Michael: Hello, everyone, and welcome to HaBO village. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is a podcast to help leaders like you build passion and provision companies full of profit, purpose and legacy. Welcome to the brand new year. I don't know when you're going to hear this, but we're recording it-
Kathryn: And it's the first time we've done a recording in 2021. So from us, definitely, Happy New Year.
Michael: Yes. Happy New Year.
Kathryn: Happy New Year.
Michael: It may not be the first one because we did an interview that's going to run today.
Kathryn: Nah, we'll switch it out. We'll do this one first.
Michael: All right. All that said, you don't know when our schedule is, we don't know when our schedule is. Today we're going to talk about just last year and thinking about the last 90 days. We're going to walk you through an exercise that's really, I think, very helpful. It was helpful to us, and it was part of some good coaching and leadership that we were getting, and we're going to pass it onto you. And it's really an exercise, we're going to walk you through the exercise and then we're going to have something that you can download from our show notes page if you want it. But it really is thinking about the world in four quarters in a year, about the last 90 days.
Michael: We've got all these methodologies of, how do we plan, and how do we get traction? And everything else. And there's a lot of great ones out there. This may or may not fit into what you're doing. If you don't have something, this is something to consider. This is something we're adding to even our different stuff like quarterly goals and things like that, because I think it works for that. So we're going to call it the 90-Day Game Plan. Kathryn, why don't you talk them through a little bit about it, high-level?
Kathryn: Okay. So at a high level, the goal is to look at the past 90 days first and look at things you're excited about and things that maybe you have regrets about. We'll talk about why that matters. And then the next piece of it is to look at the present and spend some time evaluating what you feel confident about and what you feel like you're lacking. And then the final thing is looking at the future. And this is not necessarily... I mean, this might be 90 days, but it also might be a little bit beyond that. But what are you excited about, and what are you worried about?
Kathryn: So just thinking through, and this 90-Day Game Plan is, you're thinking about how you take the next steps forward, looking back a little, looking at where you are right now, and then looking at the future in both the positive and the challenging.
Michael: Got it.
Kathryn: So that's the plan.
Michael: And then we'll list out up to five different things that you want to work on.
Kathryn: Yeah. They're basically action items that would help you move toward the things that you're trying to accomplish.
Michael: Yeah. If you're using something like Traction or something like that, you would have three things that you're going to be working on over the next quarter, maybe three to five, but three big rocks that you're working on. So here's some things that shifts that a bit. But let's just talk about it because part of what this exercise does is it helps us really take inventory. We're so busy running at high speed, working with each other and all of us listening, we're working in our companies, working with our teams, living life. And then on top of it, you have COVID and all the different dynamics of that, presidential elections issues, transitions, just a heightened frustration across the country right now.
Michael: And so when we're talking about this is a good time to just stop and take some inventory of, how are you doing? What are you thinking? And why is that important to stop and take that inventory?
Kathryn: I think first of all, anytime that we allow ourselves the freedom to be a tiny bit introspective, we're going to grow out of that. Because the idea that I'm going to stop and I'm going to pause and I'm going to think, "Okay, what is it that I'm really wrestling with? What is it that I feel like I didn't do well?" To be able to articulate that allows you then to do something about it, as opposed to when we're not thinking and processing, true on the celebration side too, the positive things, to do more of that. When we're not thinking and processing and articulating those things, then I think we just have this vague sense of either satisfaction or dissatisfaction that we can't always wrap our brains around.
Kathryn: I'm listening, I'm in the middle right now and it's like a two-and-a-half hour gig. You know this, but I'm listening to this conversation that's happening between Brené Brown and Jim Collins. One of the things I love about podcasting is the idea that you just get to sit and listen to somebody else's conversation as though you were in the living room or something. And these are two very bright, very articulate people who have a deep respect for each other. They're both super curious, so they're asking each other questions, and it is a really fun conversation. It's in Brené Brown's Dare To Lead. Great, great podcast.
