owning a company with employees gives me the privilege and the honor to steward that and to help them help others do that, too. I want to give back and everybody around me.
Michael: And when we talk about business owners and entrepreneurs that are running successful companies, they have such a profound possibility of impacting their community, the world around them, with their customers delivering great products and services that they want to need with actually providing income for their family, but providing a place where it's possible to have a job. Not only is it possible for an entrepreneur to be a passion provision and to have those 40, 50, 60 hours a week or whatever you're working, be something that actually contributes to that path and to that fulfillment, like the work you're doing, not just the rewards of having a company and that you can actually create that for other people. Those are, we get super excited about because then we're like, wow, we could help somebody and it could turn into literally thousands and maybe tens of thousands of people.
Kathryn: Yeah. And I think one of the things that John pointed out is there are a lot of leaders out there that like he was when he was 45, so we're talking 10 years ago.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: From the outside look incredibly successful. Right? They have this great company. They've got a bunch of employees. They're making a ton of money. They've got the house. They've got the vacation house. From the outside. Everything looks amazing, right?
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: And yet internally, if they're being honest, he described where he was at 45 with just this powerful term. He said, "I had this smoldering discontent."
Michael: That was powerful.
Kathryn: That is an incredibly powerful phrase. This just constant sense in my being that I am not content. There is more. I am not living my fullest life. This is not what I thought it would be. Whatever the mix of things are that contribute to discontent. It's like 90% of leaders feel that. And how do we find you and help you find a path towards more contentment, which comes from figuring out who you are, really creating vision, really understanding all those pieces and then figuring out how to run your company in a way that means that you are not constantly fighting a battle.
Michael: Yeah. That's huge. It's powerful. Okay. We probably have talked about this, but I don't know if I remember when, what age were you when you think you started thinking about impacting others? You wanted to help other people grow and become something more?
Kathryn: Oh gosh. I was probably in my early twenties, maybe even late teens. I mean...
Michael: Do you have a memory of when you kind of started first or a season in life where that started happening for you and you started dreaming about what you wanted to do was make other people's lives better, impact them?
Kathryn: I'm not sure if there's a single memory, but there was a season when I was being mentored and I was having the opportunity to do some teaching and seeing lights come on for people when I would teach. And out of that, I would say I had multiple moments in the following years where when I would teach and I would see people respond and kind of have the light come on, I would have that sense of this is what I was meant to do. This is to try and be a catalyst to translate something for someone so they can see it in a different way, take it in in a different way and that it actually then becomes real for them and begins to impact and transform their lives so that change happens. So I think, I had some great mentors early that really fed the fuel and the fire of this gifting piece that I know as part of my makeup.
Kathryn: And that's when I was like, I think I really want to impact people. I mean, I used to have dreams and you knew this from knowing me in my twenties. I was like, I'm going to be like the person who stands in the middle of a stadium and teaches thousands, right, because I'm one of those weird people that doesn't mind public speaking. And every time I go listen to a speaker, I'm like, I could do that. And that hasn't been my path. Not yet anyway. Who knows? But that sense of really understanding this is the place where I really feel like I can make an impact.
Kathryn: And we've seen it. I talk about making that kind of an impact in the boardroom, the conference room, right? Where a client suddenly has this recognition and realization through our coaching, leadership training, marketing, input, all of those things. They begin to see some lights come on. I begin to see that for them. And that is life giving, too, even if it's not on a mass basis. So that was a long answer to your question, but.
Michael: No, no, no, no. It's good. I have a memory of being 16. And then as I started thinking about it, I actually have more memories that started popping up. But one of the things that I remember, so growing up was a little rough in our household and there were challenges. And by the time I was 16 and I was driving, I'd already had some successful breakthroughs, 16, 17 years old. I'd had some counseling and I'd had some freedom. And I remember for some reason, even in eighth grade, oh, that's interesting, that memory. I had to do a report. I was so miserable as a kid I wanted to run away a lot. And I can remember actually as an elementary school kid running away one night. I left the house several times intending to never come back, ever. And I was usually...
Kathryn: But when there was food and a bed and...
Michael: I was usually back soon, but I was one of those little kids. And I remember one night I was so mad because there was so much tension with my father and I, and I was walking down the street in the rain. I had left in the rain in a bag and I was walking down Vallombrosa at night.
Kathryn: You'd left in the rain with a bag?
Michael: I had a bag on.
Kathryn: Oh you said I left in the rain in a bag.
Michael: Oh, in bag.
Kathryn: I'm like what?
Michael: I had a bag, like a backpack type thing. And here I am, I'm 10, 11 years old and I'm walking down a major boulevard at night that doesn't have any traffic and it's raining and a police officer drives by. "Well, this is an odd sight," I'm sure he said to himself and he stopped me and put me in the car and had a conversation with me and kind of talked me down and then took me home. Which being taken, first of all, when your parents don't know you've run away because that's, as a kid, I imagined that the most powerful way you could get Matt back at your parents is not to tell them you're leaving, but for them to find out you're gone.
