 Second time to Portland and I paid Sam not to mention any of the shenanigans that we may or may not have done You know in the past But these are always telling somebody at lunch today. These are always hard because how do you tell like? There's several tracks here a user track business track developer track, and so it's already always hard But this has kind of been resonating Simmering I think in me as like Sam said earlier this year We we were acquired by liquid web, so the business I ran for ten years sold and just it was kind of a nostalgic time I'm just thinking back. Okay. What? How how the heck did I end up here? I'm very grateful and fortunate to be have ridden the WordPress training for a long time and So it's kind of just thinking back and it just felt like it's obvious to my wife She was here. She should actually give the talk. She doesn't bet. She knows me even better, but So I wanted to share what I think is my what I I shouldn't say I think I know is my secret weapon for success So I'm gonna take you back 12 years ago I was sitting in an office in a church in Oklahoma City, and that was my job I was a communication instructor So I'm telling you these things because I want to contrast some stuff And then I want to share my secret my dirty little secret so 12 years ago I was basically like a glorified copier guy like I was doing the The bulletins for the Wednesday and the Sunday church services and things like that and I was sitting in a borrowed desk My my office had two like the weird doors, you know that only I could I locked it of course There's one behind me, but the transition was really interesting And I had really only managed the part-time person up to that to that point And not for that job job previously and the guy that was in the job That my previous job that I've managed basically was a grad student that could have done the job that basically trained me So to say I've managed the part-time person was probably a little bit of a stretch, too so then Then 2008 like Sam said By the way when I was sitting in that office and everything at night I was blogging with WordPress and I started with blogger quickly found this thing called WordPress and Put myself out there my ideas to be potentially criticized But also seemed by people and for a long time a brag that my one subscriber was my mom and Eventually that built into things and then I put a free theme out Because I wanted to learn web design. I'm not a developer by the way I don't try to even pose for one on TV But so in 2008 pitch to my two partners the idea for what would be I themes but you know this so so the ten-year journey from 2008 to 2018 culminating with being acquired by liquid web like Sam said I'm still running I'm still running our team within a bigger 500 person hosting company So my title has changed a little bit. Huh? Oh, I'm sorry about somebody said something. I know I need hearing aids So anyway, um, but you know just looking over that ten-year period of time where today we have about 20 people We have seven people in seven US states four countries and two comments and I like somehow I went from this little copier guy glorified a copy. I did a lot more. It does stop publishing But I made copies of those things Then to the incredible ride that I'm thankful we had at I themes where we built great products Talk to some customers at lunch actually and it was a fun time but when I look back I go, how did I get from here to there and by the way, I'm I'm this kid from a town called Lone Grove, Oklahoma. It's in southern Oklahoma There's 3,000 people in the town and there is one sonic like there's a sonic We have a sonic drive-in at long good And one stoplight so how do you know I kind of picture myself sometimes going how did I do all this? So I want to share with you my secret weapon Okay, of when I look back I go this way There's a lot of ingredients that went into success collaboration of a talented talented team Really good relationships with people and things like that Well, I think how did I go from this to start managing people to building what I think is a really good culture at art At I themes that people want to work at I themes Here it is now This is the grand finale and I told somebody this last night and he kind of went. Oh, that's what you're gonna You know and he goes well now I'm gonna have to actually come and listen to your talk I said it's my probably unpack it a little bit better tomorrow, but anyway, I read But I don't just read so I've read Not just going back 12 years, but my entire life I remember going to the Chickasaw Library in Ardmore, which is the bigger town You know, there's a small town in the bigger town and just grazing the aisles of the library So I was like this this is like all this knowledge and everything put in these cool little forms called books but I've always read very voraciously and but I really I've read strategically so that's what I want to unpack for you how I've read How I've leveled up and done things that honestly I wasn't trained to do but I've went Problem-by-problem situation by situation gap by gap every gap that I had I'd go acquire find the right book and Read it and I want to change. I want to share that with you exactly. So Reading has definitely reading in a different way reading strategically. That's the way I read Has changed my life. It's made me money You know when we were thinking about the potential deal from hiring our first person I went and found books that would would help me educate me and Become a more confident person or creative person innovative. What I'm trying to tell you is I'm not that smart to do all this stuff I had to go find books and people that would help me do But also to become a better dad better father Husband and I think human so okay last couple months this has kind of been simmering so I went back to Amazon and Looked and this is if my wife sees the statistics. She's gonna really be mad at me But like I realized just from when I could get my Kindle purchases On Amazon it must have came out in like 