Real Leadership Lessons for Trades with Codey Gandy

00;00;00;23 – 00;00;15;07
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;27;09
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Blue Collar Startup podcast, where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories, and real strategies from the frontlines of life in the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

00;00;27;11 – 00;00;31;05
Speaker 2
And I’m here, the host, Derek Foster of Daigle Cleaning Systems. We do.

00;00;31;05 – 00;00;39;16
Speaker 1
Mike I’m doing good, man. I’m doing good. Your voice is Samuel Scratchy, though. I was just thinking, you got you got some head cold going.

00;00;39;18 – 00;01;02;12
Speaker 2
I’ve been. I’ve been battling, well, I got over the flu last week, but I’ve had just a lingering chest and head cold and, I don’t know what it is if, immune systems are suppressed or what, but it it hit me pretty good. Yeah. So I’m on the mend, but, I don’t sound that great. So I apologize for for everybody in and do it everybody in advance.

00;01;02;14 – 00;01;03;04
Speaker 2
Oh, listen, man.

00;01;03;04 – 00;01;15;14
Speaker 1
It’s that vocal fry. People really love the vocal fry. You know, you get that scratchy voice. It’s, it’s great for podcasts, the great for podcasts. So, we got to talk.

00;01;15;14 – 00;01;17;26
Speaker 2
A little bit about our new episode formats.

00;01;17;26 – 00;01;39;17
Speaker 1
Although at this point, I’m sure everybody’s kind of getting, familiar with some of the different things we’ve got going on. You know, we’ve got the let’s ask Bill episodes or the business lab with Bill Tansey from the App Shop count them out roundtables with, Scott and Stacy and Jason, the team over at Catamount Consulting. We also have got Stacy doing, women in the trades.

00;01;39;19 – 00;01;59;13
Speaker 1
She’s coming in as a guest House speaker on that. And, I’m excited about those episodes. And interviews from the field are people that are either working in or working around, people that are in the trades out in the community and, you know, getting getting those real live updates, from the front lines here. And, appreciate everybody that comes on the show.

00;01;59;15 – 00;02;19;04
Speaker 1
Of course, you know, our episode format has changed a little bit for everybody. If you haven’t picked up on that, you know, we do our main episode, which is the free portion of the show. You usually 30 ish minutes, we’re doing here. You can find them on Spotify, Rumble, Apple and YouTube. And then, of course, we also have our Patreon side of things.

00;02;19;04 – 00;02;41;23
Speaker 1
It’s usually about 15 minutes. We try to keep it to, and just asking a couple questions from each one of our guests that pertain specifically to growing and scaling a business in the trades. You know, the content that we put on the main episode is always great. And I think it’s it’s almost always usable. But our real objective with the Patreon side is getting real world examples.

00;02;41;23 – 00;03;00;26
Speaker 1
Things you can do implement this in your business, to help people grow and scale. Because we all know it is not an easy thing to do in the current environment. Growing and scaling a business. So please check out the Patreon side of things. Link will be in the show notes, of course. And, you know, let’s talk real quick sponsorship opportunities.

00;03;00;26 – 00;03;20;02
Speaker 1
If you’re not familiar with what we do, you know, a big objective for our show is to be able to raise money, for kids that are going to trade school. Or maybe they’re going to something like HVC, what we call the blue collar college. You know, we’re just trying to raise money for them, for tools and tuition to help make their lives a little easier.

00;03;20;02 – 00;03;39;11
Speaker 1
We’ve done, a great job the last few years doing that. And, you know, we keep pushing that envelope and trying to raise more and more money. That’s where those sponsorship dollars go to. Some of it goes to offset the cost of the show, but most of it’s going over to, those scholarships. So if you’re interested in getting involved, you know, please reach out to Derek myself.

00;03;39;16 – 00;03;52;16
Speaker 1
You know, our blue collar email is in the show notes as well. Taylor always puts that in there. So shoot us a note. Love to talk to you about how you can get involved. And, you know, shout out real quick to our current sponsors. Do you want to give a shout out since I’m doing all the talking?

00;03;52;18 – 00;04;11;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. We’ll, we’ll start with people’s Martin Electric, MLB construction, Binotto Construction, Michaels Group homes, Catamount Consulting, the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition, Curtis Lumber, my team over at Daigle Cleaning Systems and Mike’s team over five Times Media.

00;04;11;05 – 00;04;15;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, let’s get to our guest. I’m excited about today’s show.

00;04;15;12 – 00;04;22;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I’ve been been looking forward to, to this episode for weeks. So, Cody, appreciate you joining us.

00;04;22;19 – 00;04;41;16
Speaker 1
Yes, sir. And gents, thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. Cody, you want to go ahead and just, you know, give us a little bit about who you are and, and a little bit about echelon front and what you guys were doing over there. Yes, sir. So I work for a company called Echelon Front. A lot of people know excellent front for our top leadership, which is Jocko and Lincoln Leath.

00;04;41;16 – 00;05;02;00
Speaker 1
Babin company started back in 2012. And right now we got a good amount of instructors that primarily are military veterans, myself included. So there’s nine Navy Seals, there’s four Marines. I do come from the Marine Corps. I served in the infantry. I learned real quick about leadership and, more than anything, how it was typically an afterthought, how you really expected to lead but not taught how to do it.

00;05;02;06 – 00;05;26;25
Speaker 1
That really transferred over after I got out and joined Echelon Front. And now I’ve been here for the last eight years, where I’m the director of our hands on training, where instead of teaching via PowerPoint or zoom, we do it in person and do it that way. But majority of my time is spent. I’m on the road probably 225 days a year, where I’m teaching anybody and everybody, what leadership is, how to get better at it, and how it can lean into your culture and really expand and kind of build up to what you want it to be.

00;05;26;27 – 00;05;46;26
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. And it’s I was that was going to be one of my kind of offshoot questions too, was I, you know, in the, on the website, it says you’re the I can’t remember it’s director, but like the experiential training. And I was trying to understand like, what does that mean? Like, are they throwing these guys into like situations or.

00;05;46;28 – 00;06;08;06
Speaker 1
Yes, sir. So, military wise, we have this culmination event. So any kind of training block or when you go deploy, we own what’s called an Ft for center field training exercise, which basically you test out the skills that you learned as you start to teach actual on front. And everything was PowerPoint presentations and conference settings. You know, we’re teaching theory, but Syrian reality are two different things.

00;06;08;06 – 00;06;34;15
Speaker 1
And so we brought to light this Ft program where now individuals, small teams or companies, they’ll put together a group of people, they’ll run mission sets, just like we did in the military, where we’re not there to teach the tactics, but we’re here to show you like why winning is so hard. So I was just in Dallas where we ran our in two ft is back to back Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday where there was not one vet, one military person, not one first responder, one was a construction company.