Kathryn: But one of the things that Jim Collins has done, and he's a data guy, he's a qualitative data driven research-
Michael: He's a researcher from Georgia.
Kathryn: He's a researcher full-on. He's academic. He has came out of academia to be an entrepreneur, but he's all about the data. And he does this thing daily, I can't even fathom doing this daily. I was like, "Oh, that intimidates the crud out of me." But he basically has like his areas of things that he wants to do. And he's allocated it by, "I need to spend this percentage of my time doing this, and I need to spend this percentage doing this, and this percentage doing this." And then at the end of every day, he has an Excel spreadsheet that he uses, and he calculates how he did that day.
Kathryn: He looks back on his time and says, "Okay, I spent this much time doing"-
Michael: Man, I'm so not driven that.
Kathryn: You're never going to do this. I'm never going to do this. But the point I'm trying to make is, he does all that. But then at the end of it, he scores his day. And that is a completely subjective feeling. If it was a whatever, he'll give it a zero. And he goes basically, negative two to plus two. The reason I'm bringing that up is because-
Michael: Why the hell did you bring that up?
Kathryn: Because you asked me why should we stop and reflect. What he said is that part of the reason he tracks it is because when he has a bunch of negative two days in a row where it just like things are not moving forward, he's not doing what he needs to be doing, he's not accomplishing stuff. It can start to feel like you're completely failing. And he knows that, and so he tracks so that he can look over the course of the last year. So he's constantly evaluating today minus a year and looking at that data altogether, and going, "Oh, okay. No. But over the course of the last year, I've averaged like a 1.5. So I'm not going to die. I'm going to be fine." And it gives him perspective.
Kathryn: So it's the way that he does it. I mean, he's doing it on a daily basis, but that ability to pause and go, "Was today a good day?" And then to be able to understand over time, "What made it a good day?" What is it that caused me to feel successful?" And that way, you'll also know that you're actually pressing into the things that you're built to do, or as he would say, you're encoded for, which is just fun. So that's a very long answer with a bit of Jim Collins thrown in to, why is it important to stop and think about where we are, where we've been, where we're going, which is what this whole exercise is about.
Michael: Well, yeah. Because you need to get yourself perspective, you need to figure out what it is that you're thinking about, and what's going on. Because sometimes we're so busy. We interviewed a guy this morning on the podcast who had been in business for over 40 years, and he talked about being in business for almost 25, 30 years before somebody challenged him to say, "Who are you? And what are you about? What do you stand for? Who are you? Define yourself."
Kathryn: And it took him exactly five years to figure out how to exactly do that.
Michael: And it frustrated the heck out of him.
Kathryn: He was a results guy.
Michael: He was a results guy. We got things done. He said, "Things needed to be done, not just yesterday, but day before yesterday."
Kathryn: Two days ago.
Michael: He's funny. Because when you listen to him, he's the Southern guy with the Southern draw and talks-
Kathryn: He doesn't sound fast at all.
Michael: Talk and listen to him talk slow and pause, you're like, "How could you be in a hurry for anything?" And yet I can see how thinking about that and having expectations going on in his mind and he ran his company like that and grew his company that he inherited from his father after he passed. Ultimately, it turned into a very successful company with quite a few employees, I mean, over 150 employees, and he sold the company, he exited. So he had the today's entrepreneurial dream. "I had a company, it grew, it did a lot of stuff, it provided me a lot of opportunity, I had a great exit. It was great thing." But it took him so long to figure out who he was.
Michael: This was the inflection that I thought was great, it was when he figured out really who he was. And while he knew who he was, well, he knew, "I won't do that, I will do that." Until he codified it and really thought about it and brought it to the front of his mind, the hockey stick on his company didn't happen. And it was the success of the company that really was the fruit of partially him articulating, who are you? Who is this company? And how do you communicate it to other people, mainly your employees so that they all know it, can have that ownership?
