The Fun CEO: How to Positively Impact 5 Million People in 5 Years with Jerry Mac

Do you want to learn how to create a business that makes you money and changes lives? We have special guest Jerry Macnamara in this Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast episode. Jerry is on a personal mission to positively impact 5 million people in 5 years through better business. He helps CEOs have more fun by creating compelling businesses that outperform...and still make it home for dinner.

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Transcript

The Fun CEO: How to Positively Impact 5 Million People in 5 Years with Jerry Mac

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan DeMent from Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day this week. I do have a very special guest because he came on at the last second cuz we had a cancellation. We know how that works. We have Jerry McNamara and Jerry's is working on something that's near and dear to my heart, and I'm gonna read his profile just a little bit for you guys and then we'll let Jerry come in, tell a story.

Jerry's on a personal mission to positively impact 5 million people in five years through better business. He helps CEOs have more fun by creating compelling businesses that outperform. And oh, by the way, he gets home every night for dinner. Jerry, welcome into the show, 

[00:00:42] Jerry: Ryan. Thanks for having me. I was super pumped when I got a message from you and said you had a cancellation.

So it's my pleasure to be here and have a conversation with you. You are 

[00:00:50] Ryan: more than, you're more than welcome. But Thank you for coming in and I truly enjoy you coming in. It's, we had a pre-call several months ago and I really liked what you're doing.

So before we get into. Tell everyone a little bit about you and we'll get into your. 

[00:01:07] Jerry: Yeah, so I've been super lucky over the course of my career, Ryan. I've run five different businesses in five different industries. I've done it in b2b, I've done it in b2c. I've sold products and I've sold services. And that's only just to say that I've been in the right place at the right time to.

Help lead companies onto the franchise, 500 being 500 and still get best places to work. And so I think you can run a high growth company, still love your people and have a really fun, compelling place to work. And so as I look at it, I keep on coming back to this whole idea that. I've never met anyone who's shown up to work and said, You know what, I really wanna suck today.

And yet there are so many ineffective people every single day and it's not their fault. It's leader's fault. And I've never been the technical leader inside any business that I've run. And I've always been a high learner, but really what it is leadership is universal cuz your work is all done through people.

You're not actually doing the doing. And so trying to help leaders get out of their own way to ru run compelling businesses, Oh by the way, we still wanna get home for dinner, right? Cause I think people become disillusioned when we have all of this outward success with a lack of fulfillment. If I wasn't making it home for dinner with my family, at what cost did all of that success come?

And to me, that's too great. And helping people get to that space of conscious intention, living your life on your terms, which is really fulfillment. That's my goal in in helping my CEOs. 

[00:02:33] Ryan: We truly don't live exactly what you're talking about because 25 year, as I say, a 25 year recovering addict from corporate America, Just saying, I always chased the next paycheck.

I chased the next position and it was always at the expense of my family, loved ones friends, cuz all I did was work and it's amazing. How you can swap your mindset to say, I am now going to find a way that I'm gonna be able to balance that out, be home for dinner every single night, but still do well in the workplace.

And you can do that. It's just, I don't know how to describe it, is corporate America just doesn't allow us to do that. It's all about them and you're chasing somebody else's dream to be real. 

[00:03:19] Jerry: I. I think you're a hundred percent right Ryan? Let me just raise my hand. As a guy who I haven't always got it right, and I was 26 years old.

I was helping run a high growth company. We went from 5.9 million to 15 million in 18 months. We were raising venture capital three different times. I had a $5 million check sitting in the middle of the table. And I found myself traveling, opening stores. We had 35 stores in 13 states. Raising venture capital and running a company.

Those are two independent things at the same time. I was sleeping on the couch outside of my office boy. And on Valentine's Day, I thought I was having a heart attack. Oh. And so I was laying on a gurney and I remember counting the dots in one of those industrial ceiling tiles and I was counting them and I just thought, You idiot.

What? What have you done? Yeah, it was great. Your ego was huge. Cause you know, you're 26 years old and you're doing all these amazing things, but it's come at a great cost to your health and my friendships were not amazing. I don't tell this story. My, my wife still doesn't believe me, but I didn't kiss a woman for four years because I was so busy.

And I said, Sweetheart, that's not something you brag about. No, but I was so busy that I had lost sight of myself. As a person, and I was pouring everything into the business. And so I think that's a lot of what entrepreneurs do and , when we had spoken before, Ryan, this whole notion of what society tells us, particularly entrepreneurs, you have to serve your business and you're right, you're going to serve the business.

But getting sucked into this idea of, I want more and I want it now sets you up for this. Man, you are on the mouse wheel of serving everyone else's interest without stopping to think, Is this really what I want? Is this what's good for me in my life at this point in time? And I'm a big believer of bringing conscious intention, again, I'll say it, your life on your terms.

I think fulfillment is the highest obligation that you have to live your life. And. Whatever that is. If you want more and you want now, that's fine. But I find people who just stack lots of hundreds into their bank accounts suddenly look up at some point in time and say, Is that all there is? Is this it?