00;06;34;17 – 00;06;52;00
Speaker 1
So we did a corporate fit. And then Sunday, Monday, Tuesday was 40 people from all walks of life. And what the goal is, is, hey, you read the book, you understand the principles. We talk about relationships and communicating effectively. Hey, let’s try it out. And the nice thing is you learn there where there’s zero risk, you’re just spending time.

00;06;52;02 – 00;07;08;23
Speaker 1
So you learn your strengths and weaknesses so you don’t have to learn those later inside a business or with your family, because failing there, there’s extreme consequences. Failure at the Ft is a bit of a ego punch, but that’s about it. So, I’ve been here that last eight years, selfishly, is my favorite thing that we do because it just it teaches in a different way.

00;07;08;23 – 00;07;27;14
Speaker 1
And for the most, most of the time, people really start to understand when these things are simple, but they’re extremely hard. And why are they hard? Because they go against what we like to do. Yeah, it’s it’s interesting as you talk about that. You know, I, I’ve been kind of a personal and professional development junkie for like the last 15 years.

00;07;27;14 – 00;07;47;00
Speaker 1
And, you know, you do workshops, you go to conferences, you do trainings, webinars, you do all this stuff and you get all this knowledge and this is kind of in line with what you just said, right? But knowledge is one thing, but application of that knowledge is a whole different deal. And you know why you end up doing all this stuff and then you get all these thoughts going on.

00;07;47;00 – 00;08;06;01
Speaker 1
But you then you go home and it’s just back to the regular, you know, the regular grind. Right? And and you don’t apply any of that stuff. So the experiential training that you guys are doing this is kind of bridging that gap and putting that into like giving them a like here’s a knowledge and here’s here’s actually using it scenarios.

00;08;06;04 – 00;08;21;09
Speaker 1
Yes sir. And basically, you know, my goal at the Ft when I get 40 people there is I want to I want to show people who they are. And what’s nice is, you know, my job at the I’ll say this lightly is to stress people out. I don’t have to do a whole lot because there’s no vets. You know, people have never really.

00;08;21;09 – 00;08;40;01
Speaker 1
We use laser tag guns to reinforce the principles. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but it’s stressful. Why? Because it’s brand new. You’re with a bunch of people you don’t know met or you haven’t met before. I bring out Seals and Marines and Swat team guys, and that’s your opposition and really my stress that I just start a stopwatch and then people go run out and they lose their minds.

00;08;40;01 – 00;08;55;18
Speaker 1
And what’s neat about stress, you know, stress is a relative feeling. You know, I have stress at home with my wife and my four kids. It’s the same feeling I had when I was in the Marine Corps. This is different circumstances, but with stress. What I’ve learned with stress is really hard to hide. It’s hard to hide who you are.

00;08;55;21 – 00;09;11;20
Speaker 1
Your true tendencies come out. And so at the FCX, my goal is I just hold up kind of a gigantic, fictitious mirror. And when you leave that, you’re like, man, I’m not as good as I thought I was. Or man, I recognize I’m good at communicating. I want to reinforce that man I struggle with, you know, empower my people because I didn’t do that today.

00;09;11;21 – 00;09;28;07
Speaker 1
I want to I want to lean in on that and get better at that. So that’s the whole goal of the Ft is to iron out who you are. It’s like a real instead of a self self-assessment. On paper, it’s an in-person assessment where you leave, they’re like, man, I got stuff to work on. I have stuff to reinforce, let’s get back to and get to work.

00;09;28;09 – 00;09;51;29
Speaker 1
Well, what is when you’re leaving with that assessment, do you have anything in place that is a follow up to that for ongoing like reinforcement or maintenance of the things that are learning in those, in those trainings? Yes, sir. So yeah, the goal of the Sean friend is to build on sustainability. You know, you talked about typical training, whether it’s leadership or really any training in itself is almost as flavor of the month thing where we talk about it.

00;09;51;29 – 00;10;12;13
Speaker 1
That was great. Like, what’s next with leadership? Which is a soft skill that people really overlook. There’s a lot to really work on. Like you’re working with people and people are difficult, whether it’s, you know, relationships getting along, building trust or communicating effectively with not only your subordinates, peers in leadership or your vendors, making the right decision at the right time.

00;10;12;13 – 00;10;32;15
Speaker 1
There’s a lot that we build on. So any time we do a training Wilson follow up stuff, we have a bunch of sustainability processes where, you know, we got the book Extreme Ownership. There’s a workbook companion. We have a whole online platform to reinforce. And a lot of what we do is also work with a client. Like like yesterday I worked with a client that was my third time seeing them.

00;10;32;18 – 00;10;51;11
Speaker 1
So anytime we go out, first iteration is all just baseline. Hey, let’s understand what leadership is, what it means, and what are the pillars. Everything else is problem solving. So we’ll teach someone relationships. Pretty straightforward, but a lot harder than we think, because you’re bound to find yourself on a team with people that you don’t like, or someone’s going to burn your trust, you’re going to burn theirs.

00;10;51;18 – 00;11;11;22
Speaker 1
How to recover from that? So once we establish a baseline, the sustainability approach is how do we actually problem solve from a team standpoint, individual standpoint, or from a cultural standpoint. And then you look back three, six a year from now, I got some clients I work on for five years, and there’s no advanced sexy 2.0 tactics. It’s just brilliance in the basics.

00;11;11;24 – 00;11;42;08
Speaker 1
But I think a lot of times we we misunderstand or misinterpret. You know, how much work this takes to become more proficient as something as tends to be complex leadership. Yeah. Yeah. Leadership. It’s a tough one. So, let’s get into the main, question set here. You know, you’re echelon front bio describes you your path from frontline designated marksman all the way up to platoon sergeant.

00;11;42;10 – 00;12;01;02
Speaker 1
You earned leadership from the bottom up. You know, I’m just wondering, you know, for a tradesperson who’s currently working for someone else. But it has ambitions to own a business one day. What does taking ownership or that extreme ownership like the book. Right. Actually, what does that actually look like when you’re not the one that signing the checks?

00;12;01;04 – 00;12;26;04
Speaker 1
Yes, sir. So I think a lot of times people misinterpret what leadership means. We teach leadership. Leadership is your ability to influence people. There’s a huge difference between leadership and authority. Most people think leadership is authority. I have a title. I am in charge. Therefore I am a leader. That’s not necessarily true. I’ve met plenty of people where they had the CEO tag or they were my boss, but because of the things that they did, they weren’t a leader.

00;12;26;04 – 00;12;43;06
Speaker 1
They just had the platform to do it. To your point, kind of my bio, I worked my way up through the ranks. I had ability of kind of long range shooter, eventually took over a small team, big team, and then kind of stepped out of my element and ran a big group. And along the way I learned like how powerful influence was because I could be in charge.

