Episode Overview
What happens when an entrepreneur discovers a system that brings clarity, structure, and real traction to their businesses? In this episode of Real Talk, Mark O’Donnell, Visionary at EOS Worldwide, sits down with Implementer Sean Rosensteel to explore how adopting EOS reshaped the way he built companies and why those same tools continue to guide his work with leadership teams today.
Sean shares his path from growing up in an entrepreneurial household to self-implementing EOS, scaling multiple businesses, and ultimately choosing to help other leaders master the system. He discusses the power of simple tools, the discipline required to use them as intended, and the mindset shifts that help Visionaries and Integrators work together at the highest level. This episode digs into practical leadership, effective delegation, and the pivotal moments when EOS becomes a catalyst for meaningful growth.
Key Takeaways
- EOS makes business concepts tangible: Sean explains how Traction turns broad ideas from classic business literature into simple tools entrepreneurs can actually use.
- The Delegate & Elevate Tool is a game-changing filter: It helps leaders identify where they truly contribute value and where letting go can open the door to higher performance.
- Clarity comes from working backward: The Getting What You Want (GWYW) tool can pinpoint activities that move the needle and align metrics and processes accordingly.
- Visionary–Integrator alignment drives momentum: When these roles function in sync, companies gain focus, direction, and execution power and often unlock significant growth.
- Constraints create focus: Intentionally limiting time and reducing distractions can boost creativity, decision-making, and problem-solving.
- Presence fosters stronger teams: Leadership groups that put technology aside and stay fully engaged consistently experience more effective meetings and better results.
Full Episode Transcript
Kicking Things Off
0:02
Mark: As I always say, the Implementor community has such fantastic stories and I can’t wait to hear yours. So if you want to just dive right in and tell us how you got here as an EOS Implementor in the community, and I don’t want your minute and 30 second version of your story that we teach every implementor to, let’s go deep, the whole thing, and start from the beginning.
Sean: Awesome. So like many of us, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. Uh, Dad was a bit of a Visionary, Mom was a bit of an Integrator. Didn’t know it back then, right, but uh, I was the youngest of four. So my dad told me that I was a pleasant surprise, but I’m like, Dad, I’m 22. I know, right. So I have three older siblings, all entrepreneurs.
Um, my sister actually recently got a deal on Shark Tank, which is kind of fun, with uh, Mr Wonderful. We’re like, no, anyone, any Shark. We’re, I’m, I live in Dallas so I was hoping it was Mark Cuban, right, but he’s super generous behind the scenes. Someone’s got to play the villain on the show.
Um, but anyway, so I grew up in that kind of an environment and then, um, fortunate enough to go to college and when it was time to declare my major sophomore year, I was following the footsteps of my three older siblings. So I was going to declare marketing as my major, which they all did, and I noticed that my college had an option for entrepreneurship and it required eight less credits than marketing. So I’m like, okay, check that box, you know, as every good young college student would be apt to do.
Family Business
Mark: Well, before you keep going, what was the family business that you grew up in?
Sean: Yeah, so my father was a, he had an estate planning firm, 50 plus years. Um, he was also, he and my mom both did a lot of residential real estate development as well, commercial development downtown Chicago. So I grew up in a western BB of Chicago. So they were, they were busy. Uh, they were always, always busy growing up. So, um, learned a lot in the back seat of the car.
Mark: I bet you did.
Sean: Yeah. Um, so that was the business. It was estate planning and a ton of residential real estate and some commercial, you know, condo developments downtown. So learned a lot about, you know, transactions and negotiations and all that good stuff.
So I graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship. They’re actually handing those things out now, which is kind of nice. Um, yeah, and then went into, I started my first business when I was a senior in college and I got into real estate. I was a Robert Kosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad student in high school and then uh, in college, and my, my, you know, my parents were in real estate and my older brother was in real estate and my sister was in real estate, one of my sisters.
