Over the past 30 years, it has been my pleasure to improve organizational performance and personal well-being in hundreds of businesses on four continents.
Along the way, we’ve written three books about leadership and simplified planning – Prioritize!, On the Same Page and The 1 Hour Plan for Growth.
Early in my career, I had the privilege of working with Stephen Covey teaching The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle Centered Leadership. I worked with some of the world’s great companies, met some great leaders and learned a ton.
I also learned that I have a passion for working with small and midsize companies. So, my partner and I developed a system for business owners to create and implement business growth plans. We had a lot of fun, made a positive impact and enjoyed helping others succeed.
I also knew something was missing. That’s when I discovered EOS, a more comprehensive system that I knew would better serve our clients. I know it is more important to serve our clients than serving my ego, so I put my intellectual property on the shelf and became a full-time EOS implementer.
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-Transcript-
Brad Burrow (00:01):
Welcome to In a World With Real Media. I’m your host, Brad Burrow. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the lives of the most successful people in business. We’ll learn how they overcame adversity, took advantage of opportunities and learned from their experiences. Learn from our experts. Get inspired, then go live your story. It’s in a world with real media. Hello and welcome to the In A World With Real Media Podcast. I’m Brad Burrow and I have a very special guest today, Joe Calhoon. Now, before we get into this, I want to just give a little bit of background. Joe and I, we’ve probably been friends for 25 years, maybe, something like that. And I remember when we met, I was struggling with a business at that point with a partner that it was just a rough situation and you helped us navigate that. And I remember that you just did it. It wasn’t like a, here, let me send you a consulting contract. It was just one of those things where you wanted to help us and you and your wife, Diane, have been such a blessing to Tracy and I over the years that, I mean, I almost get tears in my eyes thinking that some of the things that you’ve done for us, I even remember this, just came to mind. Do you remember meeting up down in Orlando?
Joe Calhoon (01:23):
Yes,
Brad Burrow (01:24):
We were at Disney. I think I had my whole family there. We ran into you guys. Do you remember that? That amazing. And so just thank you so much for everything that you’ve done for me, and I just want to get that out there that I really appreciate. And I’m so glad to have you on here because we’ve talked about having you on the podcast for a long time and it’s actually happening today. So thank you for being on with us. My
Joe Calhoon (01:47):
Pleasure. Thanks, Brad.
Brad Burrow (01:48):
So I want to give the listeners a little bit of a feel for your background, Joe, because you’ve done some amazing things. I mean, you’ve had, I don’t know how far back you want to go. I know you’re a man of faith and Diane, and just, I dunno, that drives everything you do. So take me back and talk me through how you became who you are today.
Joe Calhoon (02:17):
Sure.
Brad Burrow (02:19):
That’s a lot, isn’t it?
Joe Calhoon (02:21):
Well, I was born in Lansing, Michigan. Dad was a vet veterinarian. We moved to Sherburne, Minnesota where he had a large animal practice, and of course in a little town in Minnesota took care of everything from parrots to mice to,
Brad Burrow (02:40):
I didn’t know that.
Joe Calhoon (02:41):
Dogs, cats, wow. Cattle, pigs, sheep, horses. And I loved, as a young boy being in the truck with my dad visiting the farmers. It was just really special. Especially the dairy farmers that was my favorite. The barns were so clean and the cats are running around and the cows are getting milked. And so anyway, I had a really nice childhood. We moved to Ames, Iowa when I was in third grade. And again, it was a bigger city. It wasn’t 1300 people now. It was like whatever, 30,000 people. And that’s when tragedy struck my family and caused really major issues with every member of the family.
(03:35):
I learned a very important lesson over life about that whenever you have seven kids in your family, you always fighting with at least two of ’em. I was fighting with my brother Jeff at the time. I was 12. He was eight, and I was downtown Ames, Iowa. And my conscience started working on me and I wanted to tell Jeff I was sorry. And it was so convicting Brad that I literally ran all the way home from downtown about a mile to get home and walking and running, walking and running. And as I entered the house, I could just sense that something wasn’t right. And long story short, my brother Jeff had been hit by a car and killed in front of our house, and my mom had sent him across the street, where’s your stocking cap? We’ll go get the stocking cap. And she sent ’em across to the neighbors to get the stocking cap. And so she carried all that guilt and that led to all kinds of pain. And she was a nurse who learned how to self-medicate and big drug problem, big alcohol problem. So family lived with that. Dad had other problems, and it was just really a tough time. And so eventually my senior year in high school, we moved to Omaha. That was really a breakthrough time for me.