And I have this whole concept of the three F's and I say finances create freedom for fulfillment and finances are simply an instrument. It's a. For you to go do the things that you want to do in life to create the impact that you really wanna make. And I think a lot of people chase it in the wrong way.

They think it's to stack as many hundred dollars bills into the account as possible, and then they become really disillusioned when they do that and they go, Oh my God, that's all there is. 

[00:06:06] Ryan: It's it's amazing what we do and I remember on our pre-call you talked about that, and I think there was a gentleman or a client that you were working with that had really stacked up a lot of money, and then either cashed out or what, I don't remember the whole story. And he was left with, what do I have now? I've got money, but I have nothing else in my. 

[00:06:27] Jerry: And that was exactly the conversation that we had. And I said, you thought the pursuit of money was the end goal in and of itself, and it's not.

It's to create the impact that you want to go make. And about six months later, after we had that conversation, he called me back. and he said, This is amazing. I've now realized that what you said, money is the tool. And he was making the impact that he wanted to make on his community. And it was super fun to hear because someone who's been driven that long to get disillusioned once they actually reached that destination.

And then to be able to turn that around in six months and he was doing lots of community service and giving back to the community. It is possible, but it, again, it comes back to conscious intention. What's the impact that you want to go make on the world 

[00:07:12] Ryan: or you got, I think it even goes back even further as you gotta make that decision that you want to make an impact on the world.

And there's just some people, unfortunately, that don't want to. . 

[00:07:21] Jerry: It's hard for me to imagine. I think it's a good example. My, my dad has always said that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream. , I guess I just wouldn't see the world that way because I look at money and generational wealth, and I may be on the wrong side of of this coin, but, if you haven't been on the side of creating your own money and your co your own opportunity, I think you're robbed of a chance in life to really to have that fulfillment.

To say that I have gone and used my gifts to the world and used my potential to create something magical as opposed to being given something. That's just my own personal view there. 

[00:07:57] Ryan: Agree 100%. Cuz it also creates, Total character for yourself. Yeah. You get to go through those failures. You get to learn from them.

You get to grow. I mean it's, and I think we talked about it is, in our pre-calls being in corporate America for so long, I never was taught how to be a fisherman. And I say this all the time cuz they truly didn't. I was fat and happy every two weeks. I was great at managing people, call centers, you name it.

But when it came down to really go after what I wanted in. And be able to go accomplish those things. I never did. And that's why I had two failed, businesses when I was, I stepped out on my own and did that, and did my thing. I wouldn't give those up, those experiences up for the world because it really opened my eyes to who I could be.

And who I needed to be. And that's part of that whole giving back in, in working with others. , I get more fulfilled when I actually sell a house to a family that's in need that has never been given an opportunity to buy a house than picking some stocks and making some money.

It really doesn't have any, It doesn't ha really have any impact on me. The family being able to buy. Learned financial literacy and pass that along to their kids. And then, as you said, generational wealth. That house can be passed along. I have three home buyers now that bought houses from us that wanna be landlords.

They wanna move outta their houses that we sold them, and now they wanna be landlords. They want to move up and do another house and start doing the exact same thing three to five years, staying in a house, turn it into a rental, go buy another one. God bless him, man. That just makes me 

[00:09:30] Jerry: it is and I think it's the gift of using your.

Your own skills and potential to go make the impact that you wanna go make in the world. And, you mentioned it at the beginning I'm on a mission to positively impact 5 million people over the next five years. My skills do not match my ambition right now. And so I am working really hard, maybe harder than I ever have in my career in working on my skills and learning.

From people like you share your knowledge with me. We get to bounce ideas off each other. That's an amazing opportunity to say, Okay, how do we continue to level up ourselves to go make the impact that we're supposed to go make? But I make I don't know. I have no expectation or anticipation that if I don't put the work in and make the effort that I'm gonna get the output that I desire.

And I think there's so many people that. I love Austin Cleon. Saying about this, there's so many people that wanna be the noun without doing the verb. . And I just, I love that. Cause you, you have to go do the work and I think that's so 

[00:10:33] Ryan: important. And I think part of our characteristics as humans is we're instant gratification beings.

We want it today, not tomorrow. I see this a lot in our financial literacy side of our business to where people are out changing the Joneses are broke. Unfortunately, they're gonna file bankruptcy and it's all things that you're. And it, you don't need things. You need experiences.

And experiences come with a lot of different things and it's sad to see some of these people and I too was there and had to go through, finding a way to get myself, my second business failed, had a hundred thousand dollars in debt. I couldn't file bankruptcy. , otherwise I wouldn't be able to work in the financial industry.

So guess what? I had to strap it on and figure out how I was gonna pay it and make it work. And it was tough, but it's amazing how we don't wanna. For the things that we really want. And I know the internet is good and bad, but the internet is taught people, Hey, let me just put a video out and go instant.