So that just seemed kind of natural and I thought I knew what I was doing and I got way in over my skis, and when I was in my mid 20s I actually went bankrupt. Um, I was renovating homes and I was, I also had some rent to owns that I was doing and uh, 08 hit and none of us were insulated from that, right, like everyone was affected by that. I had all of my eggs in one basket, learned a lot about diversification.
But I learned so much about, you know, business and in, in failure and um, I’m blessed because it happened at a time when I could afford it. I didn’t have a family at that point, I was in my mid-20s. Um, so hard lessons but good lessons.
And if you’re in my family and you go bankrupt you’re sort of the black sheep, right. It’s like, how did you manage this. And I’m like, I don’t know, right, you know, I followed your lead, that’s how I managed it. But, um, really blind ambition and just wanted to be a millionaire, you know, that was all I was concerned about back then. So, a humbling experience and I’m very grateful for it.
So then I started another company and about a year in I had maybe nine or so on payroll and I called my older, older brother and uh, to put it lightly, I vented to him for like an hour. This was in 2011 and he’s like, Sean, look, he’s like, I know you think you know best but let me send you this book and this author knows better than you know, so just please, you know, for the love of God, you know, apply it exactly how he prescribed it. So back then that was Traction, right. So back then I read Traction and then my brother introduced me to uh, Dan Wallace in Chicago.
Mark: Yeah, awesome Implementer.
4:45
Sean: And we had a 90-minute meeting with Dan and he wouldn’t take my money. He’s like, you’re too small, um, I can’t help you, but he’s like, your brother tells me that you know, you’re, you’re an avid reader and you can apply this on your own and he’s like, you can, you can do this on your own.
And I’m like, Dan, I’ll cut you a check, the whole year, you know. I’m like, I got, I don’t want to do this, I want you, you know, I want an outside third party, an unbiased, you know, person in the room. And he’s like, nope, he’s like, I can’t work with you, but you can do this and I’m happy to help you, I’m a resource for you.
Um, and I’m so grateful for that and um, so he would like coach me before our sessions, you know, prep me for what to do and that’s a very challenging thing to self-implement as we all know. It’s, for sure, right, very possible but, but definitely challenging.
So self-implemented in 2011 and then about 18 months later that business was acquired and then I built and scaled a few other companies and those got acquired over the years. So within seven years I went from bankruptcy to three successful acquisitions in a row. Had nothing to do with me, had everything to do with EOS.
And then in 2015, when I exited my last company I sent some letters out to some of our bigger customers and they’re like, what are you doing over there. And I’m like, I don’t know, but let me ship you this book.
And then a couple months later you, the calls came trickling in like, can you do this for us. And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know, I know how to do it for my own companies and I really enjoy the work, so let me see.
So in 2015 I ended up subscribing to Base Camp back then, right, um, and with the help of, you know, Dan Wallace and through the years Jill Young and Jeff Whittle here in Dallas, um, just had some really awesome mentors along the way. So that’s sort of how I discovered EOS.
Mark: Yeah, that’s a fascinating story and one that’s pretty common within our community where over 80% are entrepreneurs who, running their entrepreneurial business, started to use the tools from the book and then eventually getting an implementor at some point. Most of them do. Now did you eventually hire an implementor through your three companies or did you self-implement that whole time.
Sean: Dan wouldn’t let me hire him and he was the only one.
Mark: For you.
Sean: Yeah, yeah, and then the second or the third one, I guess, when I started it was just me, so I wasn’t hiring him, right. So I kind of knew, I knew the foundational tools well enough and um, I think that’s a mistake a lot of startups make, is like, oh we don’t need, don’t worry about the values, we have no people. And it’s like, well, those are really critical, you know.
Um, so I again applied it exactly how it was prescribed as, as much as it killed me to do, you know, because I wanted to add a ninth question to the VTO, of course.
Mark: Right.
Sean: And a 10th while you’re at it.
Mark: Yeah, why not, it should be three pages.
