Discover how Dave Cook (Executive Director of University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship) learned to lead effectively, when he realized the importance of laughter, and why he thinks every entrepreneur should have multiple mentors (15 minutes).



CEO BLINDSPOTS® PODCAST GUEST: Dave Cook

The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship in the C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston has been named the No. 1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the United States for the fourth consecutive year – the longest streak in the program’s history!



The Princeton Review annually ranks nearly 300 U.S. business schools with entrepreneurship programs, evaluating approximately 40 data points, such as experiential learning opportunities, career outcomes, business success and more. Graduates of the Wolff Center cohort program have created 1,640 businesses in the past 10 years and raised more than $400 million. Most students in the program are the first generation in their family to attend college, and more than half are paying their way through school.



“We are delighted with the ranking,” Cook said. “Moreover, every year we are reaching more students, transforming more lives, and adding more mentors from the business community. The focus at the Wolff Center is really about creating leaders and entrepreneurs with the highest integrity, which elevates everyone toward excellence. The focus now becomes, how do we replicate this even further in the community?”



For more information about  Dave and UH's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship; https://www.bauer.uh.edu/centers/wce/



CEO Blindspots® podcast host: Birgit Kamps.

Birgit's professional experience includes starting and selling an “Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Private Company” and a “Best Company to Work for in Texas”, and serving as a Board Member with various companies. She is able to help investors and executives quickly discover blind spots holding their organization back, and accelerate leadership effectiveness.

In addition, Birgit is the host of the CEO Blindspots® Podcast which was recognized by Spotify for having the “biggest listener growth” in the USA by 733%; ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.ceoblindspots.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

To ask questions about this or one of the 200+ other CEO Blindspots® Podcast episodes, send an email to⁠ birgit@ceoblindspots.com⁠

Hello and welcome to the CEO Blindspot Show where leaders lead leaders.

And today's guest is Dave Cook, who's the executive director of the University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, which has ranked number 1 in the nation for 4 years in a row by the Princeton Review.

And despite only accepting 30 to 40 students per year, over 1, 400 businesses have been started by WUF students.

Dave You're delighted to be here and thank you for the kind introduction.

Mary Well, when I was looking at your background, you worked at a large company where you received a lot of training and then you became an entrepreneur.

So you had to learn some tough lessons, but you also succeeded.

And then after that, you, you know, now you're a leader in universities.

So I've not met a lot of people who've had experience in all 3 different areas, if you will.

But why do you think you have succeeded as a leader?

I think incrementally, all the touchstones that you've sort of all had an impact on my view of leadership.

And I think you could even go earlier than that.

Growing up with a single mom, I had a view of a lot of really good people helped me as sort of those values of when you're an organization, you know, Am I here for the company?

Sorting that all out as to what your priorities are, what your values, and having clarity as to who you are certainly got tested over the years in all those different situations, but is critical to me that when you enter into a leadership position, you do know who you are and you know what your values are.

And that that life you sort of tick through really helped shape and define that with me.

Well, I have to ask because there's a lot of companies who spend millions of dollars creating vision statements and values, and then they become plex on the walls and no 1 refers to it.

So you would say that they get the theory of that, that it's, that I know you embody it because Dana, the person who, you know, is basically in charge of your center, told me that you really are the most amazing leader she's met.

And you really care about every single student, every single staff member.

And then my own daughter, you know, was like, wow, mom, he is like a really authentic.

So you tell me, you said you learned this early on.

What was the moment that you realized the reality of it?

I think having heroes in your life is important.

The guy that was my hero here at the University of Houston was a guy named Bill Sherrill.

He went to World War II, got a hero, Ima Jima, wounded, came back and started this program.

He also became captain of industry, worked with Hoffheim, built the Astrodome.

It's a wonderful story, but throughout that, his value was students.

And so when you get into whatever situation you're in, you're going to have choices of, and they're not going to be easy choices.

