The Lactic Burn of Long-Term Success, with Stephen Woessner

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitore.

Welcome to the Athletics of Business podcast and I am your host, Ed Molitor. And today we are very fortunate to have with us Stephen Wessner. Stephen, welcome.

Well, thanks very much for the invitation and I'm delighted and honored to be here with you and your listeners. Ed, so totally stoked about the conversation.

Well, that's great. Well, Stephen is the founder and CEO of Predictive roi, which is a digital marketing agency. And he's also the host of Onward Nation, a top rated daily podcast for learning how today's top business owners think, act and achieve Ammo Nation is listened to in 120 countries around the world. Now, since the advent of the commercial Internet, Steven has collected tens of thousands of data points that have given him the ability to identify what he calls the eight money draining mistakes and the eight money making opportunities. Darren Hardy, then publisher of Success magazine, interviewed Steven to discuss how business owners can identify and fix the mistakes. Stephen is the author of three books, including the number one bestseller, Profitable Podcasting, which I can attest to its greatness.

And his digital marketing insights have been featured in Forbes.com, entrepreneur.com, the Washington Post and Inc. Magazine. Steven, again, welcome.

Well, again, just. I'm really looking forward to our conversation and however, I can be the most help to your audience and so I'm excited to dive in.

Well, and then let's do just that. And speaking of your number one bestseller, Profitable Podcasting, I loved that book and I loved it right from the start, obviously the wonderful introduction from Don Yeager. But right when you started getting into the story of how Onward Nation came to be, could you tell us a little bit about that backstory? Because it wasn't this everything is unicorns and roses at the time. It wasn't such an easy thing. And I think that's something that's very valuable to share with our listener.

And I think it really transcends industry, no matter if you're a business owner in a professional services firm like I am, or if you happen to be a former athlete who's starting a retail business. And I mean, we all go through those ebb and flow moments in our entrepreneurial journey. And it just so happened in the spring of 2015, were going through an ebb and flow and, or a peak in a valley. And at that Point, were in the Valley, and it might be a little bit ironic, because at our core, we're a content marketing and lead gen agency. And although were doing that well for clients, weren't doing a really good job for predictive. And so were feeling the pain of that. Plus, were a bit overstaffed. We had a couple of additional people that we probably shouldn't have kept.

There was a lot of financial pressure on the business at that point. And so. And so I was frustrated. I'm like, we have got to do something different. And I didn't really know what the different was, but I knew that we needed to do something different. And I'm sitting at my dining room table in May of 2015 and, you know, pound the table with my fist, and I'm like, darn it. We're going to launch a daily podcast, and we're going to call it Onward Nation, and we're going to interview today's top business owners, and it's just going to be awesome. And that was the extent of the strategy, which obviously that is not a strategy. And we're going to launch it in 30 days.

And I email my team, and I feel pretty good about the chaos that I just created, because that was exactly what it was. Total chaos. Because we knew nothing about how to produce a podcast, let alone a great podcast, let alone a podcast that could then monetize. But Lord must have been looking down on us and said, okay, you know what? I'm going to help you. Going to help meet some of the gaps, and praise God, we launched it 30 days later. And what was interesting is, a couple of months after the show had been airing, a couple of our guests reached out to me and said, hey, could you do that for me? And I'm like, do what for you? And they're like, oh, my gosh, seriously, Steven, could you build us a podcast? Like, huh? Okay, sure. Yes, we can.

You know, like a typical entrepreneur would say. And. And so we did, and it was great. And then went about our business at the time. And then one of those guests, Drew McClellan, who runs the Agency Management Institute, came to me and said, look, you built a great podcast for me, and Onward Nation is awesome. Why in the world are you not doing this for other people? And so then we started thinking about it. It's like, well, okay, now wait a minute. We actually do have a pretty good model here for business owners who want to be thought leaders in their respective industries, who then want to create consistent content. Their thought leadership or around their point of view that becomes them, their thought leadership, and then be able to monetize that. Even those early on, we're kind of good at this.

And so then that was years ago. And since that time, it's turned into a book and a pretty robust business. So we're really grateful for that early on experience. But just like all of your listeners can attest to, it's those moments of being in the Valley, those moments of really being pushed, those moments of, ugh, I can't get up and do one more set, or I can't possibly run 1 more 100 during this practice session. It's in those moments that you really achieve something special. Right?

Isn't that the truth, though? And what you're really, you know, what I hear you saying, and tell me if I'm close here, at least you had to get a little bit outside your comfort zone. You kind of had a fear of, I almost don't want to say failure, but of the way things were going. You knew you had to do something different. There was a territory of. There's a, you know, the unknown, but you had to get in there and you had to get to the other side of that whole fear of, okay, what's going to happen? Which leads me to ask you, how long after you were sitting there at your dining room table in May, you know, watching your daughter play outside, how long after that was it until you interviewed Drew?

And he said, hey, man, why aren't you doing this for other people? This is fantastic.