I think we talked about this. I'm gonna go viral and I'll That's right. I'm gonna be a millionaire. And it's it doesn't Work that 

[00:11:32] Jerry: way. Yeah. I love saying this. I like to hire from the scratch and den. Because I want the people that have had their teeth bashed in and lived to tell the story because those are the people that are truly when things are tough and business is tough, life is tough.

It's not easy. They're the ones that figure a path forward. And those are the people that you want to be involved with. The guy that has the story about, Hey, my business failed, but you know what? I dug back out from a hundred grand in, in debt and I didn't declare bankruptcy. And that's a great story.

That's someone that I wanna be involved with. And I was listening to you talk about it's not. Material things, it's experiences. I don't know if I shared this with you, but in October, 2020, we sold our house, my wife and I, and we traveled the country with our two young kids during the middle of Covid.

And for some people that would be a crazy idea for us. It aligned with our values as a family, that we love to experience things and we love to. And for us it was right. We just followed the rules wherever we went, but there were so many people that said, Oh, I wish I could do that . And the answer is, you can do it.

Yes. There's just, there might be changes, there might be you might have to sell your house to go do that. That aligned with who we were as a family and what we wanted to go do and the experiences we wanted to create for our children and. I'm, believe me it's not material things that you can take with you.

I used to have this conversation with my mom who passed away two years ago. But she made it 16 years after a liver transplant. She had 12 inches of her bowel taken out a heart attack, two bouts with lung cancer. We called her the Ox Ryan. And we, we used to, I used to laugh with her. I said, Mom, they're gonna run outta 1942 parts eventually.

And and eventually they did. But she lived a great life. But she used to say to me, Son, you can't take it with you. And You might as well spread joy while you're here and again, make that impact that you're meant to go make. And I just think there's so many people that get sold a bill of goods that isn't real, that doesn't actually lead to alignment of. Your vision. What's your vision for the world? Do, has anyone actually sat down and written their vision out? One of my, tenets of my vision is I wanna have more fun than anyone else positively impacting the world.

It's part of what it is that I do. And so all the things, all my actions that I take are all in alignment of how do I add more joy and more fun to the world? Cause I think that's what I'm supposed to do as a human. But if you can align your vision with your values and your actions, you just, you puff your chest out, you smile more often, there's an ease that goes along with that as opposed to, chasing some theoretical finish line.

 Where there's a pot of gold, there is no pot of gold. 

[00:14:20] Ryan: I love that and I love that you guys went out and traveled. Did you guys just stay physically in the United States or did you guys go overseas? 

[00:14:28] Jerry: We would've gone overseas if the overseas was open, 

[00:14:31] Ryan: but, oh, that's right. It shut down. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. 

So 

[00:14:34] Jerry: now we spent a lot of time in Denver, but we drove across the country. We were gonna have an rv, but then we, when we decided it was wintertime, we decided to go to Denver first. Cause my wife loves to snowboard. And RV was not an ideal living situation when it's negative 15 in Denver

So we ended up driving our SUV across the country. We had a great time, spent time there. Went to Hawaii to fall out for a little bit cause we were so cold from Denver. And it was just amazing to go see the sight and sounds and it was incredible. A true opportunity to.

See how insignificant we are as individuals when you get to see so much land and so many different people and to think that the United States is only a fraction, a small fraction of the world. Very true. And so Hum. Humbling. Humbling for sure. 

[00:15:19] Ryan: What started that story? You said in, I'm paraphrasing, that people, say they wish they could do it.

 And I agree. They just don't wanna fight the change and say that they're gonna have to make changes in their life to get to the other side. And it's funny is I put out on my social channels, outside of what I do is I help people with change coaching. And that's one of my messages. Hey, You know what?

Change doesn't have to be a four letter word. You can do it, but you gotta put the effort and time in. And man, I know I'm in the right space when I get a lot of people hating on me, cuz I don't listen to positive or negative. I just, I take it as is. And I put out a video reels yesterday on Facebook about get off the couch, stop watching Netflix.

If you wanna change your life, you gotta be present and actually be there and be a participant. And I had one person put out there, and I, and this is, it's funny, but it's just where we're at as a society. He said how do you know what I'm doing? And I'm like, and I responded, I don't, but if you're paying attention to my post, probably means you're not actually, yes.

You're not actually putting the work in. So his response was, Yes I'm gonna and he got pretty serious and he messaged me on the side and dms and he's in a pretty bad space. He's depressed and I referred him out to a couple counselors that I know that work nationwide remote.

But he wants to change his life, but he doesn't know how to do it and no one's ever helped him. And I said, Feel free to reach out, man. If you need to talk to somebody, here's my telephone number, man. Just call me. I'll pick it up. Amen. It is what it is, but you've gotta put the time and effort in. And he's I'm just tired of what I'm doing.

I'm like, That changes. Here I come and it's 

[00:16:52] Jerry: I love that because I say this too, so aligned here, Ryan, which is if your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions aren't serving you, then change them. You're the only one that can. And that comes from, going through rehab a number of times, in my life with loved ones and, never overestimate your ability to change others.