And what are you willing to risk to stick by your values?

And I walked away from here, resigned, because we came at a moment where that wasn't to me where this program was headed.

Fortunately, accommodations were made, and we're back on track.

But having people who you view as heroic is really important.

Do you have the moral courage to stand up for what you believe in and to stand with your values in a way that you're proud of.

Second thing that I would say is that to a leader, if you don't have a mentor in your life or a series of mentors, you're making a mistake.

That particularly as an entrepreneur, leadership is lonely and you're responsible for everything.

And if the payroll's not met, it's on you.

It is such a lonely place to be that if you don't have somebody in your life, a couple people maybe, to sort of talk to and to share your dilemmas and your hard decisions that you're going to have to make, you're making a mistake.

So heroes, mentors, clearly have been an integral part of everything that I've done, both in private, in my own companies, and here in the Wolf Center.

Beyond that, I think the idea of having a purpose and dreams in your life that are inspiring and that are not only inspiring to the people that are going to come and work for you or be with you, but they're inspiring to you that you have something in your life that you believe in and that this project, this company, this startup, whatever it is, that it is something that brings out the best in you, that calls you to a higher purpose and better outcomes.

So that to me is, If you lose that, it's awful hard to convince other people to follow you if you don't believe in where you're going and why you're doing what you're doing.

So, you know, I hear that you had mentors and you had heroes in your life.

Wondering when was the first time you realized the importance of that?

Yeah, I think the, sadly you don't realize how important people are to you until years later.

I mean, I wish I could talk to my grandfather about the influence he had.

There were people at Scott Paper that absolutely, their example, their sort of commitment, the risks they took in protecting and nurturing some rebellious, reckless kid, And you could use that description pretty much at any point in my life.

There have been people that have put themselves at risk because they believed in there was something that we shared together and an intent to do good things.

And that you don't recognize that in the moment many times.

What you can do is years down the road, you can write a letter to the, which I've done to the English professor who shaped the whole way that I think and the importance of diversity and culture.

And what he did in his English courses, Dr.

And you can go write a letter to the preacher or the rabbi or whoever, and when you do recognize it, make an effort to go back and tell people that they made a difference in your life.

Many of it, it centers around risk, where the popular thing, the corporate thing, the policy, the whatever, that's what the world expects.

And there is another path, which is, what's the best thing for the people you care about?

And when you're In any of these situations, knowing what's important is really critical.

I'm sitting here and I could satisfy the state, I could satisfy the university, I could satisfy donors.

There's a thousand people in here that all have different agendas and different purposes, but everybody in this organization knows that our priority is to create the next generation of entrepreneurs with the highest integrity who can think, lead, and connect.

And that's the vision and the mission that every 1 of us have when we come in here is to change the lives of students and leave students out into the world of people with integrity who are not only good business people, they're good citizens, they're good family members, and that this university education has created an experience that changes their lives.

Well, I am very grateful that I got to meet a leader like you and you actually sound like you've known all this from the very beginning, natural leaders.

So I'm curious, of course, did you ever have a blind spot as a leader?

There are people that pretend to be leaders because they saw somebody, oh I'm going to be like Patton, I'm going to pick somebody and that's who I want to be.

And so they pretend that I'll be in command and I'll be an authority figure and I'll, you know, have the right suit and the right shirt and I can make an imposing deal.

And after a while, you get to where it's a lot easier just to be who you are.

And whoever you are, whatever you are, is good enough.

Last year we had over 600 mentors come and work with our kids.

Every personality trait, every shape, style of human being you could imagine, but every 1 of them were productive, good mentors because they shared common values.

If you believe in the mission, the vision that you created of what this entity is going to be or why you're here, man, it's easy to lead in that situation.

What we aspire to here is to understand different leadership styles so that when you leave this program, you are a situational leader, where if you're doing a new product development, you might bring everybody in and sit back, pose questions, listen to the ideas, let the vibration of the team shape the future of the project.

