Lessons from a Failed Venture

0:00Do I want to start my own restaurants and live that life for the rest of my life or what's this other path? This other thing I've been thinking about, this consultant business, is it this restaurant thing, but then I start thinking about EOS, like this is something I can really get behind and be passionate about and support this and feel good about going out there and providing value to people. 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.

0:32I'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. Hey Chris, welcome to our little show here and the purpose of this is just to bring out all of the fantastic stories of our Implementer community.

1:04We have over 850 EOS Implementers in doing business in 40 countries and you are in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I want to dive in and one, thank you for being on and two, what is your entrepreneurial story, how did you get here, tell us a little about yourself. Yeah, well thanks for having me on, Mark, I'm excited to do this, I've been looking forward to it. So entrepreneurial story, I would say I was a childhood entrepreneur and I was kind of a hustler when I was a kid, I was always looking for ways, we were really, we were really poor and so I was always trying to find ways to make money, me and my brother were just always hustling and so I would always be looking for ways in the neighborhood, my first real entrepreneurial venture was, in Michigan we have a 10 cent bottle and can return and so I recruited some of the kids in the neighborhood, my brother, my little brother included and we just recruited them to help collect cans and return them and then kind of make some money off of them that way but then I found out about, I can't remember where I found this out but I don't know if you ever saw the movie Good Trellos and where they had the

2:28lifeline. Not for a while. But big, high state level, it was a big one in history at the airport, well we figured out what ours was, it was like a bearded distributor that was nearby and it was, it was a little nefarious in our dealing and so we found a bunch of beard cans in there and so we just found a way to get our hands on those and then I hired a bunch of the kids in the neighborhood to help return them because there were these huge bags of cans and bottles and stuff and so that was the business until it all fell apart and then they started trying to kill for them and return them on their own and I just kind of fell apart so that was my first real business was just getting everybody together and sending them off to all these different stores to return the cans because I didn't want to walk in there with a giant bag of cans to return, you know, all these are really huge bags and so I just figured out like, okay, I can get all these kids together.

3:27They can start return them, wouldn't keep some of it, bring the rest to me and so that was kind of my first thing. I had paper routes and mull and lawns and all that kind of stuff as well but I mean, sounds like you were missing an enforcement mechanism for your aluminum can cartel. Yeah, that would have been good to have an enforcer to make sure. Strike some fear to those kids. That was going good, good idea, your visionary brain would have been helpful though.

4:02But then you know, I got into the restaurant business when I was a kid and I just discovered I was really good at it. My first job was at Burger King and so I just was in there and you know, I could flip whoppers faster than anybody and you know, work the drives here and then I got really good at different parts of the restaurant industry and I was kind of like, once I started doing that I was able to make money doing it and that really became my passion and so I like to say, you know, I've held every role in the hospitality industry from the dishwasher to the CEO of a company and so everything else in between and I've done every job and could go on a restaurant.

4:42I really started out in the back of the house in the kitchen and working my well up as a cook so sorry, as dishwasher cook and then became a sous chef and then I was a chef for several years in the restaurant business and that was great. I love that and you know, somebody gave me a shot and and becoming a manager or a sous chef and it was my mentor, Chef Dave and made me a sous chef and I was kind of like my introduction into leadership and worked my way up within the back of the house as a chef for a long time and then worked my way into the front of the house, General Manager, Director of Operations and then ultimately that became CEO of a restaurant company and Grand Rapids and that's where my kind of my more of my entrepreneurial journey started and so I helped grow that organization from kind of a smaller family restaurant and to where multiple locations from concepts I co-founded one that turned out to be really do pretty good and then one that failed miserably and we learned a lot from that part of the journey.

5:53You know, that's kind of where where I got introduced to EOS and so I read traction and I went to an EOS talk done by one of our fellow EOS implementers, Ken Bogard, man, that just did it for me, you know, for reading the book and then just thinking to myself, wow, this is everything that I had been trying to figure out how to run this business, how to run this and build this organization. Gino had figured it out and put it into this simple, beautiful system that we all know and love now and I was just like, man, he figured it out like this is it.