00;12;43;06 – 00;13;02;16
Speaker 1
But it doesn’t mean people are necessarily going to follow me. Additionally, a lot of times we think leadership is just me on top of another team and I’m leading down, down the chain. But I’ve spent years leading peers leading upstream, which in my opinion was the hardest of the two leading down, if you do it right, can be easy.

00;13;02;18 – 00;13;20;06
Speaker 1
Be really good at your job, support your team and power them and just watch them grow. Leading your peers is difficult because hey, me and Michael are the same age, same experience. I’m trying to get him to do something. I can’t really leverage my authority if I have it. And most times we kind of just avoid the conversation or Derek’s my boss.

00;13;20;08 – 00;13;37;27
Speaker 1
Leading your boss. That’s part of it. And that is the opportunity we have is sometimes we have to be able to do that. It’s really the premise that the core thing we teach rationale on front, the foundational layer is what we call extreme ownership, which is a tendency. Simply put, all responsibility for success or failure is on the individual.

00;13;37;29 – 00;14;02;22
Speaker 1
That is how when I go out, I just don’t talk to C-suite, I talk to interns. I talk to new people, I talk to anybody and everybody because we are all responsible for the things that we do. So for me, if people are starting out, they just got into the trades. They have this vision of growing and owning a business like it starts now and it’s not going to end like my success as a husband, as a father, as a subordinate peer and leadership like it all rests on my shoulders.

00;14;02;25 – 00;14;23;04
Speaker 1
Why do we have to teach this is that is rather counterintuitive. And now, more than ever, the tendency is not to accept responsibility for our stuff. It’s a hell of a lot easier to blame. You blame my leadership, blame external, external circumstances. But we have to recognize, like, I have zero control over that. What I have control over is the things that I do, the things that I say, and my sphere of influence.

00;14;23;10 – 00;14;45;11
Speaker 1
And so for me, this is relative. If I’m if I’m starting right now on the path and I’m in charge of myself, the first mindset I would start to adopt of this concept of extreme ownership. And from there you carry that out. You get a small team. You build yourself an organization. To me, that is the core, really corner piece of any individual, regardless of what they do, what they’re in charge of or where they want to go.

00;14;45;11 – 00;15;03;18
Speaker 1
This has to be part of it because things will go wrong. And when things do go wrong, we have this opportunity to take responsibility or shy away from it by taking responsibility that gives us the control to move off it, fix it, grow from it, learn from it, and then affect more people. So that is really the premise of the book, which sounds straightforward, right?

00;15;03;18 – 00;15;26;20
Speaker 1
We’ve all heard ownership, responsibility, accountability, but I think human tendency is not to do that in everything we teach it out on front is all about human tendency. That’s what makes it so hard. Understanding it is one thing. Doing it is another thing. As we alluded to, all this stuff is difficult. Leadership is difficult because unfortunately, it’s easier to be a terrible leader and it is harder to put in the work.

00;15;26;23 – 00;15;48;23
Speaker 1
So for me, regardless of what you do, where you’re at with the vision that you have, this is something that I personally have, seen play out in my life. And it just makes things a heck of a lot easier having that in my back pocket. You know, it’s I, I think I read extreme ownership. I think it was either 2021 or 2022 when I read it, for the first time.

00;15;48;23 – 00;16;08;15
Speaker 1
And I took so much away from that book. But it really just the I that idea of extreme ownership, like no matter what goes wrong in my business, like it’s my fault and not pointing the finger at someone, they really helped me to reframe a lot of the things that were going on in my business at that time and, and, and not just in my business.

00;16;08;15 – 00;16;40;29
Speaker 1
And to your point. Right. Like whether it’s in my company or at home with my wife and kids, like, it’s the idea that no matter what goes down, like it ties back to me. And it’s just such a game. It was just such a game changer for me. So I wanted to mention that. But, I in your covered in, I think it was with Jocko on a podcast, you were talking about a situation where you had, a couple guys on your team, one that was like, I think you were like, helping him shave his face or something like that.

00;16;40;29 – 00;17;05;27
Speaker 1
And another one that, like, on the runs that you guys had to do, you didn’t think he was going to be able to complete the runs in the time allotment or something along those lines. And it it resonated with me because it made me think about like when you have team members that are deficient in some area that you need them to be more proficient in, how do you bring people up in that situation?

00;17;05;29 – 00;17;18;18
Speaker 1
I’ll tell you what, I, what I used to do when I was a lot younger and I learned the hard way. And I think life is all about. An epiphany is like, that’s how we tend to learn as human beings. We’re we’re pretty stubborn. Yeah. What a lot of people do is when here I am, Michael is on my team.

00;17;18;18 – 00;17;37;09
Speaker 1
Michael slacking. The easiest thing to do is to avoid it. Right. And I assume that Michael’s going to figure it out. That’s not really how things work. Or if I do have a position of authority or I have this influence, we leverage, discipline or threats or consequences. And that changes the thing in itself, which is a lot of ownership.

00;17;37;09 – 00;17;57;12
Speaker 1
And people always ask about this accountability, to your point. Like, well, what about them? To me, you’re trying to change someone’s behavior. What you really have to analyze about people is people change for 1 or 2 reasons, because they have to or because they want to. One of those sticks. All right. When I make you change because I’m threatening you and look, blue collar, that’s kind of what we tend to do.

00;17;57;12 – 00;18;15;28
Speaker 1
Military first responders. We have this heavy hand from accountability where I’m the hammer, you’re the nail. So I’m making you change. That’s not sustainable. More importantly, when I leave you alone, you damn sure are not going to do anything because I told you to do it. Because you don’t respect me. You don’t, you don’t trust me, and I don’t have any influence because how I’m acting.

00;18;16;00 – 00;18;36;13
Speaker 1
So the key to turning this around, ironically, is going to be this concept of relationships. We teach relationships at echelon front, which is something we’ve all heard before. It does have a romantic connotation to it, but I would argue the success that I’ve had in my life, from the Marine Corps to on front, is due to the fact that I understand how beneficial relationships can be.

00;18;36;15 – 00;18;53;27
Speaker 1
To your point, specifically with accountability or hey, people are slacking. They’re not doing their job. I get to leverage the relationship. I have to turn somebody about round. So if you’re struggling with this man, this person is not doing it. Like that’s where we have to start. I have to build trust. I have to build respect. I have to show that person that I care.

00;18;54;03 – 00;19;10;02
Speaker 1
And look, I’m not saying ownership is this laissez faire. Like, hey, that person doesn’t do their job like, that’s on me. Like I need to fix it. Ownership is not just about fall, it’s about responsibility. So if we have a safety issue, like how do I mitigate that? That’s a form of ownership. We have someone that’s not doing their job.