Well, so let's see. Let me think about that. So Drew was actually episode 32, and then, you know, we're a daily show. So, you know, that was within the first four or five weeks of airing the show. And then it was shortly thereafter, you know, because, you know, we. So Drew is not only, you know, one of. He was one of our guests, but he's also one of my most influential mentors. So I spent a lot of time with him. I was then with him in August of 2015 in Seattle when we started formulating the plan. Maybe this would be impactful for his business, too. When he asked me the question that I mentioned before, then we launched his show, I think it was in October of 2015.

We launched ours in June, started having conversations with Drew a couple months later, and then launched his show a couple months after that conversation. So really, within four months, you know, we had this monetized business model running. And so it, you know, in retrospect, it was actually really quickly that it all started to gain some momentum.

That's amazing. And how much has it evolved over time? And on the back end of that question, let's tack on how much have you learned about yourself and your organization's ability to really make adjustments on the go?

Gosh, how much? I think a tremendous amount. Here's why. Because we started building a system for Drew and then we started building a system for another client. And then pretty soon we had three, four clients where we're building these content platforms, these channels of distribution for their thought leadership. We thought we had a pretty good system. And then it broke. It broke where it was like, oh my gosh, we've got too much going on. We don't have enough capacity. We haven't really systematized anything, even though there's a process flow. But then it broke at, you know, four clients and they're like, okay, well, let's go back to the drawing board and rebuild it. We rebuilt it. That took us to 10. And then at 10, it broke again. And then, and then it was a constant rebuild and. Or a consistent rebuild.

And then that took us to 15 and broke again. And then, and then as we've got, or as we have then taken 20 and plus onto that, we've built now a scalable system that doesn't break. So it's kind of like, you know, let's say that you're in the gym and you're pushing and pushing because you want to hit that 300 or 400 pound bench press. Well, at 225 and 235 and 245, things are going good. But then you hit 250 and you're like, oh, for Pete's sake, I can't get off this plateau. Well, what do you do? Well, you start doing stripped down methods, you start doing different exercises, you start doing negatives. You confuse the muscle in order to create that additional stress. And during that period of additional stress, it's awful to. It's painful.

You know, you run the risk of things tearing. But you also know that if you don't do that at 250, you'll never get to 275. And then lo and behold, your body heals, you pick up momentum, and then all of a sudden getting to from 250, 275 is easy. The same thing happens in scaling a business. Your business must go under stress or you will never reach the next level.

And man, I love that. I mean, you got me fired. You had me fired up right now, because this speaks so much to the athletics of business and the fact that in order to grow, you have to continually. And I'll say this, and I think you'll agree with me, you have to keep failing. In other words, your muscles have to fail, your system has to fail. But throughout that time, what was the key for you? Okay, to stay persistent, to stay resilient. You know, how did you look at those challenges? Because you did so much to overcome when the system broke at first. You probably did so much more when the system broke at 10 and thought you had it figured out. Then you get to 15 and, okay, are you kidding me? Here we are again.

At what point, you know, was it like, okay, you know, we're all in on this, we're gonna figure it out? And was there anybody at all? I don't mean anybody in terms of specific. Was there ever that stray from that? We can do this, we can tweak it, we can work towards perfecting this. Maybe we should just settle.

Yeah. Well, the reality is that during that period of time, and I think every entrepreneur feels this, there are days when sometimes many days in a row, where quitting and feeling like giving up feels really good, like that's a good option. But I don't know if it's just how we're wired differently or what it is where it's like, wait a minute, it burns. Burns right now. Because I'm at the moment of really pushing through. And so making sure that we have our mindset right. Doesn't keep you from. Or doesn't keep me from thinking, geez, I just hang up the cleats and hang up the towel and forget about it.

I have those thoughts, but also I have the experience of what it feels like to push through the lactic acid burn and do one more rep when I don't want to, and then realizing that when that sets over, there's like that huge sense of accomplishment. So then when putting that new system in place and then getting the client feedback and feeling good about it's like, okay, I think it would be completely naive for any business owner to think, oh, this is going to be peaches and cream, and it's going to be like unicorns running through the meadow and things are going awesome and fairies are going to playing guitar music. I mean, it doesn't work that way.

So to think that is ludicrous, instead of if you sit down and talk to the greatest champions, whether we're talking about in business or life, sports, whatever, is because there were moments of Adversity. There was a time in game six in Salt Lake City when Michael Jordan was puking before the game and he had 102 fever. And he's like, no, I'm going to play this game. And not only am I going to play this game, I'm going to play lights out, and we're going to win this game, hopefully, because I cannot survive a game seven. And they close out that series four to two. And he does it feeling terrible. When you're there at the edge, why would you not reach over and cross the line? You're already there.

So I think that lesson transcends sports and into business is just about not letting yourself give up when it's really easy to do that.

It's so easy to do that. And one of the things I admire about you is we have gotten to know each other. You represent. I love the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, where he talks about the enemy of great is good. And I think that's really missed in the business world, so to speak, because we spend so much time chasing the metrics that others set for us and settling. Okay. And, you know, some folks may say, well, what's wrong with being good? Well, because what happens is one day you're gonna wake up in those habits that make you good are gonna make you bad. You know, and what I hear you saying is as you continue to tweak the system when it would break, as you continue to move from 10 to 15 to 20 plus, you grew. I mean, you improved.

