Speaker 0 | 00:01.096
The good thing is, is most, most IT people know, right? So I don’t know, do you, well, you’re in construction, so you guys can wear whatever the heck you want, probably, right?
Speaker 1 | 00:10.901
You can wear it. I had that Splunk shirt that said taking the SH out of IT, but HR didn’t really like that one. So, and then I have the Zerto shirt that said masters of disaster.
Speaker 0 | 00:28.491
Oh, that’s okay.
Speaker 1 | 00:29.551
Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 00:30.284
Paul Yator, he’s both the CTO and the director of HR. How do you do that one? Since you mentioned HR, think about that. You could have just approved your own shirt. Wouldn’t have even mattered. Wouldn’t even matter because you were HR. So somehow he was like, yeah, like we lost the HR person and I figured I can handle a few of these tasks. I mean, all the requests come to IT anyways, right? So might as well just take on HR at the same time.
Speaker 1 | 00:55.857
Usually an IT experience can end in an HR experience. depending on what happened on that computer.
Speaker 0 | 01:03.363
Not if you are both. Not if you’re both. That should be a conflict of interest or something.
Speaker 1 | 01:09.067
Judge Dredd. The Judge Dredd of the CTO HR. It’s the Judge Dredd role.
Speaker 0 | 01:17.854
It’s, yeah. Yes, Paul Yator. So shout out to Paul Yator, CIO and head of HR. Crazy. I was like, so you can eliminate all of those, like really lame, um, applying for a job role where it’s like, you know, we need five years of experience in this field. You need to have an MBA and all these other things just get, what are your thoughts on that? By the way, do you have to have certifications in it? Ooh,
Speaker 1 | 01:44.552
it depends. It helps. It helps in the interview because, um, I’ve hired a lot of people in my past, uh, with certifications and, uh, yeah, they could pass a test, but, uh, we had one guy i don’t think he could troubleshoot his he understood the troubleshooting process at all he knew all the acronyms he knew what the words meant but he didn’t understand how it all went together so the end of the day uh do they have that in i.t they have career like uh career job hoppers type of thing is that does that exist in i.t yeah absolutely fortunately you know it takes an experience later to be able to interview through that ask the right questions find out what they want in their career, where they’re going, and then ask questions around that. Usually when asking relation, relational questions, like, did you ever have a boss that sucked? Or do you ever have this? And, and then, you know, and you’re like, yeah, me too. And then next thing you know, they’re, they’re the truth serum work. You start to find out a lot about your candidates.
Speaker 0 | 02:50.932
So just, um, there was a soft intro. So everyone out there listening and died. to uh everyone out there listening to dissecting popular it nerds where we’ve got brandon hansen back on the show i mean just i just had so much fun talking with you i could have talked for hours and probably happen again to be honest with you um and i’ve i’ve literally thought about your company daily so yeah widder construction it’s i think you really had an impact on me with the soap and sock i just i’ve brought up soap and sock on many many conversations over the past two days when it was dealing with my kids i was with the kids you know i was like i’m getting rid of the shoehorn we’re going soap and sock now i just want to let you know this is hopefully i don’t get it when i like some someone got real i was joking around about that one time someone got like you know i don’t think that’s that’s not a good thing to joke about man you know i’m gonna call uh whatever some people to come see if i’m a good father or not i’m gonna have a rude awakening real quick yeah soap and sock when they show up at the door Yeah, no, no, but really, really just your company had a very pro. I never really thought about it that much because the podcast is growing so much now. And it started out with just me recording a show in a, you know, in like a, in a Starbucks drive-thru because I was late and pulled up a zoom call on my phone and recorded it that way with like Ira Furstein. I used to call him the LinkedIn rabble rouser. And he. needs to try to say all kinds of crazy things like this company will never sell and I’ll never, you know, and then of course the company probably is going to sell or something. With the company growing and trying to put together like, okay, so this podcast might become like a, like a actual real thing. We’ve got multiple people working and stuff. I really want to do like an employee owned type of model. And I think that everything around it, like talking with you about, you know, how do employees take care of construction equipment versus how do owners take a. care construction equipment it’s kind of like if i go rent a bunch of four wheelers what are those four wheelers gonna look like that i rent versus if i go buy a you know I don’t know, Bombardier, you know, 1100 CC brand new, you know, four wheeler. How am I going to treat it? You know, like what’s the difference? Or I go buy a new bike. Let’s say, can you rent motorcycles? Probably not. But you can imagine you wouldn’t want to rent a motorcycle anyways. Yeah. So I’m really interested in the structure of that and how it works with taking ownership. And I really find that taking ownership is the thing. And I know that was the theme of kind of like our first, first, I don’t know, degree of talking. And we had something. planned for the second one, which I’ve already forgot, which there’s probably something to be said about forgetting it. And I know we had a theme and maybe you can, I don’t know, remind me or something.
Speaker 1 | 05:36.171
Well, I brought up some concepts about, you know, I mentioned some Covey concepts and you called me out on it, you know, being from Utah and you’re like, oh yeah, Covey, you know, in Utah. And when I was at the power company, I got benched for a hot minute and I took all the classes that were offered internally. And I did like seven habits and. whatnot. But when coming here to Whitaker Construction, they believe in rapport leadership. And when I was-That’s what it was.
Speaker 0 | 06:03.808
Yes. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 | 06:05.008
When I was talking to my coworkers, rapport sounded just like Covey. And I was like, oh, you guys don’t need to waste any money on me.