On the other hand, if you don't have enough cash to make payroll, it is, let's go sell something.

And so Being able to recognize the situation you're in and then having a style and the confidence to be able to execute that is really important.

And so that variety of styles is important.

But the thing that underneath that you have to have is people have to trust you.

And it doesn't matter, you know, what style you have, if people don't trust you, it's tough sledding and it's not going to work.

And so when you look at that, you know, the ideal is that people not only trust you, they like you.

1 of our good friends and stakeholders is a guy named Brad Deitzer, and he's got a whole new dimension that we're going to work with this year, which is you go through phases where, hey, the new phase this year is we're going to do management by objectives.

You have the right objectives, set the right goals.

And then you end up with, in this country, half of the people hate going to work.

I mean, literally 50% of the people don't want to go to work where they are.

And then you COVID on top of that, and boy, the disconnect that you have is scary.

So his contention, which I'm sort of buying into is that if I look back in every company, in every class, in every situation I've been, there is the crisis of you lose people.

People say, hey, I really, you know, I'm in this wonderful program, but I'd rather go be over here.

I'd rather go with my own deal over here.

And when the me of what's selfishly I want is bigger than we, what's our purpose here, it's really difficult to do.

So what we do is we put every kid in our program leads the team and they get to experience that.

They get to see that, hey, I've got 5 people on this team and 1 of them or 2 of them aren't really engaged.

And, you know, why would somebody want to work for you?

Or why are they not involved in the team?

Do they not believe in the vision you have?

Do they, are they not doing it because they don't feel anything toward you or they don't feel any obligation to the team or that?

And you go through all the different motivations that people might have.

But the, at the heart of it is you can't tell people about leadership is in the moment where, where you're tested, where that, where there's, I don't know, my own way, that's where the magic is and how you handle those moments is where the learning is.

Well, I love, I love it that you give them the experience of leading because it's easy to make assumptions about leadership until, like you said, in the moment you're dealing with, with, you know, people who are not engaged.

But then I still am curious about another in the moment event, which is what was a time when you were a leader where in that moment you're like, ouch, that what I'm doing is obviously not working.

Do you have a specific example when that happened to you?

Yeah, I think there are a lot of moments where you grow up, particularly when I was in Detroit and I was the youngest sales supervisor in the state.

Everybody I had worked for me was older than I was, and I was sort of fresh out of college, and I had guys that were in their 50s and 60s that were reporting to me, And I really screwed it up.

I mean, I tried to use force and, you know, threatened and, you know, did a really, really bad job of trying to impose my will.

It was all about, this is, I want to be a leader.

I want to, you know, and man, that it's just, it was a painful, painful for them to exercise.

What was the moment, Dave, that you were, that you realized this?

Yeah, a guy named Walt, Walt Devereux was an old guy, was in his 60s and had been through all these management changes.

And he sat me down and said, Hey, Dave, you know, When you're leading a team, it's either going to be about you or it's going to be about them.

And if it's about you, you're never going to go very far.

And if you make it about them, you got the potential.

I can tell you, you know, the very first sales experience I had worked for a guy named Drew Sheridan.

We called on 10 stores and at the end of the day, he said, how do you think you did?

And he said, I don't think you did well at all.

And I said, well, under what guise do you say that?

And he said, Dave, how many of those people, those people we talked to today, how many of them do you think would want to see you again?

He said, how many of those people, if they had a problem, do you think they would call you?

How many of those people, if you had a problem, do you think they would try and help you?

How many of those people had fun or enjoyed the fact that you spent time with them today?

He said, next time we work together, all I want you to do is the objective is to have 10 of those managers laugh.

I read joke books, I watched teen comedians, I did whatever, and we went back.

I got 8 of the 10 to laugh, but it totally changed how I view human interactions and relationships, not only with customers, but with my own people.

