Empowering Growth: Remote Talent and Innovative Leadership with Robert Levin

Unlock the transformative potential of remote talent for your small business with insights from Robert Levin, co-founder and chairman of Work Better. Robert reveals how letting go and empowering his team has not only driven significant business growth but also bridged US companies with skilled professionals from Latin America. From virtual assistants to an expansive suite of over 40 roles, discover heartwarming success stories that highlight the profound impact of remote work in overcoming the US talent crisis.

Navigate the complexities of business growth amid rapid technology shifts and pandemic-driven changes. We tackle the importance of acquiring new capabilities like AI and IT security and how real-time data analysis is reshaping competitiveness. Reflecting on personal experiences, we unravel the dangers of founder syndrome and the liberating power of stepping back to let your team shine. By sharing lessons learned, we champion a leadership style that fosters innovation and independence.

Embrace a fresh perspective on leadership and entrepreneurship. Balance commitment with detachment, allowing room for mistakes as growth opportunities. Mindfulness and meditation are not just buzzwords—they're transformative practices that improve decision-making and strengthen relationships. We champion mission-driven businesses with core values that guide decisions, drawing on resources like "Who Not How" by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy to enhance delegation and productivity. Enrich your entrepreneurial journey by leveraging the expertise of others, embracing intuition, and creating a more fulfilling business and personal life.

Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertslevin/
Guest Website: http://www.workbetternow.com

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Remote Talent Solutions for Small Businesses
• 10:16 Navigating Challenges in Business Growth
• 18:17 Leadership Lessons and Self-Reflection
• 29:22 Building Mission-Driven Businesses
• 36:10 Leveraging Expertise for Business Growth

Transcript

Robert Leving: 0:00

I let go so much more than when I did my first entrepreneur. Yet the company has grown so much more and the impact we're making is unbelievable. And I think a big part of it, yes, strategy helps and got lucky in a sense with timing, but a lot of it had to do with letting go, how we can support them and let them do their thing. So a different version of founders.

Nico: 0:36

Let me invite you Sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within In a few seconds. You just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, rob Levin. Welcome to the show. Rob, I am so excited to talk to you. You've got a very good company title. Talk about that. I think that's interesting. Tell us who you are, but tell us about your company.

Robert Leving: 1:34

Rob Levin, the co-founder and chairman of Work Better. I'm new with my co-founder, who is a co-owner, who I've known since college.

Nico: 1:45

We started in 2018.

Robert Leving: 1:46

I'm here with my co-founder, who is Cone, who I've known since college. We started in 2018. What we do is provide credible remote talent in America for US-based small and mid-sized businesses. I've spent almost 30-plus years either working in and or serving small and mid-sized businesses. It's small space that I love. I'm here in New York, partners in LA, you other people in the States and the rest of our team is black.

Nico: 2:17

Okay, that's interesting. Is that an easy way of working between those different timelines and across the country?

Robert Leving: 2:24

It's. I don't know if it's easy or hard. It's not necessarily harder for us. We've been doing this since day one, and time zones are actually not a big deal, because we're all in the same.

Robert Leving: 2:36

We're all within two, maybe three time zones. The world is getting smaller and that's partly why we started the company the in the US, here in the us. Here in the us, there'sa talent crisis. There's just not enough great talent when a small business every seat not only us, but our 240 or so clients leveraging talent in latin america and going great.

Nico: 3:04

That's interesting. So if you're saying Latin America, what kind of countries are we talking about? Is that?

Robert Leving: 3:13

Brazil, mexico, brazil, mexico, argentina, colombia, el Salvador, jamaica. For us here in the States, it's really south.

Nico: 3:27

Okay, so what does it actually? How does something like this happen? Because if you're saying that you need to find people over there to come to the US to actually Sorry, I didn't explain that part.

Robert Leving: 3:42

They work remotely from their home.

Nico: 3:45

Oh, okay, so they're actually all virtual, all virtual, cool. And what kind of jobs, kind of roles are we talking about here?