(04:56):
I joined the debate team. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t think I could make the kind of friends that I’d had names, Iowa
(05:04):
Friends from the sports and academic and goof offs and screw ups. And I had friends in all those different categories. And going to Burke High School out by Boystown in Omaha, I didn’t know anybody. So I immersed myself in this debate topic, which was a hot topic at the time. Resolved the United States should not be able to get involved in unilateral military interventions with foreign countries. And so I just read everything I could. That was your debate topic. That was a debate topic. It was right in the middle of Vietnam war. So it was just a really important time, and I was very grateful that my draft number was 2 87 and they were just wild times in our country like today. But today, it’s not just our country, it’s the world. It’s a very, very, we can get to that. It’s chaotic.
Brad Burrow (06:00):
It’s
Joe Calhoon (06:00):
An anxious and chaotic time for a lot of people. And so like I said, I immersed myself in that. And then when I got out of high school, I took a job out of the newspaper selling encyclopedia’s door to door. This helped fund my college education and it was a blast. I had so much fun because encyclopedias encyclopedia, it was like the Google of today. I mean, you could go look up anything, and there were pictures and charts and graphs and it was just fascinating. I love to learn and I love to create conditions where people could own their own encyclopedias and teach their kids away from the school and let kids pursue what was interesting to them. And so that was great. I mean, I made $3,000 a month selling with a company car, and I’m like 18 years old. That
Brad Burrow (06:52):
Was a lot of money at that time.
Joe Calhoon (06:53):
It it was big money. Yeah. Yeah. It’s nothing today, but it was big money back then. So that led to eventually my next kind of big breakthrough job was in Denver, Colorado where I was in residential real estate. And I learned a great, great lesson there that kind of followed up on knocking on doors to sell encyclopedia’s door to door.
(07:18):
In this case, it was just the farm area that I had called Virginia Village in Denver, south off, Monaco and Evans in that area. And it was amazing. He said, there’s 300 houses, go knock doors and see if somebody wants to list their home or sell their home. So the first door I knocked on was a rental, second one was a rental. And when I followed up and contacted the man that owned those rentals, he listed those two and another one and they were sold. So listings and sales on the first doors I knocked on, which taught me a very valuable lesson like you and I were talking about. We have to go out and talk to people about what we can do for them. And we have to be willing to be of service to them. And if you’re not willing to knock on the doors and be of service, especially in the kind of work that I was doing, things weren’t going to go well.
Brad Burrow (08:16):
A valuable lesson
Joe Calhoon (08:18):
To this day, it encourages me. You just never know when you knock on a door, figuratively, who’s going to be there, but
Brad Burrow (08:27):
You’ve got to knock, don’t you? Nothing’s going to happen if you don’t knock, you
Joe Calhoon (08:32):
Got to knock you. It seems pretty simple. You got to find,
Brad Burrow (08:36):
Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. So Denver. Yeah, Denver. If you could sell encyclopedias, Joe, I mean, wow.
Joe Calhoon (08:43):
You can sell anything. That’s what they used to tell me. So then interest rates were very high at the time, like 16%. Home mortgages were like 12 or 14, kind of six or 7%, 5% that look so bad. And so then I got my series sevens license and started doing some limited partnership investments. And eventually I ended up selling and listing, listing and selling apartment buildings. And I did that for a while. And then the next breakthrough was I got into the solar and energy conservation business.
Brad Burrow (09:25):
No kidding.
Joe Calhoon (09:26):
Yeah. And so that was
Brad Burrow (09:27):
Really, I’m learning a lot of things about you right
Joe Calhoon (09:28):
Now. That was really early and I was thinking about this, driving in today. I was the manager of a sales team and the man fired me, and it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It was spectacular. Mainly because of the way we did the firing interview. I asked him, so what didn’t go well? How could I improve? Help me understand my strengths and weaknesses. And he read me the right act and it was liberating. I realized that I was never really going to be a great manager when gifted to do that. And then we flipped and he said, tell me. And so I told him about what I thought his strengths and weaknesses. It was really great for both of us to get a totally honest and totally open feedback from somebody that knew you pretty well. And then about three months later, I’d worked for this local office and about three months later, I’m in a job that’s not a great job, but I’m working away trying to find something better. And I get a call from the national office for the Solar and Energy Conservation Company. They said, your boss, the one who fired you,
(10:56):
Says you would be perfect for a new job We have in this company. We’re starting up locations around the United States, and we need somebody that could be a startup guy, hiring, training, developing people, and a turnaround guy when the office doesn’t have the right people, somebody that could come in and evaluate and fire and rehire a better team. And so that was fascinating. For two years, I was on the road one week, 50 weeks, I’d come home on Saturday and leave on Sunday to go back to work.
Brad Burrow (11:29):
Oh
Joe Calhoon (11:29):
My gosh. Either two or three or four or five or six weeks at a time. And then the other week it was a little lighter. I only was on the road to 46 weeks. But during those two years, I logged 2000 hours of speaking experience. And finally near the end of that, Troy Neal out of Phoenix, Arizona, saw me speak one day and said, you should join the national speakers. You have a gift. You could do this. That was just a couple major, major breakthroughs for me. First doing the startups and the turnarounds, which I still sense that I do a lot of that today. And then of course the speaking, which is an important part of what any of us does.