00;19;10;02 – 00;19;28;08
Speaker 1
How do I get them up to speed. That’s ownership as well. But if I want to turn somebody around, but more specifically them to believe that changes in their best interests, what I have to have is that relationship. And so I get to leverage the respect, the trust, the influence that I have and what tends to happen. And I could give you ten different examples.

00;19;28;10 – 00;19;47;10
Speaker 1
The person tends to come around because they don’t want to let you down, like that’s where the power comes in, and that’s when you don’t have to worry about this down the road. But the quick fixes do this or else and we threaten, we throw consequences. And in all honesty, it works initially. Because if I tell you, Michael, hey, you need to show up on time.

00;19;47;10 – 00;20;04;28
Speaker 1
You need to be above the standard or else you’re going to do it right now. But when I leave or you’re around other people, you’re just going to kind of said, oh, Cody, the micromanager is not here. And then this, this, this issue, this problem just continues to get delayed. But better yet, it’s going to start to affect more people.

00;20;05;01 – 00;20;24;24
Speaker 1
So for me, you know, to your point, you talked about fault. That’s part of ownership. But mitigation or adding solutions, it’s full circle because if I have a team and that’s not doing their job, that’s on me. If they impact my mission is my responsibility to fix that, whatever that looks like. So that’s how I would thread in kind of this accountability piece.

00;20;24;27 – 00;20;42;27
Speaker 1
But to your point, and what’s really hard is it’s a lot easier just they’re going to figure it out. What I have seen is they don’t know that they have an issue. All right. They don’t know that’s it. That’s why it’s a problem in itself. And so how I fix this is that relationship piece, which in the world of leadership, it’s what people need to hear.

00;20;42;27 – 00;20;59;15
Speaker 1
But it’s not what they want to hear. They want to hear some other fancy new thing that no one’s ever heard before. But, you know, relationships is the first thing we teach as the pillar of being a good leader is teamwork is founded on relationships that we do or don’t have. That’s funny that, you know, we all want that.

00;20;59;17 – 00;21;12;19
Speaker 1
That magic pixie dust, right? We just we say the thing, we sprinkle it on. I’m like, oh, problem solved. Right? Like that’s it’s all we needed. Yes, sir. So,

00;21;12;22 – 00;21;33;18
Speaker 1
You know, a lot of blue collar workers are really good at their craft, but they struggle with the leap from skilled worker to leader. This wondering, you know, in your experience, what’s the biggest thing holding people back from making that shift? Like, how do they start closing that gap from going from worker to leader? Hey, maybe it’s relationships.

00;21;33;20 – 00;21;56;06
Speaker 1
The first thing I analyze in any problem is, is relationships. So that’s that’s the first thing I always want to work on. But to kind of the question in itself, during my time in the Marine Corps and I know and I get to really the the cultural thing I see now, as I alluded to earlier, I believe that leadership is an afterthought, meaning we tend to teach it a little too late because I would watch myself for other guys.

00;21;56;06 – 00;22;12;18
Speaker 1
They would be really good at it, at their job. To your point, on a Friday and on a Monday they show up like, hey, guess what? You’re in charge. And just because they’re good at the job doesn’t mean they’re going to be a good leader. So oftentimes we set people up for success. That happened my entire career. I was expected to lead but not taught how to do it.

00;22;12;20 – 00;22;40;02
Speaker 1
As I transition at echelon front, and I would go work with a lot of people. Blue collar. It’s such an easy correlation because you have, you know, a laborer that’s doing great on Friday. They show up on Monday. Now they’re the foremen. And it’s like, hey, it changed. But because they’re not taught how to properly lead or there’s no proper expectations or roles and responsibilities, they just leverage being good at the job so they find themselves consistently in the weeds, which tends to piss off the people around them because that’s not their job anymore.

00;22;40;05 – 00;22;57;05
Speaker 1
So if I’m somebody that is good at my job and I want to get promoted, this is kind of your your threat to extreme ownership. I’m not going to wait to be taught what to do, because what if it never comes? And so if I want to grow, I’m going to look externally. I’m going to look internally. You know, there’s we teach leadership addition front.

00;22;57;06 – 00;23;12;14
Speaker 1
There’s a bunch of people that teach leadership like go do this on your own. In the meantime, what I would start to do if I’m inside the trades is I would start to look around at what some of the good leaders are. I’m sure all of us can attest there are good leaders inside organizations. I would start to model that behavior.

00;23;12;21 – 00;23;27;10
Speaker 1
And I think for all of us, you know, I look at my life now, I’m not a by product of myself. I’m a byproduct of other people. I had tremendous leaders in the military, and a lot of who I am is because of them. I had some terrible leaves in the military, and who I am today is because I wanted to be nothing like them.

00;23;27;13 – 00;23;48;15
Speaker 1
And so for me, that is something that we can control. If you don’t have the time, if you want to use that or you don’t, you don’t want to do it right now. Just start to really pay attention to what other people are doing. And not just your leaders, but your peers or other people inside the organization. You can learn a lot by simply kind of detaching, kind of having an open mind and looking around to seeing what works and what does not work.

00;23;48;18 – 00;24;08;00
Speaker 1
That is a way you can tangibly set your up, set yourself up for success. Because the huge thing that I’d see, and I would argue to quantify it 75% of the time I come to an organization, I’ve been to is a long time. No one’s been taught leadership, but whether it’s a foreman to the soup, to the like, whatever, they haven’t been taught how to do it.

00;24;08;05 – 00;24;33;00
Speaker 1
But they’re in these positions of authority. They have a huge scope. They’re in charge of a lot of people and a lot of things. And it’s like, well, why aren’t things clicking well? It’s because we’re just expecting them to do it, and we haven’t taught them how to do it. And the last thing kind of in your question, overall, when we don’t start to build ourself up or start to think about what is leading look like because it’s different when you’re just on a team doing the job like you’re a craft.

00;24;33;02 – 00;24;49;23
Speaker 1
That is what you own as a leader of a team. That’s not your responsibility anymore. You have to get, you know, we call it off the gun or out of the weeds or off the job. And your responsibility now is to get people more proficient at their craft. Those are two very different things. So for me, if we don’t start I’m thinking about it now.

00;24;49;29 – 00;25;06;17
Speaker 1
We’re going to set ourself up for failure and then we’ll find ourselves leading a team, even though we’re good at the job, where the team doesn’t respect us, they don’t listen to us. They start to dwindle, culture starts to suck, and it’s like, man, like what is happening? So I’m going to learn early and often for myself. I’m going to pay attention.

00;25;06;24 – 00;25;23;27
Speaker 1
And when I step in the role, I have to really subordinate my ego and understand it’s not about me anymore, it’s about the team. And so I’m still proficient at my job. There’s still a time and place to step in, but my goal now is to offer support when needed, make their job easier, and then give them autonomy.