Speaker 0 | 06:10.613
I took the seven habits of highly effective people and it, just so you know, it did alter my life. It was life altering. It was life altering. You know how when you go through and you have to make the bucket list of all the things, did you have to do that? I took the course. Yeah. oh yeah i went back and i looked at my bucket list from that course that i took and this is starbucks paid for it back when i worked at starbucks and just got out of college and was completely directionless and was married with like you know a couple kids and i was like i don’t know how am i going to pay for the diapers you know it was like yeah you got it you know so i was working for starbucks but they i was in their management program they sent me to seven habits highly effective people i wrote down that long bucket list i went through it the other day i think i’ve checked off every single thing on the list i had crazy stuff on the list too like
Speaker 1 | 06:49.646
you know one was like buy a motorcycle one was like own a house in the ocean one was like it was like they’re all checked off and i thought that was like i thought that was like open your paper day planner and was looking at your bucket list and your cubby day planner yeah it’s right there i see it i still i still can’t even
Speaker 0 | 07:06.694
i still can’t make it work on a calendar and with all the technology that we have if you saw like my if you saw i’m like just this like old you crazy like stack of paper guys on a desk. It’s just how my mind works creatively. Well,
Speaker 1 | 07:20.461
it helps. Maybe that’ll help us understand a few concepts because I wasn’t going to go to rapport. I was nominated to go and I was like, I don’t really need to go. I got this thing down. I believe I’m rocking it. And then I had a friend of mine who I went to high school with. He just got back and he’d been back for like six weeks and he has. His dynamics changed and his ownership and accountability and how he was showing up. And I was like, whoa, wait a second. You know, I know, I know Jeff. Why, why is, what’s going on? You know, I go talk to him. He’s like, man, it was that rapport training. I really, it really helped me understand these principles a little bit better. And I wanted to make some changes and I didn’t know that I could.
Speaker 0 | 08:08.603
Okay. Where do I go for this? I’m already hooked. All right. I’m sold. I’m sold.
Speaker 1 | 08:11.785
Yeah. So.
Speaker 0 | 08:12.922
Can I get five minutes on your calendar to go over our rapport training with you, Phil, tomorrow at whatever?
Speaker 1 | 08:18.365
I was Googling it and they’re like, well, they did this study. You know, you go to training and.
Speaker 0 | 08:25.128
Is it rapportleadership.com? Yeah. They better pay me for this advertisement. They need to pay me for this.
Speaker 1 | 08:31.912
Well, givers gain. So I think it’ll come around. So I’m looking it up and they talk about this study and they have these researchers. go in and look and they’re like okay let’s see how these concepts stick after uh six days to six weeks and let’s go six months and the researchers were all like no we’re not going to bother with a six-month study because nothing ever changes and you know in six months there’s no way that none of this is gonna they’re gonna people go back to who they want to be or who they naturally are well with the report way of doing things getting the instruction and then being having to do the work at the same time and having to pass ourselves, that was rough. I mean, I got to do one of the first activities was to give a talk on a subject. And I think maybe one person in my class was past that process right up front and I’m failing, you know, and I’m looking inside and I’m like, what the heck? Why can’t, why does, why can they do it? And I can’t. And so every time, you know, I had to sell like. uh a fictitious board member an employee to the board that was another thing that i had failed on And I had to eventually pass myself on these things. And in doing them, I learned a lot about myself and why I held myself back. Really personal, down to just things that happened when I was a kid, where I had a lot of loss early on in life. Loss is inevitable. We’re not getting out of this alive. As a young adult or a young teen, losing my mother and my best friend to cancer and things like that was kind of rough. So how… how I was showing up in life was ultimately impacted by those events subconsciously. So even to the point of when I give my kids hugs, I would hug, give them side hugs because I didn’t want to embrace them internally because I felt like if I got too close to them and when my card was pulled, I would leave them a gap. And so when I got home after having these insights, I hugged my kids for the first time and they started crying.
Speaker 0 | 10:45.844
I was like,
Speaker 1 | 10:48.705
man, I was going up for all these years. What in the hell’s matter with me? You know, and so I, I started activating these concepts and they’re simple leadership concepts. I was listening to the director of IT for Cummins and she was talking about these leadership concepts at a very simple, like she had just come upon them and was embracing them. But I don’t think. we fully know why they work. But when I went through rapport, I fully understood. And I came back and my kids are like, wow, there was dad before rapport and there’s dad after rapport. And even at work, Mike Whitaker’s like, watch out for Brandon. He leads with his chin. We talk about being samurai warriors with no armor on our back. I mean, when I was at Pacific Corp Berkshire, I was always about cover my ass, right? But now after rapport, it’s like, dude, I don’t care about what’s coming to get me as long as I’m doing what’s right.
Speaker 0 | 11:45.868
You’re talking about Jessica, right? Yeah. Yeah. She was, she’s amazing, man.
Speaker 1 | 11:50.552
I really love that podcast. I had to rewind it a few different times because I got interrupted.
Speaker 0 | 11:55.356
He’s like super smart, super smart.
Speaker 1 | 11:58.019
She had that leadership stuff locked down. And I was like, wow, that’s great to hear that because I, we don’t get to see that very often because a lot of people were given the role. And in the role, we get the badge and then we get the gun, but not here, man. They’re like, oh, but you get to convince everybody and you need to bring them along. And I’m like, well, how do I do that without my badge and gun?
Speaker 0 | 12:21.320
Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 12:22.540
You’ll see.
Speaker 0 | 12:23.541
Okay. So yeah, we need to get, we need to be, we need to sponsor these rapport guys or they need to sponsor us or something. Your logos on their website. 99% of graduates refer friends and family. So I guess you’re not the 1% because you’re referring everyone right now. Okay, what are some of the, maybe can you give us a little bit of insights or maybe just a couple takeaways that people can walk away from this show, regardless of whether they go to rapportleadership.com. A giver’s game, rapportleadership.com. Again, not getting paid for this, okay? So you guys can trust everything that comes from this show because I have yet to get paid from anyone. We may have RingCentral sponsor us, okay? May have, may. RingCentral is a good company as long as you don’t have to get stuck calling, I don’t know, Manila. Nothing wrong with Manila, but I know how to get around that because we have a very special enterprise support team in conjunction with our backend department, by the way. If you really are looking for RingCentral, you need to call me. I’ll talk to you. They’re not a paid sponsor yet. Not. RingCentral. Okay. So anywho. So reportleadership.com, let’s give a couple takeaways or something. Can you like share something? Are you, you’re not under like some kind of weird, like, you know, we can’t share anything that we’ve learned from the program. I’m sure that’s not because we want everyone to come on over there. What can we do? What did we learn?