You. You expanded your comfort zone. And this is something I think is very important for the listener. Talk a little bit about the fact that there is no finish line. It's a constant process.

Yeah, there isn't. There it. Okay, so this is an excellent question. And I hope I know you like athletics and sports, so I know you won't mind the sports metaphors. And I'm a huge football fan, and I think about business through sort of the lens of football and strategy. I think of, like, Jerry Rice and I think of, like, Walter Payton, Right?

Yep.

And back in the days of the sweetness, right. I mean, linebackers were getting bigger, they were getting faster, you know, linemen were getting thinner and more capable at stopping the run. And so, you know, what did he do? Well, he modified his training regimen.

Right.

He was consistently running up hills and training in new and different ways and working on plyometrics. And so not only he become more flexible and nimble, but spin moves and more evasive because you can't run through people all day long when those people keep getting bigger and faster and stronger.

Right, Right.

So he changed his off season training regimen. Greatest running back of all time. Even Emmett Smith would say so. Or you look at Jerry Rice and Jerry would say, I trained the way that I trained because I know that nobody else is going to do that. And I'm willing to do the things that most people are not willing to do. Like Terrell Owens went with Jerry Rice once on that, you know, hill run. And Terrell Owens thought he was going to die.

And Terrell Owens ain't too bad either.

Right. And so these super achievers, the hall of Famers, the greatness, they trained and changed their methods of training as the competition adapted to catch up to where they once were. They continue to outperform doing new and different things. And we in business, whether we're talking about our content or we're talking about our strategy or the service offering or the tech or the tools or the whatever, we have to constantly be changing those things and delivering more value or the competition will catch us and then our business would be then no longer.

It's a great point. It's a great point. And one of the things that you said that really resonated with me and it brought up a thought, was from the outside in, Predictive. And with Onward Nation, you folks had the ability to do this is you really, from the outside looking in. You make it look so easy. But like Jerry Rice, like Walter Payton, like mj, you still deal with the same mental battles, if you will, the same struggles, the same failures, the same emotional attachment and the highs and lows. How have you grown? What have you done to just really tweak your process and get so dialed in that you're not distracted by all the different things that you going on and you can stay focused on the task at hand to continue improving and make it look as easy as you do.

Well, thank you for that because, I mean, it doesn't, you know, feel easy. I'm glad that we give that impression that's awesome. But you know, behind the curtain we do feel like a crazy bag of cats. But, but part of it is that, you know, we run the traction process, the entrepreneurial operating system here at Predictive. And so we're focused. You know, my leadership team, Eric and Catherine and I are focused on quarterly rocks, the big things we need to accomplish. One thing for each of us that we need to accomplish. It's typically a marketing thing, a system improvement thing. A client love thing. And we focus on that thing and getting that done quarter to quarter.

With that said, I think it's also about being transparent with your team and not trying to create a false sense of sugar coatedness, a false utopia about the way things are. I mean, during our daily team meetings, we have daily huddles, team meetings every single day, and we go through the process and I lead the team in a very transparent way. This is what happened that was great yesterday. This is what happened that wasn't. And keep a very realistic view. And always the part of our culture is getting better. I mean, one of our values is about we will get better, we will have continuous improvement. There's always something that can be improved. And so I think knitting all of that together, you know, creates a championship culture that has everybody sort of focused on, not sort of focused on the most vital priorities.

And knowing that there's a team of people around them, they're supporting them, that is great to take risks. If I fail, I'm not going to be in trouble. And then that gives us the ability to swing for the fences.

That's awesome. And can we talk into, because you just said something, can we talk into taking risk and how you make it? You know, I think in business people talk about making it safe for your team to take risk, for your team members to take risk. And what happens sometimes I think people mistake safe for soft, you know, and I believe making it safe for people to take risks speaks right into authenticity with honesty and integrity. But can you talk about how you embrace taking risk, embrace your team taking risk and how you make it safe for them to do so?

Yeah, I think the safe piece is culture. I mean we, and I think it goes to like in our daily huddle, we answer four questions. And those four questions are these are my three most vital priorities. Second question is that we each answer for ourselves in front of our team is this is what I didn't get done yesterday, but should have. And that's not, we're putting that out there for judgment. That's almost like a cry for help. This is where I need some teamwork. So I think part of making it safe for your team to take a risk is them realizing that they've got a team around them that supports them, cares about them. My team hears me say every day that I love them, that I appreciate them so much. And so I think that's part of it. And if you. Right.

And if you have that as your culture, then you give them, you know, the ability to Swing away when it's maybe a three and oh count when they ought to take a pitch and because they like the look that the pitcher gave them and if they end up striking it out at that at bat. Okay, Derek Jeter, greatest Yankee of all time, arguably struck out 1862 times. He's the number 11 on the all time strikeout list. There are only, there's only 12 or there's only 10 people who struck out more than Derek Jeter. And yet he's the greatest Yankee of all time. But he did that because he had an organization that knew, well, we need to, you know, let him do that because that's what makes him great. He won five championships. So I think that really is a leadership thing.