In fact, you have none and never underestimate your ability to change yourself. You're the only one that can. Exactly. And I think that's, I think that's super critical. I talk a lot about mindsets and approaches to. And in my experience, you're either buzz light year, you're gonna go take on the world to infinity and beyond or your eor, right?

The world is constantly impacting you and you're worried about the weather and just all of these things. And having that internal locus of control is the hallmark of highest achieving. I'm gonna go make the impact and the stamp that I'm supposed to go make in life and be damned the weather and be damned all of those things because that's my responsibility.

, supposed to go make an impact on the world and so I'm gonna take responsibility to go do that. 

[00:17:59] Ryan: The place that I always start in, we can, I think this is gonna be a good place. We go down a rabbit hole and then we gotta talk about what you're doing with 5 million people. We struggle with that first step.

Like you said, it's, you're either buzz light or you're eor. My analogy is you're either a couch surfer or you're a climber. And I agree with you 100%. Same. Same concept. The problem is we can't seem to get off the couch because we're binge watching Netflix, Disney plus, Hulu, whatever, because it's comfortable and it's like, when is that comfortable?

Truly change you and say, I'm tired of it, or it breaks in what's easier, your new life to go to change or you wanna stay in that comfortable life. And it's sad that I hear more and more people say, I'm comfortable where I'm at. I'll just fix my ch, I'll just fix where I'm at. And I get to go back on the couch and then they complain about their life.

And it's you wonder why. 

[00:18:54] Jerry: Amen. I think hope and fear are the two great motivators of. And Yeah. I think if you can't picture a life, and I'm thinking about the the person that you helped with their first home and now they wanna be, landlords. . That's amazing.

What an amazing story that you have changed the world. You've changed the trajectory of that person's life. What a gift. Yeah. That's a awesome, And so when you really look at it fear can be a motivat. , but it's not sustainable, right? , fear comes from that survival, our limbic system.

Cause we're used to looking for lions around the corner and whether we need to run really fast to get away from them. But when you think about the Thrive mind Which is really the hope. There has to be a strong connection to what your future state is. And so what does your future life look like? And I would tell you, stop and think about it.

And if you can't see very far, cause you're in that consumer mode instead of creator mode, as you say, the couch potato versus the climber. , what can you do in the next month? , what can you do in the next week? What's can you do in the next day? What can you do in the next hour?

And how do you get yourself to take those, the smallest next step that you can to start creating momentum? And if you can get yourself into that mindset. , I have a responsibility because I have now declared that this is where I want to go and I had, this is my vision for my life. Then just figure out how you take that one very next step, no matter how small that increment is, because that is your responsibility.

You have a choice. You can either stay on the couch or you can go climb the mountain that you're meant to go climb. 

[00:20:46] Ryan: You said all the things I talk about on a daily basis. It's amazing. You're like reading my mind . I boil it down to one simple thing. Do one tiny thing, sit down, what do you wanna change in your life?

And it could be something as I wanna change my wardrobe or whatever. . But taking that baby step of saying, I'm gonna do something today for that. It's huge, but until you start making a step forward or a step off the couch, nothing can change. And something I say unfortunately and I say unfortunately, is because I'd like to be able to help everybody, but I know I can't.

. And when someone comes to me and they're struggling financially and they're like, I want you to do all the work, and I'm like clearly we're not on the same page. So I just have to let 'em know, Hey, we'll be here when you're. Yep. And they say, What does that mean? And I said, Because when you're ready to take the step into your financial freedom, or what you're trying to accomplish will be your guide.

We're not gonna do the work. We're not gonna put in all the effort that's you. We're gonna support you gonna be a cheerleader, hold you accountable. We can do everything but do the work. And most of the responses are. And I'm like, Yes, Because guess what? I've gotta do that for my own life too. I've gotta hold myself responsible for everything I do on a daily basis.

So do you, So does everyone else. And that just brings up whole other conversation cuz we know how that goes back and forth. But Yeah, 

[00:22:06] Jerry: it's I'm with you. It's amazing. When people try and outsource the success of their own life to other people , it's Huh, Wait, hold on. I had a a CEO that was interested in working with me.

This is, this was last year sometime. And I said what do you need from me in an engagement? And very similar to you. This person said I need you to motivate me. And I said that, that is not what, That is not what I do. Let's, let us be clear about that. You have to come with the motivation.

I may inspire from time to time. That's cool. We can inspire each other. . But if you are not motivated to, to make changes and to take action. This is, you don't need a guy like me. You don't need a guy like Ryan to help you, get into the dream home that you wanna have and, start your path to financial freedom.

If you're not willing to go do the work yourself, it's not ever going to happen. So stop being sad. Just accept that it's your life on your terms. If you wanna sit on the couch, I can't stop you from doing that. Yep. And I think about, In anything, you're only one half of the relationship. You live yourself in relation to someone else.

. And so I can only bring so much into the conversation, but if you're not willing to come do the work either, then it doesn't matter. And so I have to accept that Ryan doesn't wanna do the work. , I can love him, I can support him, I can do all the things, give him the tools and resources. But if you don't wanna do the work, doesn't matter.