00;25;24;01 – 00;25;39;07
Speaker 1
Like that is the greatest gift you can give people has control over their own destiny. Give them a set you know. Have them create value. I give them a voice, which is not what we tend to do. We tend to step on their toes. We tend to micromanage because it’s easier at face value, and all that does is piss people off.

00;25;39;07 – 00;25;58;07
Speaker 1
Nobody likes being micromanaged yet. It’s what we like to do. Well, it’s what we do. Yeah, well, in speaking of that, right. Like, I know, as it says on the website, you know, you constantly observe my in your time in the Marines, you constantly observe leaders resorting to micromanagement. Right? As our go to solution when problems would arise.

00;25;58;09 – 00;26;05;18
Speaker 1
So what what advice do you have for trades business owners who, you know, they’re used to doing everything themselves or in that situation. Right. And and

00;26;05;18 – 00;26;15;06
Speaker 1
now they’re trying to figure out, how do you trust and lead a team for the first time to do those things? What’s what’s the pixie dust there for us?

00;26;15;09 – 00;26;39;03
Speaker 1
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00;26;39;06 – 00;26;47;23
Speaker 1
now they’re trying to figure out, how do you trust and lead a team for the first time to do those things? What’s what’s the pixie dust there for us?

00;26;47;25 – 00;26;48;18
Speaker 1
The pixie dust.

00;26;48;18 – 00;27;09;00
Speaker 1
I wish there was a pixie dust. That pixie dust, right? Yes, sir. So one of the things. So we teach what we call our four laws of combat, which is cover and move, which is about teamwork and relationships, which is simple, which is about communication. We teach, prioritize and execute, which is about decision making. And then our last one, which is kind of the culmination, is decentralized command, which is about empowerment.

00;27;09;03 – 00;27;32;13
Speaker 1
That’s what we want to do. If if I find myself micromanaging one, I think all of us would, would argue that micromanaging is, I can’t think of a better word. Sucks to do, right? It’s it is, exhausting. It fills up our time. We don’t want to do it. We like to do it because we want to mitigate risk.

00;27;32;13 – 00;27;54;11
Speaker 1
And we want to make sure that the job is done. Essentially, we care oftentimes, and this is a lot of people are going to hear me incorrectly. A lot of times leaders micromanage because they care more than the people involved. But what I recognize is a lot of times we that’s our that’s our justification. I’m going to micromanage, Michael, because this is my business, this is my team, and I want us to be successful.

00;27;54;14 – 00;28;10;02
Speaker 1
But the more I micromanage you, the less likely you are going to care about what is going on. And so I have this really reverse effect. And now I have a team full of people that don’t care what I’m asking. And I have this great idea on a business or an opportunity, but I have a team that’s not behind it.

00;28;10;04 – 00;28;28;15
Speaker 1
So I want to let go. And for those that want to grow, or whether it’s a team or a or a business, if you want to think really big picture, thinking strategically or thinking big picture is damn near impossible when you micromanage people. Why? Because you don’t have the time to do it. We are very tactical focus as it is.

00;28;28;17 – 00;28;44;27
Speaker 1
Thinking about next week is hard for a lot of people. In a business. You’re not thinking about next week, you’re thinking about next month, next quarter, next year. You can’t do those things. If I’m always like, hey Michael, do this, Derek, do those things. Hey, Michael, come back to me. Hey, Derek. Why did you do that wrong? I’m filling up time.

00;28;44;27 – 00;29;05;17
Speaker 1
I’m filling a bandwidth. I’m limiting resources. And that is how people look up. And they’re like, man, I wanted this business to grow. But here I am. Six years later, I’m still status quo. Why? Because you haven’t given the autonomy to the team. So the pixie dust is going to be the relationship which is founded on trust, which gets me to a place where, hey, I’m the leader, you’re on my team.

00;29;05;21 – 00;29;28;29
Speaker 1
I trust you to really do whatever you want. And I don’t say that lightly. The goal of a leader is I have a team that runs on their own. More than anything. I make myself obsolete now because I don’t care. Because I do, not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not my job anymore. My job is to train, coach, mentor, provide support, but also to grow the business.

00;29;29;05 – 00;29;48;28
Speaker 1
That’s my responsibility. And so we kind of, coined the phrase or kind of the mentality as a leader of people, you should do only the things that you can do. If Michael is proficient in the craft, guess what, dude? Run it. Go ahead, do it. Is he going to make mistakes? Sure, sometimes they make mistakes and I provide support.

00;29;48;29 – 00;30;13;24
Speaker 1
I don’t crush you because now I’m limiting this. But hey, man, what’s going on? I gain perspective, I help you out, and then I do that. But there’s certain things due to experience, due to, you know, my title and organization that only I can do. But if I’m doing Michael’s job, I’m doing Derek’s job, I’m doing Cody’s job, and I can’t do my job, which is to grow the team, grow a bench, grow a succession plan, hire more people, create a training plan, mitigate safety.

00;30;14;01 – 00;30;35;15
Speaker 1
All these things, which are my responsibility. I limit. And I find myself failing at because of the micromanaging that I’m doing. So cutting ties with that is extremely hard. And I think a lot of times we we build what I call an easy button. I’m sure we’ve heard the phrase easy button, right where Michael, you always come to me for and most of the time it’s for reassurance.

00;30;35;15 – 00;30;54;04
Speaker 1
Like we want to make sure we’re doing the right thing. And so when Michael comes to me and I always solve Michael’s problems, this does a couple of things. And so breaking this habit is really hard. If I’m the easy button for Michael, it’s rather convenient. You don’t gotta think there’s no risk. There’s no nothing. It’s like, oh, Cody’s just going to solve it for me.

00;30;54;06 – 00;31;10;16
Speaker 1
So if you are the easy button or you find yourself down the road in leadership position, be careful of being the easy button because it’s rather convenient for the other person. Additionally, and really, the root of a lot of this is we like to be the easy button because we want to prove we still know what to do.

00;31;10;18 – 00;31;24;06
Speaker 1
And so when Michael comes to me, he’s like, hey man, I don’t know what to do. I’m like, yeah, Michael, you come to me and I’ll solve this problem. And that that ego kind of flares up and it’s like, yeah, I am the boss. You do come to me and I’ll tell you what to do. And so breaking the habit is twofold.

00;31;24;08 – 00;31;45;21
Speaker 1
Doing their job is easier for them. Additionally, we like to be the one to tell them what to do because of ego, because of risk mitigation of those things in itself. So severing that tie is extremely challenging. But what’s on the other side of that is, is pretty remarkable. I have a team that’s autonomous, that has any problem thrown their way that they can solve.