2018 or 2011 or whatever last eight years I was like 800 books. Holy cow. Now. Let me give you a caveat. I've not read Cover-to-cover all those books But what's so interesting is the trail when I started looking through this list I had to copy and paste into a spreadsheet and try to look through through them and I go I could see seasons of times in my life Where I bought this collection of book just on the purchase. It's kind of interesting If you do the math which my wife has recently this year It's a small fortune in books and but The beauty is I carried around with me like all of those books I carried around have access on my phone I'm gonna talk to you about that in just a second So books are magic now you guys are probably readers you're here your learners and things like that But I think books are magic because in a $20 little package roughly $20 little package someone Who has spent years and years and years experience and expertise all that has been forced to Put all of that in a very clear succinct manner, so I think they're I think they're pretty magic and then I get to carry it around in my pocket now But my library my library has been my board of directors My council of elders my tutors and teachers all these years now I've had a lot of help in person help but dead trees are a big part of my success so I think Reading and reading this specific way has definitely helped me and I'm gonna share some examples of how specifically When there was moments of the gaps realizing like I'd not really managed any Person and then all of a sudden the first year we had four people How are those things really helped me but I honestly believe Best investments and by the way so thinking about next chapter in my life. What am I doing? I'm reading I actually did pick up a print copy of a book on purpose and meaning from HBR at the at the Airport because I didn't want to drain my iPhone So I mean just thinking about next steps. I'm still doing that best investment best investments ever So I read to get an edge I read now These are my dirty little singers by the way because I I have met people that can out hustle me way smarter than me I actually have really good original ideas and I knew I had to find an edge somewhere So to get ahead stay ahead to level up mind the gaps every every big major event around I themes I was looking at in books and then taking those Ideas and inspiration to use in our business and in my personal life so this is the key read for inspiration and ideas but They're the cheat codes. So I started thinking through like all the books I read or have read Strategically not covered by the way. These are what these are the things that I've gotten from them I mean courage is on there So reading stories of how someone else did something but the templates perspectives formulas models processes I have the surgically extracted those from books over the years You know when we were thinking about new products Strategies for being a very small team and outnumbered and Outmoneyed whatever that phrase would be having more money than what we did I went to books and try to find okay Is there a case study for some you know David versus Goliath kind of thing is there some model of thinking strategically that You know in my limited creativity. So these are my cheat codes books are my cheat codes I'm gonna give you some examples. So 2008 By the end of the year we had four people and I had never like I never managed anybody so these two books I mean and the third that I'll mention in just a second are how really the cheat codes for how I had approached Our building our team recruiting people maintaining a fantastic culture that people want to be there and then also do their best work So 12 elements of great managers by the way these two books I'm currently there's two people on our team on the kind of coaching and I'm having them go through these books because they were so Instrumental I was looking back because I haven't reread those books in a while and I was looking at the table of contents and go Yep, this is basically the blueprint of everything we've done one of the chapters in the great managers book Which by the way is based on Gallup research Was have a best friend at work. I was like duh Man the happiest times I've had is when I've had really good friends. So, you know, we did Not everybody on the team is best friends Maybe not everybody likes each other at every moment, but we at least enjoy each other and so I'll give you an example Elise is one of our awesome Team members. She's been with me for I think six years now. I've done great. We're looking for a new Person a couple years ago. She goes well my best friend Sarah You know Let's talk to Sarah and Sarah has an MBA and now she's doing a great role But they they literally our best friends and now work together, but I took some of those elements of these things another thing was I think second chapter is Make sure this is obvious stuff, right, but I think It's good stuff for me But it was if make sure your team has the right tools and equipment like duh I mean, how can you not do your work? But I found out one of our developers for like three months when he first started didn't have an extra longer I'll get you a monitor. I want to make sure you have all the right tools. Anyway, that stuff came from here leadership challenges One is model the way Inspired to share vision as I've been kind of coaching and walking through some of our team members of that I'm going this is this is just copy and paste what I've been doing for ten years So that one's good. How to empower others. Have you anybody read this book? No, okay. Well, I'm sure it's something new. Okay. It's called drive by Daniel Pink Basically the premise is this autonomy mastery and purpose. That's what we want, right? Think about your job You want autonomy you want the freedom to like do your best to pick your you know to pick the things that you do Do well mastery you want to master what you're doing and then purpose you wanted to connect to something Helping