Chapter 1: What milestone is being celebrated in this episode?
Celebrating 500 episodes, Southwestern Family of Companies welcomes you to the Action Catalyst. To the Action Catalyst. To the Action Catalyst. The Action Catalyst. Oh, good. Dan Moore. His voice is just, it's like a fireside chat, you know? Hey, guys. Adam, how you doing, sir? I'm doing well. Good to see you as well. Stephanie, how you doing? Hey, Dan. I'm so great. How are you?
Really fine, thank you. Hey, Adam. Hey, Stephanie. I guess I'll kick it off then. Yeah, I think that'd be great. When I was asked to take over the podcast, I remember thinking to myself, I've heard about podcasts. What the heck are they? I actually had no idea. I'd never listened to one. I'd never participated in one. I didn't know what they were.
And so, fortunately, someone came and said, let's walk you through the steps here. And she came over and set me up in a little conference room, a microphone, got things started. It was very scary at first. I didn't know what to ask people. I was intimidated to even get the right kind of guests on the show.
Eventually, I settled into a pattern of the same five basic questions for people, which made it fun week after week to hear different people react to those same five questions. I guess one of the first ones I did was with a guy named Freddie Revelle, who used to be at Earth, Wind & Fire. I played the keyboards for Earth, Wind & Fire as a composer. Great guy. We had the best conversation.
I felt like I was with him making music. It was that close a connection. Went to play it back.
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Chapter 2: How did the hosts feel when they first started podcasting?
The whole thing was not recorded. Wow. Oh, no. I rescheduled with him, and it was very similar content. Neither one of us felt the same vibe, though. So that's like a major glitch, like, oh, I'm the only guy that got a chance to experience this thing. But it was still a great experience. Almost every day, I remember some of the lessons, though.
Ellen Petrie-Lance, who was one of my early guests, and she was one of the first employees at Apple. She was an early employee at Google as well. And I made a comment about mindset. She said, let's talk about mindset for a minute. She's the one that introduced me to the concept that first of all, you have brain set, mindset, and skill set. I think about that frequently. I put it in my book.
In fact, it's such an important concept. We can make a decision or a goal, that's mindset. But unless we change our brain set, we're going to lapse back. We're going to fall back always into old patterns of behavior. Brain set is always designed to preserve the status quo. So what you have to do is focus on skill set, which are things that you can control and do repetitively.
events you convince your brain said okay i'm a different person now and then the mindset actually kicks in it works it's just a really cool concept to learn about i guess my last one that i remember frequently i shared this philosophy was andy andrews and andy said a lot of really profound things but i remember saying hmm you're talking about forgiveness forgiveness really is a gift isn't it andy you feel really good with when uh somebody forgives you so that's not what i'm talking about man forgiveness is a gift to the giver not the receiver when you forgive someone you receive the gift
You lighten that burden of resentment, anger, frustration. That's really powerful. Remember, forgiveness is a gift to the forgiver. Think about that for a moment. And my style, I get really involved in the conversation. And I might even say that I hope my selfishness about the interview benefits everybody.
My selfishness is that I want to learn as much as I can from someone in the 45 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever that I have with them. And so to be fair, I think I look a little bit coming into the interview and think, what are the challenges that I'm having today? in my current role or what are the challenges in growing a business that I'm seeing or that my clients are seeing?
And I go, I wonder if this person's got perspective on some of these problems with their background and their experience. And I, in particular, very recent interview, which might be why it's top of mind, but we had interviewed Chuck Runyon from Anytime Fitness years ago, Anytime Fitness. And then recently this year, they acquired Orange Theory. They have, I think, Bar.
I think now they have 8 million members across all their different platforms and franchises they own. And when I talked to Chuck, he recommended that instead of doing a part two with him, that I interview his co-founder, Dave Mortensen. And Dave was just a real gem to interview.
And a few things that I just loved in that conversation is how Chuck and Dave worked the business from ground zero to eight million members together. And they've stayed co-founders. I mean, it's not so common to get along so well together. strategically with someone that's your equal and grow a business. And we talked about how that was managed.
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Chapter 3: What lessons have the hosts learned from their guests?
I'm glad I could be here for the more common folks. So thank you. My style, I think, is a little bit different. Candidly, before every interview, I'm usually scrambling. Like, I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know anything about this. But what gets me, every single time I hang up, I'm just fascinated. There's been some that have been tough.
especially if someone's not used to talking about themselves. You know, it's so interesting to me. I was thinking about this. I just think there are just such extraordinary people in the world. And yet, if you really sit down and talk to anyone, you will find that everyone is extraordinary.