Sean: Um, right, but I stuck to it and I was compliant with it and uh, yeah, it works, it works. And one of the things that I appreciate the most was, like, growing up I didn’t really, like, I wasn’t close with my dad. Um, you know, my parents were so busy and we were so fortunate because, you know, they worked so hard for us and provided education our entire lives and that was their big thing and they accomplished that, but like growing up playing sports, everything, like, I, you know, I, I wanted my dad there and oftentimes he wasn’t there.
And uh, one of the things that EOS did is like, I, I started my family in 2010, I have three young kids now, and EOS really gave me that sense of balance in the world. Um, you know, I coach multiple sports teams for my boys, um, you know, I go camping a lot with my daughter and it’s just, I’m at breakfast with them and I’m at dinner with them and I was able to do that, you know, from a very young age and not only be physically present but like mentally present as well.
So it kind of helped me sort of box and shelf and compartmentalize, you know, my business life as an entrepreneur but also my personal life, um, which I really appreciate. And that’s what I love so much, is I see that happen with not only the leadership teams but as EOS gets rolled out throughout an organization, I see that happen with all of the employees eventually, um, which is really neat. That’s, that’s kind of the transformation that I’m so passionate about.
Mark: Yeah, and obviously it’s so personal to you because you missed out on what you wanted when you were a kid and then now you’re setting up systems for people to experience what you missed out on.
Question about that. As I think about really the, I’m going to just call it the overarching culture of the world we live in today, it seems to me that it’s filled with a little bit of entitlement, um, a little bit of, hey, uh, I’m not really willing to work that hard or, you know, just sort of like this little bit of a checked out culture, if you will.
Yeah, a little complacent, little entitled, little bit lazy, little bit like, hey, I don’t need to work hard for what I got. And I was thinking about this today because as, what you brought up for me is the EOS Life, which is doing the five things of doing what you love with people you love, making a huge difference, being compensated well, and having time to pursue other passions, which clearly you’ve designed your world in which you can achieve those five things.
But my thought is that many people believe that it’s a primary aim without doing the, the work. What I mean by that, I think that the EOS Life is a byproduct of being disciplined and accountable and taking 100% responsibility for your world and if you try to actually achieve the EOS Life on the outset you kind of, you, you fail at it. Any thoughts about that.
Sean: Yeah, there’s that term in psychology, paradoxical intention, right, and that reminds me of that as far as, like, what you just mentioned. Um, I agree wholeheartedly that it’s a byproduct. Uh, we don’t, we don’t lead with that, right.
It’s sort of the, it’s the reward and it takes a lot of effort, as you know, and time to get there. It doesn’t happen overnight. So yeah, I think, I think I agree with you and I also think that that is something that is more of a soft reward at the end of the journey, so to speak. And I do believe that if you, if you intentionally aim for that it might be too rigid or too hard or, you know, it just may not happen.
The EOS Life
12:09
Mark: And when I think that you are worried, like when you’re thinking about your time and you’re managing your time so you can be with your, your family and you, you’re accomplishing that, I like the little quip, we believe a lot in an abundance mindset but I think that nothing creates abundance like scarcity.
And what I mean by that is you’re, what you’re doing is you’re creating scarcity of time for you that you will apply yourself with your, with your clients and your business and because of that self-imposed discipline and scarcity you have to be really, really creative and so you can get what you want because you’ve created this scarcity of time and that’s actually creating the abundance in your life that you can then apply it elsewhere. Um, so I think it’s really interesting.
Mark: So what took you from Chicago to Dallas?
Sean: So my former wife and I, I’m recently divorced, uh, so my former wife and I would, would come down here for the winters. So my family was in Chicago and her family was in Dallas. So starting in, I think, 2016 or 17, uh, we would come down here to escape the winter somewhere between like mid-January through mid-April for a couple months.
