On today's episode of gathering the Kings. I think creativity needs constraints. I think to be really successful. You have to say no to weigh more than what say yes to. And I just didn't understand that in my early days. I thought that if I gave up those opportunities that that came my way, then I somehow wasn't going to grow the business. So I wasn't gonna be this visionary leader.
And what I've learned is that I'm far more successful when I Chaz strain my ideas when we have a process for introducing new initiatives. And when I have a plan that everybody can execute off of, we're so much more successful now because of but I had to learn the hard way. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest.
Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to die. Here we go. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz. Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast today. I've got Carrie Higgins on the king Chaz as a queen. Welcome. How are you, Gary? I'm so good. Thank you for having me. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. Yeah. It's gonna be awesome. I say this every single time I have a female guest that King is not masculine. It's mindset, and you have built an incredible business and and teams.
And so we're gonna have an amazing conversation here today. So, again, thank you just for being here and bringing the hate as a client. Appreciate that. Let's do it. King and queen. Hey. It does it all doesn't matter. Right? As long as you're living your best life, who cares when people call you? I love that. Love that. Carrie, I wanna know what kind of business are you? I am in a very niche business, and we basically make squirt guns on steroids.
So, yeah, we make industrial cleaning equipment that uses high pressure water to clean all kinds of facilities that are very important to the Wolfe, like refineries, chemical plants, food processing plants, our products are used to go clean all of the production equipment that is used to make everything that we use. The the tires in our car, the gasoline that we that we use to drive to work, the plastic and, you know, our mouth the glass in our iPhones.
Every all that comes from an industrial facility that has to be cleaned. So we're a really important part of the supply Chaz, although No one pays much attention to us unless something goes wrong. That's right. That's right. And then you're the first person, and you're getting blown up. Oh, pretty much. Pretty much. Yes. Yes. We are in a business of now. I need it now.
That's right. Well, I I think that from, maybe I hit an We're gonna be able to pull out business principles that are super applicable, not just for for our talk, you and me, but I think for the listener as well. So before we get into your story and kinda how you got started, a little bit more the business. I wanna know at this stage in the game for you, you've obviously had an immense amount of success. Why are you still doing it? Why are you pushing? What's next? What's the bigger picture?
What's your why? So Stone Age is an employee owned company, and my legacy is I wanna create a 1000 millionaires through employee ownership. And I'm such a believer in capitalism, but I feel like capitalism has gone awry with the concentration of wealth in the back that only a very few are truly, truly benefiting from it. And most of the people who build the value in a company don't. And through employee ownership, it's a way to change that outcome.
And so my goal is to create a $1,000,000,000 company here where we create a 1000 millionaires. And that's the legacy that I wanna leave behind. So even though I've had a lot of success in my career, there's a lot of unfinished business, and that's my primary driver is is really and it's not about creating millionaires. Right?
It's about truly flipping the narrative about, well, creation and making it possible for people who are loyal to a company who come in and work really hard every day that are great teammates that that share the vision, that share the mission, that they too can have a really great life. They can live their best life too. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just about the king or queen, as you said, living the best life. In this case, everybody. Exactly.
My follow-up question to that would be, like, have you always had that, like, hard dream of being able to make multiple millionaires of other people, or is it, is Chaz grown over the years? How how why is this the why? Yeah. No. It's definitely evolved. And I think that that that your vision as a leader always always evolves as you mature as as a leader. I always have wanted to be an impactful leader ever since I was a little girl.
Like, my mom said I came out of the womb and was, like, the boss. And I think I think I have a daughter. It's that description. Alright. Yep. And so but I never wanted to, you know, I always wanted to in fire people to lead, whether it was the, you know, being the captain of the softball team or on a project, right, always wanted to bring people together so that we were successful. We always won as a team. So that's been a very intrinsic motivation for me my entire life.
But I never really understood the power of employee ownership until I started working for an employee owned company. And until we started to scale, and I I could see what was truly possible. So the thread is impactful leadership that is that that helps people make their own lives better. And this has just been, like, the next evolution of it, of of not just. I have purpose and meaning in my work, but I can truly create a better life for myself through through ownership of a company.