6:30So I went to a couple of EOS talks that Ken did and I went to the first one by myself and then I brought my leadership team with me to the site I wanted and I just was like, we're doing this. It was great. And then as I was going through the journey the last couple of years I really kind of, I felt hit my ceiling as a leader and as in that company, you know, I felt like I had accomplished everything that I was going to and I had been looking at, you know, buying a restaurant, opening a restaurant, opening multiple franchises, all kinds of different stuff.

7:02And so I always thought my entrepreneur journey was going to take me into restaurant ownership and doing something that way and I'm glad I didn't because this was right before COVID and that would have been a very difference and interesting journey that I'd be talking about right now, but kind of in the back of my mind I always had this idea about wanting to start my own consulting business. I really loved that part of my role in leadership positions was the teaching, the coaching, you know, I loved working with my managers and the leaders in the company and helping them become their best and really just bringing out the best of none.

7:41And that part of what I did, I really loved and so, you know, I hadn't just thought about really want to start this consulting business and I thought it was going to be restaurant consulting. I was like, I got all this knowledge and all this ability that I can help other restaurant owners and I thought that was going to be it. But then once we started running on EOS and I saw what Ken was doing and I really just thought to myself, man, that job looks really good, I wanted that.

8:11Yeah. And so I talked to Ken about it, he really helped me a lot and I read a couple of books along the way too and I read Entrepreneurial Leap by Gino and really helped me understand that I have the entrepreneurial traits and when I read Rocket Fuel and I took the crystallizer assessment of that was really transformational for me as well and I came out like my 93 on the visionary side and like a 60 on the interior side and I was like, these roles that I've been performing and living in my journey so far were a little bit more integrator type roles.

8:49And I was always happy doing that kind of stuff and I was thinking about looking back. I was like this visionary type of stuff, building the organization, growing the company, you know, opening new concepts, new locations, that kind of stuff. That really was the stuff that energized me and I was passionate about. So that really, you know, Rocket Fuel really helped me as well kind of give me that insight on deciding, you know, the vision that the owners have and the vision that I have for this organization aren't really aligned, they don't really match up and so that's kind of where I made that decision to take the entrepreneurial leap and, you know, start my own practice become an EOS implementer and sorry, they journeyed about three years ago, so I went to boot camp, about August of 2021, so a little over three years ago.

9:38Yeah, congratulations on the three-year anniversary. Yeah. That's a great story and I have a couple questions about, you know, you mentioned that you had these kind of startup restaurants and one of them had failed and, you know, that's kind of where the lessons were. So digging into that just a little bit, what do you think the reasons that venture failed and then what were the lessons that you got out of that? Really as I think about it now as an EOS implementer looking back at it and had we had EOS in place and one of the things was what is the core focus.

10:20What we tried to do, the restaurant concept we tried to create was not within the core focus that we ultimately created, you know, it was more of a family type of restaurants and we tried to create this concept that was higher end, more upscale, something you find like in downtown Chicago, we're trying to bring that to downtown Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids wasn't really ready for it and it just wasn't in our sweet spot as a company of what we really did back, did really well and was our best and our unique ability.

10:51I believe prevented us from going down that path towards trying to create this concept and really sticking to our niche, you know, what we could do better than anybody was this family type of Italian restaurant, sports bar, you know, we had sticks other successful of those restaurants in town and so trying to go off and do something when it was completely outside of that, it really helped and so and then again, you know, the lessons of having a great leadership team in place and getting all on the same page with the vision where the company is going and how we're going to get there and then having that discipline and the focus and the accountability to execute on the vision, we were lacking all that stuff and we were just all over the place. We had a couple of different owners that were wanting to do different things and on me as the CEO, visionary and integrator wanting to do different things and you know, we just went on the same page. Now having had that experience, now if you had having six successful businesses and concepts and one failure, it's pretty good hit right there.