And uh, we were down here during Co and it was mid-March maybe and, you know, the Co started hitting the headlines and all that good stuff and I called my parents and my parents are very private, you know. Like I’ll call my dad, like my dad’s one of my best friends, like about 15 years ago he really turned a corner and like, you know, we’d go to all these professional development events or personal development events every year. Like we’ve on fire and we’ve with Tony Robbins and we’ve broken arrows with you, like we’ve done some really neat stuff. We usually do like one big trip a year.
But I called my folks and you know how this goes, like you’re talking to one of your parents and all of a sudden the other one chimes in. I’m like, oh, I’m on speakerphone.
And my dad, I was like, yeah, how’s it going, it’s mid-March 2020, and he’s like, so uh, your mom and I are moving. And my whole family’s been wanting to exit Illinois for many years and my parents have always talked about leaving someday and um, I’m like, oh yeah, you know, okay Dad, you know, yeah. And he’s like, well no, like we’re actually moving. We sold our house, we closed two weeks ago.
And I’m like, what, did you keep my things, like wow, okay. And he’s like, yeah, uh, and we bought a house down in Ain, South Carolina.
And I’m like, where, what’s Ain, you know, right, and we, we close in two weeks. And I’m like, holy cow. So I hung up the phone and uh, I talked to my wife at the time and I’m like, hey hun, uh, Mom and Dad are leaving and everyone else is, it’s like this massive exodus right now currently.
And uh, maybe because we were thinking, my parents were a lot older than her parents were, so we were thinking like in 10, that was like kind of our 10-year plan, was like someday we’ll migrate down to Dallas. I’m like, maybe we should accelerate that to three years, you know. We’re using the family VTO, you know, it won’t save your marriage.
Well, no. Um, so we were using all that and I was saying maybe three years. So it was like Inception, you know, the next morning she woke up and she’s like, let’s just rip the Band-Aid, let’s move now. We’ve got young kids, it’s going to become harder and harder the more ingrained we are with the schools and friends.
And I’m like, okay, I love it down here, so let’s do it. So we decided to move and we, you know, that was during a crazy time. So I had a friend, client actually, good friend, who was um, a broker. He listed the house and before it even went on the market, you know, multiple offers, all that good stuff. So we sold remotely and, you know, put the kids in the minivan and raced back up to Chicago, a 14-hour drive, and said our goodbyes and got closure and packed up the house in, you know, a week or two and uh, moved down. So grateful we did it. Dallas is a, it’s a great place, the econom is very strong, people here are very friendly.
Mark: Well I want to go back to, you know, you meet Dan Wallace, you, you, so your brother gives you Traction, you, you start implementing the tools, you meet Dan Wallace, I’m sure he did a 90-minute meeting for you, he tells you no, and then you go on this self-implementation path multiple times. What was the tool, what was the concept, what, what about the book attracted you to it and what made the most difference.
What Made the Most Difference
17:08
Sean: Um, for me, for me personally, like I, I can remember, so, so again, entrepreneurial family, my whole up, like that’s all I knew. Like when I went bankrupt I should have gotten a job but I didn’t know how to do that.
Um, I was like, oh I have another idea, why not do that. So it was just a norm, it was normal for me. I, I majored in this thing called entrepreneurship, right, and I read a lot of books through high school and college and when I read Traction I was sold. I was like, because I, I’m a believer in systems. The whole universe runs on a system, right, so I’m like, this is unbelievable. Like I felt like I had gold in the palm of my hands, right.
So for me, just the entire system and I think, I think Gino’s contribution, in my humble opinion, is the brilliance of the tools, you know, because he’s standing on the shoulder of giants. It’s heavily influenced, you know. I was longtime Coach client, I know you’re in Coach and Y, Strategic Coach, right, and Patrick Lenion and Michael Gerber with e-myth philosophy and Jim Collins and, you know, all the great books.
