From Bankruptcy to Breakthrough: How EOS Changed Everything

0:00Within 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. Welcome to Real Talk with EOS Implementers, the podcast where we share real stories from entrepreneurs who've made the leap to become EOS Implementers. I'm your host Marco Donnell, visionary at EOS Worldwide, expert EOS Implementer, and best-selling author. Each episode, we'll explore how EOS changed their lives, helping them do what they love, with people they love, making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately with time for other passions. Let's dive in.

0:40Hello everyone, welcome to the show. Today I have with me Sean Rosensteel. Sean, did I say your last name correctly? You did. Yeah. All right, there's always a victory. Well, I appreciate you coming on, and as I always say, the Implementer 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 Implementer in the community, and I don't want your minute and 30-second version of your story that we teach every implementer to. Let's go deep, the whole thing, and start from the beginning. Awesome. So like many of us, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family.

1:24Dad was a bit of a visionary. Mom was a bit of an integrator. Didn't know it back then, right? But 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 had three older siblings, all entrepreneurs. My sister actually recently got a deal on Shark Tank, which is kind of fun with Mr. Wonderful. We're like, no. Any shark. I live in Dallas. I was hoping it was Mark Cuban, right? Yeah. Super generous behind the scenes. Someone's got to play the villain on the show.

2:03Anyway, so I grew up in that kind of an environment, and then 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. As every good, young college student would be apt to do, well, before you keep going, what was the family business that you grew up in? Like what was the?

2:38Yeah, so my father was a, he had a estate planning firm 50 plus years. He was also, he and my mom both did a lot of residential real estate development, as well as commercial development downtown Chicago. So I grew up in a Western Burb of Chicago. They were busy. They were always busy growing up. Learned a lot in the backseat of the car. I bet you did. So that was the business. It was a state 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 yeah. So I graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship.

3:20They're actually handing those things out now, which is kind of nice. And then when I started my first business when I was a senior in college, and I got into real estate, I was a Robert Kyosaki rich dad poor dad student in high school and then in college and 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.

3:52So I was renovating homes. And I also had some rent to owns that I was doing. And oh, eight 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 failure. And 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. So hard lessons, but good lessons.

4:25And 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 I'm really blind ambition and just wanted to be a millionaire. You know, I was, 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 to put it lightly, I vented to him for like an hour. This is 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?

5:21So back then I read traction. And then my brother introduced me to Dan Wallace in Chicago. Yeah. Awesome. Implement her. And we had a 90 minute meeting with Dan and he wouldn't take my money. He's like, you're too small. I can't help you. But he's like, your brother tells me that, you know, 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.

5:50An 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. And I'm so grateful for that. 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. Yeah, for sure. Right. Very possible, 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.

6:39And they're like, what are you doing over there? And I'm like, I don't know. But let me ship you this book. The calls came trickling in. Like, can you do this for us? And I'm like, 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? With the help of Dan Wallace and through the years, Jill Young and Jeff Whittle here in Dallas just had some really awesome mentors along the way. So that's sort of how I discovered EOS. 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 implementer at some point. Most of them do. Now did you eventually hire an implementer three or three companies? Or do you self implement that whole time? Dan would let me hire him.

7:42And he was the only one for you. Yeah. And then the second or the third one, I guess, when I started, it was just me. So I was going to hire him, right? So I kind of knew I knew the foundational tools well enough. And I think that's a mistake a lot of startups make is like, well, 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, so I again applied it exactly how it was prescribed as much as it killed me to do, you know, because I wanted to add a ninth question to the VTO, of course, right?

8:15And a tenth if you're while you're at it. It should be three pages. But I stuck to it, and I was compliant with it. And yeah, it works. Yeah, 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. 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 or anything like, you know, I wanted my dad there. And oftentimes he wasn't there. And one of the things that EOS did is like, I started my family in 2010. I have three young kids now. And EOS really gave me that sense of balance in the world.