00;31;45;24 – 00;32;04;05
Speaker 1
We call the epitome of leadership, the silent leader. So the answer of decentralized command is, I don’t have to say I don’t have to do anything. Why? Because you guys know what to do to a team. You can do my job. And when you can do my job, well, then I can start to do other stuff. Not to say like, I get fired, know?

00;32;04;05 – 00;32;21;11
Speaker 1
Like I’m working on growing the business, doing the things that we’ve already talked about. So kind of a long winded approach on this decentralized command. Empowering people is a lot more challenging than we actually realize. I always tell people simple, not easy, takes time, but it’s worth it. So you can put in the work. What you see on the other side is pretty remarkable.

00;32;21;14 – 00;32;45;10
Speaker 2
So Cody, that happens to me still to this day, quite often sometimes. And you know, you saying that puts it in, you know, a, a very easy to understand perspective of being the easy button. What is, a good way without offending or hurting feelings to push back, you know, when, when you’re approach to be the easy button.

00;32;45;12 – 00;33;09;05
Speaker 1
I’ll give you a very advanced phrase. You can use. Okay. So if you. Derek, I’m the boss, you’re my subordinate. You come to me. Whether it’s clarification, whether it’s reassurance or it’s like, hey, I don’t know what to do, the simple pixie dust is going to be like, hey man, what do you think? So instead of immediately solving the problem, I’d be like, hey, do this or do that, I stop.

00;33;09;07 – 00;33;29;17
Speaker 1
Hey there. Well, what do you think we should do? This is a couple of things. I gained perspective on your capabilities or how you think. This also shows me where kind of there may be some training or this showed me, like, you already know, the right answer. And so if you, Derek, tell me the right answer now I step in and I say, hey, dude, hey, you’re actually right.

00;33;29;17 – 00;33;44;29
Speaker 1
Go ahead and do that. And oh, by the way, next time, like, you don’t need my permission. Like, you know what to do. That is how I mitigate that. And then over time, what you build is like, if you know that when you go to Cody the boss, I’m always going to say, like, what do you think you’re going to come to me with the solution every single time?

00;33;45;02 – 00;34;00;07
Speaker 1
And then I start to set some expectations or parameters, which is like, hey man, these are the things that you can do. These are the things I still need to know. Decentralized command is not just like fire and forget. Like, go do whatever you want. Like there’s still things you need to know inside an organization. This is kind of your wheelhouse.

00;34;00;07 – 00;34;16;14
Speaker 1
These are the things I need to know. And if you need me, I’m always here to support. And so what we want to build is instead of people coming up to with, with problems or reassurances, you’ve already solved the problem and you come to me to let me know. That’s the goal in this. So breaking the habit is just a quick switch.

00;34;16;21 – 00;34;38;16
Speaker 1
I do this with, you know, my team, but also to kind of make light of it with my kids as well. The best example and I could use the military, I could use all the clients I’ve worked with decentralize command. The best example I give you is, is parenting. My goal as a parent with four kids eight, seven, six, and four is to make myself obsolete as a parent, meaning they don’t need me anymore.

00;34;38;18 – 00;34;58;05
Speaker 1
But the more I step in, the more I solve their problems. The more they’re not freethinking, the more they don’t know what to do. And I’m not naive like my kids shoot right now, sooner rather than later, they’re going to face a decision where I’m not going to be there, and I want them to make the right decision, not because they’re fearful of being in trouble, but they know that it’s right, because I’ve taught them how to do that.

00;34;58;07 – 00;35;15;10
Speaker 1
And right now, my kids come to me all the time, and I’m notorious in my household. Like they know if they go to dad, I’m going to say, well, what do you want to do? We homeschool our kids. My kids always ask for reassurance. I was like, hey, just go ahead and fill it out. Is this right? I don’t know, I let them decide and then I can coach and teach them after the fact.

00;35;15;13 – 00;35;34;29
Speaker 1
So for me, it’s kind of a quick fix. It’s a small conversation. So I would start to ask that question and also reinforce why you’re doing it. Hey Derek man, like I want you to be successful, dude. I want you to take a bigger part of this team. You can do that if you’re always coming to me. And so I would ask the question, I would reinforce it with why you’re doing it.

00;35;35;04 – 00;35;53;20
Speaker 1
And that puts a lot of people, people’s mind at ease. Because if you don’t communicate that, why they’re going to start to come up with some crazy ideas. He’s like, oh, like this Cody actually not know or does he not care? You want to put that that why to rest? Because if we don’t tell people why something is happening, they’ll come to that conclusion on their own.

00;35;53;23 – 00;36;19;18
Speaker 1
I have to say, the, the decentralized command idea or however you want to phrase that, like, you know, obviously, I think all of us have heard those words at some point in time, but like until I read Extreme Ownership, I never really put it into perspective with regards to my, my business and the fact that every single decision that needed to be made in the company had to come to me for that decision to be made.

00;36;19;18 – 00;36;36;22
Speaker 1
So it was like I used to call it a Mic disease, because every two minutes one of my employees would be like, hey, Mike, what do you want to do about this? Or hey, Mike, we need to this or hey, we’ve got this issue. And it wasn’t until I read that book that I started to move in the direction, which is still very much a work in progress.

00;36;36;22 – 00;37;00;21
Speaker 1
I definitely feel like the easy button sometimes, but, but to try to go down that path and like you guys need to be able to make decisions without me, like, it’s it’s it’s one of the many game changer ideas that, I took from that book, man, is I love it. Yes. And I’m wondering, you know, you were talking about the ability to empower your team and that you have to, like, let go.

00;37;00;21 – 00;37;19;00
Speaker 1
I don’t know if you said those words, but you’ve made it. It made me think of something I mentioned before. We started recording was I saw some, clips and some reels where you were talking about detachment. Is that what you’re like? You have to detach yourself from the situation. Is that kind of what that means, or am I taking that the wrong way?

00;37;19;03 – 00;37;38;19
Speaker 1
You can thread it in there. To your point on letting go, like the, simplistic way to communicate decentralized command is here’s what we’re asking you to do. And when I say it, it sounds like a lot. And it is. I’m asking you to give up all control, but still maintain responsibility. That’s what we’re asking you to do.

00;37;38;22 – 00;37;54;24
Speaker 1
That’s very hard. That’s scary for a lot of people because we we don’t like giving up control. Hey, you guys got it? Look, I’m here if you need me. Better at. If you fail, I’m going to step in. I’m gonna fix it. That’s really hard what detachment is. And look, this is, I don’t want to say it’s a complicated thought.

00;37;54;24 – 00;38;19;12
Speaker 1
It’s. It’s just one of the most difficult things we teach at echelon front detachment is, it helps with decision making. And so, you know, giving power to the team. That is a decision we have to make. Detachment is taking a moment in time to create space to make the appropriate decision in the right time. How we define detachment is detachment is not allowing our ego or emotions or our perspective to dictate what you do.