11:58I mean, you know, that most businesses fail and I always say that if you if you look at all the companies that have been built in the last 100 years and I'll just I'm in Dulo Pop quiz for you how many of them what percentage survive today? In the last 100 years. Yeah, last 100 years all companies that have been created what percentage survive. My gut instinct is saying 5%. 5%. Well, it's 0.001% is 99.99% death rate of companies who have started the last 100 years, which most people don't realize right? I mean, most fail almost all failed. It's just not a matter of if it's kind of a matter of when and of course there's a handful that make it and so I think six successes one failure is pretty darn good so you should kind of you know, celebrate that. It's not that bad but I'm also wondering like those failures to me anyway sort of leave their mark in the way you think about running businesses the way you think about entrepreneurship in general.

13:04How has that experience maybe had your focus when you work with your clients different than maybe another implementer who didn't have that same experience? How are you coaching them to avoid the pain that you experienced? Well, you know, I mean obviously we're going to follow the process that we have in place and and teach the tools and so I just try to help coach them where I see things that maybe I've experienced or more it's where I see some of my other clients having similar experiences where that's where I'll kind of jump in and put on my coaching hat and to say here's what I'm seeing from the other clients that I'm working with and so this might resonate with you and this might be something that you might want to take care and think about with your business but here's some of the things I'm seeing and try to give them some context that way strangely enough I don't have any restaurant companies that I work with after so much about years in the restaurant industry coming into this I really thought like oh I'm going to be the restaurant EOS guy all the restaurant connections and the huge restaurant network and

14:13everybody knows me and that capacity and then one of the things I really learned was and I just might be getting off on a little bit of a tangent but was I had to totally recreate my network so the people who knew me in the restaurant business that didn't really what I'm doing now maybe didn't really resonate with with them and they didn't really know me in that capacity as an EOS implementer compared to you in the restaurant to me and so I had to totally rebuild my network and the community here in West Michigan get to know a lot of different people more business owners entrepreneurs and lots of different industries so I've been really been able to bring that restaurant knowledge into the session room with with my clients and I thought you know I would give them advice anyway but I would kind of just say here's what I've seen or here's what I've done in the past and you can make the decision if that you know resonates with you and but I do have a 90-minute meeting with my first restaurant company next week oh awesome there's a former competitor or not really competitor but in a different type of restaurant space so we were at time more

15:26the Italian restaurant in Fizzeria sports bar this is a totally different type of a concept but somebody I knew previously and have known for a couple of years and it was finally kind of reaching out and saying and I think I can use your help awesome so when you were running the the business you mentioned your sort of the CEO the visionary and the integrator how do you think that that would have been different should you have had a integrator counterpart ultimately I did find an integrator and replace me in that sea and I kind of really I like to say I delegated and elevated myself out of a job intentionally yeah and so I had kind of planned on I gave the the ownership about a year's notice before I left and so I said here's I'm going to put the plan in place I'm going to find and build off the Sleership team get an integrator in place thick and run the day-to-day and then I'm ultimately going to kind of just be the visionary and then kind of went down to more of a almost a part-time fractional visionary maybe that doesn't exist I don't know I made it does now yeah kind of on like a part-time basis and then you know I left at the end of 2021

16:48full-time into being a new a simple matter but man having that person in place from the start and you know somebody that could do that man it would have been life-changing I think I mean and for the for the organization I was the type of visionary integrator that held on to a lot of stuff letting go of the vine was totally formed to me I was holding on to you know I was really in the finance leader seats the oscillator seats the only thing that I didn't want to hang on to was the sales and marketing stuff so I had somebody in that role but I was kind of like doing everything else and then ultimately as we started iOS I started embracing letting go of the vine of the delegate and elevate to which I love tools I got somebody in the finance leader seats got somebody in the oscillator seat and then that oscillator ultimately became the integrator and then you know things just progressed until you know I left completely and started doing what I'm doing today so you you start implementing EOS and as you're as that in the visionary seat now did you self-implement or did you hire an implementer we did the 90 minute meeting in February