Robert Leving: 3:54

Yeah, so when we started, we actually started with just one role. It was debt to the system. Our belief was, and still is, that every business owner should have to talk more about that, that later and actually that. So we then, after a couple of years, and some of our clients were hiring several people and I knew with these clients I would call them up and say, hey, how many? I know business is good, how many you really need? And they said, rob, you don't understand. I hired an assistant, but it turned out that person's great in marketing, so put them in marketing.

Robert Leving: 4:28

We hired somebody else from you trained them Turnout, that person created customer service. So, anyway, then we pivoted a little bit. Now we provide over 40 roles, and what I love about what we're doing is it comes down to our mission. Our mission is to help outstanding talent and outstanding companies fulfill their dream, and what we love to hear when we have our weekly meeting is client stories and the stories from our what we call our remote professional 100 plus people that are working for our clients.

Robert Leving: 5:03

From the remote professionals we're hearing things like I'm finally doing work, I'm making more money, a lot more money than I used to, and I was able to buy a car from my parents and then from the company.

Robert Leving: 5:15

Those are just companies and a lot. I know a lot of these business owners. Many of them are friends. It's hey, I got the talent I need and these people are amazing, these people are among my best performers. It's just, what more can you ask for when we actually have, in a sense, two sets of customers our talent, our workforce and our clients and we hear that we're impacting their lives? It just doesn't get any better.

Nico: 5:41

Henry Suryawirawan, but it's very nice to hear because there's a lot of different stories going on in the world that are completely different than what you're saying right now. So you were saying earlier that your company was basically started because of the idea of finding an assistant for an executive. That's what I understand for business owners, but you think it's certainly our world is small, mid-sized business don't work.

Robert Leving: 6:04

Yeah, of course you can have executives, and that's what I understand For business owners.

Nico: 6:06

but it certainly includes business owners. Our world is small and mid-sized business.

Robert Leving: 6:08

Of course you can have executives in small and mid-sized businesses too. It's just that belief that every business owner, and senior executives too, should have an assistant.

Nico: 6:18

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I have my own virtual assistant, who is not that virtual because she's actually sitting in the same office. My partner is also working remotely as assistant for several. She's virtual executive assistant. In any case. She's not only doing administrative support, but she's also doing other things. And why I ask the question is because I've been in business since 2016. I've been in business, which was 2016,. I've been in business, which was more like a side hustle in the beginning, and in 2019, I really launched my company and it took me over two years to realize that I need an executive assistant, because I was doing everything myself. Now, the extra layer there was that I learned that I need a team of executive assistants who are experts, each in their own part of business. So if you're talking about these roles, are you leading them as well? Are you supporting them in a leadership role, or are they really individual and contributing?

Robert Leving: 7:27

I'm not sure I'm following the question. Are you asking what our role is after we connect them? Personally, for instance yeah, Me personally, my role in the company. I don't know if you're familiar with EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operator.

Nico: 7:43

Oh no.

Robert Leving: 7:44

It's like a framework for running a business.

Nico: 7:46

Oh, I think I've heard of it.

Robert Leving: 7:47

Yes, yes, I've been using that now for two years, and among the things that the EOS framework calls for is a company. You need a visionary and you need an integrator.

Robert Leving: 8:00

I'm the visionary of the company. I'm the one who's looking forward, thinking about the new products, thinking where the market's going. I'm actually working on a book right now about talent in small business. That's my role. Yes, I get involved in other things, of course. My partner is the CEO and the integrator and he's really the one responsible for making everything happen. And he's really the one responsible for making everything happen. All right, rob, you said that. Rob said that we're. These are the types of customers we need focusing on. I'm just using a simple now let's. He makes sure we're doing it. I talked since day one about creating wow experiences for our talent, for our clients, and again, he leads really the entire company to do that. As far as our role at Work, better Now our role is there's multi-steps here. Number one we have a great employer brand and it's we're recruiting. It varies month to month, but we're recruiting from about 15, 16.