I think that's a, you know, embracing your team, encouraging them to swing away. And then when they fail, it's like, well, okay, what could we have done differently so that next time you get a double instead of swinging or instead of striking out?

That's awesome. Now how do you encourage so with those questions, by the way? I love those questions. And the fact that you do it on a daily basis is phenomenal. Have you, have you had, over the years, team members that come on board and they're really uncomfortable with answering those questions because they don't want to let people down by what they needed to do yesterday but didn't get done and really should have gotten done? How do you help them through that process of, hey, you know what, you're a part of something bigger than yourself. You got to be a little selfless here, be transparent and just get through that uncomfortableness? Have you had that happen?

Okay, so I don't want to. I hope your audience doesn't feel like I'm being flippant here when I say this. And the reason why that hasn't happened is because that person never made it on the team.

I was gonna say never hired a.

No. And so we have what probably would sound to some of your listeners like a grueling, mind numbing, stick a fork in my eye like hiring process. We are so slow during the hiring process. In fact, we have a process that is either four or five interviews long. And also that candidate goes through some personality assessments reviewed by a third party consultant expert that we've engaged on our team. We take hiring in the culture of our team to the nth degree that we go through those questions. This is how our daily process works. This is what you can expect on a day to day basis. This is how our teamwork feels. And so that all of that gets ferreted out before that person ever joins the team. So that on day one, they don't. Oh, I'm uncomfortable because we've already gone through that scenario.

That's fantastic. And that reminds me of your interview, your second interview with Don Yeager. I believe it was episode 106, when you talked about A players and you put a players with other A players in the interview process and see how they play together in the sandbox, if you will. And I completely made that part up, but I hope you forgive me for that. But anyways, and I love that, and I love the fact that it is a slow, deliberate, intentional process. And then once you make the decision, is there any looking back?

No, there isn't. And because I believe in playing full out 100% of the time, like full core press for the entire game. And then also recognizing that there are periods of time where our team needs to sharpen the saw, take time off, which is why we have unlimited PTO time here at Predictive roi. Because rest and recovery, just like in athletics, is really important, both mentally and physically in business. And so we take that very seriously. So, no, once we have made a hiring decision and that person has accepted to join the team, they know the pace and tempo in which we move and what the expectations are. So no, there is never any looking back.

It is full court press, foot slammed down on the gas, and then recognizing that we need to sharpen the saw often so we never burn anybody out, that's outstanding now.

And when you talk about culture and you talk about the hiring process and you talk about sharpening this culture versus a superstar, where you need to adjust the culture. In other words, do you. And I'm going to guess what the answer is, but I'll keep the answer to my. I'll keep that guest to myself. But when you go recruit superstar performers, folks that are just really good at what they do, that are great at what they do, but they might be a challenge to your culture. So we've seen in athletic teams, I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, where you know what? We're going to take a chance, we're going to take a risk.

Or do you go get someone who maybe not limited ability, but yet is an average producer right now, but really fits in and buys into your culture, which one do you go after?

If I had to choose one of those two buckets, I'd say the latter instead of the former. And the reason being is because I've seen too Many instances where. Where the scenario is we're gonna. We're gonna bring a Terrell Owens in and he's gonna be great for our team and. Or we're gonna have a Des Bryant and he's, you know, great for the team. But then, oh, well, you know what? They didn't get DEZ Bryant involved in the game plan early, and so now he's not playing, you know, he's. He's kind of, you know, not running the routes as crisply as he should be in the third quarter because he wasn't engaged in the first quarter. That's horrific, Right? It's crap.

Right?

It is completely dysfunctional. Then there's all kinds of, you know, goofiness and coddling with that, as opposed to what we saw the Philadelphia Eagles do this year, where they're all team players, they performed at a very high level. I think we agree at that.

Definitely agree with that. Yes. And.

But. But also, you know, what the coaching staff and what the players, you know, sure, they have some Pro bowl players on their team, but an exceptional talent, but they play as a team. So we are always looking for not only somebody who has great technical skills, but we're also looking for great teammates. And I tell my team, tell. I share with my team on a daily basis that the two most important words that we have here at Predictive are teammate, and we always have each other's back. And that comes from a lesson that I learned way back when I was in the service. And the lesson was I worked in nuclear missile silos when I was in the Air Force, and we had what was called a no loan zone, which meant two was one and one was none.

And you always had each other's back, both for security reasons and for, you know, personal safety reasons. Right. And so the same thing here at our team is that we have a no loan zone. We have a great team. We're there to support each other, but we would never, ever hire somebody because they're a great performer. And then. And then they are disruptive to our culture. We would never do that.

And along those lines, you're going to get. When you hire the right people, you're going to get people that embrace their roles. Can you talk a little bit about the challenge of. Yeah. Embracing your role, Having your, you know, identifying your role, embracing it. That being aligned with your personal vision of what you want to be and still trying to be more, yet do the role that you were hired to do. Does. Does that make sense? In other words, here's What I was hired to do, I'm doing this. I'm doing this to the best of my ability. But I'm spending some mental, you know, some energy and some intellectual trying to be more for this team, even though they're not asking that of me right now.