18:00of 2020 yeah yeah so we kind of had to put the brakes on EOS for a little while but I started self implementing throughout the summer and yeah as we were figuring things out and business actually started taking off and really booming because we were doing a lot of takeout and to go and all that kind of stuff and yeah once we had time figured out how we were going to survive actually started feeling pretty well I was still self-implementing and doing some things and when it reaching back out I think we get our focus day in October or something of that year so we got through the summer and once we were in the fall and I felt like we were in a pretty good spot and I still was very interested in doing EOS and we had been doing some self-implementing that's when I was like as we're ready let's let's go and so we did our focus day in the fall so you did you hired an implementer to do that but you're already self-implementing now when you're self-implementing were you a member of base camp did you do it from the books how did you go about your self-implementation I think I did it from the books and from the tools you know that we give away for free on the

19:14website I think I just pulled everything together that way and I didn't even know about base camp at that point yeah that's I think you know I just got all the tools together found them you know where we give them away and start using them now what was the biggest difference for you self-implementing doing it on your own working with your leadership team kind of holding on to the vine and doing your thing what was the biggest difference having an implementer versus self-implementing just having an expert in the room and so what I thought I knew about EOS just from reading the books and from seeing the tools and downloading them and just thinking I had a good idea of what the tools were and how to use them and then you add in having an expert in the room who knows the tools one to implement them at the right time how to implement them how to teach you how to use them properly you know the tools that we're using we thought we were doing them the right way and but you know turns out there was better ways of doing them and you know as you know and the timing of introducing the tools is very critical as well and so trying to implement everything

20:32all at the same time and you know do everything together doesn't always work as well and so you know having an expert in the room to really teach us and but then also driving the accountability and pushing us and I don't know can push me you know on some rocks and a few times in the session room and pushing to do more than I thought that I was possible and I found a lot of value in that so you do your focus day you start implementing with an implementer kind of tweaking and honing refining what it is that you were doing getting value out of that that coaching experience but from a team perspective what was the tool what was the thing that kind of created that unlocking moment for the team what session what tool some a little bit over time how that go actually if I was sticking back I think what jumps out at me right away is probably the accountability chart getting a good good grasp on what the structure of the organization should be and really having that clear throughout the organization throughout the leadership team what's the structure of this business and so not really having that before that I remember that being really

21:48impactful and just really standing out to me like I don't know we actually have a structure for this business now that makes sense and this is this is right for us so as I said before it was kind of like me and I had a marketing manager let's just do it restaurant teams you know the management team the general managers of each restaurant that was kind of it you know and we really have a structure behind that so that was really good you know the meeting pulse we did weekly meetings already but they were terrible they lasted like three hours three hours a afternoon got nothing done wonderful one times five every Thursday afternoon and like you said there you know what did we get done like walking out of there what got accomplished what did we solve so implementing the meeting pulse and doing those level time meetings was so good you know and I always thought you know I think I run pretty good meetings and when I got introduced to the level time I was like no my meetings sucked they were so long so like all over the place yeah that's great and so at what point in time you're implementing EOS in your

23:08restaurant businesses things are starting to work the team is starting to be built and come together what's the moment in time you're like you know what Ken I want your job and why do you why do you think that I mean many entrepreneurs and of course well over most of our community are company you know former leaders of companies who ran on EOS film love with the process of your stories fairly common myself included but what was that thing what was the what attracted you to Ken's job well a couple of things so Ken was great you know the just the passion and just seeing the impact that he was having on us on me as the leader of the company on the leadership team that felt really good and I felt like man I want to be able to make that kind of a difference with a lot of people out there like I can stay with this company and make an impact with and make a difference with this group of people this company or I can go out there in the world and make a huge impact and make a huge dent in the universe like they say with a lot of different entrepreneurs a lot of different companies a lot of different you know anything about

24:19all the people in the company the leadership team and I'm all the employees like you know that's so huge that's a huge difference that we can make so that really appealed to me but then there was there was a big clarity break that I had in the summer of 2020 you know I really had this great clarity break and we were up at our cottage I was there with my family and you know there was something my wife had said to me prior to that you know I was working all these crazy hours like most you know levers of companies well even early in the morning before the kids and my wife leaving get up and be home late at night you know sometimes be home and time for dinner sometimes not you know I thought I was still doing my part as a parent and it was really more of a kind of part time parenting world how was that and so when I was around I was trying to kind of integrate myself into you know being a parent and my wife said something to me she said you know we're like the three musketeers being the kids we've got a routine the way we do stuff and when you're around you're throwing that whole thing off and it hit me so hard it made me feel like an