Brad Burrow (12:13):
Yeah, I still remember wanting, because I’ve edited several of your speaking reels and I remember the go to work. Remember that. You probably do it. I’ve done
Joe Calhoon (12:25):
A lot of
Brad Burrow (12:26):
Speech the weekend, remember?
Joe Calhoon (12:29):
Well, it’s one of my signature stories. Lots of times they’ll show up somebody, they’ll say, tell the driveway story. Tell the driveway story. And so long story short, I had the habit early on of giving my best at the office and my leftovers to my family. And I was just work, work, working. And I had not managed my money well. I had a lot of debts and I had a lot of financial obligations, and I was going to now, it wasn’t like, Hey, call today and we’ll dismiss all that, those bills you have and debts you have. And it took me seven years to pay off all the back taxes and lines of credit and credit cards and when interest rates hit big numbers. And I was struggling to get by with character issues and I was working too hard. And I met a guy in Kansas City by the name of Drew Jennings. Drew was giving a speech. He was president of Chamber of Commerce, he was president of Kansas City Power and Light.
(13:38):
He recruited Bill Self to come to Kansas. He was a great guy. And so I approached Drew and I said, you’re involved in the community. I’d love for you to help me get more involved in the community. He said, terrific. Come to my office and we’ll talk. He took an hour to talk to me. He was so gracious. He was so kind. He was so thoughtful. He was so on target. He essentially said, so you want to be involved in your community? I said, yes, sir. He said, well, let me ask you three questions. First of all, you’re the kind of husband you want to be. I said, no, sir. He said, secondly, you’re the kind of father you want to be. I said, no, sir. Thirdly, are you the kind of neighbor you want to be? I said, no, sir. He said, well then don’t worry about your community.
(14:27):
You’re the one who’s screwing it up in the first place. In other words, get right with yourself and your relationships and don’t think about changing the world until you’ve corrected your own ship, until you’ve addressed your own issues in your own life. It was so helpful. I wrote that story in each of my books, and then I would send him a copy and Does that story sound about right? He goes, that’s the way I remember it. Yeah. So that was the advice and I got it. So I started driving into my driveway saying, now my most important work begins. Do you think that changed my life? Do you think that changed my work? It was, again, one of those
Brad Burrow (15:07):
Foundational
Joe Calhoon (15:08):
Moments where everything gets turned around.
Brad Burrow (15:09):
Yeah, amazing. And you were willing to ask him. Most people would never even ask somebody like that. Hey, could you help me get involved? And he was gracious enough to do that. Wasn’t an amazing encounter. It’s back to the knocking, right? Yeah, right. You got a knock.
Joe Calhoon (15:26):
Right. A lot of different doors we got a knock on.
Brad Burrow (15:28):
So from there, how did you get involved with Covey?
Joe Calhoon (15:33):
Yeah. So from there where we were, lemme just pick it up, the next thing I did is I went to work for a great, great guy named Ron Willingham. And it was Integrity Training Systems.
Brad Burrow (15:50):
I have that book.
Joe Calhoon (15:51):
Things like Integrity
Brad Burrow (15:52):
Selling,
Joe Calhoon (15:53):
Integrity Selling, the Customer Managing Goal Achievement.
Brad Burrow (15:57):
He
Joe Calhoon (15:57):
Was the most brilliant facilitator of personal and professional change that I’ve ever met. He understood how people change. And in the simplest of terms, you change your thinking through the input that comes into your brain. And once that input changes your thinking, that changes your behavior and that changes your results. And it’s got to be supported by a strong sense of knowing who you are and believing who you are. And Ron was just so good at that. He worked with Maxwell Maltz at Psycho-Cybernetics is the way you say that. And these were beautiful women that would get plastic surgery and look even more beautiful. And then he’d talk to him and they’d say, I feel ugly. They weren’t ugly at all. They were beautiful, but they just had the wrong picture of who they are. And so Ron, along with teaching character and competence,
Brad Burrow (16:57):
He
Joe Calhoon (16:57):
Would deal with people’s image of themselves and it was brilliant.
Brad Burrow (17:01):
So you said one thing, I want to dive into this a little bit more. Please. Knowing who you are and believing, that seems very simple, but to me that’s one of the hardest things. It’s like, do you know who you are? I bet most people struggle with that probably. Would you agree with that?
Joe Calhoon (17:18):
I think
Brad Burrow (17:19):
So. And then believing who you are. If you think about from spiritual standpoint, those are the places that you get attacked, right?
Joe Calhoon (17:29):
Right.
Brad Burrow (17:29):
I mean, you’re not that you don’t know who you are.