Robert Leving: 9:01

And we have a great reputation and it starts there because that helps us attract great talent. Then our recruiting department screens 4,000 to 5,000 applicants. That recruiting department screened that down to about 1% to 2% that we feel are now proved that we're going to be rolling out a new term soon called Certified Remote Specialist. They're proved to interview with our clients and then we tailor match several candidates, usually three candidates each role that our clients are to fill, and then our client or prospective client hires at least one and then they incorporate that individual as any other member of their team. They're working remotely and instead of working remotely.

Robert Leving: 9:50

If you're a company in New Jersey, they're a California company in New Jersey and they're somewhere in Columbia, right? And then what we are now rolling out, very excited about this this was an idea that I had two years ago and we're probably putting it. Making it happen is we're rolling out the WBN Academy. What is the W? Before I even tell you what it is, just I want to set the stage.

Robert Leving: 10:16

Business is changing at an ever-increasing rate. Everything's changing and the pandemic accelerated those already fast-moving changes. So customer patients are changing, the way employees want to be led and managed that's changing. Technology, of course, is leading a lot of this change, so on and so forth, and because of this, companies need to acquire new capabilities. You don't always think about it that way. You need to acquire these. It security is a big issue, right, and it's changing. You need to acquire those capabilities, whether you have them in-house or you hire. In the States, we call it an MSP, an IT company. It doesn't matter, but you need those. Now we have something called AI, which is transforming. It is in the process of transforming business, maybe more than any other technology. Businesses are going to need to learn how to use AI. They need to constantly acquire new.

Nico: 11:14

No, it's fine. It's very interesting that you take that step because indeed, something that's it's very prevalent, very applicable at this point in time. I'm experienced the same issue in an organization I work for right now, where it's very clear that the people who are learning and, for instance, in this case, it's ai and data management, and especially where in the let's say, in the olden days, we had KPIs and KPIs were something you had to strive for, et cetera, et cetera People did analysis on these KPIs, but they have come more or less to a point where they become alive. So you need to respond a lot more quicker and you need to be able to adapt to those things. So one of the ways is really asking the question to an ai system and saying, okay, what do you see? Because we sometimes you get blindsided by whatever's presented to you and you don't see what the background is. It's one of the things that I've been studying and been working on is with a founder syndrome, where a founder or a CEO can be both of them get supplied with KPIs or with Excel sheets that have more green and yellow than the actual real red that's behind them, where AI will be non-biased and actually blur it out and say that sector you're doing really well, but you're going to have that issue in x amount of time. So I understand what you mean by by creating an environment where you can learn and continuously learn.

Nico: 12:46

It's one of the reasons I stepped out of it. To be honest, I worked in it for 15 years and it was, at the end going so fast with all the I worked in the Microsoft Windows environments and so on infrastructure and the changes were switching so fast that I couldn't follow anymore. I was doing support, but I was always also doing sales. I was doing architecture. I had already I was already short on the ball because of all the new.

Nico: 13:13

Like you said, when you're having the evangelist in your environment, there's a lot of stuff that you get to know a lot more quicker than, finally, the people that implement it. But it's a good thing to hear that you're taking that strategy. Now, coming back to founder syndrome. I don't know if you've heard the name founder syndrome, something that does resonate in the world these days, and if you've had any issues with that, because if you're a co-founder, you probably saw your company grow, but at some point you must have taken a couple of decisions that must have been a little bit harder than just say, okay, let's go with the flow here. Is there any situation in the past that you actually met like that?

Robert Leving: 13:55

When I hear the term founder syndrome, another thing comes to mind. So, if you don't mind, I want to share this experience. I actually started my career as an accountant 30 years ago and I finally started my own company, first venture myself in 2000. And it was a media company. It was a magazine here in New York. It was very well known. We had a large readership, had national advertisers, which doesn't happen local or regional and it.

Robert Leving: 14:29

But it wasn't very successful. It really wasn't. And I spent 10 years, 10 prime years, in that business and I had probably a different version of it. It was felt like I had to get involved in everything, and I'm not saying that's the reason we weren't successful. It certainly didn't help, right, Not to mention it took a huge toll on my health and my wellbeing. I just felt like I had to be involved in everything and fast forward.

