Pursuing Longevity through Innovation and Wellness with Michael Greenberg

What if your workplace dynamics could transform by simply shifting from micromanagement to empowerment? Join us as we promise a fresh perspective on turning excessive oversight into an empowering environment that aligns employees with company goals through self-awareness. We’re thrilled to have Michael Greenberg, CEO of Third Brain Auto, share his transformative journey from school dropout to successful entrepreneur. Hear how integrating AI into business operations became his secret weapon to overcome challenges, and discover his insights on resilience and finding one's unique strengths.

We also uncover the detailed blueprint needed to build a million-dollar business, emphasizing the significance of client conversion rates and strategic networking, even through platforms like Twitter. As we navigate the evolution of podcast editing tools such as Descript, we highlight the importance of staying technologically savvy to maintain a competitive edge. The episode takes an intriguing twist as we explore the philosophical pursuit of physical immortality and longevity through healthier living and future medical advancements. Delve into the delicate balance required in remote work management to ensure effective communication without crossing into micromanagement, sharing experiences and strategies for tracking progress and aligning with company objectives.

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Micromanagement & High Achievement
• 8:49 Striving for Physical Immortality
• 24:20 Remote Work and Communication Strategies

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

If you don't know what you did this week or last week, how are you supposed to keep your work aligned with the company's goals? What is micromanagement Is if I ask hey, what have you been doing for the last two hours? Hey, what have you been doing for the last two hours? Hey, what did you get done today? What are you going to do tomorrow? And I create six or seven checkpoints throughout the day where it's just hey, show me what you're working on. That is micromanagement. And similarly, I think and this is another one where it's like oh, the confrontation is not micromanaging, but it feels or seems like it on the surface. I will very often ask somebody I will ping them middle of the day, be like hey at zones, can you jump on a quick call or a huddle?

Speaker 2: 0:56

Let me invite you to 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? 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, michael Greenberg. Michael, the CEO of At Third Brain Auto. He's the digital ops, automation and AI expert, helping 2 million to 100 million businesses, unlocking explosive growth. Seasoned entrepreneur on a mission I love this mission on a mission to empower the next generation. Welcome to the show, michael. Tell us who you are and what your magic is.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Nico, first off, thanks for having me on the show.

Speaker 2: 2:08

I am so happy to.

Speaker 1: 2:09

I've been playing the great game of business for a little over a decade now, and everything I launched would hit some sort of roadblock along the way. Along the way and normally that happened because of all the constant shifts in people and tools, just breaking apart whatever processes we put together. After years of struggling, I realized that it was the change itself that was causing to pile up this operational debt and that was really choking our ability to grow in the way I wanted to. So I dove deep into figuring out how I could create the right sort of technology to fuse with our operations. Around the same time, chatgpt launched and everything clicked. Ai plus operations was the breakthrough, and that's how ThirdBrain was born, integrating people, processes and technology to build unstoppable operational leverage instead of drowning in debt.

Speaker 2: 3:25

That's a short story of really explaining what you do, thanks, who are you behind that? Because the brain behind that is a different person, I think.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Oh, absolutely so.

Speaker 1: 3:37

I am the first brain, so to speak, and personally my background is entrepreneurs on both sides of the family.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I grew up getting told hey, don't run your own business, don't work for yourself, go be a professional, go get that white collar job, make a stable living and just run on. That Did the opposite dropped out of school, went to a coding bootcamp, joined a startup, raised some money, figured out what I was good at, what years building that thing up, and when I sold it I made enough that I could take a step back. But at that point, just like the story of the business, I knew that I wasn't getting to the level that I wanted to get to. So I took a break. I went and worked for somebody else, somebody way more successful than me, and he showed me what it looks like to actually be inside of a business. To some extent, that gave me the opportunity to learn a little bit more about myself and find my zone of genius and realize that it was that overlap of technology and business that I could really master and call my own.

Speaker 2: 5:18

That's a beautiful step. Right there, you're saying you took a step back, but it's when you have a bow and I don't mean the bow with your neck, I really mean a bow, indeed with an arrow it's like you pulled yourself back, but it was not eased down. It was like strengthening yourself to launch your arrow in that right direction, what you call your zone of genius. Would you call yourself a high achiever?