Michael: Because what he said that was interesting to me was not only that, that he had to figure out and spent years trying to figure out who he was. And I know some of you are like, "I know who I am." Well, if you sat down with some of these exercises, you may kill it. You may struggle with this a little bit. So if you're asking the question right now, what are your five core values? Do you know your five personal core values? Do you know what those are? If you can't rattle them off or something close to it, even in the top 10 and what you stand for and what you stand against. If you don't have a quick answer for that, it's helpful, and we've discovered that.
Michael: But the other thing was, when he identified the core values of the company and realized that they really had been operating in those core values, they were able to articulate them, the employees who identified those, there was a huge amount of excitement and an energy pulsed into the company because they were saying, "That's who I am." And when people are able to see something and they see a way before they can find their way and you articulate that and they go, "Yes, that resonates with me," there is an excitement of, "Wow. Now, I have words to put to that." That's powerful.
Kathryn: It is powerful.
Michael: So when we jump into this, past 90 days, I think it's important to talk about this. You struggled with the first... when we did this the other day because it was the first time you'd seen the exercise because you were having trouble separating 90 days from the year.
Kathryn: Yeah. So Michael and I had a bit of a discussion about this before we launched in today, but-
Michael: A bit of a discussion.
Kathryn: A bit of a discussion. Part of what this exercise is to think back 90 days and say, "What am I excited about? Or what am I proud of? And what did I regret?" And for me, because 2020 was such a squirrely year and it felt so umbrellad by COVID and by all of the implications on our team and everything else that happened and we launched a book, so I felt like it was really hard for me just to do 90 days based on just the year that it was, because everything felt glummed together in my mind. And so, to just separate out the last quarter of 2020 felt like it wasn't helpful me. So that's partly just how my brain worked. I think in general, it is helpful to not go back very, very far.
Kathryn: But here's the thing, if you're holding on to regrets and they're past 90 days, you still have to deal with them.
Michael: Well, and I'm going to say in business, if you can't find anything that you're happy about in the last 90 days at work, there's a problem.
Kathryn: You might have a couple of regrets.
Michael: Because even for us, if I look at 2020, I'm like, "I'm really proud of the fact that we launched the book and it went well." But if that's the last thing I'm proud of-
Kathryn: Yeah. No, it wasn't the last thing I was proud of.
Michael: I understand that.
Kathryn: Fear not.
Michael: I understand that. The challenge was, was that 90 days, I think sometimes these kinds of exercises are tough because it's the first time you do them. It's like, "Well, I want to go back a lot farther." And the objective here is, what in the last 90 days? So, what in the last 90 days are we proud of?
Kathryn: One of the things I was proud of was the way that our team made adjustments when we went into a second lockdown, because the first one, you're just scrambling with everybody else. And then the second one, because we are in Northern California, so back in the highest tier again, it's just super sad, but just watching them adjust to that and continue to flow forward and not have work interruption, I was proud of that. And I was proud of thinking about how many opportunities we had to have conversations and to be on podcasts with other people and to share the book and share our thoughts. And so I was proud of that. And there was a couple of big projects that we had done that I was proud of. So, there was a number of things.
Michael: And for me, I was pretty proud of the fact that we had finished the year so well.
Kathryn: Oh, and I was part of our Christmas party.
Michael: Our Christmas party. Our Christmas party. Well, that's good, see?
Kathryn: Because it was fun and creative, even though I was remote, we had a good time.
Michael: I'm not sure why You're saying it was hard to separate out that from the rest of the year, because you've got a lot of stuff that happened in the last three months.
Kathryn: Because I'm thinking more now, because he only gave me like 90 seconds and he kept talking the entire time we were doing the exercise. It was really hard to think. Note to all of you, if you give someone two minutes to think about something and write something down, don't spend the entire two minutes nudging them along. It's very frustrating.
Michael: Okay. Fair enough. So I was happy with the way we finished the year. We finished the year profitably and better than the year before. We were up. Not a lot, but we were up. And that was an amazing thing after all the uncertainty of the year. We started some initiatives got a lot of good work done on some insight initiatives that sometimes in the middle of these crazy times even with COVID and elections and everything else, the tensions and the distractions were so high, the fact that we made it through so much and got so much done, I was really proud of. Regrets.