Nico: 14:59

I exited that business in late 2013, early 2014, right around, actually, when I got my first assistant. And then I started this business in 20.

Robert Leving: 15:08

And my partner and I, we started this totally different approach. Yes, when we started out, it was him and my assistant who was stepping in. She's now the general business. Myself and those two guys were really doing most of the work, but as we started to grow as the business really, started to have a show that we had a future. I got a lot more involved in the business and it became very clear to partner's name is Andrew became very clear to AC and myself.

Robert Leving: 15:42

What we need to do now is it's got to be much less about us and we got to bring on the right people. We got to give them the resources, give them the support, give them the leadership, and one of the amazing things is I let go so much more than what I did with my first entrepreneur. Yet the company has grown so much more.

Robert Leving: 16:03

We just got 114,000, I mean 5,000. And the impact we're making is unbelievable and I think a big part of it yes, strategy helps and got lucky in a sense with timing, but a lot of it had to do with letting go and people, how we can support them and let them do their thing. So a different version of founder syndrome, yeah it's a part of it.

Nico: 16:28

Absolutely. It hits a little bit in the direction of micromanagement, where you can figure out in a really little detail and messing with with stuff that people are thinking about, but actually you think it should be different, because it's your baby which is logical. You don't want to let your baby be run by somebody else. So what was the actual trigger point? I'm going to give you an example of what one of our previous guests actually explained. He had an emergency, so he had to fly out and leave his company behind for a couple of months because there was a family emergency in another country. And when he left he said I had somebody who could run the place, just keep it smoothly running and nothing special. When he came back, he actually sold the whole funnel out that he was struggling for almost a year to get his customers in. So what was that point for you? Do you have any idea what triggered it?

Robert Leving: 17:21

It's a great question, the first thing that came to mind, by the way, I want to tell the story because I think entrepreneurs hopefully learn from it. So I mentioned I had a media company and we made our money based on selling advertising. Two after we started. So I had salespeople, but if it was an important pitch, I went on. I realized that because it was paid, because I had so much knowledge of the audience business owners in the New York area I would talk my way out of sales.

Robert Leving: 18:02

It took me a while to figure this out, so I realized all right, I'm only going to go on the absolute biggest opportunities where something custom has to be created. But even when I go on those meetings, I'm not saying it worked. I'm going to let the salesperson, even if he or she makes a mistake, they were. It turned out that because I wasn't so close to it, because they weren't as close to it as I was, they were able to be much more effective of salespeople. So that was maybe one of the first lessons that I learned and, by the way and I consider myself excellent- at sales.

Nico: 18:34

I wasn't.

Robert Leving: 18:35

When I started, I had a big sales training over here but I'm really good at it now. But I know now when to step aside because I just, you know, close to it and I also remember because I had this magazine for business owners and we featured successful business owners. I got to know a lot of these. My whole network, my whole world really are business today because of that experience and a lot of them very successful. Some that you've heard of you may have heard of some that you've never heard of that are really successful, and a lot of these people are my friends.

Robert Leving: 19:09

I got to watch how they were running and the more successful one, almost all of them none of them were involved in the detail and I took note of that. Maybe it took a little while, I had to bang my head a few times, I had lumps and bruises, but I took note of that and, yes, I will still jump in now. In fact, my team has said, rob, when you see something that you know because of your experience, you're able to recognize, let us know, because at some point, I was just like hey guys do what you want.

Robert Leving: 19:40

Now they, they, they're actually encouraging me. Hey see, something we want to learn from it, so jump in. But in general, I really just try to step back.

Nico: 19:50

Oh, it's nice it brings up a sentence that my coach told me it's um, being committed but not attached. So it's really being there and understanding the situation, but just being the neutral person that you're really there for the company but you're not trying to run the whole story and what you're saying is you actually, by taking the distance you're, probably when you say something, it'll have a lot more impact than when you were always in the little details. Yeah.

