 You know, I actually would say this more of as a general statement. I think just with working with people in general, something that I've experienced on my own and something I appreciate, have appreciated as an employee or even in a meeting where I'm talking to a client or really any situation is just to be listened to. I feel like most employees want to be heard and I think most people want to be heard in general and, you know, designers are artists at heart, you know, we're artists and so we have a point of view and, you know, when you hire a designer to do a job they're coming at it with their entire heart in that job because art is our passion and that's why we do what we do. So I think that I would say one of the things I think is important in leading a creative team and just leading people in general is just to listen to their point of view because they're trying to, you hire them to do a job for you and if you don't trust their point of view or not even willing to listen to what they have to say, why did you hire them in the first place? Because you're hiring them to do this job and to give back to the company so I think that's a small thing that you can do to just make people feel like they're appreciated and that they have a say in building in building the company with you because they are, you know. I think that's a fantastic point about recognizing that creatives and artistic types, they are bringing their passion every day and that's what you're hiring them to do, that's what you're bringing them in to do. As some with an engineering background, I could kind of phone it in on a passion every day because the numbers on the spreadsheet are the numbers on the spreadsheet, right? I didn't I didn't have to bring... You make a pretty spreadsheet. I do make a pretty spreadsheet. I have some examples for you if you want to see. But yeah, it's, you know, there are a lot of jobs where you don't, your passion doesn't have to be up at that level but if you're an artist, your passion is up at that level and that's when we want to encourage that. Yeah, for sure. You get your best work, I think, out of people when they are passionate about what they're working on, right? So like you might not have your passion up to here for the spreadsheet but whatever the spreadsheet means, you're putting your passion into that, right? Finding meaning in your work, which is which I never had a hard time doing. Right. So yeah, so I guess that's actually a callback to the last question too, like I hope like that's something I'm able to bring to the team is to help them find meaning in what we're doing and I've always stuck with that idea. That's fantastic and one of the things I see entrepreneurs often doing, often trying to do, because entrepreneurs are smart, talented, driven people, is when they aren't good at something they will try to learn how to do it and that's good in the beginning. It's important to learn things in the beginning but there's a really important point as an entrepreneur where you have to recognize where your time is more is more value-bly spent and so you are perfectly capable as an entrepreneur of learning some of these things, the marketing, but is that the best use of your time and a lot of entrepreneurs go through that of having to go through the growing pains a little bit of well I'm a smart guy or I can learn how to do this and then saying you know what not the best use of my time and it sounds like you've already crossed that bridge. Oh yeah absolutely. In fact I have a few thoughts on that that I found very useful. One of them is I did management, I studied management at Harvard and one of the things they teach about Harvard is that it's all about process. Don't think about management as having to figure out people's personalities and being responsible for their you know limitations or concerns or challenges. No, no they teach that if you set up a bunch of processes through which they're set up to succeed then you've done your job right and so to me being an entrepreneur you're it's a process of setting up each department each piece of your business. If you sort of do a deep dive in each thing like marketing I did a deep dive into marketing came up with a whole plan what are all the places we can market how can we set up each one I started setting up each one and then I hired somebody who's an expert at it got them set up and equipped so that they're starting to run with it. Once I feel like that is off and running that one system now I can move my focus to the next system right so it's just basically setting up processes for each thing rather than going nuts doing all these thousands of things I can dive into one at a time. That's awesome. Which I find to be useful. It's very similar to how we approach things in the United States Air Force we're always looking to set people up for success right have that whether it's a process whether it's inputs whether it's a team around the whatever it is set set that person up for success and not just for the task they're going to do or their job they're doing today but how are we setting them up for success in their career later on how are we giving them leadership development career development personal development so that they will they will be able to set other people up for success in the future. Nice. Oh that's great it reminds me of my absolute favorite quote about delegation they say set or they say give your people as much freedom as possible without setting them up to fail. I just that to me encapsulates delegation in one sentence. Have you found as an entrepreneur if you found delegation to your team hard you come from a background with a little more leadership development than some already have when they get into entrepreneurship so maybe you've got that locked down but I have found that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with delegation. Yeah I mean the first thing is you always feel like you could do it better right and that to me is the absolute you know that's the impulse that you absolutely have to try to avoid. Yeah. I like to think that my job is to get the results through my team rather than to do it myself right because I absolutely have that urge to just dive in I can do it better let me just do it. But you've got to stay focused on 1000 locations. Right exactly. Yeah the big picture right if I get lost in the weeds of doing little things then I'm not building those systems those processes I'm not setting other people up to succeed all the things we just talked about I'm not getting in the way of that if I'm not delegating and trying to achieve results through people. So what's your approach to delegation any advice for entrepreneurs out there. That quote I just said is the biggest one right to give people as much freedom as possible without setting them up to fail and that second part I think is worth unpacking a bit without setting them up to fail. You have to have a bit of an instinct to know if I just let them run with this are they going to succeed at it or not. And if not what can I do to help them succeed at it. Yeah. Right. Like one little simple practical technique is when somebody's struggling I try not to take on their problems I try not to say oh I'll make that phone call or all take care of that for you. I try instead first ask them what do they think is the solution. It's nine times out of ten. The thing they say that they think is the solution is very clearly the solution. They just need somebody to say that's right you're on it go do that. Sounds great to me. Go forth and do great things and those we call them vector checks. I mentioned earlier when you're delegating you want to give people as much freedom as possible without setting them up to fail. But all the