Speaker 1: 5:51

Statistically I have achieved beyond the average. I'm not sure I've aimed higher than most other people, but I was definitely better understanding of the work required to get there. So I guess I'm a high. I am a high achiever in practice, if not in planning. I was certainly never a straight A student or anything like that.

Speaker 2: 6:20

But the funny thing that I found with all talking to all the C-levels and founders on this podcast is most of them never were. There was most of people where either they just ended high school or they went to college but dropped out and started something. And you take the story from a completely different angle because you just you have to. There's no easy way, there's just you have to. There's no easy way, there's just you have to. And, like you said, the white collar, blue collar, even those are routes that will nicely, let's say it's a yellow brick road almost, but with a little bit of a couple of bumps on the way because you're limited to what you're able to do in those roles. But if you would say one thing, one thing that you need to go where you've been at this point, what would be that one thing?

Speaker 1: 7:12

Got to show up every day. I talk about this with the apprentices that we have often, and it's not about actually doing great things every day, it's really, and some of them get it, some of them don't, but it's really just you show up five days a week, you work. You don't have to work eight hours a day. You put in four, you put in six hours, but you show up every day and you put in those hours and you clock in and you do things and then you clock out again and you're going to do it again tomorrow. That's it.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Is there a word that you could put on that?

Speaker 1: 7:56

Grit.

Speaker 2: 7:58

On that. Yes, it's one of the words that I've been carrying around for a long time. Yes, absolutely, grit, every, every day. Just keep on going.

Speaker 2: 8:09

And I might fill that with another word consistency, I think oh yeah every day being there, not not moving mountains, but moving a rock or a pebble. How have you been achieving that, how we let's talk, let's talk rocks first and then pebbles later. How have you been doing that? Because I know I've been on a lot of your content and you've got amazing stuff out there where a lot of people could learn a lot of stuff, but they need to take the time, of course, to read it and, like that, be a little bit bigger. But how do you tackle that? The rocks and the stone?

Speaker 1: 8:46

You break rocks down into pebbles. I can't. I think this really all goes back to the same sort of thing. If I know I want to build a million dollar a year business, in order to build a million dollar a year business, how many clients am I going to need? Okay, what's my conversion rate? From when I have a first meeting with a potential client when they close? Okay. So now, how many meetings do I have to have in order to close enough clients that I could make the million dollars? Okay, then what do I do to make a meeting? I send a thousand Twitter DMs, okay. So let's say, every thousand twitter dms is one meeting and I want to make a hundred meetings, I've got to send a hundred thousand twitter dms or I've got to pay somebody to do that yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 9:35

I love the statement. How do you lead? How do you eat an elephant? Spoon by spoon indeed yeah it's one.

Speaker 2: 9:43

It's the only way to actually do these things. I remember when I because you mentioned your podcast editing business these days I think if you would have had that business these days you'd be out of it really quickly, because there's so many tools out there that help a podcaster do having almost everything themselves. I do. Just, I'm in the perfect example of that. I've got what's it called Devi or something. Remember the name that I use?

Speaker 1: 10:14

It's one of those tools.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yes, that's the one, Absolutely. But yeah, I started using that. Somebody recommended it to me First, I did myself. I opened up DaVinci Resolve. It's like your mungo system just to do podcast editing, because you're just left over with the audio sound and sometimes with the video. But these things just remove all what do you call it? Repeating words, stuff like that and it does it so well that I was baffled the first time I used it. Did you predict anything like this when it stopped your business? Or anything like?

Speaker 1: 10:53

that we used Descript in its very earliest forms, and we used it because it improved our workflow. It was part of how we had an operational advantage over competitors.

Speaker 2: 11:05

How did you find? What did you find? Where did you find Descript? Because it's something that must have been.

Speaker 1: 11:13

It's my job, that's my passion, that's my job. I know every tool, I try every tool. When you hear about a tool, I heard about it a week ago and I was in the beta three months ago and I played around and I was not impressed.