Absolutely. And so we support our teammates, you know, personal professional development through, you know, courses and certifications and workshops and seminars and that kind of stuff that they travel to and participate in mastermind groups and so forth. So there's all that kind of continuing education piece. And then also just part of our culture, again, one of our values is actually two of our values. Within the total of five is that one. There is that continuous improvement. We are looking for people who are looking to educate themselves and have an appetite to get better. And then what gets married with that is we win together. It's not that Steven won or Steven made more money. It's that predictive won as a whole.

So I think if you have people who fit into that culture of we win together as a team, and part of my role is to do this thing, but then part of my role is to always get better at that thing and then be on the lookout for new things that can add value to our clients and be helpful to my fellow teammates. Well, then I think it's a win. Right. Is that we would never chastise somebody of. No, you needed to be focused on that thing and not thinking about these new creative things. You know, we certainly encourage that because that. That rises or lifts the tide for all boats.

That's phenomenal. And going along with that. So when someone wants to improve or you're trying to get someone to grow, you know, I personally was. I played in time when it was, work on your weakness. Work on your weakness. You know, your left hand. You have no left hand. Work on your left hand. Forget that. You don't need more jump shots. You don't need to work on going to your right. But nowadays, it's about leveraging your strengths, and it's about leveraging your strengths and using your strengths to help you improve your weaknesses. How do you do that with your team?

Yeah, well, I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because, you know, Gallup, you know, did such a landbreak study, and then the now find your strengths or now focus on your strengths. You know, the book that they reported those findings was phenomenal about that. So I think it's being able to figure out what somebody's strengths are and then being able to do everything we possibly can to Support that and remove anything else that might be a distraction to that. Right. So if somebody is really great in one particular skill set, then letting that person, encouraging that person and supporting that person to take a real deep dive. That. And then. And then building a structure around it that. That, that supports it. So I'm in total agreement with you as far as being able to focus on strengths and not minimize weaknesses.

I mean, for Pete's sake, you know, Shaquille O', Neal, I don't think ever got above like 40% free throw. Right. Those were like stone.

I think. I think you're giving them a couple percentage points, too.

But. But nobody would. Would ever doubt his prowess of power inside the paint.

No.

Right. And especially when you're like two feet away.

Right, right.

I mean, the guy would dominate. So. So why make him. Why try to make him great? If free throws, he's never going to do it.

Right, Right. No, it just wasn't going to happen. And I really think that sometimes in business we get so caught up in the world. This is how I asked you to be. Well, that's fine, but I'm not. That's just not really what my strength is. That's not my. That's not my area of explanation expertise, if you will. But. But then in the same lines, we talk to people about the ability to be resilient and to develop grit. And I think people mistaken for doing that with constantly working on your weaknesses. I mean, can you talk into a little bit about grit and how you have developed it through the course of growing predictive and with your onward nation.

I mean, I don't know if people really understand how hard it is to do a daily podcast and still, you know, keep all the other balls in the air that you have going.

Yeah. And, you know, we're. Thank you for that. And, you know, we're quickly approaching 800 episodes.

Wow. Wow.

And you're right, that doesn't happen by accident.

But.

But it is also aligned with something that I love to do. So it feels less like work and more like, you know, brain candy, being able to hang out with super smart people like you.

Right. Because thanks for throwing that in there. I appreciate. Well.

But really. Right. You know, it's. When it's aligned with your strengths, it doesn't feel like work. Right. So that's important. But at the same point, too, there are absolutely the long days where predictive feels like a slog, and it's just, oh, my gosh, it's like I was at a dinner party last night And I said, the greatest thing about being an entrepreneur is that I get to schedule the hundred hours that I work in this week anytime I want. And you know, it's, but it's still 100 hours, right? But I have complete flexibility of when I'm going to work those hundred hours. Ain't it great? But part of it comes back to my entrepreneurial DNA. I believe that my DNA is truly different than a non entrepreneur. I believe that my DNA changed in the year 1910, if you can believe that or not.

1910, when my grandfather, who was an eight year old boy in Istanbul, Turkey, when my great grandfather was murdered because he was a Greek male and hung in the street of Istanbul. And my grandfather, who was 8, became the man of the house and he did odd jobs, everything he could do to support his mom and his two younger siblings, and he did it with a smile on his face. I believe that my family stepped into entrepreneurship on that day and my DNA changed as a result. So part of the grit, the tenacity, using your word, the resilience, comes from the photo that I have hanging on my wall behind my office chair. And it's a picture of my grandfather standing behind the counter, the food service or the counter in his restaurant in 1927, during the Great Depression.

He came here in 1920, had no money, couldn't speak the language, and six years later he owned a restaurant.

Wow.

And he ran it through the Great Depression. And so when I'm really tired and it's 2 o' clock in the morning and all I want to do is go to bed, I look at that and I'm like, yeah, I can send one more.

Yeah, that's really powerful. I mean, it's very powerful. And the fact that you stay in touch with that past and that history of your family is awesome. At what point did that light bulb go on for you? I mean, was it college, was it high school? Or did you always know that in your youth, were your parents very intentional about telling you those stories over and over again? Or did you sit on your grandpa's knee and, you know, he kind of told you some stories. At what point, at what age did that light bulb go on? Just curious.