people around you people who are at the same level or when you're managing up you're always trying to help them to succeed and looking for ways that you can help them to succeed. Right. Thinking I don't know I can't think of an example of it but you know I'm always when I'm thinking of my boss I'm thinking how can I equip this person to succeed at their role. I believe the same thing and I'm glad you brought up managing up because it's not something we talk a lot about with our with our guests when we interview them but it's so important either as an entrepreneur as a founder to make sure that your people the people on your team know they can manage up a little bit. One of the things I learned in the Air Force and it didn't always make me popular with my bosses but I think it helped my bosses out my commanders out in the long run is have you heard the saying bad news doesn't get better with age. I don't think I have heard that. OK. Well I want to tell them real fast immediately. Yeah and that was always my philosophy is I owe it to my commander I owe it to my boss to tell them what's going on and how I'm trying to fix it not just pointing out problems but if we have a problem I owe it to them to either tell them we've got this problem and I can't fix it on my own or we have this problem and I did fix it and here's how or buckle up here it comes right so that they're prepared and they can do things at their level back to setting everybody up for success later on didn't make me very popular all the time but in the end I think it was the right thing to do. Yeah that's it's funny I've run into that where I'm trying to give people the news ASAP so we as a team can collectively work on it and I've yet to find the magic in every scenario of how to not be shot as the messenger but I still just still believe you've got to uncover that as soon as possible because I'm trying to get the team to succeed yeah right that's my number one focus myself is second right team succeeding is number one and managing up is definitely a key part of that you actually just gave me a new idea which I've never really thought about how do you manage up and work with your manager to be managing down so that it's sort of a cycle between the two of you if you're you know transparent and authentic about the fact that you're managing up it might actually open up some dialogue where the two of you're actually working together actually building a relationship of trust between two people and you imagine and that's exactly the the answer I think to your to your self-imposed question is you know as either as the boss come in and talk to me let's let's talk what's going on what are you struggling with how can I help you have you thought about this good talk let's do this again in about a week or two weeks right and as a as a an employee as a subordinate it's a little harder but if you've got a boss that you need to build that relationship with trust with hey can I come in and talk to you about some things right yeah nice good talk can we do this again in about a week that's the key right that's coming back to process I mentioned earlier right there you're setting up a process where we just know every week or two that we're gonna have a heart-to-heart conversation this is the relationship that every commander and director of operations at a squadron level in the Air Force has to have the director of operations the second in command of a squadron so I was that to a commander in Colorado and this is the relationship we developed and it's relationship that that any two closely working closely working people have to have nice I want to before we move on to something else because I'm so I'm so captivated by your story as a drill instructor for as risk youth and you mentioned that one of the things you get called to do is when a kid wants to quit you'd be the one who they'd call to come talk to them yeah and and I want to know what did you learn from that experience about trying to keep at-risk kids in this program how does that help you with entrepreneurs at bunker labs veteran entrepreneurs millspouse want entrepreneurs at bunker labs because their days as an entrepreneur sometimes you don't want to do it anymore yeah that's a great point well it was a very personal way that I did that I had I had kind of a retention speech right but I also there was a point in my life where I was going through some really hard adversities and stuff like that and I remember it's just like it's just this little miracle piece of paper that somebody gave me and it was this poem and the poem was called man in the glass and I'll probably paraphrase this you've probably seen memes on it and stuff like that but Dale Wimbrough is the guy who wrote it and it's basically it's you it's the man in the glass is the man in the mirror and the whole preface of it is like you know you've cheated nobody's verdict matters nobody's opinion matters but you're gonna live a horrible life if you've cheated the man in the glass then what I would do is I would ask all the questions right and try to understand where they were coming from sometimes they got a letter from back home that upset them and they were just trying to make a very emotional decision but I would always have them in my office and I had that that poem hanging up and I would make that after I was done talking to him and I'd make him you know wait until their platoon sergeant would come back and get him I would have him turn around face the wall just far enough away that it's not right in front of their face but I would make him face the wall until their platoon sergeant got there and then they'd all just kind of get distracted and then they'd look and they'd see that and I'd notice them kind of read it and I would say eight out of ten times they would turn back around request permission to speak ball in and just request to go back and get back to work so I tried to put that perspective on on them and I just want to share this is a little bit of an offshoot but it's really important because years later when I was when I was growing the DJ business I remember where I was at because it was in Tulsa I had opened up the first office down in Dallas and that was the biggest thing that I'd ever done at that time like outside of that my days in the as the drill instructor and I was like trying to scale and duplicate that whole operation I was recruiting my own people I was doing all that stuff and this is when Facebook was kind of really getting big was like 2011 right 2012 and I got a message from a kid and he said hey my name is Justin you probably don't remember me I was trying to quit one day and I read this poem that you had on your wall and he said I just wanted you to know that changed my life and now I'm in the Air Force I just I just picked up before and I'm starting to lead people and I think about that day every day and then I was it was just this big like it was this big aha for me and it's like I know that I needed to keep doing that in some way shape or form and that's where I just I kept reading I kept learning I kept trying to grow everything with way more integrity than just you know a list of a checklist of to-do items and calling that scale right I wanted I wanted everything that I've touched since then I wanted it to have more meaning more purpose and for lack of a better term getting customers in any business is important but I think everybody should have two lines out the door it's a line of people that can't wait to buy what you have and a line of people that can't wait to be part of your team and and I try to bake that into everything that I do whether it be voluntary stuff all the organizations and I think about that that note from that kid it's what makes it come come full circle