I. I'm stuck. 

[00:23:37] Ryan: And that's where you draw that healthy relationship, that space where you have to step back and say, Hey, I'll give you the tools. I'll give you everything you need to succeed. You've gotta do the work. And until you do that work, there's not much more I can do for my aspect. And people struggle with that.

They're like, What? You're leaving me, leaving me behind. I had one guy tell me, Yeah, you're leaving me behind. I'm like, I'm not leaving you behind. You've gotta get up and say you're ready and actually do that work. And it's sad to see people that way, but at the same. I want to put my time and effort into the individuals that want the help and will do the help Oh's, right?

I should do the work. Excuse me. And unfortunately, some people are just not gonna do that. And I get that. And when I first got into the nonprofit space in, in doing the financial coaching, it was struggle. It was a tough struggle because I wanted to help everybody. We've evolved and I think that's where everything comes from when I talk about change coaching and so forth, is we all have it within ourselves.

It's a matter of do you wanna apply it and move forward? . Yeah. So 

[00:24:42] Jerry: how bad do you want the future state? And, I have this whole model about the nine principles of personal performance and how high achievers live their life. One of the principles is that you have to have grit, guts, and resilience.

. Discipline. While I loved jca Wilmack and extreme ownership, right 0.5% of the universe has discipline for discipline's. And they're all Navy Seals and thank God for them. Cause you know, they're amazing. For all the rest of us, the bigger connection we have, the emotional connection that we have to our why, which is our vision and our values, the easier it is to pick yourself up and off the ground To say, Oh, yeah, I got knocked down, but I'm still headed in this direction.

That's my North star and I'm gonna continue to move there. And when you don't have that, then it's easy to give. When you have no direction or no velocity, then it's easy to just stay on the ground and be like, Oh, no one really gives a shit anyway, So I, I guess I'll just stay here. And so I just the more you can stay connected to your vision and your values, the better your quality of life is going to become.

So start there. When you start thinking about where is that first step, sit down and ask yourself the question. What do I wanna get out of life and what am I willing 

[00:25:56] Ryan: to give? And that, those you would think are very I don't wanna say very, but they should be somewhat easy, especially as you get older in life.

You could start understanding, you've been through some stuff. A lot of people can't answer that. Because the first thing is I always ask is, what do you wanna change? What do you wanna do? I joke about it. What do you wanna do when you grow up? It's truly that. Every day we get to reinvent ourselves cuz we wake up.

We should be blessed and happy that we get to wake up and you get to go make a difference in the world. Look at life that way because guess what, we only get one shot at life and that's. Why not be happy? As you say, go out and enjoy and bring, bring happiness and smile on your face and have the most fun

you got. We could go down this rabbit hole and keep on going. Keep on. So I wanna talk more about your, you're, what you're gonna do to impact 5 million people and how that's going and what can I help or what can we do to get the word out there or whatever the case is. I. That, that's a great goal.

, a lot of people could benefit from your knowledge and experience. 

[00:27:00] Jerry: Thanks, Ryan. That's incredibly you. I've always been in senior leadership inside every company. I've been super lucky in, in that regard. And I was brought in to run a business where I loved the work that I was doing.

I loved the people that I was serving, and I just had values misalign. With the owner of the company, right? And that's okay. He's a great guy. Occasion. Occasionally I still mess message him, but our approaches were vastly different. And it was the first time in my life where I was like, Man, I just don't really the work that I'm doing.

And it had never occurred to me that people wouldn't like their work. But the reality of it is, 75% of people don't really like showing up to work every single day. And what I realized through that experience was I was not the best husband that I could be to my wife. I was not the best father.

I certainly wasn't the best friend cuz I didn't feel like, going out and having a beer with someone. And so it, it's when I really got committed to say, business doesn't have to be like this. Why? Why do people show up to their work every single day not enjoying it? And I really come back to it's because people are not prepared to lead their companies.

As my friend Nathan Adams who runs Red T Homes out in Denver, he said to me, Jerry, there's no training to be ceo. And I said, Nathan, you're right. And that's really what I'm working on is how do you create frameworks because frameworks are repeatable, scalable, and bring predictable success.

And so it's why I have the nine principles of personal performance cuz at the foundation of every company is our people. We have to have business models. And so the model that I've used to scale the businesses that I've been involved in, I've built that framework, the business acceleration. And the thing that glues those two things together is great leadership.

. And that's the place where moving from individual contributor to leader. I think a lot of people get that wrong. There's a lot of people that are great at the work and great at doing, they're doing, but they're not a great at leading people. And so if I can teach people over the next five. How to become a high performer, living your life on your terms so that you just love what you're doing and you show up in the authentic way that you're meant to go show up in the world and to help leaders to show up in a predictable way so that their environment is fertile to make engaged, autonomous, and agile decisions for their people.