people those three things are the things that we just do have done it. I think it's in it. I took the cheat code, right? I had to go now How do we do that because then we gave gave people way too much autonomy and maybe some took advantage of it Okay, well autonomy with guardrails, you know on it. So anyway The culture and the team and the great things that we've done over 10 years has been shaped by those three books Okay, so how to how to think better or that's okay, you know, sometimes the machine up here doesn't work the best That's a fantastic book how to think through things. I use that when we were trying to plot big strategic moves Think through, you know new initiatives stay competitive in the game This is a great one how to be okay say no basically if you're like me you're probably like You know not a lot of boundaries Fantastic book it gave me the freedom and confidence to say no to people and and still feel like I was a good person Okay, so here's another one Navigating mid-life. I'm 42 now, but a couple years ago. I was like It wasn't necessarily a crisis, but it was a brinne brown calls it done and then an unraveling and I was like Yep, I was unraveling. So you look at my purchase list and you go okay I found these two books and they were incredible help me have some I don't know I can't hire those people You know what I mean? I can't get in front of them, but I can go take their wisdom to still down into a book and do that so I Said my purchase history is like a trail of my life and it really has just going back like in 2010 or whatever from that Just a Kindle side of things I was like I know exactly what I was going through during these periods of times because they were I was just going book by book Trying to navigate with myself through these periods of time. So okay, let me give you Here's my keys. This is where I want to drill down next to be really as practical as I can in X amount of time Okay, so the first is some of you gonna fight me on this But I had to ditch, you know, it's been about eight years, but I finally ditched my whole need of all I love the filip paper Fanning the book in front of my face and send it a coffee shop. I mean like I read, you know I Finally had to get over that little thing now every now and then it's cool to have like the Harvard Business Review, but anyway The Kindle is the best tool ever for reading like this if you don't and I'm not talking by the way the Kindle is not Just a physical device you can buy on Amazon. It is basically the Kindle was a reading platform and it has a ways to go I wish Amazon would call me and I would help with some stuff, but like But the Kindle you've got reenacts where like I said you can take your entire library here on your phone You know we used to go on vacation. I take like three books And it's like do you have underwear Corey in your suitcase? I mean it's very heavy with books, but did you forget some of the essentials now? I get to take them with on the book but on my iPhone But I would say if you're really serious if you get serious about this This is the only way to go because you can make highlights you can store it all on your reading platform It's access. It's convenience sufficiency It's cool to read a book and then tab you know tab over the thing or highlight it But when you want to go back and try to find some cool quote that you you want to share with somebody or you're trying To remember something it's kind of hard to like oh man That's at my library and you know my bookshelf of the office and I really need it right now No, I can search those things on the Kindle. So I mean if you really love the print stuff Seth Godin says by the souvenir coffee. So the books that really resonate with me I go by the print book and put it on the shelf. So the cool whenever it comes in my office And can also point one amount to but the Kindle that's the way to do it So I don't read books. I use them and there's some key things here I think that we There's there's a way to approach reading that is casual and fun and entertainment. That's not what I'm talking about here I don't just read books. I use those books as tools for my life So I read for me and it's the if this than that statement. So If I'm in this situation and I'm starting to catalog all my books and go Here's how what it resonates when I say the drip when I tell you about drive the book drive Tonomy mastery purpose kind of thing trying to categorize that by going okay if this situation Then that book and come up with some of those But I think you have to be clear obviously as you're reading strategically You got to get clear on what you're looking for and specifically it's the gaps challenges problems and situations So I approach every book on it like the book. I bought at the airport I was like that's an area a gap that I want to kind of strengthen what I do to have confidence and so In my head I make sure that That book somehow Fills in helps me with confidence Information for action to to figure out one of those things But you got to be clear on what you're looking for and there's still there's sometimes some book There's a book I'll find and I'm like it's a cool book And I'll buy it but it goes in the bookshelf it goes in the Kindle You know, I don't read it instantly But I know at some point I'll probably come back to it. So anyway clear on what you're looking for But if you really just still it down This manner how I read is I read for confidence, you know, somebody said why do people ask advice Ask others for advice. It's because you lack confidence in what you're doing I like confidence in all the areas of those 800 books that I bought And I use those books to have more confidence about what I was doing specifically applied to ideas and inspiration Right ideas for how to attack that problem Inspiration for more creative innovative things that I can do in the business in my life. Okay This is something Everybody gets held up because when I tell people I go well just 800, you know, books on Kindle They're like you read all those