Speaker 1 | 13:40.143
Well, I, I’ve been very careful on what I want to say I got to do, because if I had an opportunity to study, I’d be prepared. It’s about being unprepared. It’s about being outside of our comfort zone. There are simple tasks like giving a speech or. um setting up your mission statement or what’s that wait setting up what mission statement okay okay okay yeah i got you we did that in covey we did that yeah so you do a few of those things however uh it’s full it’s full immersion so it’s also you it’s not just getting the instruction it’s getting to do the work how long does it take uh three days oh cool three really long days day two is like a 16 hour day just so you can get all the instruction in a three-day period.
Speaker 0 | 14:27.642
Okay.
Speaker 1 | 14:28.583
And then, so basically when they sent me to rapport at work, they got me this princess backpack. They took me to dinner two days before I was going. And they handed me this princess backpack. And I was like, no, this isn’t a Covey training. What the hell did I sign up for? You know, and I’m looking in this princess backpack and there’s like tissues, there’s a breath mints, there’s a few funny things. And I’m like, what in the world am I going to get into? And so they’re like, okay, from here on out, you must wear that backpack through the airport. everywhere you go and so i’m wearing this princess backpack and i’m going through the airport and i’m running in another person with one of these backpacks hey you i’m looking at him and man i’m like you’re going to report like yeah so we get there and uh it’s awesome we’re like this is gonna be fun right and he’s like yeah i heard you know good leadership training i could use i could sharpen my saw you know and and we and we meet down there and then and then it started and i was like whoa It’s this is some serious stuff and it requires action on our part. And and Covey didn’t require, you know, Covey training didn’t require that. However, I did have some empowering moments like that seven habits stuff. I still use it today, but it’s it’s like training wheels compared to the bicycle, which is which was rapport. So,
Speaker 0 | 15:56.872
OK, I love it.
Speaker 1 | 15:58.112
So I had three classes, leadership breakthrough one, which was about me and then power communication, which I went through with my wife. I get to learn the modalities on how we communicate and how to communicate to other modalities, like what my preference is and how to recognize what someone else’s preferences are in order to get effective communication. Like Apple likes to use the buzzword gain agreement to be able to do those certain things. It’s not nearly as intense as leadership breakthrough. And then breakthrough two is about the teamwork. And so breakthrough two was kind of like, yeah, you get to do some. outdoor activities as a team. And then through those activities, you learn, um, how to, how to make high performance teams. So the concept is, is you get on the USS good enough, which is the ship you’re aboard. And then you get to do these activities, which will help us learn how to, as leaders build better teams or get everybody involved in the team.
Speaker 0 | 17:00.242
So what do you think makes a great team?
Speaker 1 | 17:01.962
Um, first of all, the Every task or every process can have a different leader or a different person in charge or a head person based on the type of task or process, because that’s something more aligned with somebody on your team than yourself. Just because I’m in the leadership role or I’m responsible for the individuals doesn’t mean I always have to lead. I can always nominate somebody in the group to say, hey, this is something you love to do. Why don’t you take the team and I will help you be successful? And we’ll do it your way and make this a better process. So I think for a lot of us, sometimes we get stuck in our roles. And we believe that we are the ones that have to come up with the idea or we have to do it our way. Or it’s not ours. But really, if we empower other people and the things they’re passionate about, that’s where we have the most success.
Speaker 0 | 17:58.260
I’m a firm believer in delegation. Delegate everything. And that’s where I try to tell my wife, but I need to learn how to communicate with this other modality. I need to communicate with this other modality because I tell my wife, you know, what are you doing all this work for? Why are you doing dishes? Why are you vacuuming? Like when you’re gone, just so you know, like I don’t do anything. They’re vacuuming, they’re doing dishes, they’re cooking. Like, what are we having for dinner? We’re having ice cream and candy bars. Cool, let’s do it. You need some money, you know. Who is in charge of brushing teeth tonight? We’re not brushing teeth tonight. Cool, let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Speaker 1 | 18:31.787
They did this other process that was kind of like, it was kind of like four lenses with Cubby, but it was called emergenetics and it was through power communication. And doing that process, I found out that, well, there’s a reason why there’s certain tasks that, you know, my wife isn’t best suited for that I need to do because of our preferences. So are you a big D&D nerd?
Speaker 0 | 18:58.521
I have eight kids, okay? We play Catan. we play katan um we should i mean and i had to throw away risk because oh yeah there’s certain games that just they’ll either take too long or it’ll create a big fight in the house that lasts for weeks yeah risk is thrown access
Speaker 1 | 19:17.947
and allies gone you know settlers like it was a big deal yeah man i wear katan like that could take a ton tonight
Speaker 0 | 19:27.158
so you know they fight and then we have to like it depends depending on the night the katan will go either fast or slow like it depending on the mood that everyone’s in if they’re in a crazy mood then it’s like i’m like okay we have to have a timer for the trade section because then people like okay i’ll give you two for this i’ll give you three for this i’ll give you one for this i’ll give you two and i’m like no no stop the trading stop let’s keep the game going it’ll be like 10 minutes will go by with like two people arguing like but i just wrote for that anyone anyone anyone you know i’m like no they said no go move on what about this twix i have over here i took the last twix i’ll give you the twix give me a break they um yes so uh anyways i don’t know if that matches up with your dnd thing but we oh i just think we all have different attributes uh different preferences um i’d love to play dnd but it has some like just has some i don’t know just some aspects to it that are just kind of can get kind of weird or something but anyways
Speaker 1 | 20:24.823
So this is my profile and it just basically gives me an idea based on my answer the quiz.
Speaker 0 | 20:32.289
Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 20:32.869
And, and the thing is, is like, I tried to, I was just kind of geeking out on the data and I was like, I was, you know, how those adaptive tests are when getting.
Speaker 0 | 20:41.716
That reminded me of that weird little like seven colors code. What do they call that mental quiz that everyone takes? it puts you in like, oh, you’re like an aid or you’re like this type of, you’re an energy person or something. Do you know what I’m talking about? The Enneagram test or something. It looked kind of like an Enneagram test.