It's not that hard, just give people the rules of the game and then get the heck outta their way. And then business models by which we can look and say, Ah, if I pull this, What's gonna happen in the business and, we can really understand how to do that. If I can give people those frameworks over the next five years, I am certain that we're gonna positively impact 5 million people.

And that's really the goal. I want everyone to go home and I want them to say, You know what? I love my company. And my CEO is so smart. I'm so clear on how I win every day. I feel challenged by the work that I'm doing. I'm comfortable that I have the tools, time, and training to be successful and I really feel cared for as a human being inside this business.

I can't believe I get paid every week to do this . If we can do that, and all of our people go home every single day feeling that. Then that's a win. That's how you create that compelling company. And compelling companies always outperform when you talk to people about all these just incredible stories of teams coming together.

It's all because they love the people that they're involved with and they're aligned with the mission that we're on and the impact that we're gonna go make together. So helping people do that's what I'm all about. 

[00:30:36] Ryan: Sign me up. I'm ready. , you're in. 

[00:30:40] Jerry: You're in. I'm in. 

[00:30:41] Ryan: I love it. Thank you. I'm in. That's Growing up in corporate America I struggled.

Going from being a worker bee to a leader and understanding the difference between a manager and a leader I learned on, I learned very early, I had some great bosses and I don't know if we talked out in the pre-roll, but one time my bosses came to my office, closed the door, and said, Put brain and gear before mouth opens because I would just have zero filter.

And I, to this day still remember that. I will always remember that, but when you humanize the people that are doing the work for you, It becomes so much easier to be a better leader. And sometimes you do have to be a manager, cuz you're gonna have to micromanage. When I say micromanage, you got that 20% of people and they talk about it.

I even, I define it even further. It gets down to 10 and eight and nine, nine and 8% just for the simple fact. I can, I could probably manage the, that top portion of that 20% pretty well, get them back on track and get 'em into being productive. That bottom 10%, God would have to jump in me to get them to do what we need to do.

And that there's two things that are in that, me as a leader and two as a hiring practice. And I learned that in corporate America in a very long time. Is. If you don't set yourself up for success, right outta the beginning, right outta the shoot for hiring, understanding the type of personality you need and the person the personnel support that you're gonna need to be successful.

It doesn't happen. And that was so huge in call centers cuz call center turnover rate is anywhere between 20 and 30% on a good day. Yes. And add in, I was doing collections, originations back office. You had all those dynamics in there and it's no wonder why these people turnover cuz you didn't put that right.

So p together on the front end and find that ideal person and then start working around it and. It's hard. That's leadership in itself. But you are back. Sorry, my crux is, and I went down a rabbit hole is no you're great. Transitioning from a worker be to a leader is hard and some people just can't do it.

It's, I have to be realistic because I've trained many people or try to groom them for management and some people just don't have the Yeah. 

[00:32:55] Jerry: And that's. I say this all the time what we get wrong inside companies is that we only think about the path to progression as people leadership.

Yeah. We need past for individual contributors so that they can feel good and feel, that they're continuing to progress inside their career as well. And, to the point that you're talking about, do you know, when do you know where a good diet starts at 

[00:33:14] Ryan: the. 

[00:33:16] Jerry: Start, It starts at the gro.

It starts at the grocery store, right? Yeah. If you put the right things in your cart, you can't ro you can't eat the wrong things. The same thing with a great company. A great company starts with your hiring practice. And if you are not incredibly intentional about the process, and I tell people this all the time, I don't hire people, I invite people on the mission that we.

He, Here's where we're going. We're gonna go positively impact 5 million people over the next five years through better business. We're very clear about what it is that we're doing. Everyone who's involved with me knows that we're very clear about what it is that we're doing. And so if someone is not performing, we're gonna love them.

We're gonna address behaviors and tie it to vision, values, or objectives where they're missing the mark and if for whatever reason, their world has changed. Then we're gonna say very lovingly, Hey Ryan, this is not working out. And we disin invite you from the mission and cuz our responsibility is to continue to bring people in who are aligned on that approach, who are gonna go make that impact and are gonna help us go make and achieve that.

It's 

[00:34:26] Ryan: the only way to go about it. And we struggle with that too, man. We could talk for hours on this stuff. This is , But this is life. This is don't know how to describe it. It's sometimes you can just boil it down to one simple thing, common sense, and then work from there. And I know common sense is broad, but.

It really, for me, it boils down to is how well do you treat your employees or others that you work with. And then hu the humanization piece is what really got me early on in my career. Cuz before it was it was more about turning the numbers, making sure I hit goals. But then once I realized, I got out on the collection floor and I started interacting with the agents and I started working directly with, a coach and starting to start.

getting knee deep in, in the weeds with the people. Everything changed. And my perspective changed, My management style changed even though I. Typically on calls all day, my door was always open. I would have employees come in and wanna sit down and just chat with me and talk to me about something going on and give me some updates so then we could make some decisions and say, Okay, do we need to, do, we need to make adjustment on the dialer campaign or the text messaging campaign, whatever.