Joe Calhoon (17:33):
I just met with a guy this morning and that’s exactly what I said to him. I said, I know who you are, and I know the God who loves you and has plans and purposes for your life, and let’s talk about that a bit. And he just saying, you’re so encouraging. This is so encouraging. Thank you. Shaking my hand. And yeah, people, we need to encourage one another and be encouraged by one another. Yeah,
Brad Burrow (18:02):
Yeah, yeah. I think that was like, we need to talk about that. That is something I think everybody struggles with it, honestly, and we do. It’s when you have the confidence in yourself that you can believe that. I think you have to get to that place maybe. I dunno. That’s very interesting. Alright, so speaking. So Covey, tell me how.
Joe Calhoon (18:26):
Yeah, so again, I joined the Speakers Association in 1983 and met CT Robert who the given award every year called the Cavitt Award. And it’s like the Oscar, the Emmy of professional speaking. He became my mentor and he helped me write the very first speech that I ever wrote. Is
Brad Burrow (18:46):
That right?
Joe Calhoon (18:46):
And it was a speech that he saw, will Rogers give up in New York City before Will Rogers died in that fateful plane crash? And in order to be successful in life, you got to know what you’re doing. You got to love what you’re doing, you got to believe what you’re doing. And that was a speech. No
Brad Burrow (19:03):
One believe in there.
Joe Calhoon (19:04):
That’s the speech that he encouraged me to give. And he said, go out and speak and give free speeches. And some days somebody’s going to say, can you do this for our company? And what do you charge? He says, that’s today. You’re a professional when somebody wants to pay you. So I gave 50 free speeches a year for two years in Kansas City and met a lot of great people and can trace a lot of that business back to that, the Integrity training systems. And then in 1990, I joined Covey Leadership Center. A couple of my clients had basically said, you’re teaching something that sounds a lot like a book I just read called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,
Brad Burrow (19:46):
And
Joe Calhoon (19:46):
You ought to teach that. So I thought, oh geez, that’s all I need is another Snapper competitor with a new book. And I approached them. I went and knocked on that door and was hired to work with Covey and started off where we had a six eight area where we could represent seven Abbott principal centered leadership to companies of less than 3000 employees. And my friend and partner, Bruce Jeffrey and I started that we could add a hundred people doing that area, that six eight area, and not had enough people to serve
Brad Burrow (20:22):
That many prospects out there.
Joe Calhoon (20:25):
Oh, it was hot. Covey was hot and getting hotter. The Business Week cover story said. And so they reorganized invite us to join the Covey Leadership Center, which we both did. And I did that for 10 years, had the privilege of traveling to four different continents, teach leadership teams at great companies like Ritz Carlton Hotel Best Buy with their founders and their leadership teams. And it was just so special. And I realized at the end of 10 years that I really didn’t enjoy working with big companies, hard to make change. It’s just the company’s too big. You can impact a few people. The leadership team, for example, it’s really hard to impact thousands or tens of thousands of people inside an organization. So my partner Bruce and I decided to go out on our own and we developed priority advantage, the smartest way to run a business. We’re kind of proud of our approach. We helped them plan and achieve and renew based on principles. So we wrote a few books on that, developed a few websites, trained a few hundred companies, made a positive impact, had a lot of fun doing it. And did that up until about seven years ago.
Brad Burrow (21:43):
Yeah, really, really awesome. So one of the things, talk about speaking a little bit, because seen this in you, when you get up on stage, you kind of come alive.
Joe Calhoon (21:55):
Would
Brad Burrow (21:56):
You agree with that? I mean, it’s like the energy of it. Do you like that energy?
Joe Calhoon (21:59):
It’s much better than dying.
Brad Burrow (22:03):
Yeah, I think so.
Joe Calhoon (22:04):
Yeah. You want to come alive,
Brad Burrow (22:07):
But that’s a natural thing that happens, right? I mean, when you walk out on stage, do you, and you’re like, oh, this is not feel good being here.
Joe Calhoon (22:15):
Yeah, it’s wanting to make a difference in people’s lives with the principles and practices we teach and the stories we tell. And anytime we’ve been around great speakers, and I’ve been around a lot of ’em over the years, these are people that you’re a little better off for, a little worse off because of everybody you meet. And a good speaker, you ought to be a little, if not a lot better, because you spend some time listening to those words that input into your brain that can change your thinking, can change your behavior, and can change your results
Brad Burrow (22:54):
Back to the Willingham and what you were talking about with that. So that’s awesome. I want to dive a little bit into the faith
Joe Calhoon (23:03):
Aspect.
Brad Burrow (23:06):
What I’ve always admired about you is that you’re very, very transparent about your faith and how that guides decisions. And talk about that a little bit. I mean, not everybody feels that way. I feel that way. I mean, I’ve seen God do some amazing things here over 28 years in our company, and you’ve seen some of those things too and been part of that. But talk about the importance of faith and just obviously in your personal walk, but in business as well.
Joe Calhoon (23:36):
Yeah. Well, one of the first speakers I met in the National Speakers Association was a guy by the name of Charlie Tremendous Jones.