Speaker 2: 11:33

Yeah, okay, yeah. So it's really your through and through passion to get these things into your head and understand what their added value is.

Speaker 1: 11:44

That's how you choose. We found out that Descript could take the time that an editor needed to spend and reduce it by 20-30 percent, and we had to teach the editor how to use Descript, the less complex tool, but it sped up the workflow so much it was worth the effort, and so they'd use Descript and then they'd switch back over to like Audacity or Premiere Pro, one of the other professional tools for those who started to understand it and started to learn to work with it as well.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Because, for me, I've been in IT for 15 years so I know what programming is and I used to be in infrastructure, so I'm not really the programming kind of IT guy I was in support but I do understand applications and how users use applications. And you go from there and then you start thinking, okay, this is a system that needs a concrete explanation of you need to act like this and you need to do this and I'll give you this resource to have you act on it. So if you look at what you've been doing right now, what's your greatest desire from?

Speaker 1: 13:02

this point, what's your greatest? Desire Okay I think I'm gonna have to choose immortality, just flat out denial of death. I think if we're going with what would I like most in the world, it's to pause the clock permanently, okay that's a great idea. I'm guessing you've not had somebody answer that one before. No, I have not. No, I have not, no.

Speaker 2: 13:35

But one question I do have. If you say stop time, let's go metaphysical here. Last time I was researching this. I love researching time because to me, time does not exist. It's a human construct, so it's just. We have moments that follow each other. It does not exist. It's a human construct, so it's just we have moments that follow each other. It's not time and you have choices that follow each other. Like I could just stand up right now and move out of this room and say, michael, you can just keep talking my podcast and go right ahead. That's a choice. When I could stay here and sit here, that's a choice as well. So for me it's all about choices and time does not exist. But if we go into time and sorry people, this is gonna be different angle. But last thing I heard was like if we would stop time, there would be only darkness. Yeah, I don't want to stop time.

Speaker 1: 14:25

I just want to stop my aging.

Speaker 2: 14:26

I want to pause my clock oh, yeah, okay, okay, much more personal, okay, yeah, have you, what have you done to work towards that? Because if it's a desire, I eat a bit healthier.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Take a few things. I'm thinking I'm going to do one of those executive retreats next year. I get the 360 medical. I'm a little too young to start doing like stem cells and some of the other really higher end preventative treatments. But there's plenty of other additional supplements and things you can take to help reduce the speed of aging that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 15:07

So it's more on the physical side that you've been orienting towards that staying young. What have you been doing mentally for that?

Speaker 1: 15:18

I don't have a mental problem with my age. I'm operating under the model of age as disease, so I want to lengthen my telomere right, I like there are specific biomarkers that I can turn back as a result. Yeah, I, I don't feel or think any differently. I'm definitely wiser, but I don't think I. My brain is fundamentally a different brain than it was 10 years ago.

Speaker 2: 15:50

It's an intriguing answer that you brought Thanks While you were thinking or working on that. What did you hate most on that level? I was working on Achieving immortality. Let's go for that one.

Speaker 1: 16:06

I don't quite understand the question. I don't quite understand the question.

Speaker 2: 16:08

So, while you were working towards it, looking for what you need to do to keep yourself, your physical body, young, let's say that. What are the things that you hated that you find out that you?

Speaker 1: 16:20

hated that. You said oh my.

Speaker 2: 16:21

God, this should not be possible.

Speaker 1: 16:22

This is something that I do not want to go into or yeah, um, I found out that you have to eat a balanced diet all the time, and I'm not sure if that's a hate, but it's definitely a whole lot more work than they tell you. I'd say that's probably the most annoying of the things related to that at this point. I'm sure there will be much worse ones in time, but like, being strict about diet is just always a lot of work can you give me an example of what might be different than what you did before?

Speaker 1: 17:08

yeah. So like I, I avoid a lot more foods that have high levels of plastics and pesticides. Buy a lot more organic items. Don't eat like high fructose corn syrup, and so that means there's 20 products out of 21 products on the shelf in most categories are no longer available, but it's just little stuff like that we're like. Just trying to eat whole foods is actually quite a bit of planning and work if you don't know which brands you can and cannot buy already are you?