It was just a lot easier to be a leader when you actually humanize the people that you're working. 

[00:35:37] Jerry: Yesterday, So I'm in the middle of delivering a course that I call the Leadership Gap. And so I have I do it as a cohort so people go through it together and there's accountability, but we were talking about making sure that people are talking inside an organization.

I said, Our goal is to build world class relationships with our employees. That should always be your mindset is how do we build world class relationships? So I was writing. 23 ideas about how to build world class relationships with your people. , and like never lunch alone. Always bring your employees to lunch.

Don't ever talk about work and make sure that you buy lunch. Make sure that your employees, what their spouse's name is, what their interests are. , what their kids do, how old their kids are. You have to actually just give a shit about your people. Yep. And if you don't, that's okay. Just be an individual contributor.

But if you are gonna go into leadership, then you actually have to genuinely care and be curious about your people, because again, all of your work is done through your. You're not doing the doing anymore. Your work is supporting your people, giving them clarity on what it is that they do, challenge, support, comfort, all of those fun things.

[00:36:49] Ryan: It's funny, and we can wrap this piece up is I worked for several large. I want to call 'em, they're probably Fortune fifties. And one of the things they did was, they called it EOS Employee Opinion surveys. And it was always funny to see right when it came out, couple weeks before my peer group, my boss, all of them are trying to bribe people and so forth.

And I typically was, I was typically in the top five percentile in, in my peer group. And I even outran some of my VPs that I worked for. It's funny. and they're like what do you do? I get out on the floor and I talk to people, I interact with them. I have meetings, I have team meeting. I literally would I change some of the ways we did things just from team meetings where the team leader and the coach were actually holding their team leader or holding their team meetings on a weekly basis.

I would show up, sit down and just listen and be a fly on the wall. And if something that would, that need to be said, I would say it. But otherwise I was just there to absorb and. and that's where I learned a lot of that stuff. And it's like that just translated to all my other positions and it allowed me to grow quicker in corporate America.

. But it didn't, and then we're back to this other piece. It didn't allow me to stop chasing the paycheck cuz it, the paychecks start coming, they start getting bigger. You get quarterly, annual bonuses, you're. Now an officer corporation, you've got different responsibilities. And the one piece that never left me was I wanted to be part of the people and let them know that, they're humans just like I am.

But the chasing of the paycheck was the piece that kind of just, it went straight down. It just killed me. 

[00:38:24] Jerry: I think I think it's really interesting. I was just having this conversation with a leader recently. You know when Covid happened , we understood very clearly that people had mistaken comfort for security.

And so it was very comfortable that I got paid on the 15th and 30th every month. And what I mistook that for was security. Security And then the world changed and businesses had to pivot and they laid people off and suddenly that check was not showing up on the 15th and 30th anymore.

And I think we have to get out of our mindset that a paycheck is security. It's comfortable, but it is not secure. Businesses change their minds all the time, every single day, and no one is indispensable to any business. And. The only way that I have found to become indispensable to a business is or at least not fire yourself, is to actually start the business and be the owner

[00:39:19] Ryan: And that is the only way, signing the front of the check, versus the back of the check. It is, we go into a whole nother conversation, but it's true. But and we'll, and I'll digress a little bit and we'll finish up is me as a. I'm, I struggle with being an individual contributor.

I really do. As an entrepreneur, I struggle with that. I have virtual assistants, I have, some project managers, but they're all remote. So you, I've learned how to manage them in a different light. And now we're looking at okay, having project managers on the ground, they're gonna be reporting, there's a lot of different.

and probably the first four years of being an entrepreneur and being an IND individual contributor, I sucked. I really did. just, there was no way around it because I'm used to having support staff and people around me that I could delegate to, and it's like, Man, I gotta do all this work myself.

Crap, how do I do this? So it taught me how to prioritize better, schedule, better be able to manage some of the things that I didn't wanna manage better, to where then I could hand it off to somebody once I knew how to do it. . So today, anything that comes in the door that I have to physically do before it goes out to my VA or a project manager, I do, I might wanna make sure I can master it and then I can put a video together for them, an so p documentation, whatever.

So they're set up for success. is truly changed the way I manage also. Yeah, 

[00:40:40] Jerry: I th I think you're right. I look at the course of my career and the levers that you can pull in creating scale, people is one. And when I started this business one of the first hires I made was my assistant, cuz I hated administrative stuff.

It's not a great use of my time, but Maria loves being organized and she's great at it and I love having her. She's amazing. But, levers in the business you can people is one. Training is another. Better systems in process is another. And my favorite is technology. How do you automate things?

How do you create scale? But those are the four levers that I have found in creating scale in the business. And the real trick is, Ryan, how do I put an ounce in and get a pound out, right? And so the more operational leverage I have. The more outputs I'm getting for every unit of effort I'm putting in.

And I think, we're, coming back to entrepreneurs we're told this dream of work hard and harder, keep on working 50 hours, 60 hours. It's okay, to what end? Just so I can stack Benjamins into my bank account. Yeah. That's cool. Awesome. Not at the cost of all the other things that happen when you do that.