Kathryn: I think one of my regrets was just how much time I lost due just to sheer exhaustion. I felt like there was a lot more, I would say, unproductive days the last quarter, even though we finished well. I mean, I made client deadlines, it wasn't that, but just personally, I just felt so wiped out. And I think whenever I feel that exhausted, it's hard for me to be optimistic. And so I just regretted how much just lost time and times where I could have been more productive, but I just fell into, "I just need to binge watch a show right now because I have no brain power." So pluses and minuses to some of that, but definitely feel like I lost some time in the last quarter, and that was a regret.
Michael: Yeah. You can blame it on COVID and you're like, "Oh, it's understandable and everything else." But I regret that just... It's so funny, I didn't have the energy to focus on a lot of things like you. And once work was done, I was spent, and so we binge-watched a lot. It was the nature of a lot of America then maybe the Western world. For me, I'm like, "Ah." I wrestled with regretting about it because it's already done. That was one of the things that was difficult about this section. What do you regret? The first thing was, "I'm struggling with this because I don't typically regret much."
Kathryn: You just let it go. You're like, "That's over, I can't fix it."
Michael: I can't fix it. The things that I tend to regret are when I hurt people's feelings. And I don't remember any significant times in the last 90 days I really screwed that up. So I'm proud of that.
Kathryn: well, I wanted to talk to you about... No, I'm kidding
Michael: Doing a podcast with your wife. But understanding the principle and the intent of the exercise, going, "I probably regret eating too much, and just eating." Now we're working on, but I'm like, that's the way it was, and we were what we were, and I carbed out way too much in the last-
Kathryn: Well, and here's the funny thing about this exercise. It's something that you're doing for your business, but we say it all the time, and the guy running the exercise said it when we were doing it, you're an individual, you're a whole person, so this can be things you regret personally and professionally, or excited about personally and professionally, because you bring your whole person. You have one life.
Michael: Yup. Well, and here's the other thing that I found that I was thinking about it. I regret, and I don't know if this is a fair regret or not, but I processed it like it was. And that was, I regret the fact that we had to live through COVID and that our Christmas party a year. Our Christmas party was awesome in the context for the company-
Kathryn: Oh yeah, but it was nothing like our normal Christmas party.
Michael: It was nothing like our ... And I regretted not having it. I think I got to the place where by the middle of December, my mantra, I was saying it too much out loud, "I hate COVID. I hate COVID. I hate COVID."
Kathryn: "I'm all done. I'm sick of it."
Michael: I was getting cranky. And I regret the fact that I got cranky and that was even a scenario. Okay. Those are the type of regrets. Those are some of the challenges Kathryn and I faced, even writing regrets and talking about them. Hopefully, you can articulate some of yours. Why is it important to do regrets? Probably because, A, there might be something you can fix. Second, you just need to own it.
Kathryn: Yeah. And then be able to let it go, forgive yourself, move on.
Michael: And let it go. Because a lot of times, we don't forgive ourselves.
Kathryn: Right. So if it's something that you regret that you can change and you know you need to, then it can become an action item, it can become something that you begin to move forward in. But other than that, if you can't fix it, if there's nothing to do, then you've got to be able to forgive yourself. And there's something cleansing about being able to do that when we're thinking about, how do we make sure that we don't get stuck in a rut? How do we make sure that we don't stay dragged down or stay super discouraged? It's just like, "Okay, that was, and it's over. Now what?"
Michael: Yeah. The next one is present. "I'm confident in and I lack." So this is really good. Just an assessment. What am I really confident in? And let's continue to keep it close to business. I'm really confident in like our first quarter initiatives that we've got settled, that as we're moving right now, where we are, I think we're in a great place. I'm really confident in the people we have on our team. I'm really confident with, we have two contractors that we're working with on initiatives, and I'm pretty confident in those. I'm nervous about what's going to happen, but we'll talk about that in the future, under the worry about. But right now, I think we're teed up to do some great things.