If you can't have fun, if you people don't look forward to being with you and seeing you and trusting that, hey, if I had a problem, I could go to this guy.

If you don't have that energy in your, in the people that you work with, it's just a job and it's not a life.

So, you know, those early corporate experiences, both in leadership and in interacting with customers, totally shaped how, I mean, that I can remember distinctly coming at the end of that when 8 people had laughed.

And incidentally, what I learned was that I'm not funny.

But the people I worked with had these amazing stories.

If you're in supermarkets, everybody has got stories of shoplifting and wild stories of customers.

So it connected where people look forward and I look forward.

I was working with friends and both the people who were working for me and the people who were my customers.

Well, I bet you got that point when you were an entrepreneur, right?

Because I heard that you had the fastest growing food brokerage company in the country at 1 point.

Incidentally, another epic failure was that a guy had been the VP of Lever Brothers and I started a food brokerage company and we went from 7 people to 77 people in a year.

And when you do that, you transition from the core of the 7 people who started it, where everybody understands the shared vision, you're driven toward the same mission.

And then as you grow, you just start hiring people.

And so the quality of what you're doing diminishes.

And you get overtaken with activities and the relentless pace of demands put upon you, and your priorities get screwed up.

You stop worrying about the people, you're fighting fires.

Every day there's new clients, there's meetings, there's customers, and your own people somehow get lost.

And if you don't have a culture and systems and a priority to take care of your people and to onboard and to create a sense of belonging where these people come into your organization and they belong to something.

Then they're just there working a job and there's no energy and the original 7 people you started with gets evaporated in the 77 and so forth.

So, it's hard to do, particularly in startups.

So, an entrepreneur, it's hard to keep that sort of energy.

And that's, that would be another clear area where I would point to that as a, as a failure, not as it was very successful business, but in terms of culture and, and what my values are.

Well, what a gift that you're willing to share all these tips and being willing to be open about what you struggled with as well.

Because as you pointed out earlier, a lot of leaders are lonely right now and they feel like they're the only ones who struggle.

So thank you again so much for taking the time to come on this show and to share your leadership wisdom.

And thank you for all you're doing for this whole community of entrepreneurs and leaders out there who are constantly searching and looking in a world that's continually changing.

Having people step back and look at trends and look at ideas, you're providing a great value to a lot of people.


Speaker 0: Hello and welcome to the CEO Blindspot Show where leaders lead leaders. I'm your host, Beergate Camps. And today's guest is Dave Cook, who's the executive director of the University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, which has ranked number 1 in the nation for 4 years in a row by the Princeton Review. And despite only accepting 30 to 40 students per year, over 1, 400 businesses have been started by WUF students. Welcome to the show, Dave.

Speaker 1: Dave You're delighted to be here and thank you for the kind introduction.

Speaker 0: Mary Well, when I was looking at your background, you worked at a large company where you received a lot of training and then you became an entrepreneur. So you had to learn some tough lessons, but you also succeeded. And then after that, you, you know, now you're a leader in universities. So I've not met a lot of people who've had experience in all 3 different areas, if you will. But why do you think you have succeeded as a leader?

Speaker 1: I think incrementally, all the touchstones that you've sort of all had an impact on my view of leadership. And I think you could even go earlier than that. Growing up with a single mom, I had a view of a lot of really good people helped me as sort of those values of when you're an organization, you know, Am I here for the company? Am I here for the customer? Am I here for my coworkers?

Sorting that all out as to what your priorities are, what your values, and having clarity as to who you are certainly got tested over the years in all those different situations, but is critical to me that when you enter into a leadership position, you do know who you are and you know what your values are. And that that life you sort of tick through really helped shape and define that with me.

Speaker 0: Well, I have to ask because there's a lot of companies who spend millions of dollars creating vision statements and values, and then they become plex on the walls and no 1 refers to it. So you would say that they get the theory of that, that it's, that I know you embody it because Dana, the person who, you know, is basically in charge of your center, told me that you really are the most amazing leader she's met. You really are who you say you are. And you really care about every single student, every single staff member. And then my own daughter, you know, was like, wow, mom, he is like a really authentic.