Brad Burrow (23:47):
I remember that name.
Joe Calhoon (23:48):
Charlie Life is tremendous, the name of his book and most of his speeches. And he said, you’re going to be the same person you are today. You’re going to be the same person you are today, years down the road, except for the people you meet in the books you read. And so that again, is back to that input, the people you meet, the books you read.
(24:15):
So I found that there was one person to meet who is very special to me. And the news was so good, I could hardly contain myself when I heard it. And we know who that person is and Jesus is very misunderstood. And the good news is called good news because of the gift that Jesus gave to us and the gifts that God gives to us and the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised that he would send to live inside of us and guide us and direct us. And then along with that person to meet, there was a book to read. It wasn’t just one book, it was like 66 in one. And just Proverbs alone is life-changing for virtually anybody. Just go read a proverb a day. It’s amazing. Go read the book of John, read the New Testament. Yeah, I’m a desperate man. I cannot do anything that counts for anything apart from God’s guidance. God’s leading God’s eyesight, God’s hearing God’s touch. It’s the God that made the universe. It’s a big, big subject, Brad, that would take more than this podcast to talk about how amazing our faith is and can be for so many people.
Brad Burrow (25:41):
Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. One of the things that the experiences that you and I have had together was traveling to Dallas. I don’t know if you remember that trip. I,
Joe Calhoon (25:52):
How about let’s go see Zig Ziglar and Bob Buford.
Brad Burrow (25:56):
Right? I have ’em written down. Exactly.
Joe Calhoon (25:58):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (25:58):
Yeah. And I remember in those days I would take all my camera gear with me. So I dunno if you remember, but loading all that gear on the lights and everything, we went to Zigs office, set up in his office and spent a half a day with them. I still quote some of the things that he said in that talked about the redhead, and one of the things that he said, I’m sure he said it all the time, but in your interview with him, was that if you want to be successful, help somebody else be successful. And I’ve always said that’s a key thing. Do you remember that?
Joe Calhoon (26:36):
Well, of course he would say, you can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want in life. And that was one of his foundational principles based on the truth that you give and you receive. And if you want to receive more, give more. And that reminds me of a quote that I read this morning thinking about Jim Rohn. The first time I saw Zig, he was with Jim Rohn and Jim’s a business philosopher that’s a great thinker, a very positive guy. And he said, you shouldn’t be so concerned. Success isn’t so much about what you have. Success is about who you are. And that’s the kind of thing that the great teachers talk about. Not just some superficial success, but the real success that comes from the real work that we allow to be done in our lives.
Brad Burrow (27:31):
I tell people that I got to be a part of the interview with Zig, and that was pretty special. I mean, I think about God putting you before Kings. It kind of feels like that a little bit. I mean, you’ve had some pretty amazing relationships. I mean, Stephen Covey, Bob Buford, Zig Ziglar, that’s pretty amazing.
Joe Calhoon (27:52):
So I hope I can get this point across today. If nothing else. I’m so grateful for the people that I’ve met in my life and we’re going to be the same we are today, years down the road except for the people we meet and the input that we take in. And I’m just so grateful, Brad, for the positivity and the simplest of terms that was part of Zigs life, the good humor, the storytelling, the warmth, the love, the generosity. And then Bob Buford. I mean, what was that like for you? All of a sudden we’re interviewed Bob Buford? Well,
Brad Burrow (28:32):
I didn’t know who Bob was at the time. I didn’t know who Zig was. But now looking back, I wish I had have been a little bit more tuned into who he actually was.
Joe Calhoon (28:42):
So Bob was a terrific guy. He was mentored by Peter Drucker, I think for 20 years. They would meet once or twice a year. And his book that became a bestseller with lots of business people was called Halftime Change in Your Game Plan From Success to Significance. And he basically said, most of us spend the first half of our life trying to accumulate things, being successful in temporal ways, things that don’t last, but at some point in time, usually around the halftime of a life, people get this sense that is that all there is, there’s got to be more. And so Bob said, that’s all about significance, which is pursuing eternal, not temporal things.
(29:29):
So our friend Bob Shank, who you saw recently talked about this from success to significance to surrender is what Bob said to me in one of last meetings with him. And essentially, success is temporal, significance is eternal. And then Bob Shank said, success, significance, surrender. He said, surrender is trusting God to keep score. Don’t get all consumed that these good deeds you’re doing are not noticed. Understand that a 30, 60 or a hundred fold return has been promised eternally for what we do in this earth. And so whether it was Zig saying what you do do on others the way you want ’em to do unto you, do great things for people and great things will happen for you. Or this quote that we just shared with your listeners.
Brad Burrow (30:42):
Yeah, I just remember that day. I dunno if you remember that day, we’re kind of in a little room actually. It wasn’t that big of a room. And his voice has very distinct characteristics to his voice, kind of the redhead. That was a bad impression of him, but I just never forget that day. And that was a very, very fun afternoon and getting to hang out with some pretty significant people in our world at the time. That was really cool.