That's incredible. Yeah. You're right. Our visions are our perspective where we're headed. All that's adjusting and changing over the course of time, but Yeah. Probably the underneath for you has always been leadership. Like you said, just that wanting to grow yourself, but then also other people, and you just put a dollar amount to that now. It sounds like Exactly. Exactly. Very cool. Tell me about the beginning. Like, how entrepreneurship for you, just business?
You said you came out of the womb as the boss. Like, did you have a business then? Like, give us give us your upbringing. You know, it's interesting. I've never considered myself to be an entrepreneur. My husband's an entrepreneur Chaz started multiple businesses, and and we definitely have a different make up I'm a hired gun.
The 2 founders hired me when I was 28 to take over the company, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that later because it was some of my biggest failures that got me to that point, but they they took this huge risk on me and hired me to take over their company. Yeah. But I've learned that I am an entrepreneur because I run an employee owned company, and I have I have a really unique situation as a hired gun CEO.
I think actually as a CEO of any company that you're a non founder of, but I have I have so much control of where this company is going because I've earned the trust and the respect of the founders. We've grown this from, you know, an $8,000,000 company to a $100,000,000 company. You know, there's been lots and lots of successes that have given afforded me the that the opportunity to to gain that trust to to really take this company where I think that it can go, where we think it can go.
So I learned that I do think a lot like an entrepreneur, and I am aggressive like an entrepreneur. I you can't tell me that something can't be done because I will prove that it can be done. And I realized that, you know, even though I never had that idea of, oh, this is what I'm gonna start my company. I I sold myself short by by thinking, well, just because I don't have that one idea that I'm not an entrepreneur.
And I definitely am, but it took someone taking a chance on me when I was in my late twenties for me to learn that about myself. Yeah. Interesting. Where do you think that you'd be now if you hadn't had been given that opportunity with then specifically the ability to grow and, like, space to figure out that you were really an entrepreneur. Honestly, I don't know that I would be alive. Wow. Yeah. So that was a really tough time in my life.
And when I was given that opportunity, it was the catalyst that I needed to make a dramatic change. And I I, as you can probably see, I live life varying ten and that has manifested itself in some really negative ways. And so by being given the opportunity to really step into leadership and do it in a in a culture that that is all about people and and and how we're doing this together It was it was what I needed to be able to say. I can choose something different for my life.
So, yeah, you never know. Right? You can look back and say, maybe this would have happened. Maybe this would have happened. I don't know. Maybe I'd be a CEO of some other company, but I can I can say there's a pretty good chance that I wouldn't be alive? Yeah. Not only is that just super impactful? I'm sure relatable to some listeners, but I think I think what you described there is underneath your desire to serve and your why of all of this, it really stems because someone served you.
Exactly. And I think as entrepreneurs, as we get, you know, even more and more successful, it's not really about necessarily the next dollar, the next 100,000,000. It's it's about giving to others what what someone had given to us. Exactly. That's that is my biggest impact now. It's that I'm a big believer in self leadership. The self leadership is one of our core values here at Stone Age.
And when whether it's through sharing an experience, giving somebody an opportunity, pushing somebody when they, you know, when I see, like, They can do really big things. They just need that little push when someone comes back and says, hey. Because you gave me that opportunity or you believed in me, look at what I did. Like, that is such a, you know, I it it's so fulfilling, but it's not even about how fulfilling it feels for me.
Like, I'm so proud of people who can go and, you know, what they have and go make something more with it. And if they get that opportunity by working at Stone Age, by you know, by, you know, working with me, asking me questions, by somehow being inspired by any of the things that we're doing here, then that's what makes it all worthwhile. Yeah. You're describing this moment. I'm trying to make it a little bit relatable for the listener who maybe they're their 1st business.
Maybe they're they haven't done a a $1,000,000 in revenue yet. And so they've got a team of maybe 1 or 2 or 3 or maybe 10. And they're kinda questioning themselves on whether they're a good leader and know, maybe how you work when you were 28. Right? And so what was that moment for you, or do you have, like, maybe a story that you could tell, like, you were given the opportunity, but when was that first opportunity where you, like, got to pour into someone else?
And you could, like, you took a chance on him, and it was kinda outside the comfort zones. I think the point. Interestingly, my my book is gonna be coming out in 2023, and it addresses just Chaz, like, that first time entrepreneur, CEO, who go is like, oh my god. I'm in over my head. What do I do?