I think his contribution was these one or two page tools that make these concepts tangible for us as business owners and make them, you know, easy to apply and make them applicable. We can wrap our arm, because Jim Collins, right, people, right seats on the bus, like we all talk about this, but how the heck do we do it. And then Gino comes up with the one-page people analyzer that solves for, you know, cultural fit and performance, job performance, right. So to me that’s what really sold me, was just like, wow, this is so simple and these tools are so just practical tools, so made it easy.
Mark: Yeah. Oh, for sure.
Favorite Tools
19:05
Mark: I always tell people the first time I read Traction my immediate response was, oh this is every single business book I’ve ever read, with templates, and I like templates as an engineer. I was like, this is great, now I can actually do something with this thing and move the ball forward. It was just, uh, exactly as you said, like now I can make this applicable. Was there one tool in your, in your businesses that you’re like, hey, this made the most impact, you knew it was working right away.
Sean: Yeah, uh, yes. I remember reading that book quickly and thinking, I just learned more about entrepreneurship in these 228 pages, whatever it is, than 25 years of real world experience. You know, my parents need this, you know. I think my favorite tool, can I have two of them.
Mark: Sure.
Sean: Okay. Well I love the accountability chart. Yeah, we do it first, it’s a heavy lift but it’s so impactful and I see my clients sort of forget about it so I try to bring it up every 90 days. It’s just like the horizon, right, you’ve got to constantly plan for that. But personally, two favorite tools that I continue to use all the time. The Delegate and Elevate Tool, which is obviously inspired by unique ability, right.
And I love teaching it that way as well as the EOS way, but um, I love when my clients are using that like they use the Level 10 Meeting. Like I’m so proud of my leadership teams when they come in, they’re like, we did a new delegation this, this quarter. Like, awesome, you know.
Um, so that’s so powerful because I’m not a natural delegator. Like my dad’s an attorney, right, like, you know, no one can do it better than I can or quicker than, right, and if I delegate it, it’s just going to, you know, they’re going to mess it up and I’m going to have to take more time. So no one can do it better and faster than I can, that’s my mindset.
Um, so I struggle with that, I’m not a natural delegator and I’m, I’m working on it and that tool just makes it a lot more manageable for me to proactively work on delegation. So that’s a, I love that tool. The other one that I love so much and I love teaching it so much and I can see the light bulbs in the people’s heads when I teach it is the getting what you want tool.
I just, I’m such a big fan of reverse engineering an outcome because it just, you, you can see the path. Um, and I love how that tool supports the scorecard and just identifying some of those leading activities and what I, it’s easy for sales, right, but like when operational departments use the getting what you, it’s so neat to see what clients come up with in, in, in their brainstorming and, you know, marking out some of those leading activities that get to that thing, whether it’s, you know, no errors or no accidents or, you know, whatever it is, the output. Um, I can just see the light bulbs go off, so I love, I love the getting what you want tool.
Mark: Yeah, I do too.
Getting What You Want
22:10
Mark: And I think it’s one of those tools where it really does tie your processes, your scorecard, your roles on the accountability chart, it really ties all of those things together. Of course it then has ties into the VTO where you are reverse engineering what you want down to those simple daily activities and disciplines that, if you just focus on those small things, it’s going to get you to where you want to go. It’s such a, a powerful tool.
And getting what you want is really, I think it’s first principles thinking. It’s really helping people who don’t naturally think in first principles to just use that to get down to what is the core essential building blocks, things that are like physics.
And if you can do that, if you can understand that, you can just make a huge, huge impact. And with the Delegate and Elevate Tool, what you brought up for me is the concept, as Collins talks about, the genius with a thousand helpers. Versus a clock, a time teller versus a clock builder.
Right, I mean, I just really think that the Getting What You Want tool, and the Delegate and Elevate Tool, is training yourself, it’s training your people to become clock builders instead of time tellers, which is just a really, it’s, it’s a nuanced difference, but if you’re always telling people the time and you’re not willing to let go, you can’t scale your business, you can’t scale your life, you’re not going to get what you want from it. You’re training your people to be stupid, um, because they just rely on you to do all the thinking and it’s really tough, really tough.