25:32outsider in my own family and it really made a huge difference to me and so I just you know during this clarity break I have you know still in my my old notebook I all these notes that took down and I was like I got to do something different this is just not going to work for me this is not how I want things to be with my family I can't be an outsider I need it needs to be the four musketeers not the three musketeers so we got to be all in on this together I got to be more involved in being a parent and helping and supporting my wife so I just wrote out on on these two pages in my notebook you know one of the conclusions I came to is like I got to go out and have my own vision and start my own direction and on my own path and lead behind this you know what I've been doing this industry that you know sucks a lot of out of everybody that's involved in it the restaurant industry is notorious for people getting burnt out as many other businesses are but the restaurant business is is terrible either you know long hours nights weekends all that kind of stuff and so I had to lift all that but I just decided I got to make a change and so you know

26:48I was thinking about you know what I talked about earlier you know do I want to start my own restaurants and live that life for the rest of my life or what's this other path you know this other thing I've been thinking about this consultant business and I was thinking about like what is my offering what am I going to offer to people out there that has value you know is it this restaurant thing but then I start thinking about EOS like this is something I can really get behind and be passionate about and support this and feel good about going out there and providing value to people as an EOS implementer and I just I just like hit me and I wrote that down and this is what I got to do and I still I highlighted it in my my notebook and I just said I got to do this and so I talked to my wife about it and she was she's a teacher and so she had kind of want to part time when the kids were little and so and actually was a stay at home mom and so I didn't really need to work and then so she had kind of went back to doing a part time and so we kind of talked about all right what does that look like if I take this entrepreneurial leap

27:53you know are you willing to go back full-time and so you know we have the benefits and we'll have kind of a regular income coming in because this is what you look like you know the runway is this much and so we take this leap what is that kind of how does that impact us financially so we worked all that out she supported me 100% she said I know you're not happy we support you 100% and so you know she went back to teaching full-time when she you know that's her unique ability she's meant she's an amazing first-grade teacher she she's Mexican difference in the lives of these these kids so she's doing what she loves to do and is best that I'm doing that you know well my life is so well balanced right now totally changed the model was a few years ago in the restaurant business I'm there for my family the last couple years while my son has been in grade school you know I talk about having this broke time with him every morning you know my wife and my daughter they would leave about 730 and his bus would come at 30 and so I just designed my life to be able to be home with him every single morning get him on the bus we'd have an hour together we'd go out to breakfast once a week

29:12and so changed all that stuff from you know what I talked about earlier with the three musketeers to what it is today is just looks so much different and it's exactly where I want to get to be from where it was when I had that clarity right yeah I mean such a powerful story and I experienced that myself unfortunately my two oldest kids they didn't really experience me as an implementer they mostly experienced me as an entrepreneur running lots of businesses on a plane flying everywhere on 24 seven my youngest experienced me as a implementer which is just a completely different you know having never missed any of her sporting events or anything like that and you know I it is a rule that I don't miss anything if I can help it and so sometimes I'm on a plane when I didn't want to and I kind of regret that still but most of the time 90 plus percent of the time I get to be there and it is such a huge you never get that time back and you're going to forget 100 percent of the emails you meetings you had all of that you know things that you missed but you're never going to forget your the time you spent with your kids and there'll be lots of

30:33stories to tell for the rest of your life it's just such a it's an unfortunate and common thing that entrepreneurs kind of make that huge sacrifice leaders make that huge sacrifice around work and running companies versus spending time with family and things that that last versus things that disappear quite quickly so I'm happy for your transformation there in in terms of your time now when you're thinking about your life now as an implementer and you're working with your clients you're making a huge difference you know that just brings to me the us life which is the five points of doing what you love with people you love making a huge difference being compensated appropriately and having time to pursue other passions so and you mentioned earlier like go into the breakfast with your son and like having that bro time is is probably one of those those passions and it's making a big difference but where do you see yourself going with your implementer business do you see yourself doing this forever do you think that you'll go back and start a restaurant one day or what's your future yeah so I don't see myself doing anything else