No, I don't read all those because I don't insist on reading cover to cover somehow I think maybe in our education Process or system or something that we have to go I have not read the book if I hadn't read all the Acknowledgements and gotten all the way through the appendix to the last period. Boom got it I think that's that's that's okay. That's a different kind of reading So don't insist on reading cover to cover. So I think it's the biggest mistake we make I read like a surgeon. I'm going to dissect To find isolate extract dissect those cheat codes, right? So often in the Kindle, there's a popular highlights thing and that's where Um Hundreds perhaps of people have gone on. This is why the Kindle is the best to date Maybe that changes in the year from there right now I can go into any book and see where people have Read the book. So there it's kind of like, you know, if you did this in college I did you bought the used books. You want the highlighted part you get that with Kindle You're checking me. Did you do it to you? Yeah, of course. Come on Uh only the people that did the highlights want the first one because they're like no, no, no I'm like, no, there's people have highlighted that. I think it's great But Kindle has that so I read for precision extraction on a focused mission Now so when you're looking at a book And and on amazon you guys are familiar with how amazon works most every book has a look inside feature So the table of contents is the map to all the gold all the cheat the cheat codes Now I get really frustrated When I think a book is like going to help me with some gap challenge need problem And I get to the table contents and they're really cute. They're like, you know, life is like a fluffy bunny And I'm like no Tell me exactly where I can find it because it's my map. So if they try to be cutesy and stuff I get kind of frustrated. I had to solve book I got a book last week and I'm blanking on it emotional agility No, wait, no, it's called 18 minutes And I was like gosh dang it this guy he's trying to be fluffy and everything And I just realized right underneath was the the one I'm looking for in the table of contents. And so now I'm like Ignore the fluffy bunny description and go down to like the right juice But this this is Where everything the map of the gold is now even more extended map is the introduction and usually on Kindle you can You can download the book and read the introduction If they've done their job right and I have been through the commercial book author process before They have been forced To really and I'm talking about nonfiction books here, right? But they have been forced in the introduction to really unpack even further the map of the book So you can actually get really good context For the table of contents in the introduction, but that's I you know, they say don't judge a book by its cover Absolutely judge a book by its table of contents And if you need further proof go into the introduction and if that doesn't sell you it's not worth 20 bucks Often nine times out of ten. It's not worth it if they haven't done their work on the table of contents in the introduction um, so Here's the critical part you can get all the way through here table contents get the right books with the right situations in mind And you can forget Or not forget or just leave off the fact that you're not translating transferring what you're reading into action so Reading strategically the way I've read is I When people go, why are you so compelled to you know, read as much as you do? Because I'm looking for ideas and inspiration to apply in my life like a scientist Like in a lab like the business has been a lab for 10 years in my life. Um How how how do I translate these ideas into specific action? Small little experiments that you test and see how they work and function results that you get It's by asking the question How can I use this tomorrow? Like I'm always usually I'm at night, you know reading and bad or something I'm like, huh, okay. How can I apply that in this situation and book by book? I've done that So you got to have your journal handy. Um, so I use a journal app called day one. I really like it so I'm on my channel on my phone typically And uh, then I'll copy it Copy some quote idea thought and I switch over to my day one app So I can capture those and I think that's good. Well, you can do it however you want But this is the way I happen to do it because I want everything electronic where I can search out Remember some kind of quote Okay, so I've tried to distill the the key ideas Now you know my dirty little secret of success. I'm really not that good. I just read a lot And I find the cheat codes you guys know what the cheat codes are right back to the nintendo days and early gaming days Um, that's all I'm doing. I'm just a small town kid still reading finding buying cheat codes. So go read your way to success um That's me. Thanks questions. Yeah Yeah Like I know I have trouble reading business books at night. Yeah We're you know, we fiction at night and nonfiction in the morning any moment I have free time Any any moment so now I wouldn't try to read because I'm I want to interact with people here, but um You know, I'm on the plane Unless I have a headache or just worn out. I try to find any time Possible for me. So I don't know if I have a specific Um time that works best for me and maybe it's you know person specific That's why I like taking my library on my phone because you're in the you're waiting on a dentist, right? you're in the dentist office And it's redeeming the time. It's making use of the time and so I'm always just Got to find the cheat codes got to find the cheat codes kind of thing. So That's a good question. I hadn't thought about that Well, I mean how much time you spend on on social media that you could be reading Yes, you you the the collective you yes Yeah So what are you doing about your children? Are you sitting here reading to them on real paper books? Yes, yes, because this is a totally different purpose, right? One