Speaker 1 | 20:58.484
Yeah. It’s a test like that. So it comes back and it tells us individually how we like our data, how we like to interact. And so in learning that and learning these power communication skills, it ended up making my marriage a ton better. Because we were both communicating effectively because we knew how to communicate with each other. We knew how to listen. And then we also knew how to talk to our kids because they each had their own modality. There’s three modalities, kinesthetics, auditory, and visual. And our youngest is a strong kinesthetic. And after we learned that, we’re like, oh, gosh, you know, if we did X, Y, and Z different, we could get that kid moving in the direction that will help her grow.
Speaker 0 | 21:43.502
And it’s amazing that we throw kids into a public school and we think one size fits all.
Speaker 1 | 21:47.703
Exactly. And that’s why I homeschool.
Speaker 0 | 21:49.663
I mean, that’s why I homeschool, to be honest with you. And anyways.
Speaker 1 | 21:53.185
The parenting, what works for one kid to get him moving along doesn’t work for the other one. And you’ve got eight.
Speaker 0 | 21:58.226
Yeah, no, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen quite a bit. Hopefully not all of it. I’ve seen periorbital cellulitis, whatever that is, the spider bite to the eyeball twice. That’s kind of crazy. I’ve seen a lot of them or had a lot of emergency rooms. We’ve had broken bones. We’ve had, you know, like just crazy whack things, kids setting things on fire. I mean, it’s just, you know, and you’d think like, it’s just, I thought I taught you. I thought I taught you not to play with matches and your brother and my brother’s the fire chief too, you know? So, but you know, what’s interesting, the fire chief usually is like, you know, he got caught when he was a kid for being a pyro and now he’s a fire chief, you know? So.
Speaker 1 | 22:40.038
A fire marshal bill, is it?
Speaker 0 | 22:41.799
No. That was a great skit though. So you’ve got this fish tank here and then you’ve got this electric toaster and it’s over the fish tank. The thing is, everyone in IT leadership knows what we’re talking about because everyone in IT leadership is of a certain age now because they probably played around with something around the dawn of the internet or before it, or before it was mainstream. And so if you did, then you knew Jim Carrey when he was on In Living Color. you just know that yeah you just knew um you die in like sixth grade or fifth grade whatever it was for me you played mike tyson’s punch out you knew what a game changer that was yeah and every once in a while we say homie don’t play that soap and sock the wayne’s brothers are crazy dude it’s like key and peel is like key and peel is like the new version it’s like the new version of that really i’ll have to check it out i can’t appeal you haven’t you haven’t seen the any key and killing i’ve just seen the shorts like you know can’t say the name right teacher oh yeah the substitute teacher yeah aaron aaron yeah that’s great okay there’s one yeah anyways completely off topic but yes this is why i love talking with you um uh so anyways though is there anything that someone can change now is there something that you think would be like a common thing that people might be doing that you know yeah i understand the kinesthetic some people need to learn by doing which is a kind of a big deal in in um in it sometimes you don’t learn until you get out in the field and you start breaking things and screwing around with stuff and banging your head against the wall and then you figure out and you’ll never forget it again and anesthetic learners are like that you do it you just you’re not going to forget that um i think a lot of language is kind of like that too you got to get out and practice and forget and make mistakes and look like a fool and do all that type of stuff um
Speaker 1 | 24:32.828
I think the biggest thing that like through my own personal journey, the past is over with. A lot of folks that I’ve, including myself, have used that as an excuse of the reasons why we are who we are today. And that was a choice. It’s literally a choice. If we want to be more successful, that can be a choice too. And it doesn’t have to be because of what happened yesterday.
Speaker 0 | 24:58.209
Doesn’t at all. Absolutely does not at all. Couldn’t agree more. you can choose to live life right now. Anyone listening to this episode right now, you can choose right now at this second that your life has changed forever.
Speaker 1 | 25:09.498
Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 25:10.738
It doesn’t have to be that way. Your life has changed forever. And that’s why I think we have a disease as a society and social media doesn’t help. Pictures and camera phones and selfies and all this garbage doesn’t help at all. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t do pictures and I don’t do video podcasts. this is an audio only podcast maybe it’s because i’m very audio i actually got um labeled audio learner out of the i thought i was kinesthetic but i’m i’m actually audio and auditory yes i’m watching i can see it and um but i so i was mistaken myself where were we changing life um instantly but yeah one day i just decided yeah my i’m just not gonna, I don’t know if it was like an old Tony Robbins, awaken the giant within moment or something back in the day or it was. And I do think he’s a little bit of a charlatan. I know everything. I know quite a bit about the back, just anyways. But I mean, his, some of his work’s very, very helpful and he’s a human. The, yeah, I think one day I just decided, no, not, not gonna, I’m not gonna make excuses anymore. And I think taking responsibility and again, back to Stephen Covey for what his responsibility is, the ability to choose your response.
Speaker 1 | 26:26.392
and we can choose how to respond to any given situation well i think i think the other thing that uh comes to mind is uh one of the classes i i was made aware that we’re only two percent conscious every day mind-blowing it’s true and when we’re unconscious it’s when we’re an autopilot independent thought when we’re not creating something we’re not having an interaction with another human I mean, how many times have we sat there and was like, checked out of that meeting and we’re swiping up on Instagram or, or we’re looking at Google news and we’re like, and we’re not even present. And what happens when we get home?
Speaker 0 | 27:10.310
We go to bed every night saying we know what we’re going to see on Twitter or whatever X, you know, we, we know what we’re going to see on it. It’s the same thing. It’s the same thing being shoved down our mind controlled throats. We’re in the, we’re in the matrix.
Speaker 1 | 27:25.328
Right.
Speaker 0 | 27:25.988
We are, man. We’re in the matrix.
Speaker 1 | 27:28.209
So, you know, like in Dune, like when, uh, when that guy wakes up, uh, what’s his name? Paul, the sleeper has awakened. I mean, think about that moment when you decided.