31:55besides I love being an you know us implementer so I've got some other kind of entrepreneurial ideas I may pursue but those are all really on the back burner I just love doing what I'm doing I really want I'm really focused and committed to being the best EOS implementer I can be and the journey to mastery that we talk about and working towards that and doing great work with my clients and so nothing else really on the horizon you know I got you know an idea for a restaurant did I tell my kids about and they're there sometimes it was there when you can just do the restaurant I'm like who's a couple million dollar right then maybe I'll think about doing it but that idea some of those ideas are still in there but yeah I'm not ready to really think about them seriously or pursue anything I just I'm loving doing I'm doing it's it's been three years and it's just so much fun and amazing and the life the EOS life that we get to live is truly a blessing and you know the work we get to do with our clients and the life we get to live and having that balance that I have right now with my family and the business life you know

33:09I wouldn't trade that for anyone yeah I joke that being an EOS implementer is kind of like a lifetime sentence and it's not a bad thing it's sort of like okay I have found a craft I can master which is a lifetime journey I'm sure you just as as well as I have every single session every conversation I learned something new and you know we talk about the the EOS life and it's funny you you've been in a community for three years or so I was sitting at a QCE accordingly collaborative exchange and Detroit Don Tinney who's our co-founder along with Gina Wickman he gets up and before he had a phone that he kept all his notes on that he does today he had three by five cards so he gets up and anyone who's listening to this who knows Don Tinney and if you don't know Don Tinney you should get to know Don Tinney please reach out to him on LinkedIn and tell him I sent you and then he'll we'll have a conversation about that later but he is every time that he would get up and say something at a QCE with his three by five card there to always be a hush across the entire community and you know he had maybe 80 90 100 200 people just be quiet and whatever he's about to

34:39say is going to be gold because he doesn't use his words lightly and so if he's going to stand up and read something it's going to be really important so he gets up and he says I've been observing Gina and the way he lives his life for you know I think at that time was probably almost 10 years 8, 9, 10 years something like that and here's what I observed and he's very disciplined around these things his habits are completely designed around a very handful of things that he does every day he says no to nearly everything and he's just a very disciplined human and the result of that are these five things and he says he does what he loves with people he loves makes a huge difference is compensated well and has time to pursue other passions and that's that that was the birthplace of the EOS life from Don Tinney right on his three by five card and saying that during QC and of course later it becomes a book but I think the interesting thing is that the EOS life is a byproduct it is a strategic outcome of some very simple disciplines and habits so I'd love to hear from you Chris about now we have systems and structures around the way we teach EOS

36:06and EOS purity and things like that but we also have a lot of systems and structures that stemmed from Don and Gina around how to run a practice how do you run and build and EOS implement our business and we see who very very often implementers are are visionary usually very tempted to go off and do other things you know we have our processes that people just kind of I'm better than that or I could do it better faster cheaper here or there and I'm including myself by the way in all these things because I've probably one of the main reasons I'm visionary at EOS worldwide is I figured out every way to screw up being an implementer so I'm just curious for you what are those disciplines what are those habits that have created the strategic byproduct of being able to live the EOS life I think I'm really disciplined and very structured with with how I kind of live my life and so from business to personal there's always a lot of structure the calendar is huge for me I remember I don't know where I saw it I saw like a screenshot of your calendar and I was like oh that looks just like mine it's all color coded and perfectly lined up everything's got to sit in nicely

37:28in all the spaces you can't have anything kind of off-kilter out bothers me I love seeing my calendar like nicely laid out and perfectly aligned and so my my assistant Linda helps me out with a lot with that because she knows exactly like but everything is disciplined like from my my morning routine the workout the you know the time with the family you know when I take my shower when I go for my do my cardio in the morning and then when I start my work day that stuff's all light light just laid out nicely on my calendar and I do my weekly planning first thing on Monday morning I used to do it on Sunday but I moved it to Monday morning because I wanted to make sure I took a full day off of not doing anything but so Monday first and Monday morning I plan out my whole week and make sure it's all exactly how I wanted to be and then I have my level 10 with my system after that and we go through all that and and make sure everything looks and feels how I wanted to feel so I feel like I'm going to have a great week so the discipline and the focus you know starts with that I mean the calendar is so huge for me