9:04You know, I coach multiple sports teams for my boys. 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 EOS kind of helped me sort of box and shelf and compartmentalize, you know, my business life as an entrepreneur, but also my personal life, which I really appreciate. And that's what I love so much as 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, which is really neat. That's kind of the transformation that I'm so passionate about.

9:48Yeah. 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, I'm going to just call it the over arching culture of the world we live in today. It seems to me that it's filled with a little bit of entitlement. A little bit of, hey, I'm not really willing to work that hard or just sort of like this a little bit of a checked out culture, if you will. Yeah, a little complacent, a little entitled, a little bit lazy, a little bit like, hey, I don't need to work hard for what I got.

10:39And I was thinking about this today because what you brought up for me is that 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 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 fail at it. Any thoughts about that?

11:30Yeah, there's that term in psychology, paradoxical intention, right? And that reminds me of that as far as what you just mentioned. I agree wholeheartedly that it's a byproduct. We don't lead with that, right? It's the reward. And it takes a lot of effort, as you know, and time to get there doesn't happen overnight. 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 intentionally aim for that, it might be too rigid or too hard or, you know, it just may not happen. So I like how you frame that as a byproduct, because we see that, right? We see that. When you're thinking about your time and you're managing your time, so you can be with your family and 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.

12:39What I mean by that is what you're doing is you're creating scarcity of time for you that you will apply yourself 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. So I think it's really interesting. So what took you from Chicago to Dallas? So my former wife and I am recently divorced. So my former wife and I would would come down here for the winners. So my family was in Chicago and her family was in Dallas.

13:27So starting in I think 2016 or 17, we would come down here to escape the winner somewhere between mid-January through mid-April for a couple months. And we were down here during COVID. And it was mid-March maybe and the COVID started hitting the headlines and all that good stuff. And I called my parents and my parents are very private. My dad is one of my best friends. About 15 years ago, he really turned the corner and we would go to all these professional development events or personal development events every year. Like we've walked down fire and we've with Tony Robbins and we've broken arrows with like we've done some really nice 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 and I'm like, oh I'm on speakerphone.

14:22Right. My dad is like yeah, how's it going? It's mid-March 2020 and he's like so your mom and I are moving. And my whole family has been wanting to exit Illinois for many years. And my parents have always talked about leaving someday and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, okay dad, you know. 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. And we bought a house down in aching South Carolina. And I'm like, where? What's aching, you know? And we closed in two weeks and I'm like, holy cow. So I hung up the phone and I talked to my wife at the time and I'm like, hey, honey mom and dad are leaving and everyone else is it's like this massive exodus right now certainly. And maybe because we were thinking my parents were a lot older than her parents were so we're thinking like in 10 that was like kind of our 10-year plan was like someday we'll migrate down to Dallas. And I'm like, maybe we should accelerate that to three years, you know. And we're using the family VTO, you know, it won't save your marriage. So we were using all that and

15:40I 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, a client, actually a good friend who was 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 put the kids in the minivan and raced back up to Chicago at 14-hour drive and set our good buys and got closure and packed up the house in a week or two and moved down. So very full. We did it. Dallas is a great place. The economy is very strong. People here are very friendly.

16:32That's awesome. So the rest is history there. Yeah. Well, I want to go back to, you know, you meet Dan Wallace. So your brother gives you traction. 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 about the book attracted you to it and what made the most difference? So again, entrepreneurial family, my whole life, that's all I knew. When I went bankrupt, I should have gotten a job, but I didn't know how to do that. I was like, oh, I have another idea. Why not do that? So it was just a normal, it was normal for me. I majored in this thing called entrepreneurship, right? And I read a lot of books through high school and college.