Speaker 0 | 27:40.316
You can just do it. I mean, and people are gonna get so mad because there’s so many psychology people out there like, no, you can’t just decide to not be depressed. And like, okay, I get that to a certain degree, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. I don’t know.
Speaker 1 | 27:54.576
I’ve been thinking, if I started thinking about dog crap and next thing, you know, I’m smelling it. Next thing, you know, I’m seeing it, stepping in it.
Speaker 0 | 28:01.457
I’m a huge Zig Ziglar fan. I’m a huge Zig Ziglar fan. Quit your stinking thinking, quit your stinking thinking. That’s it. I mean, it literally goes right in line with what you just said. How many times do we find ourselves in the shower? I just, this happens to me having a complete make-believe argument with somebody. It’s a complete make-believe. I’m going to tell that guy, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. And next time I see him and if I have the, you know, can believe he did that. He, But three years he hasn’t called me. And, you know, why hasn’t my brother called me in like three years? And why is he, does he not remember this? And I’ve tried to do everything for him. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You just have these arguments that are just completely senseless. And you’re arguing and wasting energy.
Speaker 1 | 28:38.954
I love that you brought that up because I just remembered another thing that happened when I got back from rapport. And so my daughter, she’s 11 at the time and it’s Sunday. So we’re getting ready to go to Sunday school. And I’m looking over at my daughter and she’s got that kind of like a frown and looking down and her head’s lower than her shoulders. And I’m looking at her and I’m like, wait a second. I recognize this. I just witnessed this at training. And I’m like, hey, Lily, what are you telling yourself right now? And she looks at me all shocked. Like, what do you mean? What are you talking about? What are you saying to yourself? And she’s like, nothing. And I’m like, okay.
Speaker 0 | 29:23.093
Why don’t you just tell me that I only have 20,000 thoughts every millisecond.
Speaker 1 | 29:27.021
So tell me that I am beautiful. Just say. to yourself that I am beautiful. And she’s looks at me and she’s like, no. And I’m like, oh, okay. You won’t, you won’t say that. She’s like, no. And I’m like, oh, so do your friends, they tell you you’re ugly. And she’s like, no, my friend, they wouldn’t be my friends. What? Tell me my, I’m ugly. And I’m like, oh, okay. Your friends tell you you’re not capable of doing something. And, and she’s like, looks at me and she’s like, what are you getting at? And I’m like, so what kind of friend are you being to yourself right now? She looks my wife dead in the eyes. She’s like, dad cannot go to training ever again. She looks back at her. He’s like, well, it’s on you. I mean, it’s, it’s up to you. You got to say the words.
Speaker 0 | 30:04.201
And my kids are going through this thing right now of making fun of each other. Not like, like just like on purpose for fun. You know, like they think it’s like, like they’re just doing it to like, no, we’re just teasing each other. We’re just like making each other like, you know, tougher or something, you know, I don’t think it’s a healthy thing. They think it’s a healthy thing. I get it because it’s might, might be like a defense mechanism of like coping with like the world and like all the things that. the bullying online and all these different things you know but i don’t think a family should be have to do that to each other i think they should be lifting each other up instead and um you know even if it is joking or whatever you say it is it’s still why not why make that 90 of your banter back and forth why make that you know you know something funny like on the side i get it but no like 90 of the time should be like dude you’re awesome thank you let me help you i don’t know but i i don’t understand it
Speaker 1 | 30:57.266
But when it becomes a personal conversation with ourselves, like we look in the mirror and we’re like, we’re not good enough. Well, I’m a firm believer and I think is to create. So I told her and she says, OK, I’ll say the words, Dad. And she goes, I’m beautiful. I’m like, oh, great. That the words. But I don’t believe it. Why don’t you?
Speaker 0 | 31:16.454
Because.
Speaker 1 | 31:18.015
Yeah. And so she said them again. And she’s like, fine, I am beautiful. And her head came up on her shoulders. countenance in her face, lightened up everything. And then I looked at her, I’m like, good. Now that’s how we, that’s the kind of friend we are to ourselves from here on out,
Speaker 0 | 31:33.161
because that’s people yell, I believe. And, uh, I used to make my kids yell. I believe it wasn’t even like, I can’t even yell it now in this micro because we’re probably like pierce everyone’s eardrums. Um, but I used to have, I used to have a team and I’d be like, so, you know, what’s going on? They’re like, who are you meeting with today? And they’re like, I’m meeting with this person. I’m like, I look around the room and I’d be like, uh, we had a guy named James Hom. We called him Hollywood ham and everyone had a nickname on my team. We had the lioness. I think that was Megan Mitchell. I should tag all these people in this episode. And Andrew Fabricus was just known. Andrew Fabricus was just known for coming in with this kind of like long face. Fabricus, we’re going to, we’re going to post, I’m going to tag you on this one. This is so old. This is like 14 years ago when I ran a team and we are like doing like some Cisco consulting, like the Cisco startup. And, uh, I look around the room and I’m like, I don’t think you believe. Like, Andrew, I don’t think you believe. And they’re like, stop it, Phil. Stop, Phil. Please, please, Phil. No, Phil, stop it. And I’m like, James, do you think Andrew believes? And he’s like, I don’t think he believes, Phil. I don’t think he does. And Megan, do you think Andrew believes? He’s like, no, I don’t think he believes, Phil. And we used to write down on these little yellow pieces of paper. I’d write their name on like a yellow sticky note. And I’d like throw it down on the floor and it’d be in the middle of the room. They’d have to get up from like, you know, the boardroom desk or whatever and come to the yellow. middle of the room and they had to they literally it’s interesting you have like a star trek kind of like background because it was just like star trek they had to throw their arms back and yell like the tractor like the tractor beam was like pulling up their chest like you know like into the sky and then there’s no phil i’m not doing this today you know and then the room would start going like fabricus fabricus fabricus and we’d be yelling My, my screens just blipped from that. And we, we used to get so loud and all the other teams would be like, what is going on in this guy’s morning meeting? And the room would be shaking so much that it would be snowing in the room from the, from the ceiling tiles, the ceiling tiles would be like bouncing up and down, like some dust would be coming down. And then he’d just be like, oh, okay. I believe. And we’re like, I don’t know. I don’t think that, I don’t think that was it. I don’t think that was it. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. So then I started bringing that stuff home and my kids are like, and yeah, I think we need to bring that back.