38:39and then I just live and die by that thing throughout the whole week and so that's really kind of the biggest tool that I have that helps keep me accountable and focused on what I'm supposed to be doing as well and so whenever I feel like I'm you know a little off track or lost you know and just go back to that calendar like one of my supposed to be doing right now even in the morning it's like do my workout first thing in the morning and then after that you know it's it's the post workout meal it's the you know spend some time reading or some quiet time and then my wife and kids are getting up so I try to spend some time with them and then once I get out of the house now I can do the rest of the stuff I need to do to get ready for the day whether it's going for a walk or you know breakfast or whatever it is and then I start my work day so I hope I'm answering the question like yeah for sure that's really that's really worked well for me that's how I just like to have my my old day and my whole week structure now is that always true for you or has that been really at when coming to be an implementer three years ago have you doubled down on those

39:49habits or have you kind of always had them I think I've had parts of them but I really once I started being an implementer and I had more real control over that and you know started learning some of the tools and the practices of other EOS implementers and start implementing those things but at some point I read seven habits of highly-fucked people Stephen Covey and I really started getting me going on you know begin with the end result in mine plan your week out know your roles and your goals and and what you need to accomplish to be great at each role that you have studying goals for each of those and then implementing EOS and having the VTO and having a VTO for my business and having a personal VTO really this added more structure more layers of structure so I think that really helped with it.

40:42Every conversation I have with implementers I'm always taken by the amount of reading and learning that we all seem to do and I did a little short poll and I mentioned this in other episodes about about 95 percent as far as I can tell of EOS implementers have learner as one of the top five strengths and strengths finder. Is that true for you? I've never done strengths finder so well you should. Well chances are based on what I've heard so far you're probably going to have learner in the top five maybe top 10 but what are the last books you've read you've mentioned you had some reading time and you know you kind of spend some time seven habits what's the last few books you've read and would you take away from them? Yeah so the one that I've fully completed the last one was Outlive by Peter. Yeah yeah that was a great book yeah and I really thought I really found that there was a lot of things that I was doing as far as the the workouts the nutrition that side of it the sleep part was really it had been lacking for the last several years and I was kind of had the same outlook as him that sleep is you know I'll sleep when I'm dead

42:04you know if I get hours I'll be good I got to get up and you know hit my routine and you know so that really helped me also really been focused over the last couple weeks on improving my sleep and you know I've been really disciplined about going to bed at a certain time I usually go to bed at 9 o'clock and sometimes my kids tuck me in but discipline about going to bed on time but there is you know I'm gonna wish like really well so I'm really focused on that and the other part that he talks about the whole chapter is about emotional health and so really got some some nuggets and some wisdom out of the book and that part of it but all those things together combined you know the the working out the physical activity the nutrition the sleep the emotional health all those things together are going to help you live live longer and then increase the happiness during that time that you're living longer and so it's not just great to live a longer life but and then not be able to do all the things you want to do you still want to have that ability to do all the things you want to do and those you know later years that you're adding to your life

43:26so that was really a great book let's see I just started the untethered soul halfway through that one I went to QC in Denver last week and started that on the plane read that a little bit on the way there on the way back and a little bit over this weekend so so those are the ones that I'm into currently awesome all right so I appreciate the the story I mean it's just an amazing journey that you've gone through and the transformation to living your EOS life as an implementer so congratulations on your your journey and it is an ever-ending journey so I'm glad you're enjoying it I'm so grateful for our community and yeah for you know Chino for creating this amazing system that we have to be able to build these businesses on and help these people out there these entrepreneurs that need our help and so you know our community is amazing and so I'm just so happy to be a part of it and be able to you know live in the EOS life awesome all right Chris well thank you for coming on the show and we'll see you at a QC sometime sounds good my pleasure Mark thanks for tuning in to real talk with EOS implementers if today's

44:50episode 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 until next time do what you love with people you love and make a huge difference in the world