Speaker 2: 17:44

do you have anybody who's guiding you on that?

Speaker 1: 17:49

no, I just read the backs of boxes well, that's a big.

Speaker 2: 17:53

That's a big thing. That's what most people don't even do. They just go to the grocery store, pick up a couple of things and they don't even read what's on the back. My my partner, she she actually has this app where she looks up on the all the e's and whatever. Because not all of the things are bad of course, but she has this app and she looks at it and then says okay, good, or that's not good, or we compensate and say, okay, it's not good, not bad either, so we'll just eat it.

Speaker 2: 18:19

But I think there's also a big difference between what's served here in Europe again, towards what's served in the US. That's what I hear, and understand.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Oh no, there is what's served in the us. That's what I hear and understand there is. There's a significant like I, to pick a very specific example that I know is very common bread. So, like I make all my own bread at home, I make it with organic flour, because in the us any non-organic flour is sprayed with glyphosate, which is fairly neurotoxic and I'm not a fan of eating more of it than I have to. So I get the organic flour, I make my own bread and I make my bread from a sourdough starter. So I ferment all of my dough, which is how you would get the majority of your dough or bread in Europe is going to be a traditional sourdough from a bakery. It's much less often that they use an instant yeast or a beer yeast, because the quality of the product is so much worse when you use those things.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Yeah, it's a kind of a pity. I find that a lot of these things, which are for us really standard, are, for you guys, a very big challenge. I've been in New York for a while on business and I lived in an apartment, so I of course needed to find food. I've told this story before on the podcast, but I went into one of the supermarkets, finally found one. That was supermarkets, finally found one. That was the beginning Finally found one. It was one of those places where you had to go into the basement because I left clothes in that and I went in and I said, okay, oh, this is finally I'm going to have my meat, vegetables and potatoes. I was so happy I'm a farmer's boy, so that's the whole point Went, went inside, looked at the greenery stand and I saw a salad.

Speaker 2: 20:13

I said, oh, okay, let me get a salad. And I grabbed the salad and I went straight through the salad with my hand. It was just, it felt like paper. I was like what's this? This is not what I'm used to. And then I I moved on to other things and it was. It went from bad to worse and in the end I got. I went to a restaurant and had dinner there because I didn't find anything in that supermarket and I was really astonished, because that's one of the reasons why I left.

Speaker 2: 20:41

After two weeks I couldn't find the food that I wanted to eat, everything was processed or a vendor on the street or a deli where the grease was floating on top of everything. I did not get it and, coming home, the first thing I did I went to a restaurant here and we had spare ribs really pork spare ribs and they were only this big. When I looked at that in New York, they were like meaty and very big and all overdone in hormones and stuff like that. This is such a difference. Why is this the case? But I'm digressing very far from the essence of the podcast, but I find it very. It's astonishing to me how this can exist, let's say. But I am so happy that you found your way in that. So would that be something that you would also link to your goals, your desires to to become or to be an, a high achiever and make your business a success?

Speaker 1: 21:38

Is that oh yeah, I think what you eat fuels you, and I know I am not the healthiest I could be, but I know that I am significantly healthier than the average, at least in the US, and I don't have any long-term conditions. I don't have to take any pills. I keep it that way because I eat things that are real food.

Speaker 2: 22:06

Absolutely. Yeah, I can confirm that. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people out there who might be looking at it like what are you talking about this time? But I think it's one of the basics. As an entrepreneur, your body is the thing that you use to create business and your mind is in your body. So I think the basic stuff is get your body healthy and your mind healthy and you'll have a healthy business.

Speaker 1: 22:33

It's a start.

Speaker 2: 22:35

There's other parts there as well. What would be something that you personally see with the people that you surround yourself with is like a common denominator between them as being successful entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1: 23:00

Adaptability denominator between them as being successful and entrepreneur.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Adaptability the ability to change and grow to fit the situation.

Speaker 1: 23:02

I think we we see that a lot internally, like the first thing a new hire goes through with us is what we call the crucible, and it's a self-directed learning exercise.