So you tell me, you said you learned this early on. What was the moment that you realized the reality of it?

Speaker 1: I think having heroes in your life is important. The guy that was my hero here at the University of Houston was a guy named Bill Sherrill. He went to World War II, got a hero, Ima Jima, wounded, came back and started this program. He also became captain of industry, worked with Hoffheim, built the Astrodome. It's a wonderful story, but throughout that, his value was students.

We wanna change the lives of students. And so when you get into whatever situation you're in, you're going to have choices of, and they're not going to be easy choices. And what are you willing to risk to stick by your values? And I walked away from here, resigned, because we came at a moment where that wasn't to me where this program was headed. Fortunately, accommodations were made, and we're back on track.

But having people who you view as heroic is really important. So 1 is, what are you willing to risk? Do you have the moral courage to stand up for what you believe in and to stand with your values in a way that you're proud of. Second thing that I would say is that to a leader, if you don't have a mentor in your life or a series of mentors, you're making a mistake. That particularly as an entrepreneur, leadership is lonely and you're responsible for everything.

And if it blows up, it's on you. And if the payroll's not met, it's on you. It is such a lonely place to be that if you don't have somebody in your life, a couple people maybe, to sort of talk to and to share your dilemmas and your hard decisions that you're going to have to make, you're making a mistake. So heroes, mentors, clearly have been an integral part of everything that I've done, both in private, in my own companies, and here in the Wolf Center. Beyond that, I think the idea of having a purpose and dreams in your life that are inspiring and that are not only inspiring to the people that are going to come and work for you or be with you, but they're inspiring to you that you have something in your life that you believe in and that this project, this company, this startup, whatever it is, that it is something that brings out the best in you, that calls you to a higher purpose and better outcomes.

So that to me is, If you lose that, it's awful hard to convince other people to follow you if you don't believe in where you're going and why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker 0: Yeah. So, you know, I hear that you had mentors and you had heroes in your life. Wondering when was the first time you realized the importance of that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the, sadly you don't realize how important people are to you until years later. I mean, I wish I could talk to my grandfather about the influence he had. There were people at Scott Paper that absolutely, their example, their sort of commitment, the risks they took in protecting and nurturing some rebellious, reckless kid, And you could use that description pretty much at any point in my life. There have been people that have put themselves at risk because they believed in there was something that we shared together and an intent to do good things. And that you don't recognize that in the moment many times.

What you can do is years down the road, you can write a letter to the, which I've done to the English professor who shaped the whole way that I think and the importance of diversity and culture. And what he did in his English courses, Dr. Kaufman, was transformative. And you can go write a letter to the preacher or the rabbi or whoever, and when you do recognize it, make an effort to go back and tell people that they made a difference in your life.

Speaker 0: Yeah. So, when did you recognize it?

Speaker 1: Many of it, it centers around risk, where the popular thing, the corporate thing, the policy, the whatever, that's what the world expects. And there is another path, which is, what's the best thing for the people you care about? And when you're In any of these situations, knowing what's important is really critical. I'm sitting here and I could satisfy the state, I could satisfy the university, I could satisfy donors. There's a thousand people in here that all have different agendas and different purposes, but everybody in this organization knows that our priority is to create the next generation of entrepreneurs with the highest integrity who can think, lead, and connect.

So I don't care about rankings. I don't care about policy. That's my goal. And that's the vision and the mission that every 1 of us have when we come in here is to change the lives of students and leave students out into the world of people with integrity who are not only good business people, they're good citizens, they're good family members, and that this university education has created an experience that changes their lives.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I am very grateful that I got to meet a leader like you and you actually sound like you've known all this from the very beginning, natural leaders. So I'm curious, of course, did you ever have a blind spot as a leader? Did you ever struggle?