Joe Calhoon (31:16):
And I think that people would enjoy just going Google on a speech by Zig Ziglar or Bob Buford and listen to these guys. Zig had I think the best control of his voice. He could do some things with that voice of his that were really special and it’s so easy to get captivated as we listen to Zig share his wisdom.
Brad Burrow (31:43):
I want to switch gears a little bit to EOS. So I know you’ve kind of gone through some different things. Tell us about, I mean, give us the 4 1 1 on what EOS actually
Joe Calhoon (31:56):
Is. Well, let me slide over here and grab these props that I brought along for that question.
Brad Burrow (32:03):
Yeah, so we’ve got some books here that we’re going to show here. There you go.
Joe Calhoon (32:12):
So the first thing I’ll share is what Gina
Brad Burrow (32:15):
Wickman. Just move back up to the microphone for me.
Joe Calhoon (32:16):
Yeah, sure. Gina Wickman wrote a book called Traction and I was curious as to what the date is on this book. So it’s 2011. So we wrote our first book, which talked about the input into your brain, affects your thinking, affects your behavior. It was in anthology, it was 1985.
Brad Burrow (32:41):
Wait, who’s the guy on the front of that?
Joe Calhoon (32:43):
Yeah,
Brad Burrow (32:45):
You might want to show that. Put that That’s
Joe Calhoon (32:48):
Funny. 1985 Little anthology. But I just, Cabot told me, if you’re going to be a professional speaker, you better write a book.
Brad Burrow (32:56):
Yeah.
Joe Calhoon (32:57):
So I did. And then when Bruce and I partnered up, it was 20 years later that we wrote a book called Prioritize, which subtitle, A system for Leading Your Business and Life on Purpose. And then three years later we wrote another book called On the Same Page. And then three years later, 2011, we wrote the book called the One R Plan for Growth published by Wiley and Son. So what I get a kick out of is, so does Gino Wickman, the author of Traction. One of my clients referred me to EOS. They’d been doing Priority Advantage. They’d been doing my stuff and they said, we really like you, Joe, but we like traction and we’re wondering if maybe you could teach that to us.
Brad Burrow (33:40):
What did you say?
Joe Calhoon (33:41):
I mean, I got the
Brad Burrow (33:42):
Message message that’s like, here, let me slap you
Joe Calhoon (33:45):
In the face. I got the message. So I went and read Traction. There were literally a hundred things that I knew I could do better. So I took my books, threw ’em into the trashcan, and adapted traction. Whenever I tell that story to Gito, he gets a big kick out of it. Then I trashed my three books for his book. It was that much better. They had spent a lot of time refining the entrepreneurial operating system, which is essentially a system to harness people power inside of organization. And so what’s that look like? Three things. One, it’s all about vision. It’s about getting people on the same page about where you are and where you want to go, and being honest with yourself, where are we now and where do we want to go? And then it’s about traction. It’s about making things happen, getting things done, a sense of accountability and responsibility. And so like Larry, the cable guy says, get her done. So you got a vision, then you got traction. Then third component is team health. Team health is all about people getting along well, working together well, honoring one another’s strengths and talents and a abilities having some fun together because most time they don’t.
(35:06):
So if you’ve got vision, you got traction, you got health team health, it’s a good thing. We work with leadership teams to help that leadership team get on the same page first. And then as that leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the organization.
Brad Burrow (35:20):
Do you find that a lot of entrepreneurs in smaller companies like ours where a person that did something really well could be painting, it could be whatever that skill is. Say I’m going to start a business and I’m going to go out and do this, but then all of a sudden realize that they have to do accounting, they got to raise money, they got hr, they got to hire people, they got to sell. So all of a sudden now they’re not really doing what they started out doing and the reason they loved doing it. Does that make sense?
Joe Calhoon (35:55):
Well, Michael Gerber wrote a classic book on that subject called the E Myth, and it’s really a small percentage of people are entrepreneurs and it’s just not a big number. It’s probably less than 5% of people are wired to be entrepreneurs. Number that are, we call ’em visionaries. And then the number that are the percentage of people that are really gifted to manage. Gallup says that’s probably 10% with maybe 30% with a lot of rigorous training could be trained to be good managers. So that leaves a lot of people who are doing the work. What kind of work is
Brad Burrow (36:36):
It?
Joe Calhoon (36:37):
So that person, Michael Gerber, in his book the says they have an entrepreneurial seizure. I’m working for this company shooting video, and why don’t I go start my own company shooting video? Well, okay, sure. Then you’re going to have to market it. You’re going to have to sell it, and then you’re going to have to manage it. And then you’re going to have to handle finances and HR and legal and everything else. And like you said, if we’re not careful, pretty soon we get away from the very thing that we were great at doing. And so I just always laugh when he said, these people have an entrepreneurial seizure where they think I can go start my own business.