And that's probably a little bit of my approach because I can get super intimidated by accomplishments and achievements. I mean, honestly, most days of the week, I'm just trying to get through the day, have dinner on the table when the kids need to eat and function at a basic level.
And when I get on with these folks that have just done incredible things and they're so willing to share, when you just keep pulling at their strings, they are ordinary in a very extraordinary way. And I think it gives me a tremendous amount of hope. So I would say my style, shocking, is not super structured or organized, but rather people fascinate me. They just do.
So I want to get past all the accomplishments and achievements and just try to reveal the human. Because selfishly for me, that's the really inspiring and motivating part that gives me a smidge of hope. That's great. You're too humble, Stephanie. You know that. You probably don't know that you're just too humble. Sure. That's never been something I've been accused of. So, nope. Thank you, though.
The other thing, too, to me, this is funny. Literally, I think I black out during the recording sessions because I can't remember anyone I've talked to. Not at all. I know I'm fully engaged. Obviously, I'm there. I don't drink beforehand, so I shouldn't be blacked out.
However, what I do think is really neat is in my day to day, whether it's leading the team or doing my own day to day job or with my kids or whatever the case may be, I do find myself quoting folks. And it's in those moments that I remember the interviews and I remember the folks and I remember the counsel and the advice.
So this has been probably one of the absolute best gifts in my career the last five years for sure. Because again, obviously I black out during the recording. I could never go and listen to my own voice ever again. I do read the transcripts, but I skim what I'm saying and get to what they say. But the influx of of wisdom that I've had. Thank you very much for letting me be a part of this.
I think what Stephanie said, I use it all the time with my wife where I say, you know, the founder of Wikipedia said, I need to rest more. So I'm going to go to bed at eight o'clock tonight, honey. It's just, you know, and then the credibility it gives you to just, you know,
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Chapter 4: How has the podcast impacted the hosts personally and professionally?
The downloads every month blow me away. For our company, I think it's vastly important for credibility. It speaks to our mission. Every guest we have, most we have all speak to our mission. And that's really important, I think. We always are striving for credibility in any way, shape, or form to find it. And I think for the whole company, it just establishes us as a real player. That's great.
There's been three significant times in my life where my faith in humanity has really been, I'm not going to say restored because I never really lost it, but I think my faith in humanity has really been accentuated. The first time was selling books and really meeting people where they were at and really understanding and recognizing that people really are good.
and they really do want to look out and care for others if given the opportunity. Second time was during my divorce, and really tough time, but just the support I got from friends, family, coworkers, just completely blown away, completely blown away. And then I would say this podcast, because the guests... are so anxious and willing to share what they've learned.
There's a mentality of abundance. I haven't interviewed with one single person that had any reticence to sharing what they've learned who they were, how they got there, what they wish they had done different, pitfalls. I mean, they're just, and to me, that mentality, it just, while we may be competitive, no one has to lose for someone else to win. And I've really seen that in our guests.
And it just brought back just how wonderful humans really are, regardless of success or failures or whatever the case may be. So personally, for me, that has been huge for And it brings me back to the first one, which was a big attraction to being with Southwestern Family and Companies all these years, is what Dan alluded to.
Part of our mission statement is we build people and people build companies. And there is no better reflection this day and age than getting folks on board with our podcast to talk about how they become entrepreneurs. better people to build better companies. And again, it's just a huge exclamation mark to people really are incredible if you'll let them be.
So I know some of that's a little bit cheesy and a little bit personal. But I think when you get like minded folks together, it is incredible what we can build. Speaking of like-minded folks, we had a lead retreat last year for Southwestern Consulting, and we had two Action Catalyst guests that came in different capacities. Well, I guess technically three.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do the hosts face during interviews?
So just being able to even include some of these relationships and guests in some of our events has been really great. Let me end with one more quote. A president of Harvard one time asked two years ago, how did Harvard get the reputation for being such a storehouse of knowledge? He thought for a moment and said, hmm, maybe because a freshman brings so much in and the senior takes a little out.
Well, we might have brought a little bit in, but we sure got a lot out of this podcast. Absolutely. Stephanie, Adam, thank you both. Great to be here. Thank you guys. Yep. Likewise. If you enjoy this podcast, please make sure to subscribe.
And to stay updated on everything that the Action Catalyst is up to, make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Action Catalyst Podcast and on Twitter at Catalyst underscore Action. And thanks for listening.