Speaker 1 | 33:56.812
We don’t even get to use the try word at home anymore.
Speaker 0 | 33:59.915
Oh no, no, no. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 | 34:04.099
We don’t should on ourselves anymore. And my wife, she, she gets, she got pretty perturbed at first. Like we’re done with this tribe business. Okay. Kids. And why all my girls looked at me and they looked at her with that grin like, oh, it’s not it’s not over. Mom brings up try one more time. We’re going to be like, really?
Speaker 0 | 34:28.258
Do or do not.
Speaker 1 | 34:30.208
There is no, exactly. And so all these leadership concepts came home and they still are a part of our culture at home and at work into the point where you talked about, I believe there are things that we do here at work because most of us here in leadership are report grads to some extent, not all of us are master grads, but because how I show up, one of my vendors, the, CIO of their company came or CEO of their company came to meet with me and said, Hey, we noticed something different with Whitaker and our interactions. Can you just give me an insight on what’s going on? And now Whitaker is different. You know, and I started talking to him about rapport, their entire organization. I think 70% of them are master grads and, and they’ve made more business because of the way they show up every day and because they understand these concepts. to heart than they’ve ever done in the previous five years. So it’s been really interesting to see how this, imagine casting a rock into the water and we have this ripple effect and we’re a ripple and we impact somebody else and they become a ripple because of, you know, Phil, you’re helping us with your podcasts and your audience and your invitees are helping us. and we’re taking their information and we’re casting it out to to help others because uh at the end of the day we might not all own teslas or or have a mansion but uh we will have these experiences and and these opportunities and and that’s what it’s really about there’s certainly enough to go around for everyone to have a mansion not
Speaker 0 | 36:15.071
that i need one nor do i want one you said you had eight kids i could imagine a i Yeah. What I found is there’s a fine line between too big of a house and too small of a house, right? Too big of a house is like, you just got crap everywhere.
Speaker 1 | 36:30.490
Oh, everywhere.
Speaker 0 | 36:31.570
And then too small of a house is every window is broken and every shade’s destroyed. I’m in that one right now. I tried to go from too big of a house to too small of a house. I’m like, oh, we’ll fix it up. We’ll do like an addition. You know, I went from, yeah.
Speaker 1 | 36:47.275
This is sounding, I’m relating. Let’s hear it.
Speaker 0 | 36:50.264
No, seriously. So I had, let’s go through Phil Howard’s houses that he’s had. Let’s see. I lived in Virginia. That was cool. But we had the twins when we were in Virginia. Then we moved to Massachusetts to be closer to my parents and their old age. And we had two more kids there. So that house was probably, I think that house was the biggest house. Cause it was kind of out in the country. We had three acres. The whole town was like, it was like a 1400. Uh, it’s Princeton, Massachusetts. Anyone wants to Google Princeton, Massachusetts, you’re going to find there’s no gas station in town. We have a volunteer fire department, right? So we had a pretty big house there. But what I found with when you have eight kids, you don’t need three bedrooms, a secondary living room and a dining room and an office. No, you need like five bedrooms or six bedrooms. You don’t need all these extra rooms. So we had this big like family room that had couches and a fireplace in it that just became like a room that was like scattered legos and just crap everywhere it wasn’t like i what i should have done is partitioned it off and made other rooms but then there’s no cell you can’t resell the house and then it’s this weird kind of like place and stuff so that was a house that was did you at least have slot cars too because this is exactly tracking what i got going on yeah you know well we had here’s what we had This was out in the country. So it was one of the most fun places we ever had. So I had a Kubota, a Kubota UTV 900 that you call the kids could jump in the back and we used to collect cord wood and burn wood in new England as much as you can burn, you know, and, and we’re out splitting woods and every year, you know, the kids got to stack eight cords of wood and we, you know, try to make it a contest. How can you stack eight cords in two days? And anyone that’s stacked eight cords of wood, you probably know how much work that is. And, you know, let’s make the beehive this year. And then next year, let’s. make the fort and stack the wood this way. And so you take the UTV through the woods. There was a beaver pond. There was some beavers damming up some places. We had snowmobiles. That was just, it was, that was a really fun experience. Then my mother’s dementia kicked in really bad. And, um, they had to sell, they had, they had like a vacation house in like Maine and my dad’s a retired urologist. And this is, this is sounding like a psychology thing all of a sudden. So, uh, She couldn’t walk upstairs anymore and it was dangerous for us. I was like, you can’t, I was like, dad, if you know anything about doctors, like there’s certain types of doctors. My doc, my dad is the type of doctor to have. He had four lawnmowers and like sheep and lived on a farm and he’s like mowing, like the weekend was mowing lawns. Like for me growing up, it was mowing the doctor’s lawns. You know what I mean? We had like, we had the big gang mower on the back of a John Deere. Then we had another mower for this lawn and another mower for that. So then I was like, dad, you’re in your eighties. Like you can’t. And then COVID hit and he got throat cancer. And I was like, dad, he’s still mowing the lawns, you know, with anyways, I don’t know. So they had to get rid of that house. So we sold this house. We moved to Maine. That was four minutes from the ocean in Kennebunkport, Maine, which is like, I don’t know, probably full of stereotypes and charcuterie board people on the beach and stuff like that. And George Bush. Every picture you ever seen of taking of George Bush fishing was taken from my dad’s boat because he’s a captain and has a sport fishing boat that he charters as his hobby for like the last forever. So the press secretary used to rent my dad’s, but that’s a whole nother story. The Pentagon calling and the Navy SEALs diving under the boat and all this other stuff. So we lived in Maine. That was cool. That house had finally had two bathrooms for all the kids. The kids used to always share one bathroom. So when you have eight kids and they share one bathroom. It’s like, it’s like Danny Noonan’s house from Caddyshack at the beginning of like, I’m naked, you know, where all the kids are fighting over the bathroom. That’s what it’s like. And so, yeah. Yeah. So when we picked that house, we made sure it didn’t have all these extra family rooms and everything. We just made sure rooms and living room. And I think that that was the right size. But then, you know, my mother passed away and it was like, okay. We’re just kind of here in this place. We’re not around our friends and our community anymore. We’re going to sell this house and we’re going to move back. And so this time I was like, okay, all these other houses are four bedroom houses. And this is a long story. I’m going to try and cut this short here. We’re like four bedroom houses and they’re $750,000 because it’s after COVID and all the real estate prices. When I’m like, this is insane. So I picked a two bedroom house.