00;38;19;12 – 00;38;43;21
Speaker 1
So this mitigates knee jerk reactions. This mitigates egotistical decisions, which is micromanagement or this mitigates emotional decisions, which that’s what we always do all the time, every single day. Anyways, biggest thing you know, for me, if you want to correlate detachment, a decentralized command is oftentimes there’s just like something that we’re missing. And so detachment sometimes is that is like, hey, I don’t know what’s going on.

00;38;43;21 – 00;38;59;24
Speaker 1
I don’t have the perspective. I don’t know why Derek is coming to me. I don’t know why Michael always feels you have to ask me the question. Detachment is a set of jumping in and solving the problem. It’s I stop, I analyze, I take a breath, I look around, I gain some perspective. I kind of diminish my ego a little bit.

00;38;59;24 – 00;39;20;11
Speaker 1
I tune down my emotions so I can clearly see what to do. And so we file detachment under prioritize and execute, which is we want to make the right decision at the right time. It’s part of our decision making process in every decision, whether it’s about relationships, growing a business, sending an email and power in our team, ego, emotions, perspective.

00;39;20;14 – 00;39;35;29
Speaker 1
Those are the variables that will be in every single decision that you make. And we want to be able to control those things. But if you really think about, like what we’re asking, and I would argue this is the one of the hardest things we teach. We’re all emotional creatures, we all have egos, and we all have a perspective.

00;39;36;01 – 00;39;59;02
Speaker 1
And that tends to lead ourself to hot water saying or doing the wrong thing, which can be micromanaging, which is kind of that decentralized command piece overall. So that’s that’s kind of in line with with my next question, right, is that, you know, obviously Echelon Front talks a lot about ego, how it can fuel confidence. But also become the thing that kills growth.

00;39;59;04 – 00;40;16;05
Speaker 1
So I, you know, I’m wondering, you know, where do you see ego showing up most in the trades and with blue collar businesses. And then what’s the practical move to keep it in check while you’re trying to build something from scratch? Is it detachment or is there more to it detached? What’s going to be part of it 100%?

00;40;16;05 – 00;40;36;26
Speaker 1
And look for me, you know, when I teach and look, I teach and our cinema, our cinema seminar, we do an hour, we do for our we do six hours, we do evolution of this. So there’s a, there’s a lot of depth you can get into from detachment. We talk about ego a lot because one of our, our mindsets that we teach is a concept called humility kind of pulls inside of ego.

00;40;36;26 – 00;40;53;01
Speaker 1
Right? Above all the things we teach at Ashland front, we would argue that humility is the number one characteristic of a of a leader. And while we say that is, traditionally speaking, when we look back to our time in the military, most of the time when people got fired, it wasn’t a lack of skill set. It wasn’t because they couldn’t shoot, move, communicate.

00;40;53;01 – 00;41;16;24
Speaker 1
It’s because they were egotistical and arrogant. Like that’s what it led to. Because when I have, an overextended ego or I am arrogant, like a lot of bad things follow that. I take things for granted, I plateau, I’m always right. I have a closed mind. And all those things lead us to making the wrong decisions. And so when leaders get fired, if you think of all those things and how they correlate, that makes a recipe for a terrible leader.

00;41;16;26 – 00;41;36;19
Speaker 1
But to your point, a lot of times people twist that. And there’s a reason why Jack only wrote a second book called The Dichotomy of Leadership. Because when we talked about, hey, we want to, we want to kind of subordinate that ego. Some people took that. I was like, I want no ego whatsoever or the emotional piece a no emotions whatsoever.

00;41;36;21 – 00;41;53;06
Speaker 1
That’s not what we’re saying. I don’t want you to be devoid of those things. I want you to be aware of those things. If you understand ego and just between the three of us. Look, my ego on this call, to be completely honest, doesn’t care about either of you. Just like your ego doesn’t care about me. Our ego is about us.

00;41;53;06 – 00;42;16;29
Speaker 1
It only cares about us. It wants us to win at all costs and that’s when it can get scary. I’ve seen it happen a lot. Military now outside in the civilian sector where people make extremely, irrational eagle based decisions and the business suffers. Why? Because they’re making this kind of malicious, decision based on what they wanted to do rather than what was right.

00;42;17;02 – 00;42;34;28
Speaker 1
And so the line that I like to draw, because having some, some sense of ego is great, to your point in the question in self, ego does bring confidence. And do we need confidence? Absolutely. If I’m going to jump out of an airplane at nighttime, I need some confidence. Otherwise I’m never going to go out of the door.

00;42;35;00 – 00;42;52;21
Speaker 1
But the line for me is understanding the difference between confidence and cockiness. Those are two very different things. Confidence is, you know what? I’ve done this before. I’m still going to prepare. I’m still going to check. I’m still going to mitigate risks. But I’m confident in my abilities. Cockiness is, hey, I’ve jumped out of this airplane 75 times.

00;42;52;21 – 00;43;09;02
Speaker 1
I don’t need to check my parachute. I don’t need to check with the team. I’m already good to go. I’m arrogant about what I’m facing and that is when a lot of people, unfortunately, they learn the hard way. And to me, I think life is all about vicious cycles. We get kind of competent at our job. We have confidence in our abilities.

00;43;09;03 – 00;43;29;27
Speaker 1
We take things for granted. We learn the hard way, we get complacent, and it’s just life is like this. And so for me and the unfortunate reality of human nature is complacency is coming our way. We like it or not, whether it’s at work, whether it’s in a marriage, whether it’s relationship with kids, it’s very easy to get caught up and take things for granted because of the time.

00;43;29;29 – 00;43;53;03
Speaker 1
So for me, there’s really two big catalysts. One is time. And to to quantify it as I observe a lot of people, I would argue anytime you’re in a position or inside a certain job for about 5 to 7 years, I would argue you’re at the greatest risk of complacency. New people really aren’t prone to complacency because they have an inherent fear of messing up.

00;43;53;03 – 00;44;10;09
Speaker 1
Like I remember when I first started in the Marine Corps, there was no chance I was getting complacent. I checked everything like 17 times because I was afraid to make mistakes. But that five year clip, 5 to 7, you’d be doing the same thing. You have a ton of experience and look. Experience is great, but experience also leads us to I’ve seen this a bunch.

00;44;10;13 – 00;44;24;18
Speaker 1
Nothing’s ever gone wrong the last five years. We start to take things for granted. I don’t need that piece of gear. I don’t need to do the tail board. I don’t need my approval, whatever it is. And then bam! We learn the hard way. So that’s one catalyst. The other catalyst is what I call I’ve made it mentality.

00;44;24;20 – 00;44;42;19
Speaker 1
So oftentimes we’re vying for this new spot, whatever that looks like a new position. We put a lot of work in. We put take a lot of effort and we make it and we kind of relieve. We kind of drop back and it’s like I just got promoted and then we start to slack and then we get reminded by somebody or something like, hey, we can’t do that.