Speaker 1: Yeah. To me, there were no born leaders. There are people that pretend to be leaders because they saw somebody, oh I'm going to be like Patton, I'm going to pick somebody and that's who I want to be. And so they pretend that I'll be in command and I'll be an authority figure and I'll, you know, have the right suit and the right shirt and I can make an imposing deal. And after a while, you get to where it's a lot easier just to be who you are.

And whoever you are, whatever you are, is good enough. Last year we had over 600 mentors come and work with our kids. Every personality trait, every shape, style of human being you could imagine, but every 1 of them were productive, good mentors because they shared common values. If you believe in the mission, the vision that you created of what this entity is going to be or why you're here, man, it's easy to lead in that situation. What we aspire to here is to understand different leadership styles so that when you leave this program, you are a situational leader, where if you're doing a new product development, you might bring everybody in and sit back, pose questions, listen to the ideas, let the vibration of the team shape the future of the project.

On the other hand, if you don't have enough cash to make payroll, it is, let's go sell something. We have to have revenue tomorrow. What are you going to do? And so Being able to recognize the situation you're in and then having a style and the confidence to be able to execute that is really important. And so that variety of styles is important.

But the thing that underneath that you have to have is people have to trust you. And it doesn't matter, you know, what style you have, if people don't trust you, it's tough sledding and it's not going to work. And so when you look at that, you know, the ideal is that people not only trust you, they like you. 1 of our good friends and stakeholders is a guy named Brad Deitzer, and he's got a whole new dimension that we're going to work with this year, which is you go through phases where, hey, the new phase this year is we're going to do management by objectives. Everybody has the right job description.

You have the right objectives, set the right goals. Life is going to be wonderful. And then you end up with, in this country, half of the people hate going to work. I mean, literally 50% of the people don't want to go to work where they are. And then you COVID on top of that, and boy, the disconnect that you have is scary.

So his contention, which I'm sort of buying into is that if I look back in every company, in every class, in every situation I've been, there is the crisis of you lose people. People say, hey, I really, you know, I'm in this wonderful program, but I'd rather go be over here. I'd rather go with my own deal over here. I'd rather be... And when the me of what's selfishly I want is bigger than we, what's our purpose here, it's really difficult to do.

So what we do is we put every kid in our program leads the team and they get to experience that. They get to see that, hey, I've got 5 people on this team and 1 of them or 2 of them aren't really engaged. They're not playing. They're not showing up. How do you do it?

And so, you know, we work with them. And, you know, why would somebody want to work for you? Or why are they not involved in the team? Do they not believe in the vision you have? Do they, are they not doing it because they don't feel anything toward you or they don't feel any obligation to the team or that?

And you go through all the different motivations that people might have. But the, at the heart of it is you can't tell people about leadership is in the moment where, where you're tested, where that, where there's, I don't know, my own way, that's where the magic is and how you handle those moments is where the learning is.

Speaker 0: Well, I love, I love it that you give them the experience of leading because it's easy to make assumptions about leadership until, like you said, in the moment you're dealing with, with, you know, people who are not engaged. But then I still am curious about another in the moment event, which is what was a time when you were a leader where in that moment you're like, ouch, that what I'm doing is obviously not working. And how did you discover that? Do you have a specific example when that happened to you?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are a lot of moments where you grow up, particularly when I was in Detroit and I was the youngest sales supervisor in the state. Everybody I had worked for me was older than I was, and I was sort of fresh out of college, and I had guys that were in their 50s and 60s that were reporting to me, And I really screwed it up. I mean, I tried to use force and, you know, threatened and, you know, did a really, really bad job of trying to impose my will. And It was all about me. It was all about, this is, I want to be a leader.

I want to, you know, and man, that it's just, it was a painful, painful for them to exercise.

Speaker 0: What was the moment, Dave, that you were, that you realized this?