Speaker 1 | 41:25.972
Oh yeah.
Speaker 0 | 41:26.752
I picked a two bedroom house that was like. old but with a huge property and a barn on it no problem we’re just going to make an addition what we’re going to do is we’re going to remodel the basement right away honey we’ll have the master bedroom in the basement we’ll put uh two sets of bunk beds in one room we’ll put two sets of bunk beds in the other room and we’re gonna we’re gonna downsize and it’s gonna be great well that’s where we’re at today and um so we’ve got yeah every shade is destroyed um we’ve got you know like somehow A kid will find a way to make a bouncy ball, break a window. How is that possible? So they’re bouncing balls. You know, what, what do boys do? Boys like take a bouncy ball and throw it as hard as they can at the, at the top of the stairs and it goes boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, hitting every stair, hitting the wall, hitting the ceiling, hitting the, you know, and then at the very bottom, it takes a perfect 45 degree trajectory, hits a little square window and smash. And I’m like, how did you do that? So now we’ve got. a manila folder folded up like four times uh duct taped over that window because i just haven’t had time to go get a piece of glass cut to fit this little perfect thing and really i’m probably just gonna rip that whole door out and replace it and that’s a home depot weekend uh
Speaker 1 | 42:38.318
i don’t know that was just me that’s been my last three years i just i finally got the right sized house 5 000 square feet was too much 13 it’s too little yep 3 000 square feet is just well it could be a little bigger but yeah it’s just a sweetheart zone so but how big’s the backyard so you probably make you know what you do is you make some fun in the backyard seven acres oh wow yeah you’re good heck yeah you’re
Speaker 0 | 43:07.874
gonna do some kind of like i don’t know frisbee golf course or something i don’t get out of the house yeah that’s why i like the barn so i took the barn and i like i basically it’s it’s almost 2 000 square feet so i redid the inside of the barn for like the kids it’s like who you know i’m like who does that a guy with eight kids it’s like i need to make the parts where they just get out just go go to the barn so i like epoxy the floor they’ve got rings in there i’ve i bought like jujitsu mats so we’ve got two inch thick mats you know and i go i go in and my girls know gymnastics all of a sudden i’m like they’re like doing like hand springs and like flips and stuff and i’m like this seems dangerous like watch your neck like how’d you learn that they’re like youtube yeah yeah that’s awesome
Speaker 1 | 43:51.466
anyway this is the way to do it i the only the only downside of the new place is there’s these little insects called no seeums i don’t know what that is they might smaller than mosquitoes and you can’t there you literally can’t see them and uh and until you’ve been bit and then you’re like oh this sucks they get in your ears they get in your hairline they this is in utah yeah yeah i lived in colorado for a long time you’d think they would be there too but It’s only in certain areas, and I’ve made it my new life’s mission to, because apparently you don’t go out of your house until June.
Speaker 0 | 44:31.500
uh when the no seems come out so there’s no spray we don’t have any like chemicals for that or something you think they’re receiving island you know we’ve got the technology phil we’re going to fix this some kind of uh you know causing hey
Speaker 1 | 44:47.727
you know they i’m not buying an insecticide unless ai is in the title because if if if a vendor’s calling me today and they don’t have something with ai in their title i’m not taking that call so
Speaker 0 | 44:57.984
Well, you have to move to AI because I read about it in Time Magazine.
Speaker 1 | 45:02.065
Right. I saw it in the SkyMall.
Speaker 0 | 45:07.987
Brandon, what are we doing for AI now? Okay. You know, how is this going to help us out with the construction stuff? Okay.
Speaker 1 | 45:14.929
Just fired up Copilot on our SharePoint site that has all of our SOPs in it. So now our field employees can say, hey, can I take drugs when I’m at work? And Copilot responds with, well, not only is it not a good idea, but it’s not in your company’s policies.
Speaker 0 | 45:30.255
That’s pretty sweet, actually. Tell me a little bit about that. So yeah. So did you really like upload company policies and procedures? Now it sounds like you’re in HR. See, see, see, IT can do HR.
Speaker 1 | 45:44.643
I don’t know.
Speaker 0 | 45:45.043
That’s how it happened. That’s how it happened to this guy. That’s seriously, that is how it happened to Paul Yator. But Paul Yator, I can’t. We need to get everyone on a show. We need to figure out, we need to do our own rapport, dissecting popular IT nerds, rapport, the way where just all IT people get together or something. I’m thinking not everyone surfs. I don’t know what we could do as an event. I’m a non-drinker. I don’t drink, so I would never take anyone to a drinking event or God forbid strip club or something like that. Like vendors try to take us to, yeah, how many, like, you know how many guys I’ve known over the year? They’re like, I just like the vendor world’s crazy. And I come from that world. So.
Speaker 1 | 46:24.332
The last episode we talked about, you know, is your C managers are getting enticed.
Speaker 0 | 46:31.075
Yeah, that’s right. I told my wife about that. I told my wife, I was like, hey, honey, be careful. You know, you should be happy that I’m not in a C level position somewhere in an office because these guys try these crazy things. You try these crazy, crazy things. I mean, even Trump got bit by it. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 | 46:49.523
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 46:51.016
I don’t know, whatever that lady’s name is that’s making a fool of herself in court. I don’t know. The whole thing’s a circus act. It’s amazing. It’s amazing that, isn’t it amazing after what we’re running and how you’re running an organization and how important it is and how important it is to have rapport and a mission statement and a vision statement. I look out at the world sometimes and I’m like, what the hell? I don’t know if you do, but I just, you know, I’m like, no, man, we just all need rapport training.