Kathryn: And only second to that is to be returned by a police officer.
Michael: So then you're standing at the front door and the police officer wants to talk to your parents. Yes. But by the time I was in eighth grade, I did a report on runaways. I to do some report for an English thing. And I remember doing a report about the runaways in America that made it to New York City and hung out in Times Square before they redesigned Times Square and it became a safe place. In the seventies and eighties it became a pretty sketchy place.
Michael: And Father Ritter, who was a priest, Catholic priest, had set up this huge ministry and was working with kids and things like that and trying to build relationships and try and save as many kids that ended up in Times Square homeless because they ended up in sex trades and drugs and all of that kind of stuff.
Michael: So for some reason I kept being fond of this, or not fond, intrigued about what was going on, especially as my life got a little better in pieces and parts. And I remember being back at 16, driving around, having this one job. And I remember telling one of my friends that I imagined having a ranch in Montana. That's when all this imagining having property probably began is that kids that were like that who had problems like me that needed more help than I needed and came from worse places than I came, could have a safe place to come and grow and figure out who they were and get healthy and move on. And I was like 16 dreaming about that. So it started early on and I loved being in leadership in Boy Scouts and stuff. But there was always that seed of, I want to do that.
Michael: And the reality that I was completely undisciplined, I was talented, but not skilled and disciplined in any specific thing.
Kathryn: Trust me, he's not lying. I knew him then.
Michael: Except I had my 10,000 hours in of practice by the time I was like eight of talking.
Kathryn: I was like of what? Oh yeah, definitely.
Michael: Talking.
Kathryn: He has a lot of words.
Michael: So it's like, okay, what is this going to look like? Because you have all these desires and dreams and no skill or competence or trust or reputation to be able to go to a really good college or have opportunities. And once I stopped going, in Boy Scouts, I learned, I developed niches of places where I had reputation as a leader. But outside of that, it fell apart. And that was part of my twenties with you and I, before we started getting married.
Michael: But there was that desire. And it's interesting because so many people that have a desire to want to grow, don't have the desire to put in the hard work. And as we talk about at the end of the poem, stay true to their path of growth and becoming. I didn't know how to stay true to it. My teens. I was a teenager. But for some reason, when you're a teenager, everybody's telling you that if you screw up your teen years, you will never recover for the rest of your life. There's so many kids that are terrified about high school or getting into a good college or not playing the sports or not getting the scholarship or whatever, which is a tragedy.
Michael: But we have this. Now we have entrepreneurs who come out of that with big dreams and hopes. I'm going to do things. I'm going to have my own freedom. I'm going to build my own business. I'm going to be able to set my own path. I'm going to be able to do what I want to do. But okay, let's say you do that. Then what? You have the freedom, you have the money, you have everything else. What is it that you want? What is it that's going to be the fulfilled life for you?
Kathryn: Yeah. What's the purpose of all of that?
Michael: And that...
Kathryn: Or if you did that and you started down that path, but it didn't turn out the way you want and you know, you don't actually have the thing that you set about dreaming for. And how do you begin to rewrite the script and believe that actually you can, right? That you can change things that where you are isn't where you have to stay. Whether that is making a bunch of money, but living in a somehow smoldering discontent or whether it's struggling because you did it, but it didn't meet the expectations. And maybe you even failed along the way, and you're trying to figure out what does it look like to get back to being in a place where I can develop and grow and be what I wanted to be when I started this thing.
Michael: So if somebody's sitting here listening, going, yeah, that's me. I want, but I'm not a hundred percent sure I have. I think a lot of leaders we'll say I have immense clarity on what I want and I really don't know. And when you're asking these questions, I really don't know what the answer is.
Kathryn: I have immense clarity, but I don't know what the answer is?
Michael: Yeah. Both, yeah. And somebody might be going, huh? What did you just say, Michael. Let me say it this way. It's amazing how, when somebody asks us the question, like John said. He asked very, very, very successful business leaders what do you want life to look like in seven years? And then if you're right, which you probably are, the answer to the next question, when they said, "I want to be fulfilled." Some version of I want to be fulfilled or living my best life, I want to live a full life. And then what does that look like? I don't know. Okay. What you have is you have really successful businessmen who have built, they've had to have clarity on I'm going to build a business. I'm going to do this. It's going to be like this. We're going to erect this. I'm going to build this. But when you ask them, how are you going to build your life? They have a lot of clarity and a lot of clear picture on what they want. And we oftentimes also at the same time, have no clarity on what we want.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Michael: How do you get to that place? What do you think?