How do I figure out how to be an impactful leader So if you are in that situation, it'll check it out because it's everything that I've learned how to do and and what not to do to figure out how to be that impactful leader that really does help people change their their lives. Yes. I I can't remember.
Let me I've had so many opportunities because I have such a team that's willing to get vulnerable and open, but I'm gonna share the most impactful one that that still that just sticks with me today. I actually just hold this on stage to 600 other CEOs a couple of weeks ago. And I don't share this story very often, but it makes a big difference. So My past, I had substance abuse issues, and and I overdosed in 2006.
And and I never shared my story out of fear of being judged about what what people, like, how could your CEO have a drug problem? And Right. But I when I first told my story to my executive team, We were doing a team building session, and and we were, you know, getting really vulnerable. And I decided, like, I just I it's too big of who I am. I have to tell this story. And so I did, but I was so scared.
And it was a groundbreaking moment where people started sharing their stories, and we built these deeper connections. And I realized, like, maybe it's not so scary to tell my story. So as more people within the company learned about it, more people will come up and, you know, talk tell me about their problems and tell me about how they overcame something. It would for help. And one day, I got a call from one of my employees. He was in Las Vegas.
And he said, Carrie, I don't know who else to call. I'm ready to jump off of my balcony. I was at a strip club and I came back and all my money is gone, and I have a receipt to my credit card for $15,000, but it's my signature, but I don't remember taking this out. I have no money. I don't know what to do. And it took me about 2 hours to convince him to go get on the plane and come home. It was like, look, I will help you when you get here. We'll figure it out.
Just Don't make any rounds decisions. It's only money. I Wolfe, like, borrow money to get you through this. So he gets back to to to Durango where I live, and he comes into my office and he's a mess. And so we start working through, you know, how what he's going to do to be okay, both emotionally, mentally, and and financially. And I we loaned him, like, $5000, but I told him, I said, Derek, I think that there's thing that's going on here. Right? They probably drugged you.
And because I was like, did you do need drugs? They said, no. They probably drugged you. And so you should call the the Las Vegas Police department and file a report. Fast forward 3 years later, he gets, like, three times the money that was taken from him because he was part of a class action suit that that were what was part of this whole process, whole ring of of strip clubs that were taking advantage of people.
And so that's a pretty dramatic story, but here is what here's what it means to me. He felt safe enough to call me and tell me that he needed help because he knew my story. And I think that, you know, again, we don't know what would have happened, but he might have not made it. And the fact that we had could share a connection in this really dark moment because I understand those dark moments And he came out. He's thriving. He still works for us.
And and that he could advocate for himself and actually make a big impact in this in in not only his life, but in the lives of all of these other people who were taken advantage of, like, that's impactful. So that's why I think it's really important for leaders to be willing to share their vulnerabilities, to be able to share their flaws because It's not just about helping people become successful climbing the ladder or getting better at their jobs.
Sometimes it's about how do you be more successful in life especially when you are feeling like you're at rock bottom. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what an impactful story. I think that the the takeaway that I want the listener to have is they may have had that moment themselves. Right? But how much more impactful now if they can whether it's 1 or 2 people, or maybe they have a company of 200 and then listening the reality is is that you're right. We do need to share.
We do need to be open because that's what leadership is. It's not just teaching. It's showing up. Yep. Absolutely. And you can help somebody change their lives in a really unexpected way. Now granted I don't really want those phone calls of my employees. Like, I'm at a strip club and I'm in trouble. But but you know what? That it life is messy.
And if we only think about leadership in the context of how it's moving business forward, then we miss out on the entire rest of the person, like, the whole person who is feeling showing up every day going like, ugh, this is how I feel. And if you don't address some of those things, then then you're not going to be able to or if you don't, let me say that differently.
If you're not able to help people address those within themselves, then that's gonna hold them back in in their jobs and their careers and their vocations. And so, you know, you've you've gotta balance it. Right? You can't become people's therapists. And you can't overshare as you're getting vulnerable with your stories, but you can Yep.
You can show people that you are real and that you do understand and that that it's okay to be a little bit messy because if you invest in messy and people, they can come on and do some really, really amazing things. I am first hand proof of that because I was a complete mess when I was hired at 28. And here I am, you know, 16 years later. So Incredible. Yeah. We're gonna have we're gonna we have some great quotes to pull from in that little set, so that's that's incredible.