You know, some of it is modeling, right? You see other people's behavior, you see how. Or I saw how firsthand how my pop, you know, led our family, was a patriarch of our family. He's the reason why we're all here and sort of how he led our family and Then, yes, some of it is stories. I still remember the time where he gathered us all around his kitchen table, we had a tape recorder on the table, and he told us a story that I just shared with you that is awesome. Part of it is, you know, listening to my uncles, you know, tell their versions of the stories as well.

But I will say that even having grown up with all of that storytelling and knowing what our family history was, a lot of it I took for granted because it was just that, right? It was just very common and normal to me, even though it felt different maybe to other listeners. But it wasn't really until probably five, six years ago, as I continue to get even deeper into thinking about why I do certain things and why I have those beliefs and this and that. And then starting to tell that story actually through Onward Nation, that it really started cementing kind of the uncommonness of that story into me. And then through the years, I've had a greater appreciation for the sacrifice and everything he accomplished. And in fact, my uncle just told me a side story the other day.

And he said, you know, when Pop bought his first house, he bought that house in 1934, which was, you know, the height of the depression, 1934, in Canton, Ohio, on 25th Street, Sunlight Court in Canton, Ohio. Because he bought it a sheriff's sale. He paid $5,000 in cash and back taxes in the Depression.

Wow.

My grandfather walked in and put down $5,000 and bought a house in today's money. That's $74,532.

Wow.

And he has squirreled away $74,000 or the equivalent of it at that day during the Great Depression. I'm like, holy bananas.

That's amazing. So five or six years ago is when it really started to hit home. Would it be safe to say that's when you really all of a sudden start to dial into your self awareness?

I suppose so. Although I don't know that I've really made that much progress there. And that's something that I'd like to certainly better at because I think it's an ongoing discovery. So I think that is an accurate thing to say within the last five or six years. That has certainly become a more heightened thing for me. Although I would also say that I feel like I have a long way to go in really developing that.

But isn't. Isn't it true It's a little bit similar to the country song. It's eluding me right now whose song it is, but it says the more I learn the less I know. Isn't that sort of along those lines? Because I'm going to tell you, as I've gotten to know you, Stephen, and gotten to know your team, it is amazing the presence that you folks have to be where your feet are and to think through things. There's no rush to answer, rush to a solution. It seems you all seem, you specifically that you let your mind do the work and just kind of take over. Is that because I think back to, you know, self awareness being a competitive advantage, you know, the more you're, the more you know yourself. You talk about the physical conditioning earlier in this conversation.

And you have to know your body, but you also have to know how you respond during adversity. And how do you catch yourself, you know, as an athlete when it's a blown call, you have 30,000 people screaming at you or you, it's complete silence when you're, you're trying to knock down a four foot putt to win the Masters. But you have to figure out how your mind reacts and you need to direct your attention in, you know, in the right way. How do, how have you developed the ability to do that? Because it's very apparent to me that you have.

Well, thank you for that one, the observation and the compliment along the way. I mean, that's what we try to achieve. And here again, I know that I keep coming back to culture, but I think it's also, I think Bill Belichick said it best, ironically, because, you know, so many people think he's a curmudgeon of a person, but I think that's just a rough and tough kind of exterior. And I think there is actually a great leader behind that facade.

Agreed.

Right. And I think, I don't know if it was like an HBO thing that I was watching, but an interview with him, you know, once at his office, and he told whoever was doing the interview, I wish I could remember who that was. But anyway, he said, we practice for every situation. We practice for the two minute situation, we practice for this situation, that situation, the fake punt situation, like, you name the litany of situations. And they're not practicing plays, they're practicing for situations. And so the interviewer said, well, why do you do that? And he says, so that we're prepared when we're in a game and we're faced with that situation, we know how to deal with it.

Part of that, I think, is what we do here too is that we role play, we talk about situations, we talk about how we best should respond or how we would best respond to a particular need that a client has. And our overarching goal is always to be helpful. And I think if that's always the goal to be helpful to a client or a teammate, then that isn't a knee jerk reaction. Then that does mean that the person on the other end deserves our most thoughtful, well thought out answer or advice or research or so forth.

So I think if we work through the situations so that we're not surprised and we always have the focus of being helpful to Ed or whomever in the time of need, then hopefully the perception or the end result is a client saying to us, gosh, you're always so helpful and you always give me your best. Because we certainly do try again making.

It look so easy from the outside in. But hey, a leader, and we all know this, a team is a direct reflection of their head coach. I firmly believe that in athletics and if you really look at and it goes back to culture, but if you really look at the way they respond in game situations and adverse situations, how they handle success. So my question to you is, how are you able to be the face that your team needs in times when shit hits the fan or in times when things are going really well, how can you be that face? How are you conscious enough to be that person?