Michael: We've got some good things going. We're in a good place. And just to be real vulnerable, we're in a good place financially with the company, we have cash in the bank, we have revenue coming in, we have consistent, dependable revenue coming in. There's no reason to think that... Tomorrow I can tell you what we anticipate and is in our pipeline for the next... Quite frankly, we can predict the next 90 days and sometimes even more because of the way we've continued to structure our business. So we've got that in the pipeline. And yes, things happen and things change, but we have a pretty stable pipeline. And then just feeling really confident about where we are staff wise and everything else. There's just a lot of good things going.
Michael: I feel like we're standing on a really solid foundation, that 2020 had the potential to really shake. And even at the end of the year with all the politics and COVID and everything else and all that, I'm like, "Okay, we did pretty good. And it could have gotten shaken up a lot and it didn't, I feel really grateful for that." What are you confident in right now ,business wise?
Kathryn: I think so I think probably pretty similar. We're having lots of conversations and we have some plans in place, and I'm confident in the fact that we're moving forward and that we're not going to just keep doing the same things we always do. So I think there's a confidence that 2020 is going to begin to turn a corner on a few things that we've been trying to move forward, that we've laid a foundation for. So there's a confidence there, and I'm confident in the team we have currently doing the work that is being done. So that allows us to do a little bit of other things. So that's good.
Michael: If you're listening today and you're just going, "Okay, confident." I want to ask you a question, what are you confident in right now? And you may be in a place where you're like, "I'm feeling great."
Kathryn: I got this.
Michael: And you may feel bad about that because doing really well right now, we know a lot of people that are actually doing well, but everybody's really hesitant to talk about the fact that they're doing really well, the ones that are.
Kathryn: I'm so apologetic.
Michael: If you're in the hospitality or entertainment-
Kathryn: Or travel.
Michael: Yeah, hospitality, entertainment, travel, you're in trouble. You're really feeling the pain, at least the industries are, significantly. And we get that, that's huge. There are lots of other industries that are doing really well, online businesses, online revenue purchases, all that kind of stuff is statistically up way over the curve. So there's a lot of businesses that are experiencing a lot of benefit, even grocery stores are experiencing a lot more business, online orders, order and go pick up, because people aren't eating out, they're eating more at the grocery store.
Michael: So there's a lot of those kinds of things happening. So be thinking about that. And then if you're just discouraged, you've got to find, this is a place where you've got to find something to be confident in. This is a place where you can really say, what's the reality going on, if things are really bleak, there got to be some things you can grab a hold of because you can't live in the, "I regret, I lack, and I'm worrying about a place." It's not a balanced place, you can't live there. And then I know there's challenges, but you got to think about that. I'm confident in something, what are you confident in?
Michael: Moving to I lack, my biggest lack is we are continuing to grow the company and need to grow as leaders into places we've never been before, and we are... I feel more confident now than we've ever felt, but we lack experience in growing our companies beyond. We're constantly having this conversation and talking about how do we find coaches, mentors, consultants that have experience, real experience, not just they have theory, they have real experience, traveling the ground that we're trying to go next with the projects we're working on and the growth of our company and everything else.
Michael: And having experience not just having a company that's where we want to go, but taking a company there, and going over the hurdles. It's one thing to live in another valley, one valley over that's really nice and fertile and everything else, everything's bigger, but if you've never had to cross the past to get there, I want somebody who's crossed the past. And so I think we lack that and I'm looking for ways we can fill those holes. And I think we've done on a couple of pieces, because we haven't been there, even when in my leadership coaching and our leadership coaching stuff, I'm like, "Well, I've got to move and grow into the next evolution of me and better me." And I don't know what that looks like. It's really like, it's like groping in the dark some time.