Brad Burrow (37:20):
I had that 28 years ago, that same
Joe Calhoon (37:25):
Seizure. Yeah.
Brad Burrow (37:26):
That’s funny. But I mean it does. It’s like I don’t think people realize the idea of starting a business sounds awesome when you don’t have a business like, oh, I’m my own boss. All these great upside things, but they don’t really understand that the weight that comes with that or I’m not sure if I’m saying that correctly, but it’s the other stuff that is hard. If all I had to do was go out and direct and create all day long, I mean, I’d be awesome. I’d be thrilled. But it’s like all the other stuff that you have to do to keep this thing going is that’s the challenge.
Joe Calhoon (38:07):
Gina Wickman has started a company and written a book on that subject. How do you start up a business and what’s that look like from the early days of an entrepreneur? It’s a great read and
Brad Burrow (38:18):
He’s
Joe Calhoon (38:18):
Got a passion to develop tens of thousands, if not a million entrepreneurs around
Brad Burrow (38:25):
This country to happen, isn’t it?
Joe Calhoon (38:27):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (38:27):
I mean, it’s really exploding. EOS is exploding.
Joe Calhoon (38:29):
I think so,
Brad Burrow (38:30):
Yeah. What advice would you have to somebody wanting to start business? What would you say to ’em right now? It’s like, what should they do? What should they look at?
Joe Calhoon (38:41):
Well, I think the first thing, loaded question to look at is you might feel called to do it. Are you gifted to do it? Do you really have the giftedness that’s required to be an entrepreneur? And there’s lots of assessments, EOS and traction as an assessment. Gino’s work with Entrepreneurial Leap and all the work that they’re doing. There’s assessments available. There’s training and development courses that are available and people can go out and become a student of that before you look, before you leap. Let’s say it that
Brad Burrow (39:25):
Way. Yeah.
Joe Calhoon (39:25):
Yeah. That’d be my advice.
Brad Burrow (39:26):
Talk about the assessments a little bit. One thing that you did with me early on and even helped me in my marriage understanding, knowing who we are, what was the name of the one that you had me do? I can never remember the name of it.
Joe Calhoon (39:42):
A Colby. Colby. That’s what? It’s one’s a Gallup. And those are the two that we use most with the EOS.
Brad Burrow (39:47):
And
Joe Calhoon (39:49):
There’s others. And they’re terrific working genius by Patrick Lencioni comes to mind. And so yeah, the Kolby is, we have three parts of our mind. We have our cognitive, our thinking mind, we have our effective, our feeling mind. Then we have our ative, which is our doing mind controls, the action. So what are you doing when you get your best results? That’s what that Colby told you, and it was liberating. And then we start seeing how you and Tracy, your wife, can work together if you’re different. It’s an opportunity for tremendous synergy or tremendous conflict. And if you understand the differences, my wife’s very different. She’s wire a lot like you in many ways and
(40:36):
Very different from me. And it’s helped our marriage too, and helped our relationship. Even my son, when my son was, I think he was 17 or 18, I looked at his kolby and then his gallop, and I said, Joseph, I never got you. And he looked at me and said, no wonder we had so many problems. And it was true. Whenever there’s conflict, it’s not understanding that other person. And that’s the way they are and that’s the way they’re wired. And yeah, I love the Gallup too. The Gallup, Don Clifton went out and spent decades interviewing successful people and came up with 34 talents that these people had. And you can go take that assessment, it’s going to tell you top 34 in order. And so your top 10 are dominant. And if you can really tap into those talents, it’s going to help you be successful and help you determine whether or not you’re called to be that entrepreneur that you were talking about.
Brad Burrow (41:34):
Yeah, I think one of the things for me it showed me is there’s areas that I need support in. I’m good in this area, but not in this area.
Joe Calhoon (41:45):
That’s right.
Brad Burrow (41:46):
And when you understand that it’s not a bad thing, it’s just how it is. God made you right. But when you understand that now you can get a functioning team that’s working together. Vision for me in vision, and you told me one time, I dunno if you remember this, but I love building things, even in the studio environment.
Joe Calhoon (42:08):
Well, you’re a hands-on guy.
Brad Burrow (42:09):
Yeah,
Joe Calhoon (42:10):
Very much. So.
Brad Burrow (42:11):
This podcast studio, it’s like this was an idea. And then Carly and I would work on it together, and I was like, I think I’m going to add trusting. I think I’m going to add cameras, I think I’m going to add lights. And it’s evolved into this really cool thing. But when it started out, it was just a little idea, and I get energy out of things like that, but I didn’t realize that until I’d done my Kolbe.
Joe Calhoon (42:33):
Right. Yeah. That’s fascinating. So you have that quick start energies, the words that Colby is who you love to take calculated risks, and you’re not afraid. You’re a creative soul and you’re a let’s do it now kind of guy. And then you’re an implementer, you’re a hands-on guy according to Colby, the implementer, and you’re just like my wife. Really good. And then when it comes to being a detailed or a structured person, not so much.