Robert Leving: 20:25

It doesn't only apply to business, applies to life as well. Right, true, I have two kids and I'm gonna be in there here all the time. They're not gonna listen. They probably will still say I'm in here and this was. It's funny you're mentioning this. You're really getting me to think here. I started meditating maybe 2015, 2016. I mean, I always took decent care of myself, but even take better care of myself, and I'm just less reactionary in general certainly in business, but just throughout everything Whereas I used to, didn't take much to set me off or to get just to get my blood pressure up, and maybe part of this is just getting a little older and wiser.

Nico: 21:06

I just I tried to step back from any situation instead of reacting. Henry Suryawirawan, was it? You probably did. You have kids at the time before. Oh yeah.

Robert Leving: 21:13

Henry.

Nico: 21:13

Suryawirawan, oh yeah, and did. What's the? What actually was the difference for you personally when you saw how you acted with your kids before, you realized these things and now it wasn't.

Robert Leving: 21:23

It wasn't just my kids, it was my wife. It was a lot of different situations. It's really what I said. It's I'm a lot less reactionary. It doesn't mean I I don't over, I don't react or overreact a little too quickly, because I would. I do, but I do it a lot less I'm able to. I heard a great expression from somebody. This was a guy who coaches professional athletes better and he's not athletic, and he told me something that I'll never forget. He said he was working with a goalie and his goal the hockey goalie was so that when the puck is coming, it's coming slowly to them and this big, and that it took a while for that to sink in. But I just love that we're able to get so in the moment, by not reacting to, you're able to see things much more clearly and then because of that, whatever action you do end up taking, it's usually a better and smarter action.

Nico: 22:24

I hope that makes sense. Yeah, it does to me. I hope it does for the listeners as well, because it's something that I recognize myself very much. I have two boys, 14 and 12. And a couple of years ago I was on their case the whole time. It was following up on details from school, following up on who their friends were, et cetera, et cetera, because it came from a good place.

Nico: 22:49

You want to give them the good life and you don't want them to experience the things that you didn't want to experience. But at some point you switch over and become overprotective where they don't experience their own issues that they can get through. And I find the same thing that happens with the team that I work with, that sometimes you really see them running straight for that concrete wall and you're going to make a mistake. But it's that point in time where you, as leader or manager or founder, shut up, just don't say anything. You have to let them walk into that wall and the lesson that they learn is 10 times more valuable. Might cost you a couple of bucks, of course, but it's something that sometimes, in the long run, is a gift, basically.

Robert Leving: 23:36

It should be the way that we're, whether it's family or business. It's the way we should be operating Again as long as it's catastrophic Exactly yeah. Should be operating again as long as it's traffic Exactly yeah. The only only way you learn, the way you largely learn, is by making mistakes.

Nico: 23:52

It's true, it's true. You're largely yeah, yeah, yeah, there's other ways as well, luckily, otherwise it would be difficult. You have to make every mistake that's possible to get something somewhere. Yeah, absolutely, I think it's a beautiful idea what you're doing right now. So did you actually? Um, it's not running right now yet.

Robert Leving: 24:13

Your academy, your the learning no, we did a pilot earlier this year, we did some pivots and we're about to roll it out next month okay, okay so this is the premiere we're getting from you.

Nico: 24:26

that's out there. Okay, it's probably launched by the time that this episode goes out through the air, but it's good to see that. And at this point, which stage of development is this? Are you actually already fully booked with a lot of content, or it's something that continuously evolves? Is it something that comes from your people themselves, or how do you handle that?

Robert Leving: 24:47

Yeah, no, it's a great question. We find a balance. What I mean by that is we had to rely. We decided to rely on third-party content because we're not going to be able to produce the content. That said, pick that third-party provider very carefully. In fact, we switched providers from when we did the pilot to when we were to launch. And then we are I use the word curating courses. We're evaluating them and then creating the course tracks In the most sense we think, for our profession, so we had to find that balance.