Speaker 1 | 47:13.855
Yeah, it would be fun because when you graduate, they say you’re, you know, you’re
Speaker 0 | 47:19.144
part of the three percent so i’m down so i’m not gonna click on anything because you i see on their website there’s like some kind of like refer a friend or something like that refer a podcast guy um so you can nominate me what what do i need to take there’s these courses leadership breakthrough leadership breakthrough two power communication breakthrough safety who cares about safety i want to go to mastery safety and construction who needs that health mastery i’ve got a crazy doctor right a really crazy doctor. I’m thinking of having him on the podcast just to benefit a it people.
Speaker 1 | 47:51.438
I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what, Phil, you go to LB one, I’ll go to your graduation and then we can compare notes.
Speaker 0 | 47:57.361
Okay. I’m, I plan on being top of the class. If they do rate people like that, I do. I do plan on being a,
Speaker 1 | 48:03.985
there is a sword.
Speaker 0 | 48:05.646
There’s, there’s a sword. You can win a sword.
Speaker 1 | 48:08.387
You can definitely get the sword.
Speaker 0 | 48:11.109
I don’t care how much money they’re charging. I’m going for the sword, bro.
Speaker 1 | 48:14.010
Yeah, there is a sword. So, so. Um,
Speaker 0 | 48:17.408
if that sounds like, Oh man, I’m not going there right now on what, on the jokes we can make about swords, but, um, okay, I’m down. You’re going to come to my graduation.
Speaker 1 | 48:28.396
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 48:30.157
Sweet. Is it out in Utah? Do I have to go to Utah?
Speaker 1 | 48:32.459
No, they held it down in Vegas. And I think the reason why they fly in on a Thursday and they fly out on a Saturday is because flights are super cheap. Thursday and Friday are the sweet days to
Speaker 0 | 48:43.526
Vegas. That might be a deal breaker. That might be a deal breaker.
Speaker 1 | 48:47.885
They do have their courses in other places. I think they have a schedule on there. It would just be really hard for me to make it to your graduation. But if you give me enough heads up, I could probably find a flight.
Speaker 0 | 48:57.792
That’s all right. We’ll figure out how to sponsor this and do it as a write-off anyways. Okay, so it’s a maybe. So it’s a maybe. But 99% of graduates refer friends and family, 38 plus years in business. That means nothing. No, it means something. 35 countries in each.
Speaker 1 | 49:13.284
It took my wife 20 months and then she said, you know what, I’m going to LB1. And then that happened.
Speaker 0 | 49:19.445
So sweet.
Speaker 1 | 49:21.166
So my son ended up going, he sent himself.
Speaker 0 | 49:24.247
Heck yeah.
Speaker 1 | 49:25.287
He’s a 25 year old who’s grabbed life by the bootstraps and is totally owning it right now.
Speaker 0 | 49:31.349
So maybe I’ll bring my son too, because he’s getting ready to join our internship program.
Speaker 1 | 49:35.678
Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 49:36.418
Yeah. Is it good to bring a family member?
Speaker 1 | 49:38.358
Well, I, I know at Whitaker, we send people one at a time, but I’ve told that other companies have sent two or three. And I think the reason why they do that is because how far out of your comfort zone do we get when there’s a family member there? When somebody is there, we know
Speaker 0 | 49:55.563
I’m with you, man. I’m with you.
Speaker 1 | 49:57.504
If my son was there with me, I don’t think he would have. Um, I think he would have just, you know, got, got, uh, behind me. Depending on the size of the classes, though, they have two work groups. You could definitely go with your son and he could be in the other work group and you could compare notes at the end of the night, you know, and that would be one way to do it.
Speaker 0 | 50:17.697
I’m with you. I don’t know what we end on. This was a very important episode from a leadership and understanding people and connecting, discovering, responding with people, active listening, whatever things can we. can we throw out there i’m quitting your stinking thinking oh another zig ziglar line was as long as you can help enough other people get what they want you in turn will get what you want yeah live life on purpose you can start now you can change your mindset literally now live life on purpose now what other things do we have from this episode that would be great to say let’s
Speaker 1 | 50:50.279
talk about your bucket list so what are the two things that we see on a gravestone or three things they were born on this date they died on this date and then there’s the dash in between yeah
Speaker 0 | 51:01.674
are are we are we truly living that dash and the and the purpose that we wanted to or do we want to do more absolutely not people are wasting complete time we’re stuck in the matrix absolutely that’s a very easy answer very easy answer i was just going to florida i was just down in florida they call it god’s waiting room yep i mean it’s um a lot of people are um yeah just stuck kind of a lot of people just want to kind of like i don’t know there’s the uh What was the definition of responsibility or discipline, right? It’s holding off on something now or whatever it is for a greater reward later on or something. You get the point. I can’t think of what that definition is exactly, but we probably use AI to pull that one up.
Speaker 1 | 51:47.940
Problem is, is tomorrow’s not guaranteed. So I better get after it right now. Yes. Just focus.
Speaker 0 | 51:55.827
Yes. I’m going to give you the last word.
Speaker 1 | 51:59.510
You’re going to get that. That’s, that’s tough. Let me see what I’ve got in my list of.
Speaker 0 | 52:05.013
Why are you being so hard on yourself? Why are you saying that’s tough? Come on. It’s easy. Why it’s easy, Brandon. Why are you being so hard on yourself? Why are you saying that’s tough? No, it’s easy. Oh, I got this.
Speaker 1 | 52:13.319
I’m looking at my core setting. I have a little core setting that I, I like to reference to make sure that I’m on track with where I want to go. Because like how he says to begin with the end in mind. So I guess I can end with our smile is our logo. Our personality is our business card. And how we leave others feeling after having experience with us becomes our trademark.
Speaker 0 | 52:34.708
Boom, done. I believe!