Okay. So let's go into some practicality here. Yeah. I wanna maybe talk about maybe one of those first 2, 3, 4, 5 years. So, you know, a little bit of time ago, And I wanna know if a good decision that you made in the business. That's you would need you think back on it and it was like, this is a good decision. I'll do it over and over again, and it's something that the listener can take away. Yep. 2 things. 1, asking so many questions.
So when I came in, there was 28, I had no idea how to run a business. I knew nothing about the industrial cleaning industry. And there were a lot of people who had been working here for 20 plus years. And I knew that there's no way that I could b s my way through things. And so I just asked a lot of questions. And then, well, how do you think we should fix this? What do you think we should do? And we had some tremendous immediate successes because I just ask questions and Yep.
Everybody could feel like they were part of solving the problem. And I've taken that through, you know, my whole career as as a a leader is ask questions involve people. Don't be afraid to say I don't know what do you think. In fact, that's my favorite question. Well, tell me what you think. What should we do? And it builds culture.
It helps people get build confidence in themselves about their own thought process and decision making process, and it makes them feel part of the company, and you get better ideas and information when you ask questions. So that's my first one is ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. Love it. The sec the second one is so my my 1st year's CEO was the 2009 financial, 2008, 2009 financial crisis. And I had no idea what to do.
And it was the first time in Stoney just history that we were going to have a loss. Albeit. It was just a small one, thankfully, because it was so much worse for other people. But the reason what we did is we said, what are we really good at? How do we stay focused on the core? How do we exploit the core? Where can we cut everything else but focus on the core. And that's what we did. And we're an engineering company, R And D, and we were in the midst of international expansion.
So focus on continuing to engineer great products and keep expanding. Right? How do we get more market share? And so everything else we stopped every pay people took a pay cut. They didn't get profit sharing that year, but we focused on the core. We came back and we were 40% up the next year. And so I've taken that with me is, like, how, when times are tough, we just did it again here in COVID, focus on the core, focus on what you're really good at, and do not compromise on that.
Compromise in every other area you can, but don't stop investing in what makes you really great. Yeah. Yeah. That second piece, I'm I'm taking away 2 things. Not only do the thing that you're best at or your niche or your core, but then cut the other pieces until you get to a place where you weather the storm or whether you've gotten big enough to where probably have the resources to expand outside of that core. Exactly. It's a double edged section step there.
So you you gave us 3, which is great, o over delivering in value. Oh, yes. Well, I tend to probably give people more than what they We're better for worse. Right? We get the better part today. Why why do you think why do you think from your history even through 2008, 2009, that was your go to answer.
Like, how where did that come from in your history where you dial in on the core, get the listeners you know, maybe a story or maybe something to part of your background, like, that allowed you to kinda press in on that. Well, it was actually from an experience that flopped right before that happened. So we decided we we make a line of sewer cleaning nozzles as Wolfe, and we decided to go in a different direction that was outside of our core, and it totally flopped.
And we spent a bunch of money, especially for a small company, because we were really small back then. And and it was like, oh, okay. And it was it was fine. Like, I'm all for experimenting and and for for for failing fast. Which we did, but it was right before we were literally having these conversations about when we are small and we don't have a lot of money to invest how do we expand what we're really good at? And this was something that we weren't really good at.
And so I could take that lesson into the crash going, okay. Wow. This is I I know that this is what's right. I learned what happens if you start to to get too scattered. And so that's what I didn't know it was going to work. Right? I was scared. I had I had never gone through something like this before. But based on that experience of that flopping, we'd made the decision, then it's our core. It's our core. It's our core. And that just made sense to me going into a downturn.
You know, we were in a situation that our products at that time weren't capital expenditures, and they're really, really important to clean. Everything is about the nozzle that cleans. So We knew that we would be able to bounce back pretty quickly when it was all said and done. So how do we just bounce forward instead of just bounced back? And so that was the mentality that we took.
Do you think that, like, the the mindset of dialing in to the core is, like, this huge long process, or is it, kinda just already knew. I'm trying to correlate it to the listener right now who is, you know, maybe thinking about adding another another service or another line, like, And and when do they determine to do that, or should they just stay with what they know? How do they know what their core is? Maybe some insights. I mean, for us, it's easy what our core was.