Robert Leving: 25:26

Look, it would be great if all the content came out. We're not geniuses at everything, right. So we found a great third-party provider. Plus, you need the right technology so that it's easy. Here's the device. A lot to it that, of course, we have to roll it out to our professionals.

Robert Leving: 25:41

We've got to talk to our clients about it. A lot of little steps it out to our professionals and kind of talk to our clients about it a lot of little steps, but and really what we're our job is to put it all together and make sure it's designed for the benefit for our professionals and then for so I what I'm thinking.

Nico: 25:59

I was thinking about, like the platforms, like linkedin learning. Is that also a system that you say this is added value? I see a lot of stuff on there that's created by person XYZ. Some of them are renowned people. Otherwise, you see individuals creating something. How do you curate between what is good, what is less good and, let's say, what can be?

Robert Leving: 26:24

moved aside, so the content has to be I used to I in between that media company and this one I also company that helped large businesses market small business content and I learned then that content, whether it's a blog that somebody's reading or it's a course, has to be excellent or you're going to check out. Just think back to your education right, when there was a bad teacher, you were checked out. Right, when there was a great teacher, you were bullied. So that's what we have. That's part of our curation process. Is this just telling us what we already know, and or is the instructor non-engaging or is it pushing us as part of the curation process?

Robert Leving: 27:12

My team knows on the marketing side here this is going away from the academy for a second when we're publishing content, that content's got to be great, it's got to be changing the point of view of the reader, otherwise I don't want to do it rate. It's got to be changing the point of view of the reader, otherwise I don't want to do it, and I had some discussions with some people who are no longer part of the company that they were like we just need to get this out for SEO purposes. We're not going to do that. You want to work in SEO terms where they make sense, great.

Nico: 27:41

I love hearing that, because I read a lot basically a lot of books, but I also read a lot of stuff online and, let's say, the last couple of years, I think the recycling of the same content all over the place has become exponential, and finding things that are unique, that really change your mind it's difficult, absolutely, and it's those things that are making the difference. Right now. I think you're probably going to jump out of a couple of screens instead of the mainstream same story that that always comes up. It's wonderful to hear that. I've got one question for you that I think is it's pretty interesting to ask, because these last days and I'm really talking about the last days I've been having these questions from several founders and general directors and so on from companies. So they were asking Nick, tell me, when is it enough, when is it enough people, when is it enough money? When is the company big enough? I wanted to ask you that same question Do you have a point of view on that?

Robert Leving: 28:51

I know I haven't reached that point, and the reason I say that is you know, I went from years ago personally from chasing money and there's nothing wrong with money, by the way, Nothing wrong with earning a lot of money, Whatever. I went from chasing money to chasing earnings, and our mission is to help Talent Greg. We feel we have so far to go. It's so just a quick little story. I hope this resonates. I got a call from a friend of mine. I used to do business with him. We used to be business partners in a small venture and and we've actually several ventures and and he said I'm finally ready to get an assistant.

Robert Leving: 29:36

And of course I'm calling you and I said I am so happy and I go. He goes, you have a lot of clients. Why are you so happy? I go, I'm happy because you're getting an assistant and it's going to change your life and I can't wait to get that call from you. Three months when you say to me, rob, I should have done this 10 years ago, that's what lights me up. We have a long way to go. We can impact a lot more people, impact a lot more companies. That's kind of the way I think about it. I also suppose that if it wasn't fun anymore, at least with this business, that might be a sign that it's fun. If you're working for yourself and it's not fun, that's really a shame. That's one of the reasons, probably with work for yourself.

Robert Leving: 30:28

And I can speak for AC, my partner as well. We're very fortunate that we're having a ton of fun. This doesn't mean that there's not plenty of fun. We're having a ton of fun. There's just no. We don't see the horizon ending. We can make it much bigger than that.