Speaker 1: Yeah, a guy named Walt, Walt Devereux was an old guy, was in his 60s and had been through all these management changes. And he sat me down and said, Hey, Dave, you know, When you're leading a team, it's either going to be about you or it's going to be about them. And if it's about you, you're never going to go very far. And if you make it about them, you got the potential. And so, yeah, totally changed.

TANYA

Speaker 0: SARACHENKO Wow. BOB BILSEY

Speaker 1: I can tell you, you know, the very first sales experience I had worked for a guy named Drew Sheridan. We called on 10 stores and at the end of the day, he said, how do you think you did? And I said, I think I did magnificently. And at 10 calls, 10 people bought. And I said, how do you think I did?

And he said, I don't think you did well at all. And I said, well, under what guise do you say that? And he said, Dave, how many of those people, those people we talked to today, how many of them do you think would want to see you again? I said, I don't know. He said, how many of those people, if they had a problem, do you think they would call you?

How many of those people, if you had a problem, do you think they would try and help you? How many of those people had fun or enjoyed the fact that you spent time with them today? And so he gave me an objective. He said, next time we work together, all I want you to do is the objective is to have 10 of those managers laugh. That's all you have to do.

That's all I have to do is laugh. I read joke books, I watched teen comedians, I did whatever, and we went back. I got 8 of the 10 to laugh, but it totally changed how I view human interactions and relationships, not only with customers, but with my own people. If you can't have fun, if you people don't look forward to being with you and seeing you and trusting that, hey, if I had a problem, I could go to this guy. He could, he would try to help me.

If you don't have that energy in your, in the people that you work with, it's just a job and it's not a life. So, you know, those early corporate experiences, both in leadership and in interacting with customers, totally shaped how, I mean, that I can remember distinctly coming at the end of that when 8 people had laughed. And incidentally, what I learned was that I'm not funny. But the people I worked with had these amazing stories. If you're in supermarkets, everybody has got stories of shoplifting and wild stories of customers.

And so all I would do is tell stories. So it connected where people look forward and I look forward. I had more fun. I wasn't going out winning a debate. I was working with friends and both the people who were working for me and the people who were my customers.

Speaker 0: Well, I bet you got that point when you were an entrepreneur, right? Because I heard that you had the fastest growing food brokerage company in the country at 1 point.

Speaker 1: Yep. Incidentally, another epic failure was that a guy had been the VP of Lever Brothers and I started a food brokerage company and we went from 7 people to 77 people in a year. And when you do that, you transition from the core of the 7 people who started it, where everybody understands the shared vision, you're driven toward the same mission. And then as you grow, you just start hiring people. I just need bodies.

And so the quality of what you're doing diminishes. And you get overtaken with activities and the relentless pace of demands put upon you, and your priorities get screwed up. You stop worrying about the people, you're fighting fires. Every day there's new clients, there's meetings, there's customers, and your own people somehow get lost. And if you don't have a culture and systems and a priority to take care of your people and to onboard and to create a sense of belonging where these people come into your organization and they belong to something.

Then they're just there working a job and there's no energy and the original 7 people you started with gets evaporated in the 77 and so forth. So, it's hard to do, particularly in startups. So, an entrepreneur, it's hard to keep that sort of energy. And that's, that would be another clear area where I would point to that as a, as a failure, not as it was very successful business, but in terms of culture and, and what my values are. It was not my finest moment.

Speaker 0: Wow. Well, what a gift that you're willing to share all these tips and being willing to be open about what you struggled with as well. Because as you pointed out earlier, a lot of leaders are lonely right now and they feel like they're the only ones who struggle. So thank you again so much for taking the time to come on this show and to share your leadership wisdom.

Speaker 1: And thank you for all you're doing for this whole community of entrepreneurs and leaders out there who are constantly searching and looking in a world that's continually changing. Having people step back and look at trends and look at ideas, you're providing a great value to a lot of people. Thank you.

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