I mean, we've been doing it for 25 years. So that wasn't a difficult thing for us to figure out. But but, you know, here's here's an interesting thing that that we went about doing as we started advancing our technology. And, well, at first, let me preface by saying focus, focus, focus, it is the most important thing that you can do.
And leveraging the resources that you have, whether that's engineering resources, whether that's marketing resource is whether that's geog geography, that's a really important, especially when you're a small company. If you start to say, oh, I can go after this idea but I have to pull resources away from what I know what makes us good. There's a bigger chance that you're going to fail. Now sometimes companies have to pivot, right, but focus focus is everything.
One of it, but it's also understanding what that focus needs to be and how as you're evolving your products or service, how that focus needs to change. So, we make a tool that cleans every type of application that's out there, a pipe, a tank, a surface. And when you're making small tools that use basically the same technology, you can have the breadth of the application. Right. When we started getting into automation, I said, let's do the same thing.
Let's develop a piece of automation for every application. Well, that completely failed. It was such a much bigger endeavor to develop a much more complex system And what we should have done is said we're gonna get really, really good at one application because it's a much more complex design, engineering efforts. And so I had to take us back down and say, okay. Now where we went with one type of technology we went wide, we're gonna take this technology and go really deep.
And so, you know, it evolves as your services and as your products, you know, whatever you're whatever you're going to market with changes, you know, it's still on the core. We're still in water blasting. We're still solving the same types of problems, but we took a narrower focus and were far more successful. But I had to learn the hard way of going too broad and that there was no way we could support that as a company. Yeah. 100%.
Okay. Let's switch over to your bad decision, same same type of time frame, maybe, maybe early on, something that you just didn't work out that you Chaz share with us. We can learn from. Yeah. Beside besides making too many products. So, yeah, that was about that was that was in a very only one. So I am a, I'm a believer that you can make anything work, kinda like that entrepreneurial type mentality of, like, you know, don't tell me no. Like, we'll figure it out. And I'm okay with taking risks.
I like taking risks. But not everybody in the company likes that. And Yeah. I led in a very what I thought was disruptive way but I think that, you know, many of my team felt like it was probably chaotic because we didn't have this, like, really clear plan tied to the vision of where we're going to go. And so we made a lot of mistakes.
We spent way too much money that we didn't need to is if I would have just slowed down and taken more time to plan to really get because, you know, you can have a great strategy, but bad execution, and it's a bad strategy. And and so where I've really focused over this last 8 years as a leader is in execution. And and and I made that mistake early on where, you know, let's try this. Let's try this. Let's do this. You know, that's okay. We don't have it all figured out.
We'll figure it out as we go. And that's tough. You can do a lot and and we did a lot in that with that strategy. But it was very uncomfortable, and we made mistakes. And a lot of people were miserable because we didn't have a plan that they could operate off of. Yeah. I mean, in essence, the the freedom of doing whatever you want, it feels like, well, if I give that up, then then I'm I'm only doing this one thing or or, you know, I'm I'm I'm not I'm not too unfamiliar in my thinking.
You know, I'm I'm a employee mind and And, actually, what you're really giving through a little bit more structure or through a little bit more planning is freedom to you, to the team, to, like, really go after it. Totally. Right. Totally. Totally. I think creativity needs constraints. I think to be really successful. You have to say no to weigh more than what you say yes to. And I just didn't understand that in my early days.
I thought that if I gave up those opportunities that that came my way, then I somehow wasn't going to grow the business. So I wasn't gonna be this visionary leader. And what I've learned is that I'm far more successful when I constrain my ideas when we have a disciplined process for introducing new initiatives. And when I have a plan that everybody can execute off of, We're so much more successful now because of Chaz, but I had to learn the hard way. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that we all do.
To a degree, And maybe the listener is still in that mode of of learning. I think we I think even now though, even though we know we we still have to work this out, even if you know it and you're making the right choice, we still have to consciously Mhmm. Put energy units and attention units towards no. No. We should stay right here. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. You know, we have that fear of missing out, and I think entrepreneurs really get that. And the fact is is that You're probably not.
And, again, that focus, it's really important. Don't don't get sucked into the trap of thinking that you're gonna miss out something that pulls you away from from from getting better at what you're already good at. Yeah. So good. Carrie, let's talk about let's continue this decision making process, but I wanna know, like, today, you know, fast forward now, is there a certain formula steps that you follow, a mindset that you're in when you're trying to make decisions today.