And so you have to figure out how you can increase your productivity through your levers. 

[00:41:54] Ryan: Amen. Do all that. So we're gonna wrap it up here. We're hitting top of the hour and we're about an hour long here. So how could everybody get a hold of you? 

[00:42:04] Jerry: Yeah, the easiest place is to go to proven chaos.com. That is my main website.

And then like you, I also have a show called Best Places to lead.com where I get to interview, award-winning CEOs and thought leaders, people who have had their teeth bashed in and live to tell about it and share it with all the rest of us. My brother gave me the best advice I've ever gotten.

He loved to party more than he loved to go to school. And so when he went off to the Navy after failing out of college, he looked at me cuz we shared a room. He's eight years older than I am. And he said Jerry, learn from my mistakes. I made them for you. I was like, Damn, I don't have to get my teeth bashed in.

I can just learn from other people. And that, that's what I try and do with best places to lead. It's part of the mission to positively impact 5 million people. So those are the two best places to find 

[00:42:54] Ryan: me. I will make sure we put both those in the show notes so they're linked there so people can find it.

And. We'll make sure we get the word out about your podcast too, cuz that'll be really good. And I'll joke in aside, if someone wants to be impacted by what you're doing, would they come to your website and just reach out to you and just put an interest in there, contact us, whatever?

Or is there another way. Go about that. You know 

[00:43:15] Jerry: what the best place to, to come is if you go to proven chaos every Thursday from two to three o'clock at Eastern time. And this goes back to November, 2019. I've been doing this so nearly three years. Okay. I run office hours and it's an opportunity for senior leaders.

We come together. Anything you have going on, you don't just get me, I show up every week, but. You get whoever is available that week, I think there's been more than 250 entrepreneurs and senior leaders who have come and shown up. And you get people say, You know what, Ryan, I had that same situation. Let me give you the guy that you need to talk to or, Hey, go check out this website.

And so you get people. Just willing to help each other and make the world a better place. And that's a great place for an introduction to come. Again, every Thursday, two to three o'clock, it's right at the top banner of proven chaos.com. You can register and come join us. 

[00:44:06] Ryan: I, You got me sold.

I'd love to come and check it out. Come, 

[00:44:10] Jerry: It's amazing. It's been an amazing community. In fact last year, let's think, we had 15 CEOs come in from all over the country to Jacksonville, which is where I live. , And it was all based around people who had met at office hours and they were like, You need to do something.

This is, this would be amazing if we could all come together. And I put that together in February. We're gonna do it again this year too. And so I would love for you, You'd be a great, you'd be a great guest to come hang out with us. So please do that. 

[00:44:38] Ryan: I will check it out.

Is it, is there one on this week? Yeah every 

[00:44:42] Jerry: week. We miss every week Thanksgiving. We miss Thanksgiving, we miss, occasional holidays or if I'm traveling maybe. But e even then, like the community I'll put out to the community, Hey, is there anyone available to host office hours?

And there's a handful of people that are really amazing leaders will say Yeah, I'll run office hours this week. It's become bigger than me, which is super cool to watch. 

[00:45:02] Ryan: That's awesome. I will come check it out for sure. That's that. That's great. There's entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur, I can never get enough help.

Cuz I know don't know everything and I'm never gonna pretend to know everything. But at the end of the day, and this, and I'll end on this, if you don't have some type of mentor in your life as an entrepreneur, you're missing out. I have two right now and I potentially could get three or four.

I don't know, maybe. That's awesome. I find one, maybe I find one off of office hours. I don't know, but. How do you continue to grow as a human being, entrepreneur, whatever you're doing, whatever your craft is. If you are not talking to somebody or spending time with other people, like you said, that have already made the mistakes and have already learned from it, and can share their knowledge, that's huge.

[00:45:46] Jerry: It is huge. It's it is a gift to have people show up every week cuz it's man, this is so cool, so fun. Get to see all these unique things that are happening in the world. And as I always say, you never quite know what's gonna happen in office hours. I was talking to a friend of mine this morning, he birthed a business out of off office hours.

Wow. He was like, off the re the reason I have the business that I'm in now is because I started coming to office hours and that to me is pretty cool. 

[00:46:14] Ryan: That is really cool. That's cool. I will come check it out. I first have to, work on your podcast, make sure it gets out, and we get that launched out.

The But Jerry, thank you for coming on at the last moment. I am honored. It's been a blast talking to you. You have a lot of knowledge and I will make sure we get. And you get to impact as many people as you can, not 5 million. Thank you. Make it 10 million. 

[00:46:36] Jerry: Thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate you and your approach, and this has been super fun.

I get to be on these every once in a while and some people are good hosts and ask good questions and some not as good. And you're certainly on the upside of of people that have, I've been spending some time with, so thank you 

[00:46:52] Ryan: For that. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. I'm honored.

So have a great one and keep impacting more people on a daily basis. See ya. See ya.