17:33And when I read traction, I was sold. I was like, because 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 Geno's contribution in my humble opinion is the brilliance of the tools, because he's standing on the shoulder of giants. It's heavily influenced. I was a long time coach client. I know you're in coach and strategic coach, right? And Patrick Lenzioni and Michael Gerber with Emeth, philosophy and Jim Collins, and 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 applicable, you know, easy to apply and make them applicable. We can wrap our art because Jim Collins, right? People write seats on the bus. Like we all talk about this, but how do we do it?

18:34It's great. But how do we do it? And then Geno 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. Oh, for sure. 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. You know, 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 is just 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? Yes. I remember reading that book quickly and thinking I just learned more about entrepreneurship in these 228 pages, whatever it is, then 25 years of real world experience. You know, my parents need this. I think my favorite tool. Can I have two of them? Sure. Okay. Well, I love the accountability chart. Yeah. We do it first. It's a heavy

19:55lift, 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 got to constantly plan for that. But personally, two favorite tools that I continue to use all the time, delegate and elevate, which is obviously inspired by unique ability, right? Right. And I love teaching it that way, as well as the EOS way. But 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 and they're like, we did a new delegation this this quarter. Awesome. You know, 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.

20:41Or if we could, right. And if I delegated, it's just going to, you know, they're going to mess it up. And I'm going to take more time. So no one can do it better and faster than I can. That's my mindset. So I struggle with that. I'm not a natural delegator. And 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 and the people's heads when I teach it is the getting what you want to.

21:13Yeah. Yeah. I just, I'm such a big fan of reverse engineering and outcome because it's just, you can see the path. 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. And 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. I can just see the light bulbs go off. So I love, I love the getting what you want to. Yeah. I do too. And I think it's one of those tools where it really does tie your processes, your scorecard, your roles on the accountability chart.

22:07It 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. Yeah. 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.

22:50And if you can do that, if you can understand that, you can just make a huge, huge impact. Absolutely. Love it. Yep. Yep. And with Delegate and Elevate, what you 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. Yeah. I mean, I just really think that that getting what you want to delegate and elevate is training yourself. It's training your people to become clock builders instead of time tellers, which is just a really, it's a nuanced difference. But if you're always telling people the time and you're unwilling to let go that 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 because they just rely on you to do all the thinking and it's really tough, really tough. Yep. Yep. Yeah. One of my favorite stories about that tool, there was a I think this it's still a client about a year ago, 110 person organization during the manufacturing industry. The finance head utilized it like she just embraced it like just loved it and which

24:13made 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 he's like, can you look at our accountability chart and he said sure. So she had three direct reports, small finance department. And on her accountability chart, she had LMA, right, lead manage, accountability. She had process and she had reporting. That was it. And in the integrator was like, she's showing up differently and she's a lot happier. But like, I think she's under utilized like I don't know what's going on, but I don't feel like she's working enough. Well, she had gotten down to four hours a week. She's not over capacity any longer.

24:57She's happier. She's checking out after 5 p.m. And I looked at the accountability chart, I'm like, she made it. I don't know about the rest of you, the five of you figured it out. You know, good for her. That's amazing. 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.

25:23And 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 she's like, oh, so nothing's wrong. I'm like, no, she beat everyone else to the, you know, she made it. That she listened. 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 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 the rocks completed. And she's like, it's great. Like awesome. Score. Yeah. That's so great. Yeah. That's amazing. And I'm going to switch topics on here just a little bit. I love to hear your opinion. There's been a little bit of a debate

26:35about 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 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.

27:15And 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 a 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 does all of that. And when Geno was taking over his family business, which was the real estate sales training company, he was listening to Michael Gerber. And it was on tape at that time.

28:26And he Gerber 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 Geno was like, hey, I'm the integrator of my family business. That's my role. That's who I am. My dad's clearly the visionary. 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?

29:09CEO. So in my experience, Mark, most of the CEOs that I'm working with are the visionary. Yeah. So I don't necessarily see a difference there. That's usually their title, usually what I'm it just their outside title, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then usually the president might be the integrator, right? So yeah. Well, my perspective is in my as an implementer, 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.