Sure. So, yes, we have a a much more disciplined process So we we actually took the enough anybody's red built last. Cool. Yeah. Or is it I I think it's actually great by choice. I think it's great by I I love all of them, but they talk about a snack recipe. So what is it that's your core Chaz that really has made you successful? And in the book, They give the example of of Southwest Airlines, and it's so resonated with me because it's a framework for making decisions for judging your ideas.
And so we built our own snack recipe. We call it the our recipe for success, and we filter our ideas through that process. At least our big, you know, the big ideas that we have. And so how is it going to fit into that framework? And it's really good because everybody can understand it, and everybody can use it. And that means that I don't have to be the one making all the decisions all the time.
That my team feels empowered because they know the vision, they know what we're trying to achieve, and they have this this framework for decision making. I'm a big believer in framework for decision making. And so we go through and we judge it on the 5 different components of our recipe for success. And that's how we make decisions. Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, essence, your recipe has come from the vision and the plan.
Yep. And and then to your principle that you just taught us is you stay focused Yep. So if we're gonna stay focused, if that's what we're committed to, and this is the vision and the plan, the decision is either it helps us get here or it doesn't. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. It it it it really is brilliant. And Southwest Airlines is such a good example because, you know, they made the decision. It's going to be, you know, short flight it's going to have to be using this size of plane.
And so, you know, and it then they, of course, they have the whole culture side of things. And so when I read that I was like, oh, I can see that. And it's what made them, you know, the only and incredibly profitable airline in the world in the world. And so it was a very concrete example that I could see the value. If if I created something like this, It'll help us stay focused, and it will also help us stay true to our core.
We're a great company built on really, really solid values, and I don't wanna take us away from that. So you can't just look at the financial impact. You have to look at it from the resource impact and also what is this going due to the culture. How are my employees going to feel when we make this decision? Yeah. I love that. Okay. So I'm gonna switch over to the speed round. I got a couple different types of questions that come at you. The first one's about KPIs.
Obviously, you track, I'm sure, a ton. What's the one thing that you track over and over and over again if you could only pick 1. Yeah. This is a hard question. Again, just pick 1. For me, it would be Incoming quotes pace. K. So is that then related? Yep. Yeah. Because if I had to pick 1, because you can do so much with Chaz. Right? You understand how your lead generation is flowing and sales is a numbers game. Right?
So if you have, you know, if you're increasing your incoming quote pace, then you have the opportunity to close more. And then you know, then you have more opportunities to close deals. And that's what drives your that's what drives your sales revenue. It's what drives your EBITDA. It's what drives your cash flow. So I think if I was going to measure just one, it would be incoming quote pay pace.
Yeah. I love how you gave the the the depiction forward and backward in the process because it's actually not the first thing. Obviously, getting the lead or the marketing story out would be first, but that little piece right there tells the story both ways. Exactly. That's why yeah.
So that's why, you know, it can be both a leading and lagging indicator if I had to choose 1, I would want that's the the the best one I could think of Chaz would give me both a leading and lagging feel for what's going on in the company. Yeah. Love that. Well, book, would you recommend you already re you already mentioned Jim Collins, but is there a devil that you wanna throw at a 6 figure business hour. Oh my gosh. I read so much. I think so I'm big on strategy.
And the strategy is so hard for people to wrap their heads around. And the best book that I've ever read is called Good Strategy Bad Strategy by oh gosh. I forgot to write down his name. I have it over here. Ronald Ron something. Sorry. You'll have to to Google them and put it in the show notes.
Yep. Yep. I Yeah. Good strategy, bad strategy, game changing book on how to think about strategy, and he writes it in a way that you can really that you can take it and implement it and and and work with your team on understanding strategies. So it's it's it's one of the I I've read it probably 5 or 5 or 6 times at least, and I'm not a big read book of read a book over again person, but this one is a is really, really good. Yeah. Love that. Very good.
What you said, other than being able to understand it and then give it to your team, is there anything specific inside that book where you're just like, I got this one piece? Yeah. So it's it's all and this seems obvious, but it's not. Right? It's all comes down what he calls the kernel of strategy, but it's really about what problem are you trying to solve and then how your unique market position and solution can solve that.