Speaker 1: 23:13

It takes a few weeks and it teaches you like automation and AI and all sorts of other things, and so it requires you to do a lot of reading and a lot of note taking and a lot of learning on your own, and then you're going to be assigned a project or two that's based on that stuff, and then everything you do afterwards is going to reference back to that initial stuff and to some of the like thought pieces you read during that time, and you can tell who's picking it up, who's really enjoying it and getting ahead, who's not. And then directly afterwards, oh, if I reference something from your training two, three weeks in, you should know that I'm making a reference to the documents that we talked about then If you miss it, that's a red flag. If you miss it several times and then make some mistakes based on not understanding those principles, that's the end, because it says, oh, this person does not understand how to adapt to the context of our work.

Speaker 2: 24:20

Yeah, I see what you're what you apply there and what you're going for, because it's something that that a lot of companies skip the basic foundation of good knowledge of how your business works, but not only, of course, business-wise, but the technology and all the steps and the standard operating procedures you've created and so on. But it's not.

Speaker 1: 24:48

you can know a lot, but you can understand a lot and it's a big difference between those two. Exactly, and just regurgitation is not the person I need to hire, because if you don't understand, why would I choose you over an AI? Yeah, now more than ever. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:13

Yeah, I have a team member called Luna and it's chat GPT. I've integrated her into my business and it is reference case. I do a lot of stuff with her and, of course, you have to. That's one thing that I do. I have learned is that it's not because you're using AI that you can blindly follow it. There is this discrepancy there. You need to know your stuff while you're using AI. It's not that you can blindly jump in, because you have a lot of ghost stuff that could exist in AI as well.

Speaker 1: 25:45

It just blabbles around, but if you realize that, it helps you very quickly is directly related to your ability to communicate at a very high, very detailed level about that task, and so if you can't get the AI to do it, but somebody else can, it's probably because you're a bad communicator.

Speaker 2: 26:16

Yeah, yeah, it's funny that you mentioned communication, because the last couple of weeks, one thing that I've noticed is that basic fundamental of communication and I really mean that in a human way is a big problem in a lot of businesses, because there's a lot of stuff that's being hidden in communication instead of bringing it out. Yeah, I don't know what your experience with that is. You've been a leader to a lot of people, so how does that tackle in your business?

Speaker 1: 27:07

three other people and he lagged a little bit during that. You could tell he was having sort of trouble adapting to the technology. But very strong track record we powered on regardless. As he's now started to settle in a little more into parts of his role, it's clear that he doesn't have the cultural, the same cultural expectation of effort as we do in the company. That makes sense. It's like what I expect you to get done in four hours and what you get done in four hours do not line up and they aren't even. They aren't even playing the same game. And so when, like when, something like that comes up, it becomes it's what did we miss in the process? And then it boiled up oh, the person who did the third round interview. Yeah, he's surprised that we decided to hire this guy. Why didn't you bring that up then? Oh, because you were so excited about this and this and so you glossed over this other thing. Oh, this is a failure of our hiring process in many ways, to pick this up, and we'll solve for it next time.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Yeah, yeah, I see what you did. Yeah, within the work that you do right now, you do a lot of remote work, if I understand almost exclusively yeah, so there's a lot of people working from home, they're not really in an office and then so on. Have you ever had issues where you went into micromanagements because they work remote expectations and stuff like that?

Speaker 1: 28:43

so I've spent almost my whole career remote. So any micromanagement I do is not a result of being remote, just me being a bad manager. And the answer there is absolutely yes.

Speaker 2: 28:59

How does this manifest? I'm curious, how does that manifest?

Speaker 1: 29:04

Yeah, I think it breaks down in one of two ways.

Speaker 1: 29:07

So first, actually, I'm going to explain what I don't think is micromanagement, but looks like it on the surface and feels like it to some people.

Speaker 1: 29:16

And that's asking for an hours audit.

Speaker 1: 29:21

If I ask you, hey, what did you do today, or how did you spend your day yesterday, or how did you spend your day this week, I don't expect somebody to be able to say, from 1115 to 1122, I answered emails, and then from 1123.