Kathryn: Well, part of it is, I think there has to be a mindset shift. And part of that is believing you can grow, right? We talked about Carol Dweck and the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. But the other thing is believing that doing the work of discovery is worth it. Because I think part of happens for leaders is you're running a company. You're busy. You got stuff to do. You got people to pay. You got people to collect money from. You got things in front of you all the time. And the idea of setting aside the time to do kind of what we would call the inner work, the inner game, and really looking at who am I and where do I need to grow? And what is it I'm struggling with? And if I have this discontent, where is it coming from, right?
Kathryn: So I think if we, as leaders have a mindset that says doing that work is a waste of time at some way. It's not productive. There's no immediate gratification. There's no instant results. It's not going to make me money. And I think a lot of leaders feel like this stuff is kind of the soft stuff. There's no tangible result out of it that's going to help me grow the business.
Kathryn: So part of it is the mindset shift to say, no, actually it is worth the work. And whether you're are afraid of what you might discover, or you just don't know that you have the space to take the time to do it, the mindset says this is as important as anything else that I'm doing as a leader.
Kathryn: So I think that's the first thing I would say is you have to adjust your mindset to buy into the fact that this understanding of who I am and what my true path of growth in becoming is supposed to look like that, that actually I need to step into that. So that would be the first thing I would say.
Michael: I like it.
Kathryn: What would you say?
Michael: Sometimes I ask a question that I already know. I at least know what I want to, I'm thinking about. And I don't know if I had a clear thought on. I mean, obviously we talk about it a lot.
Kathryn: Yeah. I mean, we talk about having a mentor, having somebody outside of you to sort of read the label out from outside the bottle and ask you good questions. So we definitely talk about that a lot.
Michael: Yeah. I think life can be so busy that you're not introspective or this is a little touchy feeling. And I, sometimes I'm good at talking like this to leaders one on one, but I sometimes wonder when you're talking to them in a group, a lot of leaders are not in a space where they feel very vulnerable or in touch with their I don't knows. It's like, I got a lot of clarity right now. Well, if you push me hard, I'll get to a place where I can feel and think about the I don't knows we'll call them. But I'm going to say this. A lot of leaders just don't know what to do with this, men and women, so they just push it away. They just like, I'm just not going to go there.
Kathryn: Easier to ignore it.
Michael: I remember a conversation with a business leader in town. We were having coffee and just catching up and stuff like that. And as usually happens with me, we're going to talk about stuff and things we do, but we're going to talk about some kind of how are you real life relationship? And I'm going to ask and I'm going to listen, because I care. I'm not just idly asking. And I started to undo this person. It wasn't my intention. I really like this person. I care about them. But they started opening up a door in their own mind and their own emotions about those things. And it was very like, they were engaging with me, but they said, I can't go any farther. They started crying and it was so overwhelming for them. I just wanted to be there for them but they couldn't go there. The reason they couldn't go there was because it was just too intense.
Michael: So I think that's really where we need to be. I think we need to be vulnerable and honest and say we're willing to go there. It may not be in a coffee shop, but you need to work with somebody. You need to talk with somebody. You need to think about it because the alternative is tragic. You will end up in a place because you didn't define it. You'll end up somewhere vague and you'll be going, I just spent the last 10, 20, 30 years of my adult life, my profession, my entrepreneurship or whatever, leading business, and I didn't figure out me. And now I'm like I could be wasting the most precious years, the most powerful years of my life in my fifties and sixties, because I didn't do the work and I don't know. And now I got to figure it out or I just continue to push it away. And I walk away from this life without that. And that's kind of heavy, but I think it's true.
Michael: I mean, I think we need to end on a note where we're saying, you can do this. It's possible. You can totally do this, but you need to be able to pay attention to not only what you want, but what you really want.
Kathryn: Yeah. Who you actually are, what your path of growth in becoming is.
Michael: And start with baby steps. Put your toe in the water. You don't have to jump into the deep end. But if you're uncomfortable with some of these thoughts and feelings about yourself and everything, do a little journaling, have a little conversation, maybe get a coach that's going to help you because we found that coaches are huge to really not only help you talk about this, but actually unlock those things that are really powerful, that are going to help you move forward, that you can't quite find on your own or a casual conversation. Be intentional. All right.
Kathryn: If there's anything we can do to help you, just reach out. We would love to have a conversation with you. We are here.
Michael: And as Kathryn saying that, if you're not sure exactly what we do, we do business consulting for the whole leader, for the whole business. We actually do a holistic process of evaluating your company and helping you grow your company, helping you grow as a leader and helping your team, your leadership team grow. And we do that kind of work and then work with messaging and marketing and all that kind of stuff at Half a Bubble Out. And we would love to help you because we understand business. We've run two seven figure companies, started and grown two seven figure companies that we're living out this Passion and Provision life that we talk about. So we want to just thank you today for coming. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And we hope you have a great day. Talk to you later. Bye bye.
Kathryn: Bye bye.