Kathryn: Yeah. And I think that that's, what am I confident in? And then what do I lack? Well, I lack confidence, sometimes I think in my, well, probably in two areas where one is, do I have what it takes to become the leader I need to become? Am I able to let go of things I need to let go of? Can I believe that the things that bring me satisfaction now that I need to let go of will yield to something better? So there's those kinds of internal shaky ground when you're in the middle of a transition as a leader knowing, and it's a paradox because on the one hand, I lack confidence that I have what it takes, that I'm smart enough and good enough and are people going to like me? But I also am confident based on history that I can grow.
Kathryn: It's an interesting, I don't know what that's going to look like, and I'm a little scared of it, and so I have some fear or lack or whatever attached to that, but ultimately, it is what it is. And then the other practical lack was we had tried a couple of times to find someone this last year to help me start handing things off and we still lack that person. So that is a very tangible, like, I lack a human to transfer some stuff too. And we're all working on something about-
Michael: We're talking about two disappointments. We thought we found the right person twice-
Kathryn: One went all the way through job offer and everything was happy and settled.
Michael: And signed the document. Signed the document, and then over the weekend, their life changed.
Kathryn: Yeah. And no fault of theirs, it just was what it was. That was one of my regrets. That's part of it last year. And that was longer than three months ago.
Michael: Yeah. A lot of things that are happening are future. I'm excited about... Fill in the blank. Go ahead. Go.
Kathryn: For me, I'm excited about really putting a very solid strategy of growth together for the Village. So that's part of one of our initiatives is, we've laid incredible foundation, we've got a book, we've got all this stuff, but now we're working on this really solidifying parts of our strategy. It's not that we haven't had a strategy, but really solidifying parts of our strategy for how we move and grow and take the next steps. And ultimately, that excites me because from the core of who I am, the whole of this thing is about wanting to make an impact, wanting to help other leaders, wanting to share not just our story, but how we solved things in the practical, tangible resources and tools.
Kathryn: So I'm super excited about that and about working with a consultant we're going to work with to begin to strategize, again, that person who's been over the mountain into the next pass.
Michael: Well, It's funny because, hold on there, pause. For those of you who are listening and are wondering what the Village is, if you're thinking, "Well, I'm listening to the HaBO Village podcast," for us, the Village encapsulates... The podcast is part of the Village, but the podcast isn't the Village in whole, it's really our whole training and coaching and the education arm of the company that we've been slowly building the foundation and developing in the book as part of that over the last couple of years. And to really go, how do we make an impact?
Michael: It really is a training on how to teach people, leaders, and be an encouragement to leaders and how to train them, to build passionate provision companies, and then encourage them to do it. It's really, I think going to be way more about community of people trying to do it, and then having wise people who have done it in the community, because that's what we want to do. We're going to show people what we've done over the last 18 years to really make a thriving company and start a second, Passion and Provision company that has gone through the challenges of startup and is now starting to turn the corner and become a healthy, thriving, everything else financially, and has a great culture.
Michael: And so we've done this, we've seen it, it's possible, so how do we be an encouragement? That's the Village in case you are going, "Huh, what is this thing?"
Kathryn: Yeah. And I think one of the ways to describe it that I really like is the idea that we want to put our arm around you and just come alongside and walk with you and help you think and process and know that there's... In some ways, I want so much to be a community where people know leaders, know that they're safe to be who they are, to have the real, authentic conversations. Whether those be celebratory or you feel like you're just dragging your butts through the mud, but you need to process that and be in a place that can encourage you and walk with you. So those are some of the things we care about with the Village.
Michael: Good, future. I'm excited about, you said you are excited about the Village and the strategy and everything else. I think I'm excited about the same thing. Really, I'm optimistic and encouraged about where we're going and that we're still moving forward. We have codified, and this goes back to that whole codifying who you are and understanding. There's the short term codifying and the long term. We know what we're about. We spent some time, and that's another thing, I think, I'm pretty proud of. Proud of the last quarter because there's so much that just meshes together is the week before Thanksgiving.
Michael: You and I sat down and really put a stake in the sand about, yes, we are about this. And yes, we are going forward to the process of developing and building the Village and actually building a physical place where people can come to and get that refreshment and that encouragement and that training and education. And so it's like, "Wow, they're going to go away with great tools and emotionally filled up and restored." And the day we can build that place and build it, it's going to be awesome.