29:55Right? So it 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 my experience is the vi relationship, the visionary integrator relationship. And if you can unlock that, it's rocket fuel, right? That's why they 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 some way this feeling of being put out to pasture. I'm like, it's you're right where you need to be. This is working. That's where you need to be right now. Right? Freed up. Freed up. Right? So if you if unpack, you know, three to seven, I call them responsibilities, but roles of the visionary, it's like, what does growth look like? You know, if you were to unpack growth here as it applies to your company, it act me incorporate it. How would you unpack growth? Because that's your

31:15number one job. That's your number one responsibility. In my mind, at least as a visionary. For sure. So I I'm a big fan of that. I struggle with that personally. So it's kind of a close thing that's near and dear to my heart and I still, you know, I've 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 and 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 sales seat. Like I usually see that. I see the visionary sitting in the sales seat or at least to the top producer or they're sitting in the finance seat, you know, one or the other. Right. Whichever they would like to hold on to more. Right.

32:06Right. 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 and all that good stuff and it was such a neat session and 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 over the next six months he was sort of going through this identity crisis because he was feeling like he was in the business. He didn't have a pulse. He was showing up 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 so I got him some books and got him into, you know, all the recent Ben Hardy dance all of his books and like what's amazing is that company has taken off. Yeah. Like this year was a breakthrough year for them. They ended up like severing one of their they had two service service lines. They severed one of them and got into their core focus.

33:11Like he is thinking big picture and this company is going to just blow up like in a very good way this year and next year and for the next few years. So I think it's really challenging and there's more awareness coming out. There's more books about it that driven, but 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 that's a big one. That's a big one. It is a big one because I think if you take the role that I have to be this CEO and we look out in the world, 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.

34:00And 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. Yeah. And 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're like Simon Sinek says, we should change it from CEO to CEO, chief visionary officer, because that's what you own on the accountability chart, right? You actually own the vision. So 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, 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.

35:12Yeah. 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, but there's not a book about delegation that I'm aware of. Like, I wish there was the book. There is a book. I'm not sure if you could classify as the book, but a friend of mine, Emily Morgan, delegate solutions, she wrote the book, the art of letting go or letting go. And so that was her rendition. And she and I were having a conversation last year some time. And she submitted to the University of Pennsylvania. She and I are alumni. And 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 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. And but there's a fight. 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 let it go. It's hard

36:24to know the difference. Yep. And it's I for 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 off like I just shut down and I didn't have any access to technology. And I put in a way message up on my email. And for two weeks, I was to 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.

37:01And then I'm like, well, how far can I push this? So I pushed it another week because I was thinking I'm so important, right? Like 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 I'm plug. And the show goes on without me. Like it was a huge wake up call for me. Like I need to sort of change my thinking and change my ways. And from that point forward, I just became better at like, okay, like I know where my lane is.

37:32I need to stay in my lane. And I don't actually have to micromanage as much as I did, right? Right. 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 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?

37:57That's a big one. And in my experience with clients, like that's a huge shift in thinking. Right. Yep. For sure. Well, Sean, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on. 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. Be the opportunity to do that. It's a lot of pressure. No pressure at all. Oh gosh. I guess what comes to mind is lately in my session room, I have been more strict about technology. And I think like I look at my clients that I currently serve and the highest performing teams are not on their technology in the room. Like 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 tuned into that right now. So I guess I would leave you with when you're in those meetings, whether it's a weekly meeting or 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

39:19present with your people and stay present and engage with the people around the room. You're going to have a much more impactful and effective meeting. Oh for sure. For sure. Awesome. Well, thank you, Sean. And we'll see you until next time. Thanks for the opportunity, Mark. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Real Talk with EOS implementers. If today's episode inspired you or gave you a new perspective, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Want to learn more about becoming an EOS implementer and living your EOS life? Visit EOSworldwide.com.

39:51Until next time, do what you love with people you love and make a huge difference in the world.