Speaker 1: 29:38

But I do expect them to be able to say, hey, on Monday I spent the first half of the day dealing with this and this thing. On Monday, I spent the first half of the day dealing with this and this thing, and then I spent the second half of the day doing this, and then on Tuesday, I was in these meetings for four hours and then I knocked out these two other tasks. And so there is a track record, there's artifacts of work being done and there's a way to describe it in which you can say, hey, this is what I did over this time period. If you are unable to do that, you are failing in your job, in my mind, because if you don't know what you did this week or last week. How are you supposed to keep your work aligned with the company's goals?

Speaker 2: 30:31

Yeah, I wouldn't call it no, that's not micromanagement at all.

Speaker 1: 30:35

But what is micromanagement is if I ask, hey, what have you been doing for the last two hours? Hey, what have you been doing for the last two hours? Hey, what have you been doing for the last two hours? Hey, what did you get done today, what are you going to do tomorrow? And I create six or seven checkpoints throughout the day where it's just hey, show me what you're working on. That is micromanagement. And similarly, I think and this is another one where it's like, oh, the confrontation is not micromanaging, but it feels or seems like it on the surface I will very often ask somebody I will ping them middle of the day be like hey, at so-and-so, can you jump on a quick call or a huddle? I just want to check in First off. How quickly do they respond to that? That's a sign of are they actually at their desk during hours? If it takes them 15 minutes, sure, whatever, they were getting a coffee, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 31:35

two hours later, yeah no, there's something wrong there yeah, and then, similarly, we get on the call. I ask, hey, what are you working? Yeah, and then, similarly, we get on the call. I ask, hey, what are you working on? And then you say, oh, I've been working on writing some newsletters. I'm gonna ask to see those newsletters and be like, hey, show me what you're working on. Then, okay, pull it up. If you pull up at one paragraph, that's not it. And on the surface, this would feel like micromanagement. I think it certainly does to me when I describe it outside of the context. Yeah, but there's a reason why you do something like that and that sort of particular action occurs because I think, oh, this person isn't doing anything for three quarters of their day and we're going to find out but this, is this something that you do at the start of when somebody starts working with you, or is it something where it gets suspicious of the outcome or the results they bring on the table?

Speaker 1: 32:46

both. So I want to do it at the start to set an understanding that these are expectations, that you are expected to be available during the day and to be available fairly quickly, that if somebody asks you, hey, what did you do this week, you are able to say, if some, if I want to know, like, how busy are you right now? You should be able to give me a legitimate answer, not say, oh, I am busy, I don't have time for more work. That's a lie. I think there's part of that there and so there's an expectation setting piece. But anyone who's worked in a freelance role or an hourly role or anything like that none of this would be new or odd and, like my company runs on hours equivalent like contracts to customers. If a customer says, hey, you didn't do the work, we're going to go back to the hours at the end, of course, and I track my hours just like anyone else on the team. I expect that from everyone okay.

Speaker 2: 34:00

Is that so, when you look at your business from a manager or founder's point of view, is all the information that comes to you? Are you absolutely sure that everything is legit in a way where there's no Excel sheet management? You have a middle management, if I understand.

Speaker 1: 34:18

Yeah, legit. In the sense like if they say we produce 10 widgets, did we produce 10 widgets? Yes, I know those numbers are accurate. I also know that if I ask what does our sales pipeline look like right now, those numbers will not be accurate.

Speaker 2: 34:42

Okay, okay, but there's probably a reason for that that's.

Speaker 1: 34:46

It's because I have team members who don't want to disqualify leads based on time, because they like a good looking, nice, fat pipeline.

Speaker 2: 34:55

And just because sally didn't respond for 30 days, I don't think she should be in there anymore yeah, it's a, it's an approach and and indeed, when it comes down to the human contact or human processes, I think there's no way of numbering everything just blindly and saying so many days, you're out, that's true. So, yeah, if the rest of the processes are very clear to you, then indeed, that's a good thing. That's a good thing, that's a good thing.

Speaker 1: 35:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 35:25

Have you ever heard of the two terms CEO disease and founder syndrome?

Speaker 1: 35:30

CEO disease and founderism.