is we want to be careful of the screen screen kind of stuff, but like We do want them to have that. So yes, they have and this is my wife not me I can't take her head for we got hundreds of books around the house. They read books But I yeah, definitely we So we're starting some transitions. I've got five-year-olds and three-year-olds. So but it's Reading is part of their life. I think you know, I want to transfer that skill to them And at the appropriate time if the Kindle's still the best, I'll be like Read the Kindle Or get the Kindle version. Yes, sir. Do you do audio books? Okay, so this is a great. I think there are different learning styles That's not that's not my particular learning style, but I know a lot of people that love audible I think that's absolutely fantastic I do very specifically for audible when it's more parable But um and it's better for me and that's just the way I'm wired I still think if if I should put this on here If not Kindle and audible or audio is the way you learn then go that route I just think it's harder to capture notes, but that's Do reading strategically how you I think learn I tried to I was take I was doing a commute up to Kansas City when I was in graduate school Or and uh if you familiar with C.S. Lewis So I was listening to C.S. Lewis and dang near drove drove fell asleep and drove off the road It was like no more audio books Definitely not from C.S. Lewis is incredibly dry You need some more in playing the chord. Yeah. Yeah more. Yeah I was like you're too smart for me C.S. Lewis You're gonna make me die Yes, so you mentioned Growing from a small team to managing a large team, of course, how much you read And how much that's influence more management style. Do you ever recommend a series of books or maybe a snippet of quotes or something for your team that you find helps build Oh, he's in or synergy Uh, well first generally speaking, I'm gonna like a drug dealer With books I push books on everybody I can Um, the first one's free. Yeah, we actually did that We actually did that we uh, we loaded up a physical the heart of the divide We bought a couple of candles and gave them to people By the way, I'm sorry. I'm not engineer pushing but um find a way where somebody else finances your books So I can tell for the last 10 years the business has financed my book empire. Don't tell my partners, but So, okay back to your other question was specific situations for Yeah, do you have like a reading list or something that you recommend to your team that you feel like really kind of Brings it together or is that like kind of There's probably a set of books that I would recommend to anybody and I have recommended to the team One that wasn't on this but it would be on it. I'm gonna finally get my catalog going is uh on riding well That one I would recommend to anybody and have to my team because On riding well on riding well, yeah, it's like in the 25th edition of the anniversary or something like that If you just pop in on riding well, it's there and I have a I have a Kind of book list uh on my personal website. You'll just see and say book note So generally yes, I think recently I've been more specific seeing where they may need to level up or Something like I'm trying to prepare the two team members. We have right now for potential leadership management opportunities so leadership challenge and Great the elements of great managers too. We're going through week by week with each other Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does Does somebody else have a question? Well, it's just more common So my company we have a book club and We'll like take an hour in the morning every month To discuss the book. We've all agreed to read together Usually someone's leading the discussion But we typically don't read like business books. It's actually more fiction Yeah, we've always kind of wanted to read and I guess my thought is That there's some sort of in the process of sort of thinking about what you're reading and being critical the kind of growths of sort of critical thinking skills are You know things we want to level up with everyone in the company Yeah, and so that's kind of like but but it's interesting because I've never even thought to read some of these books together with You know other people at the company necessarily Yeah, when we hired our first Second executive assistant we took uh, Matt my right hand guy took patty through uh, how to be a Bad a for the recording And switch myself. Okay, you got it about a Executive assistant and they went but but or chapter by chapter each week and it was really foundational but I so we have a book club to Look in slack, you know, and it's like the the team is reading all kinds of stuff all the time and some of it is out of my Read strategically category. I say every once every three years. I read fiction And my wife we went on vacation a couple weeks ago and she was like, did you buy a fiction book in print? I'm like, no And I know why she's saying that she says because I'll get hooked and obsessed on the fiction book And if I do it on print, I don't have the kind of where I can switch back and forth and go this Uh, I want to get something else. So every three years like I'll dive through Harry Potter Pretty books not necessarily work related that like one thread cover to cover and you tell everyone like oh my goodness You have to read this book Well, it doesn't have to be But just like a book that you feel has really changed your life non business related The power of me I put up there Um, was really The the list I have to talk about on my my personal site. Those are the ones I go. This is the book you read These are the sets of books. I would probably read every year. I don't necessarily but I'm saying that I would go back to refer to like I'm writing well Like that, um, I don't know. Am I answering your question right? Maybe I really love the Harry Potter series I didn't know before five, but the first three a place through And I want to get a Harry Potter world so Better yep, thanks