Nico: 30:48

It's a beautiful point of view right there when you're saying that the mission is what drives you and it's not all the rest, the accolades, the money and so on. It is necessary. Money is good. It's perfectly okay to have a lot of money because it makes you or it gives you the opportunity to actually build what you're building and creating that mission. My goal, one of my goals, basically, is striving to improve humanity one person at a time, and how I see that personally is by making sure that everybody that I work with can put a sandwich on the table for themselves and for their family, and that's what drives me and that's why I do what I do. Is there anything that you want to bring out there, you want to say to the listeners you want to leave behind right now?

Robert Leving: 31:42

You know, I think I just want to double down. Well, for entrepreneurs in particular, this is fresh in my mind writing a book on one of the topics. I can't tell you enough about how developing our mission and our core values has really helped shape our company and I think it's actually helped drive a lot of our growth. For example, our first core value was we're going to put our talent first, not our client.

Robert Leving: 32:14

There's a whole long story behind that and I actually think that has helped growth. And in our company the values are practiced every day. When we have staff meetings, values are coming up right, support people and recognize them based on how they are living our core values. And if you would have said this to me 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago, I'd be like, oh yeah, core values are important.

Nico: 32:43

Whatever, I got other things to do. I got to sell some.

Robert Leving: 32:46

And, yes, the best time to come up with your mission, your core values, is when near the beginning of the company. But the second best time, that is to you, don't have them, develop them, really put in the time to that. Get your team involved in a mission that really transcends your product or service, really talks about ultimate benefit that it's bringing world. And then core values that, to me, core values are the guiding force. When somebody has to make a decision, nobody else is around and those things have been really powerful for us and I just hope that the other entrepreneurs that are listening. If you have all that stuff locked down, that's great. Then you can go back to where you are. Don't really consider going back and maybe evolving your mission or really making them work for you.

Nico: 33:47

It's a beautiful message and I think indeed, it's a good emphasis of what you're saying. A lot of companies have these hanging around all over the place but nobody actually looks at them. I worked at IBM, for instance, and I know their core values were X, Y, Z, but they would never mention them in a meeting where I work. Now, In each meeting.

Nico: 34:09

I work in an environment where safety is the biggest thing that is needed. It's a nuclear power plant, so everybody wants that to be safe. So each meeting we actually see the core values on safety, safety, first, think about everything that you do, make it count, et cetera, et cetera. So it's something that really resonates with me as well that basically, you have to know clearly what everybody is working towards, Put the nose in the same direction. So, Rob, I think you guys are doing amazing things and I think there's a lot of people who could use your help, or help from your team or from the people that you actually put out there. Where can they find you? Is there anything specific that you want to tell them? Is there any links or anything like that you want to mention that we can put in the show notes for them?

Robert Leving: 34:59

Yeah, there's thanks for asking. There's a lot of content, hopefully at workbetternowcom. There's blogs, great guide on if you're looking to go use offshore, so workbetternowcom and then you can easily find me on cool cool.

Nico: 35:22

Thank you very much taking the time to have uh this chat with us. I think there's a couple of people out there who might be thinking of contacting you guys. I do know I have an audience in the us and I think might be a good idea, like I experienced, get somebody to do stuff for you instead of doing everything yourself. That's where you start I don't want to.

Robert Leving: 35:44

I know we're finishing up, but I want to throw another resource out. It's not mine. There's a great organization called huge fan. I'm also a client of Coach and there's a great book that he wrote with a guy named Ben Hardy, called who, not Al, and just the name alone should start to give you some ideas. It's a short read. Can't recommend it. Gets into something else called Unique Ability Two concepts, every business thanks for having me really great conversation yeah, I enjoyed it as well.

Nico: 36:21

Thank you very much for your time, rob, and to the listeners. It was a wonderful conversation. And really take the idea with you of getting somebody to assist you in your company, because I have had that personal experience very clearly that my life as an entrepreneur has become a lot better, a lot more stable, by getting somebody to do stuff that they are the experts in. And no, honestly, you don't know everything. And no, you don't have to do everything. Just get somebody to do it for you and don't think about how much time it's going to take. It's going to give you so much more. And, of course, remember to jump from your head to your heart and feel the beat within. Have a good one everybody. Bye-bye.