I'm pausing here because I don't really know that I am. And here's why I say that. And I'm not trying to sound or be a contrarian to your question, but the reason why I say that is because it is always 100% of the time about the team. And so here's what I mean. Like if for some reason let's say that I we got a glowing Amazon review on profitable podcasting or we got hit up on Social and it was Stevens this, blah blah, whatever. And I share that with our team. They know that deep in my heart and what I say on the outside too is congruent and that I know that if I've accomplished anything is because we have an amazing team.

And so I don't look at myself as being the front or being the voice or sure I'm the host of the show and so forth, but anytime that I am doing an interview or we appear in Forbes or any sort of accolade that comes our way, I either thank that person where we wound up in that forward facing thing, that media, that it is a result of our team when I celebrate that win with our team. They know 100% of the time it had nothing to do with my personality or whatever. It had absolutely everything to do with the teamwork that we have here within predictive. So this is not about Steven Wesner fans or social presence for Steven. This is always about predictive and everybody who is inside of predictive.

And that's awesome. And maybe if I reword that question, but I want to take you back to how we started the conversation when, you know, things didn't go so well. You're. You're sitting there and you're like slamming your hand down on the table and say, you know what? We're going to start a podcast. And you said, we're going to do it in 30 days. Now, you and I both know that the rest of the crew probably thought you fell off your rocker because that is a. So you somehow mustered the. The. What word am I looking for here, Steven? The disposition to communicate to them in such a way that. No, guys, you're right. I'm nuts. This is next to impossible. But you know what? Not only can we do it, we're gonna do it. How are you able to do.

That's what I mean by this. So in other words, they looked at you.

Gotcha.

And they've got. So in other words, let's put it this way, okay. There's a timeout, late game situation, and teams led for 27 out of the, you know, first 30 minutes of a college basketball game. And for three minutes, they got their tails kicked in and the wheels are falling off, they're getting sideways. They might even be. Be doing things that are uncharacteristic to them. They might be yelling at each other. They might not even be acknowledging each other. They might not be talking on defense. They come back for a timeout, and I'll never forget this. I was one time, and I grabbed our head coach, I said, listen, right now this team needs you to calm them down. You. You need to.

Instead of doing what you want to do and what you have every right to do and what you probably, you know, nine times out of ten should do right now, they need to see you need to be the calming influence, the sense of confidence that not only can we win this game, we're going to win this game. So that's where I was going with that. We. When you decided to launch that podcast, how did you go ahead and do that?

Well, you're right, it did have the initial impact that you suspected. Not that, you know, Stephen has fallen off as rocker. But there were certainly some moments of what the. Because. And then. And then, you know, some thoughts in people's minds were, oh, well, that makes sense because we've launched so many of these before, which of course we hadn't. And however, I think when and similar to the situation you're talking about with the game and the head coach is that when you've built a team and there's high trust among the teammates and leadership of that team, then you're able.

And the teammates know that Steven is not going to put us in harm's way, that Steven's job is to keep the team safe, that they know that my intent is pure, then it can be like, okay, Stephen, I'm sure, is making this suggestion for the right reason. Let's give him the benefit of doubt. Let's get together, let's trust him, that maybe he sees something that we potentially don't right now, or maybe we do. We just can't figure out how to get it done.

So when teammates and leaders and so forth all trust one another and truly care about one another, then I think it's possible to have those difficult conversations about, okay, we don't know how we're gonna get this done, but we believe in you believe in us, we care about one another, so let's figure out how we're gonna get this done without breaking each other. So there again, I think it comes back to just the relationship that a coach, as you talked about in your scenario, a coach has with his or her players. So that. Because if that relationship context, if that trust isn't there and the intent is always about manipulative or throwing chairs out on the basketball court, then it's difficult for somebody to be a calming influence then when that hasn't been the history.

Very well said. And I have a ton of admiration for your whole perspective on that. And you and I both know when you're in those situations and you get into the grind and you have the team that's responding the way that your team does, it is nevertheless still a grind. You know, we joke about working 80, 100 hours a week, but, you know, the reality of it is it feels very real sometimes. And we always say that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. But there are aspects of our business that just is like pulling tea sometimes. How do you stay present? How do you stay focused? And how do you still make sure that you're enjoying as much of this journey and as this ride as possible?

I mean, you must have the ability to take a step back sometimes when you're in the middle of it. I always joke around that you can't see the picture when you're in. Inside the frame sometimes. How do you do that?

I do it in a few different ways. One of them is that because we're, as, you know, we're a virtual business. And so, you know, we don't have a physical office. I'm in Wisconsin. You know, three of us are here in Wisconsin, but then we also have, you know, teammates and in Iowa and Tennessee and Colorado and Utah and Washington State. So part of how I stay energized is actually spending physical time with my teammates. It's actually hopping on planes, going to visit client locations with teammates. And so part of that, you know, energy that I get in revitalization, I get. And then conversely, I think probably our teammates get is just from that in person touch and being able to spend time with one another. That's the first thing. Second thing is we have unlimited PTO time.