Sean: Yeah, one of my favorite stories about that tool, uh, there was a, I think this still a client, uh, about a year ago, 110-person organization, they’re in the manufacturing industry.
The finance head utilized it, like she just embraced it, like just loved it and which made me happy and I got a call from the Integrator about a year ago and he’s like, something’s wrong with this person. And, and he’s like, can you get into, you know, can you look at our accountability chart. I said, sure. So she had three direct reports, small finance department, and on her accountability chart she had a LMA, right, lead, manage, accountability. She had process and she had recing, that was it.
And, and the Integrator was like, she’s showing up differently and she’s a lot happier but like, I think she’s underutilized. Like I, I don’t know what’s going on but I don’t feel like she’s working enough.
Well, she had, she had gotten down to 40 hours a week. She’s not over capacity any longer, she’s happier, she’s checking out after 5:00 p.m. and, and I looked at the accountability chart, I’m like, she made it. I don’t know about the, the rest of you, the five of you, but she figured it out, you know, good for her.
As the finance leader within the organization, she’s supporting her three direct reports, she’s leading them, she’s managing them, she’s creating this environment of accountability for them and she’s in charge of process and reporting and it’s firing on all cylinders now and she’s got some balance and she’s happier.
Like that’s what, that’s great, like she hit the bullseye. And he’s like, oh, so nothing’s wrong. I’m like, no, like she beat everyone else to the, you know, she, she made it, right, she listened.
Yeah, it’s so cool and I reached out to her like a week later and we had a nice chat and she’s like, Sean, it was the tool. She’s like, I, I didn’t realize how much I was doing and how much I was holding on to. But, you know, just like you taught us, lower right quadrant, you know, starting there and moving up.
And she’s like, I only have one excellent activity now or, you know, like to do and good at, and she’s like, I’m in my sweet spot now, I’m in my unique ability, I’m doing the things I love to do, I’m great at, I’m leading, I’m working with my team, I’m meeting with them every week, making sure they’ve got what they need to get their rocks completed.
26:46
Mark: Yeah, that’s amazing. And I’m going to switch topics on here just a little bit. I’d love to hear your opinion. There’s been a little bit of a debate about the concept of Visionary and Integrator.
Now I’m going to give a little bit of a context for you, a little historical background. So there’s one side of this argument that the concept of Visionary Integrator isn’t, isn’t a thing, it’s not useful, it’s not valuable and you, entrepreneur, are a CEO and don’t let anybody tell you anything different. So that’s one point of view.
Our point of view is that a CEO and a Visionary, never shall the two meet. They’re not the same thing and almost every entrepreneur that we encounter in our target market of 10 to 250, say 95% of them are not going to be the CEO or capable of being CEO or wanting to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company with all the skills that are inside of that.
And so Visionary Integrator, a little bit of additional context, is that in all of our research we have not found a single successful company that does not have the classic Visionary Integrator relationship where you’ve got this person who’s not detail oriented, they’re the make it up person, and they’ve got a number two that is details, process, and they are executing on a daily basis. We haven’t found a single person who, who does all of that.
And when Gino was taking over his family business, uh, which was the real estate sales training company, and he was listening to Michael Gerber, and it was on tape at that time, and he was talking about this role of the Integrator, this person who just takes all those systems, ideas, and processes and integrates them into the company and frees up the entrepreneur to push the envelope. And Gino’s like, hey, I’m the Integrator of my, my family business, that’s my role, that’s who I am, my dad’s clearly the Visionary. And, and so we’ve taken that then forward into Rocket Fuel and we teach all of our clients that concept. So I’d love your thought on CEO versus Visionary Integrator and what are your thoughts on that CEO.