Speaker 2: 35:33

Founder syndrome.

Speaker 1: 35:34

Founder syndrome. Founder syndrome I think I've heard of before. Ceo disease I have not and I do not know what founder syndrome is.

Speaker 2: 35:42

If that was the next question, I think I've just heard of it Somebody smart brought it up to me once, but I'm not quite sure who. Thanks for the compliment, by the way. Yeah, it's basically something that is happening. A lot in business these days is where a founder, for instance, really gets ingroined and their business is their baby and they hire people to do stuff because they notice that they don't have enough time. But while they're hiring them, they're not having them use their expertise in their business. Is that something that happened for you?

Speaker 1: 36:18

So, like I, as the founder, stopped using my expertise in the business because I hired other people. Oh, yes, absolutely, but I like to think of it as I hired that person to replace whatever I used to be doing, and then they failed to pick it up properly. It's important to shift the blame away from myself onto my subordinates. I think that's a really important part of management. Yeah, cause I can never be at fault, only my team.

Speaker 2: 36:54

Are you going to tell them that next week?

Speaker 1: 36:56

I tell them when I start, when they start, it's rule zero of operational excellence. Michael is always right.

Speaker 2: 37:08

I think you really need one of those pills for the founder of the syndrome.

Speaker 1: 37:13

if you say that, If only it was just a pill.

Speaker 2: 37:19

It's true, it's true. Have you ever noticed somebody really acting like that when in your environment?

Speaker 1: 37:25

oh yeah, I've definitely. I probably did that when I was first starting out 10 years ago and I was a brand new manager what changed?

Speaker 2: 37:34

what's the change there?

Speaker 1: 37:36

me. I'm not 20 years old any longer.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Uh, that certainly helps yeah, yeah I have a fully developed brain but is there something that really created the mind switch in in your site no, I think I just got better at it over time because I wanted to make money and I knew that fundamentally I had to care about these people more if I wanted them to stay longer, so that way I could make more money. And I think that last bit, the making more money part, really makes it easier to like tolerate people okay, okay, that's an interesting point of view.

Speaker 2: 38:24

That's an interesting point of view. It's an interesting point of view.

Speaker 1: 38:30

Why should I have, to, like everyone I hire?

Speaker 2: 38:33

No, that's absolutely true. There's no rule for that. At some point, you hire people because of their knowledge and their expertise and not for their character or something like that. On the other side, if you have a team where there's somebody that's a know-it-all and let's put a director at all, it would be somebody who messes everything up by their attitude. I think that would stop the story as well. But indeed it's not. You don't hire only for that Absolutely. You don't hire only for that Absolutely. So from your experience, I would love to hear a recommendation for, let's say, the younger starting leaders out there.

Speaker 1: 39:20

What's something that you really would put out there. Help them achieve what they desire. Show up every day, get a little better every day, and, yes, that includes weekends indeed love the last one, biden I love that one.

Speaker 2: 39:44

There is no 9 to 5. There is no 5 days a week.

Speaker 1: 39:47

There is 7 days a week, there's 24-7.

Speaker 2: 39:51

Yeah, that's the only way you can get better. Absolutely. I 100%, 1000% agree. That's the reality. Thank you for that, mike.

Speaker 1: 40:00

Thank you, it's been a very interesting conversation.

Speaker 2: 40:02

We've been in a lot of different places. I must say, when can people find you and how can they follow you?

Speaker 1: 40:10

Yeah, so you can find me at thirdbrainco or gentoftechcom, and then you can find me at gentoftech G-E-N-T-O-F-T-E-C-H, on all the social media that I exist on.

Speaker 2: 40:29

I will add that to the show notes in any case, and I really want to thank you for your time, Michael. I know you have a very busy schedule and I'm really happy we had this chat.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Likewise, Nico. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2: 40:45

I'm really happy. This has been a wonderful conversation Going in all directions. I just love it. I just love it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 40:53

Thanks.

Speaker 2: 40:54

And to our listeners. Thank you very much for listening again to an episode of the Everlasting Podcast. And remember jump from head to heart, Feel the beat with it. Have a great one, Bye-bye.