Brad Burrow (43:02):
Yeah, I believe right now.
Joe Calhoon (43:05):
So who’s going to handle all the detail and all the structure? That’d be somebody else. My favorite story in this regard is Walt Disney and his brother Roy.
(43:14):
And I’ll just tell a short version, hopefully it’s not too inaccurate, but Roy was going bankrupt again, and it was in Kansas City as I recall. And the reason why is he was extremely creative guy. But when it come to the details and the finances and the workloads and the people that are required and the management of everybody’s schedules and getting a team to work together to take this big vision and make it a reality, that wasn’t his strength. And so he was struggling and his brother Roy joined him, and they were perfect compliments one to another. I like to think of it as a kite flying high in the sky for people like you, for people like Walt Disney, for the creative entrepreneurial types, who’s going to hold the kite string to make sure that that kite doesn’t end up in the power lines or in a tree somewhere. And it’s a dynamic tension between No, we can do it. We got to do it. We got to go for quality. Well, we still have a budget and we still have a timeframe here. So sorry, Brad, we can only make it 99%. Perfect. Can you live with that? Well,
Brad Burrow (44:28):
I don’t know if I can judge.
Joe Calhoon (44:29):
Yeah, I know.
Brad Burrow (44:31):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s really good analogy. And so we need that. So when you think about somebody starting a business, you would actually have recommend them going through Kolby or one of the assessments and saying, here’s what I’m good at, and making decisions based on that.
Joe Calhoon (44:50):
Yeah, and I think you asked about the other assessments too.
(44:54):
There’s an attraction. Just go to EOS and to the website and go look at the assessment, that free assessment that’s available there. And it’ll tell you if you’re gifted more like an entrepreneur, a visionary, or an integrator, one who seamlessly orchestrates that team of people working together to achieve the vision of the visionary. And so that’s a complimentary assessment. I think that’s a good one. Colby’s 20 minutes and not very expensive. Gallup’s a little more money, less than a hundred dollars, but a lot more extensive, a lot more detail. And there’s plenty of people now that are knowledgeable about how to debrief these and share this with somebody that understands it and can help you understand yourself
Brad Burrow (45:45):
Better. So I want to wrap up. I’m getting close to the end here, but so you’re doing, what does it look like to engage with you right now, Joe? Like with EOS, what’s that process look like?
Joe Calhoon (45:58):
Sure. Well, one of our values is help first. So if you have a need and you think I could help, call me and I’ll help. And so I don’t know if you put my phone number or my email up there, but yeah.
Brad Burrow (46:12):
Yep, we can.
Joe Calhoon (46:13):
And just shoot me an email or give me a call and I’ll help if I can. And so that’s one of our values, help first. And then depending upon what’s going on with this person, Brad and their organization, we work with companies of about 10 to 250 employees. There other people that work with the startups, that’s not me. And we want to help people live the EOS life in addition to building the company that they’ve always wanted to build. The EOS life, which is profound, is doing work you love with people you love, making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately with time for other passions. So what really makes my socks go up and down is working with people to build great businesses and living great lives.
Brad Burrow (47:16):
It’s
Joe Calhoon (47:16):
All attainable. It can happen, and it’s worth pursuing.
Brad Burrow (47:21):
That sounds great to me.
Joe Calhoon (47:23):
That’s why we’re working together again. Right?
Brad Burrow (47:25):
Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you coming, Joe. This has been like a trip down memory lane for me. It’s remembering some of the times we’ve had together, and it’s pretty awesome. So I would encourage anybody that’s thinking about starting a business, maybe their business needs some help, reach out to Joe. The information’s going to be on the YouTube link and all that stuff, so be sure to do that. Before we finish though, there’s one thing that we have to do. So this is the inner world with Real Media podcast. Have I told you about this?
Joe Calhoon (48:00):
I’ve heard it.
Brad Burrow (48:00):
Okay. So you have to do the movie voice. So we talked about Walt Disney today. It’s like, so you got to do, so I need you to do your best impersonation of the movie trailer voice thing in a world with real media. And so you got to get real close to the mic and say, in a world. So let’s see,
Joe Calhoon (48:16):
In a world with real media
Brad Burrow (48:20):
You’re in, you may have a future as a voice guy. Now we’ll see. We launched it right here at Real Media. I should have practiced that. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us, everybody. I really appreciate it. Subscribe, share this content. There’s a lot of great content in this podcast today that people can help people. And that’s what we love about doing the podcast. We love getting information out there. And so we’re on YouTube, Spotify, apple podcasts. There’ll be a little shorts on some of the social media platforms, so be sure to share it and subscribe so you can hear all the great content that’s coming. This has been in a world with real media. Thanks for joining us. And be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow real media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So you never miss an episode.