Visionary vs. Integrator
29:44
Sean: So in my experience, Mark, most of the CEOs that I’m working with are the Visionary. So I don’t necessarily see a difference there. That’s usually their title, that’s usually what I’m, it’s just their outside title, right. And then usually the president might be the Integrator, right.
So, yeah. Um, well my, my perspective is in my, as an Implementer, I, I look for three sort of triple targets when I implement with clients and they’re all difficult. So the easiest one is core processes documented, simplified, followed by all.
The second one is the EOS rollout, which I’m very passionate about because that to me is where the investment gets a return, right. So, and it looks different for everybody, so I love working with clients and figuring out like, you know, what, what way does this work for you, right.
The number one challenge I have in, in my experience is the VI relationship, the Visionary Integrator relationship, and if you can unlock that, it’s Rocket Fuel, right, that’s why we call it Rocket Fuel, the book.
So that to me is one of the most challenging things and it’s a lot of mindset and it’s a lot of psychology around the Visionary typically, and in the discipline of letting go and figuring that out and how do I do it.
And my favorite part of the journey is when in the session room the Visionary articulates in, in some way this feeling of being put out to pasture. I’m like, you’re right where you need to be, this is working, right. That’s where you need to be right now, right, freed up, freed up.
So if you, if you unpack, you know, three to seven, I call them responsibilities but roles of the Visionary, it’s like, what, what does growth look like. You know, if you were to unpack growth here as a PL to your company at Acme Incorporated, how would you unpack growth, because that’s your number one job, that’s your number one responsibility in my mind at least as a Visionary.
So I, I’m a big fan of that. I, I, I struggle with that personally, so it’s kind of a close thing that’s near and dear to my, to my heart. And, and I still, you know, I have two direct reports and I, we have a very simple business model, right, and I still struggle with it.
So I really am passionate about learning about that and then communicating the things I’m learning to my clients as far as what’s working and what’s not.
I had a really neat experience in an annual last year where the Visionary was sitting in the S seat. Like I usually see that, I see the Visionary sitting in the S seat or at least as the top producer, or they’re sitting in the finance seat, you know, one or the other typically, right, whichever they would like to hold on to more, right.
So this gentleman was sitting, he was the Visionary sitting in the, he was the sales leader, and he got fired on day two. The team fired him and we brought out the owner-employee rules, you know, engagement, all that good stuff, and it was such a neat session and um, he was fired and took it really well, sort of role-modeled the way for the team. I was really impressed with just how he handled everything.
And um, over the next six months he was sort of going through this identity crisis because he wasn’t feeling like he was in the business. He didn’t have a pulse, he was showing up to Level 10 Meetings but he didn’t know what to do, he kind of lost his way, and he joined Strategic Coach and, you know, we got him into some, I got him some books and got him into, you know, all the recent Ben Hardy, Dan Suvin books and what’s amazing is that company has taken off.
Like this year was a breakthrough year for them. They ended up like severing one of their service lines and got into their core focus. Like he is thinking big picture and this company is going to just blow up, like in a very good way, um, this year and next year and for the next few years.
So um, I think it’s really challenging and there’s more awareness coming out, there’s more books about it, the Driven book, you know, there’s a lot of things that are going on, which is great. And Strategic Coach is helping with that initiative of course, but um, that’s a big one, that’s a really…
Mark: It is a big one. It is a big one because I think if you take the role that I’m, I’m, I have to be this CEO and we look out in the world that, I think it was Paul Graham, he wrote an article about founder mode versus manager mode, became pretty popular, and it was funny because as I was reading this I’m like, oh, he’s just describing Visionary and Integrator.
Founder vs. Manager Mode
34:59
Mark: And founder kind of having this specific way of pushing the business forward, tinkering, research and development, pushing the envelope forward, versus manager mode which is taking what’s already been created and maximizing it, really.
And I, I think that there’s two completely different personalities in order to be able to do that over any particular long period of time, and when people say that they, like Simon Syic says, we should change it from CEO to CVO, Chief Visionary Officer, uh, because that’s what you own on the accountability chart, right, you actually own the vision.