00;44;42;22 – 00;45;04;05
Speaker 1
We have a huge heart for complacency. I mean, just like in terms of the trades in itself, there’s an inherent risk and people can get hurt or killed and the military, it was no different. And complacency for us, the awakening or the moment in time that we reflected on was unfortunately, what tend to happen was somebody got hurt or somebody got killed and that was just like, bam!

00;45;04;05 – 00;45;22;23
Speaker 1
Like, we can’t let that happen. But unfortunately, and really, the root of this whole thing is we’re stubborn, stubborn, stubborn people. And we love listening to our ego because it knows exactly what to say and when to say it. You don’t need to call Michael. You don’t need to bring that piece of gear. You’ve done this a thousand times, and so it’s really there to convince you to get complacent.

00;45;22;26 – 00;45;39;18
Speaker 1
And so I don’t want to eliminate it. I want to minimize it. And if I find myself getting a bit cocky on, I start to not follow SOPs. I start to not do my bird or whatever it is for whoever’s listening on the call. Like that’s the moment time where I dive in, and that is how you can extend the life.

00;45;39;18 – 00;45;53;05
Speaker 1
On not having these blips on the radar. Is it possible to eliminate it? It is, but you have to be extremely intentional, not just today, not just tomorrow, but every day, because it’s creeping in whether we like it or not.

00;45;53;07 – 00;46;20;25
Speaker 1
I love that I’m like and unpacking it in my head here. All right, one more question and then we’ll jump over to the Patreon side here. We don’t keep you on all day. At a at a conference for craft workers. You close with the line. If not you, then who? And it was said as kind of like a battle cry for ownership and for someone standing at the crossroads of staying as an employee or betting on themselves to start a business.

00;46;20;27 – 00;46;41;26
Speaker 1
You know, what is actually answering that question look like in practice? Yeah. So that is a stolen phrase from a record officer that that passed away, a little bit, a little bit ago. Early times in the war, by the name of Travis Mannion. And Travis Manning was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, served overseas.

00;46;41;26 – 00;47;01;19
Speaker 1
And, of course, he was shot and killed. But when asked before he was deployed or why he wanted to enlist, basically understanding that, hey, there’s an inherent risk that you may die overseas, like, why would you want to do that? And Travis, his answer was like, well, if I don’t go, like, who’s going to do it? And so for me, and part of my journey not to get kind of too extensive is hearing things like that.

00;47;01;19 – 00;47;20;20
Speaker 1
When I was younger, because I was a bit younger than Travis. And, you know, I didn’t join until 2010 and this happened before hearing things like that really prompted on like, like I can make a difference. And if I don’t, who’s going to do it? We’re going to wait for somebody else. And so I love talking about Travis and honoring another Marine Corps person that unfortunately, you know, perished overseas.

00;47;20;20 – 00;47;45;17
Speaker 1
And so oftentimes I can I tend to cling to that, to your point specifically about extreme ownership, as that’s our most prominent thing that we teach a national on front, like, if you’re not going to take responsibility for your life, like, who’s going to do it if you’re not going to go above and beyond to get more proficient at your craft, if you’re not going to go seek more education so you can meet that new position like nobody’s going to save you like nobody’s coming.

00;47;45;18 – 00;48;03;03
Speaker 1
Nobody’s knocking down my door. Calling myself, I’m like, hey, man, like, you got a problem. I’m here to solve it. And so oftentimes we have this unfortunate what I call victim mentality, which is a bad things happen. World’s out to get me like somebody come save me. And I hate to say it, but that’s not how the world works.

00;48;03;03 – 00;48;18;09
Speaker 1
Like, if I have the worst day of my life today, not a lot of people are going to know. Not a lot of people are going to care. There’s 8 billion people on this planet. And so for me, look, do bad things happen 100%? But that’s my responsibility to fix. If I’m in a hole, the answer is not sit there.

00;48;18;09 – 00;48;33;25
Speaker 1
The answer is grab a shovel and let’s get out of this. And so for me, whether it’s like, hey, I want a promotion, cool. What are you going to do about it? Or if you want to get kind of more extensive and more severe, you got a terrible marriage. Okay. What are you going to do about it? You have a, a strained relationship with your kids.

00;48;33;25 – 00;48;50;20
Speaker 1
Okay. What do you how are you going to fix it? You don’t get along with your boss. You’re not trained proficiently. Your culture sucks. What are you going to do about it? Because if you don’t do something, who’s going to do it and who’s going to do it? You have to understand the worst case scenario is potentially nobody.

00;48;50;22 – 00;49;11;20
Speaker 1
And to me, the kind of the common, comical phrases like if nothing changes, nothing changes. Controlling what other people do and how they change is one thing. Controlling what I do and the things that I say and the things that I do that is within my wheelhouse. I think we often times we talk about control to control because you control a lot more than than you think a lot more.

00;49;11;23 – 00;49;32;13
Speaker 1
And so if I don’t do something, if I don’t say something, then you better be content with where you’re at, because a, not a lot of people are coming to help you ask for help, do the things for you like it’s on you. And that’s really kind of the really the plot of extreme ownership. It’s my responsibility, my success, my failure, not only for me, but for my team, for my organization mission.

00;49;32;13 – 00;49;54;10
Speaker 1
It rests on my shoulders. It’s on me lot. It. Cody, we’re going to jump over to the Patreon side of things. But before we do that, if, if people are interested in hearing more about you, learning more about you, working with you, where do they find you? Yes, sir. So, simply put, echelon front.com. That’s where you can find me.

00;49;54;10 – 00;50;09;29
Speaker 1
The other instructors, all the things we do at Echelon front, which we have a huge umbrella of, of how we teach and how we train on the social media side, with homeschooling for kids and be on the road so much, I, I only got one. So I just, dabble with, Instagram, which is just Cody Gandhi.

00;50;10;02 – 00;50;25;25
Speaker 1
You can find me on there. I’m on there from time to time, but I’m always happy to help. I’m always happy to jump on a call or answer an email if anybody has anything moving forward about. Awesome. Cody, thanks so much for coming on, man. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to asking you a couple more questions here on the Patreon side.

00;50;25;27 – 00;50;45;28
Speaker 1
And of course, you know, thanks, everybody for listening. Thank you to our sponsors for the help that you give us and the great work that we’re able to do because of you out in the community. You know, of course you could find us at Blue collar startup.io and we’re on Apple Spotify Rumble in YouTube. And, hopefully we’ll see you guys all over on the Patreon side.

00;50;46;00 – 00;51;14;00
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;51;14;00 – 00;51;26;28
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;51;27;01 – 00;55;35;03
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.