Kathryn: It's going to be amazing.
Michael: Okay. I'm worried about.
Kathryn: Well, for me always, the worry is how in the heck are we going to fund our future, the Village? That might be a $200 million project, I don't even know.
Michael: What are you worried about for the next 90 days though?
Kathryn: I think always, even when I'm excited about something, I'm super excited about working with these new strategists and always I worry that it won't work. What if we get nothing out of that? What if it fails? I think I can easily worry about that. I also worry about, not that it won't work, but that the strategy works, and then I'm looking at, I really need five more humans to make that strategy work, and how am I going to fund that? So it comes back to, "Oh, no." So I get to continue to battle with my own fear of not having enough money, and I think that's a common thing for leaders to worry about, but it's something that I just keep tackling. It's always that.
Michael: No, I think it's good. I am, when it comes to worry, it goes back to one of the leadership things, I spent time this last summer and even into the third quarter and into the fourth quarter of asking the question, because we've dreamed so big, I've asked the question a couple of times, am I enough for that? And I'm getting better at that, can I actually do it? Do I have what it takes to get us there? Because it's so big and it's so beyond us. And it's not just a pipe dream, it's like, "Okay, well, we're throwing a lot of energy and resources, are we going to get to this place where we didn't just talk about it, we did stuff, and then there's wreckage and carnage behind us because we failed?"
Kathryn: No longer Passion and Provision, we've destroyed the universe.
Michael: In the next 90 days, I'm worried about probably two significant things. One, just making sure that we get the next steps right on pushing forward, and will we find those right steps and everything else? And then I just plain old, honestly, I'm a little worried about making... Some of the mistakes we've made in the past in trying to find help, mistakes are good and you want to learn from them, and I want to be optimistic about it, but there's been times when we found people to help us that have been amazing help, people we describe for our book.
Michael: We invested a lot of money, time and energy writing that book and with the company.
Kathryn: Increible.
Michael: What?
Kathryn: Increible.
Michael: Yeah. They were incredible. And that was a huge win, and I need to remember that because that was way before the last 90 days. But there have been people we've hired where it's been a big disappointment because we've invested a lot of money and they couldn't do it, they really couldn't help us. So the two consultants we have right now that are working on different initiatives in the company, especially the big one for this quarter, I'm like, can he do it? And are we going to lose three months or six months doing something, and are they going to get us on?
Michael: I'm like, this is such a vision, not just for business, and close to our hearts, is this person can get us because I'm not convinced yet that he does or he's trying to get us.
Kathryn: Yeah. And will we be teachable enough to be able to see the difference between not understanding or only going after a part of something in order to get to a bigger picture. So yeah, those conversations are just going to be super, super interesting.
Michael: And hopefully being honest and having, we picked well, but we'll see. We always see.
Kathryn: Everything is risk. Everything's a risk.
Michael: Okay. We're focusing on five things, I'm not going to talk about the five things we're focusing on those. We've got our own little pieces and parts that quite frankly, as we shared with you today, going through all these things, then we went back and we went, "Okay, how are we going to address regret, slacks and worries?" All the ones we have. We've got stuff that we're working on. We've got things that are... Some of you are feeling right now like, "Oh, I've got answers for them. I've got help for them." We're not just lost.
Kathryn: We may look like we're wandering, but we're not lost.
Michael: But there's the moments where you as a leader when you start doing this, the danger of being vulnerable, and you need somebody you can share this with, you have to, once you go through this exercise, you have to share it with at least somebody, if not your leadership team. And the idea that first of all, this is just what it is. And then second, are there things you actually can do to fix it or to improve or strengthen, or whatever? For us, coaching, for us, having regular conversations with each other and our team, for us, even jumping in and setting a whole new perspective on how do we plan and strategize and organize the company has been some of our initiatives for this year.
Michael: We're looking forward to this year, this year has got a lot to be optimistic about. And I think we'll navigate 2020 like we've navigated-
Kathryn: You mean 2021?