So, um, yeah, just interesting to see where that, that goes for us because I really do believe that if more and more entrepreneurs can forgive themselves for being a Visionary who needs an Integrator and a system, they’re going to get way more of what they want from their business than otherwise. And, you know, really just saying, ah, I keep changing course, I keep inconsistent and all those different types of things, they’re trying to become someone who they never will become.
Sean: Yeah, yeah. And I’d love to see, like, it’s strange but there’s not, like, I think delegating is a big thing and letting go is an important topic that we need to, you know, have more education on. There’s not a book about delegation that I’m aware of, like I wish there was the book.
Mark: There is a book, I’m not sure if you could classify it as the book, but a friend of mine, Emily Morgan, uh, of Delegate Solutions, she wrote the book The Art of Letting Go, or Letting Go.
Um, and so that was her rendition and she and I were having a conversation last year sometime and she submitted a, uh, to the University of Pennsylvania, she, she and I are, uh, alumni, and uh, she’s trying to get a dissertation and go into a doctoral program about delegation. They turned it down but it would be amazing to, to do because that’s tough, that is really, really hard, because if you’re holding on to that vine you’re just going to be the genius with a thousand helpers and you’re not going to get to where you want to go.
Um, and, but there’s a, there’s nuance to that, there’s art to that. It’s not just kind of this, you know, process that you can follow because there’s things that you need to continue holding on to and there’s things that you should be letting go and it’s hard to know the difference.
37:46
Sean: Yep, and it’s, again, in my experience, it’s, it’s a learning and developmental process. Like I can remember back in probably 2011, 2012, I took a trip to Europe and I really turned on, like I just shut down and I didn’t have any access to technology and I put an away message up on my email and for two weeks I was completely out of pocket.
And I got home and my team took care of every, like the staff took care of everything. I was shocked and then I’m like, well, how far can I push this, you know. So I pushed it another week because I was thinking I’m so important, right, like I, I need to fix everything, I’m so important. And what I learned was like, wow, I’m really not that important. I can actually unplug and the show goes on without me.
Like it was a huge wakeup call for me, like I need to sort of change my thinking and change my ways. And from that point forward I, I just became better at like, okay, like I know where my lane is, I need to stay in my lane and I don’t actually have to micromanage as much as I thought I did.
I think that’s a process and everybody has a different journey with that. And it’s a lot of, like you mentioned, that book and I appreciate that, I haven’t read that. I usually recommend the Who Not How book, right.
Yeah, that’s a good one. Shifting your thinking as far as, you know, instead of how do I get it done, who do I know that can get it done better and faster than I can. That’s a big one in my experience with clients, like that’s a huge shift in thinking, right. So, yep, for sure.
Mark: Well Sean, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on.
Sean: I appreciate you.
Mark: Is there anything you would like to leave our listeners with, one piece of advice that, hey, if you could get this one thing out into the world, you’d want to do it. Now would be the opportunity to do that.
Sean: It’s a lot of pressure.
Mark: No pressure at all.
Sean: Oh gosh. Um, man, that’s a tough one. I guess what comes to mind is, um, lately in, in my session room I have been more strict about technology and I think, like I look at my, the clients that I currently serve and the highest performing teams are not on their technology in the room. Like it’s, it’s a no-brainer. And I think because I have young kids and I, you know, some days we don’t have screen time after school and I see them flip out and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is an addiction, right. So I’m just sort of tuning into that right now. So I guess I would, I would leave you with, when you’re in those meetings, whether it’s a weekly meeting or a meeting with your direct report or in a leadership team, whatever it is, to the degree that you can put the tech away and stay present with your people and stay present and engaged with the people around the room, you’re going to have a much more impactful and effective meeting.
Mark: Oh, for sure, for sure. Awesome. Well thank you Sean and we’ll see you until next time.
Related Resources