And so I encourage our teammates to take as much time as they need. I try to take time off as well, go on trips and spend time with family and so forth. And so I like the long drives, I like to travel because it gives me time to think and get re. Energized. But then also it's just I. I mean, part of it is I'm not the type of person that really gets, that gets down, that has to do a lot of. I mean, I do a lot of prayer, internal reflection, that kind of stuff, but I am just so wired and jacked up 100% of the time for what it is that we want to accomplish. I need very little downtime to recharge the batteries. And then lastly is, I spend a lot of time at the gym.

Probably not as much time as I should, but I spend quite a bit of time in the weight room. And I love it. I love the. One of my teammates actually asked me, like, why do you put your sweatshirt hood up? You know, like wearing like a hooded sweatshirt. I'm like, you know, because it blocks out the distraction. I just like to be able to put in my AirPods, turn on the music, put my hood up, and just do some clanging and banging. And I like, I just, I love that. So all of that is kind of my recipe for staying energized.

That's. That's awesome. That's outstanding. Getting your own little world there when you're at the gym. I Like that a lot because, you know, you and I both know you go to those gyms, they can be like a social experience sometimes. It's brutal. Well, yeah, you know, this leads me to. Can you share? There could be a. There is certain to be a listener that is sitting there right now and is waiting for just another piece of gold before we have to wrap this up. What is the most influential lesson you ever learned from one of your mentors? And you have some phenomenal mentors and how it helped you level up your performance. That what would be that thing that you'd like to share with that listener that's just waiting for something else?

Boy, there are a lot of them. And because I've had the good fortune, and really everyone has access to this, but, I mean, I've had the good fortune of having some really incredible mentors. So you mentioned Don Yeager a couple of times during this conversation, and he's certainly in the category of great friend and one of my most influential. And so a lesson that he.

That Don shared with me, that he actually learned through 12 years of in person mentorship with the late coach John Wooden, arguably one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport, said to Don, you know, one day when they're at Coach's house in Southern California, he said to Don, this is a little bit different twist than, you know, Jim Rohn, like, you know, used to say, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Coach had a different twist on that. And I think that this is really good lesson. And that is you will never, ever outperform form your inner circle.

I love that. And people get confused by that. First time I heard it, I was a little bit confused. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. And so Coach kind of went on to explain, okay, look, Don, here's the exercise. So he asked Don to take a piece of paper and split it into thirds. And one of the columns was, these are the five people you spend the most time with at work. These are the five people you spend the most time with out of work. These are the five people you spend the most time with liking community service. And then, so then Don did that exercise. And then Coach said, is anybody on this list of five people in these three categories, is anybody on that list, you know, moving at a pace and tempo that's faster than you? And, you know, there were a couple of people. And then.

And then conversely, are there any people on that list that are moving at a pace and tempo Slower than you. And there were a couple of people. He said, okay, look, the pace and tempo of that group is really about the people who are moving the fastest, and the people who are moving the slowest are dragging down the group. Think about it this way. Like, if you're at the mall and you're there with four or five friends and you're moving along, and then those four or five friends stop to do some window shopping, buy a cookie, whatever, the whole group stops, right? But yet, if that group is moving really fast down the mall, you know, to the store at the other end, everybody keeps pace and tempo. And that's just kind of human nature.

So Coach's lesson is, if all five people on the floor are not playing full out, then the energy level of the group is affected. And so you're not necessarily the average. Maybe you are of the five people you spend the most time with, but really, we all move at the pace and tempo of your inner circle, and you'll never, ever outperform the inner circle. You either slow down or speed up to kind of catch up. But there's. You're never going to outperform the inner circle. So if you want to get better, the key is you change your inner circle. And, yeah, that can be painful because maybe you don't spend time with that person because they'd rather play video games or they rather gossip or they'd rather watch movies that don't really feed the mind, you know, whatever.

And then instead, you then spend time with John or Sarah because they've already done what you want to do, like they've already done in their business what it is that you aspire to. So you need to hang out with those people. So sometimes we have to make tough decisions about our inner circle because you'll never, ever outperform the inner circle.

You know what's really cool about that advice? That that advice transcends any industry, any age group, any race, any nationality, any situation that just resonates with everybody. I mean, that was. That was a home run. No pun intended.

Well, hey, you know the man who said it. 88 consecutive wins, 10 national titles in 12 years. He kind of knew what he was doing.

He did. He did. And you know what? It didn't happen overnight. It took him a long time to get there, which is why. What makes him even all the more special?

Amen.

Well, Steven, it has been awesome. I really appreciate this. And can you tell us a little bit more about how folks can get in touch with predictive. Where they can find Onward Nation podcasts and go ahead and share that with our listeners.

Sure. And thanks for that. So by going to predictiveroi.com, you can find all of it. So you can find our free resources that are available for download. You can find, of course, our podcast, you can find all of our links to, you know, social media and this and that. So Predictive ROI is the central hub of everything. So please drop us a line, thumbs up or thumbs down, let us know how we can get better every day.

And Onward Nation is phenomenal and I will challenge you to try to listen to every single podcast within the next year. Stephen, keep doing great work. I appreciate your time, I appreciate everything and we'd love to have you back on sometime soon.

Thank you, sir, for the invite. It was a joy and honor to spend time with you and I wish you the best. But thanks for today.

All the best.

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