Michael: 2021, like we've navigated 2020, like we've navigated the Great Recession, like we navigated all kinds of things.
Kathryn: And that's the other thing about, we didn't say this when we were talking about regrets, but one of the other ways to really figure out, like Michael said, you've got to figure out what you're confident in, one of the great exercises is to look back at all of the times you thought you were done for, you thought there is no way we're going to survive this, or I'm going to survive this, there's no future, there's no whatever. And look at how you came through to get where you are today. And then you can begin to be confident in the fact that whatever you're feeling, this isn't the end of the story.
Michael: Yeah. The thing that comes to mind, the last story that comes to mind is one of the companies we work with, it's a software company out of Boston, the company is called HubSpot and they run a CRM software for marketing and stuff like that. And we became part of them when they were privately held, they were privately owned by the founders. And there were some investors, but it wasn't public, and then during our tenure with them, they went public. They were a very, very, very small company in the Great Recession and there were scary times in the midst of that.
Michael: And they were able to take a small company with 100, 200 people before the Great Recession, maybe... No, they started in 2006, and they just walked through. They had very small amounts of people.
Kathryn: Held on.
Michael: And they are now publicly traded, and their stock went from $15 when it launched to, the other day it was at 350 a share. They're a success story, and the reason I bring them up is, they're fairly decent size, they're a large company now, but I remember going out there and seeing people and meet... We've met the founders, at least I've met the founders. I got a picture with one of them.
Kathryn: Me too.
Michael: Yep. You do. And people that were principals in the company when it started, when it was just almost a garage type of concept, and look at where they are now, they've survived, they've thrived, they made it through that. And some of them have left the company and gone through another startup and do things like that. I just want to encourage you that there's always a brighter day coming. And you know what, there's a lot of doom and gloom being expressed around the world right now and in our country about how this has changed everything and nothing will be the same.
Michael: And not that it's like, "Well, we have to change things." No, it's, "Oh, well, this will never be great again." And I disagree. There have been many low points even in this countries and in the world's history, and you could believe that it will never be great again. And good times have come, people have flourished after that. And we need to remember that and hold onto that and think about that. And as leaders in our companies, we need to not only boost ourself up, not just blow a lot of hot air, but find ways to encourage ourselves so that out of that self-encouragement, that close community that you have, you can encourage your people because your people need strong leadership.
Michael: They need to be able to look at their leadership and see that their leadership believes there's a way out, and that you're not wandering around in a tunnel just waiting for the oxygen to just go away, and there's no way out.
Kathryn: And if you're struggling, I loved what the guy we were interviewing this morning said, and it's a very obvious thing, but we forget. And that is that everything that we do starts with the thought. So you have to change your thinking, you have to work really actively on your thinking so that you're thinking the right things, so that you will then do the right things, and then ultimately, you will become what you wanted to be.
Michael: Change your thought, change an action, change who you are. I really liked that, that was a really great three piece on that. Today, hopefully it's just helpful to hear these conversations. I know that as a leader, I want to hear these conversations, and we were just trying to open up and go, "Here's an exercise it's really important. Here are the pieces to the exercise, past 90 days, present and future." And then focus on five things that you're going to do that are going to help you feel more pride, more confidence, more excitement in the 90 days, moving forward.
Michael: This is just an inventory piece for you to think about it, and I think it goes along well with your significant business planning on initiatives and all that kind of stuff that you're going to do with your company or have done. So we just want to encourage you. Thank you for joining us today. This whole conversation, this whole podcast is about helping leaders like you and I, build companies that are really profitable, thriving companies that are fulfilling to be part of, something that we can all be proud of and enjoy.
Michael: And we need to be surrounded with other people who have those kinds of motives, those kind of desires and shared values that we want to keep our soul in the process.
Kathryn: Yeah, definitely.
Michael: Thank you for joining us. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is the HaBO Village Podcast. Have a great week. Take care.
Kathryn: Bye.