So we talk about the kernel strategy, and I just simply identify it down to for my team is what problem are we trying to Wolfe? And why are we going to be the very best at solving that? That is simply what your strategy is. In fact, our strategic plan starts with Chaz. Here's the problem we're trying to solve. And, and everybody can relate to it. All my play I play. Okay. Yeah. I I understand that. Right? It just simplifies it so much.
So he calls it the kernel of strategy, and I call it a real keen focus on what problem you're trying to solve and why you are in a unique position to solve it. Yeah. Love that. Okay. What do you think about intentionally networking and or master mining with other entrepreneurs? Oh, I'm a huge believer in it. So I'm part of YPO, Young President's organization, and it has been a life changing organization for me.
I I just, you know, I think being a CEO, especially young, I thought, like, I was the only person going through what I was going through, and there's nobody to really talk to. You can't talk to your employees about the things you're worried about. And and I have a board of directors now who I that relationship, but back then, I was like, I'm not telling them that I don't know what I'm doing.
And so YPO really gave me the opportunity to to to experience share with other CEOs, and I realized like, oh, gosh. I'm not the only person who feels this way, and I could meet people who could inspire me or help me, point me in the right direction, make contact make introductions to contacts that I needed. So I'm a huge believer in it. And I think Masterminds are awesome. I'm getting actually ready to create a Mastermind for YPO right now with, ASU's Thunderbird School of Business.
And I love it because you can bring the education piece into networking. That's why I think this stage is really cool too. I'm not part of this stage, but anyway, I think every every every CEO entrepreneur, you know, it it really, everybody should be part of a peer networking group where you can learn and appearance share. Yep. I love that. Okay. I have one last question here for you, Carrie, as my as my AirPods just died. So, hopefully, our audio is still good. Yep. You sound great. Awesome.
If you could whisper in the younger caries ear, What would you say? Don't be so hard on yourself. I spent a lot. It's gonna make me emotional. I spent a lot of years beating myself up, never thinking that I was good enough, always thinking that I had to be somebody who I wasn't, to be likable, to be lovable. Yeah. And I understand where that comes from now. But I spent a lot of years suffering, you know, through my own view of myself. And and now that I've learned to love myself, flaws and all.
My life is so much better because I can be forgiving and I can laugh at myself or before I could never do And so I spent a lot of years in pain, self induced pain by being really hard on myself. Yeah. That's so good. And thank you for being vulnerable and sharing Chaz. I can see that it means a lot to you. I think every entrepreneur has a level of standard standard of excellence. We wanna win. We wanna be good.
We wanna be better than maybe someone told us that we could or that we were meant to be, you know, growing up in a single mom family myself and even after marrying my wife, her grandmother telling me that would never be successful because I wasn't college educated and all the little things that we way, and it helps us just to know that even someone at your level, felt the same way. So thank you for sharing. Yeah. Thanks for asking. You've been incredible. How can a listener find you?
Find your business, or maybe maybe they know someone that use your service, or maybe just wanna reach out to you as an entrepreneur. How can I find you? Yeah. So first, I'm really active on LinkedIn. So Carrie Higgins on LinkedIn. That's And then I have my own website, carriesiggins.com, and I've got a couple podcasts. And I speak a lot, and I've got my will be coming out.
I don't have a launch date for that, but you can get basically anywhere in any of the any of any of my Wolfe through carricycans.com. If you're interested more in learning about st1age, it's st1agetools.com, super niche business, but we do really cool things.
So we are employee owned, and so I do a lot in employee ownership if you're ever interested in that as a a viable exit model, succession model, ownership transition, you're just curious about how to engage your employees and ownership thinking, then please reach out to me. I'm always happy to to to chat about it. It's it's a it's one of my many passions. Yeah. I love that. You can tell it.
Wow. I'm gonna say it on behalf of the listeners Chaz has been incredible for me just to getting to know you and here's hearing you answering these questions. Thank you for being here. I I think that you have done not only just incredible things, but the message that got translated today through this podcast. And then, of course, soon to be your book. And I'm sure when you speak on stage, people feel the same way, but you have an impact just power that that is meant for many to hear.
So thank you for sharing here today. We wish you nothing but blessing. And success on your family, your business, your new book coming out. Thank you for being here, Carrie. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300. Other very successful 789 figure business owners is Chaz It's tough to do it alone.
And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1, 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit. To 1000 kings. Talk soon.