On today's episode of Gathering The Kings. I was an early executive at Amazon, so I was there from 2002 through 2000 or I got to launch and scale The marketplace business. Amazon wasn't always this big company, you know, and everything. Right? Well Yeah. People forget, like, You know, so when I was I was there, you know, it's still a good sized company, but, you know, we were being doubted. We weren't having the type of at journal success we wanted. The stock was down at 5 bucks.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe Gathering 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 successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that 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 dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe Gathering the The podcast coming back to you again today with another king on the stage. John Rossman. My brother. How we doing? Doing great, Tas. Thanks for having me.
It's been great getting to know you, and I've found a lot of value in in your podcast, so thanks for the efforts on that. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate that. I don't take it lightly at all when our guests listen ahead of time. And also too, you said you listened to a couple that that you got a lot from. So it only tells me that we're that we're really doing stuff right, and so I appreciate that. Tell us what kind of business that you got, John?
Yeah. So Rosman Partners is a firm that helps our clients solve complex wicked problems, and we help them compete in the digital era. And so we do that by both attacking the problem Chaz well as helping leadership build their own capability. And I also do keynote Kings, and I I write books as a hobby. Your hobbies sound like my hobbies, which are associated to my business because I love so much.
But maybe we can get to that as we get down because we've had some pretty intense conversations with some of the kings that are in the peer to peer mastermind group for Gathering the Kings around hobbies and and how those are associated to very intense individuals like us. So, okay, so I love what you said The. First off, about how you help them solve wicked problems. What what the heck is a wicked problem, John?
Yeah. So a a wicked problem is one where It's typically a confluence of a number of different, symptoms, and there's no easy answer to it. It's not like, oh, well, we do this and the problem is solved. So they typically fall around, core business problems like we have an undifferentiated The are not winning enough of our sales pitches, or we do not have a cost advantage business model. The tend to be pretty wicked problems, and you can't solve them with one simple move.
Yeah. Okay. And so how does one recognize if if their wicked problem is a wicked problem, and it's not the 3 examples that you just get Yeah. Yeah. So we're hustling hard. We think we're doing everything right, but, yep, we aren't winning enough or we're not getting Kings of the rewards, the margin, the revenue that we deserve. Those are pretty and the The one I would put in is that our customers don't love us. Right? Like, we don't have fans.
Doesn't have to be all your customers, but you don't have a group of fans as customers. The would be some pretty good symptoms that you you you're not competitive. You're not distinct and different enough to stand out and to charge, you know, premium prices or to have a an advantage business model. So those are the symptoms of a wicked problem. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And I think that there's probably a lot of people listening.
I immediately went to a couple of situations in the past for me where I was like, I I had a wicked problem. The of my fundamental beliefs is that every business can have a distinct competitive edge to it. It could be a value proposition. It could be a service that you add to it. It could be a commitment or guarantee No matter what the business is, whether you're a roofer or a technology company or sweeping the streets, you can have a distinct competitive advantage.
That's my fundamental belief, and my job is working with my clients help figure out, like, what is that distinct way that you compete and win? Yeah. Well, I love how you tie it to winning because it's not just like, here's what's different about us, and it, like, it sounds good on a slogan or in a marketing campaign. But it's like, no. This is actually how we operate differently so that we win. Or our clients win. There there are results. And the way I think about winning.
I think about it in in 3 core components. 1 is that your company versus your peers is a top quadrant operating pro profit company. 2 is that your company relative to peers has top quadrant growth metrics. And the 3rd is your company compared to your peers Chaz top quadrant customer satisfaction ratings. And so I think if you have those 3 Kings, like, you operate really well, you have great growth and your customers love you, I think you are a winning organization. Yeah. I love that.
Well, hopefully, we can divide that out a little bit and and hash some of it up for the give us a little bit of John first. I mean, obviously, in order to help other people with this, you've you've got quite the history, give us why, like, why does this make you tick? Why why does helping other people with these wicked problems really get you going? Well, yeah, you know, I'm an engineer, not a psychologist.
I don't, but, you know, fully understand myself completely But I've always been interested in efficiency and technology in combining people, process, and technology to create a great outcome, a great process, a great function, whatever it is. Right? And that's essentially been my journey ever since college is helping others solve their problems. And I I just get the intrinsic reward of I like learning, and I I learn by tackling problems that I haven't tackled all the time before.
And I get reward because I help others not to solve the problem, but to build skills, leadership capacity in order to do this for themselves going forward. So that's that's just been Kings The the the thing that I can trace all the way back, you know, Kings through college. Yeah. I love that to the angle of being an engineer. I got a couple engineering buddies, and you're right.
That's, like, all it's, like, how your brain is functioned and, you know, very equation based x plus y equals, you know, c. And so what do you think? Because you've you've set a leadership, the word leadership a couple times. You've kinda thrown it in there. How does leadership get played into wicked problems and thinking engineering like and and being able to solve them. Yeah. So I was an early executive at Amazon. So I was there from 2002 through 2004.
I got to launch and scale The marketplace business. That's 3rd party selling at Amazon, oh, close to 60% of all their units shipped and sold run on that platform today. And and that was really where I complimented Kings like my operational excellence and and engineering background with, like, oh, how important leadership and culture is. I left Amazon. It was several years after I left Amazon and a client of mine said, you know, you should write a book about Amazon.
And the first book I wrote is called The Amazon Way, and it's about Amazon's leadership principles. And what I've really falling in love with and seeing the impact is if you can marry, you know, good technique and process in strategy and operations with leadership that really understands their their how they compete and what they believe in it, how they work Gathering, and how they prioritize Kings. Like, that's what really makes a defensible business.
And so I've just I've learned along the way of how important leadership is, and that's why I've really focused on that as a key lever to pull in my in my work that I do with my clients. Yeah. Okay. So bring that down, you know, 30,000 feet is where you're just were and talking about, you know, the levers that we pull inside of leadership and and a big organization like Amazon. Okay. Like, we we recognize that. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Amazon's amazing.
But bring it down to the small business, and they've got you know, two people or twenty people or 200 people, and they're trying to go, well, what is what does this really mean tactically for me? Right. Right. So first of all, I'd say is Amazon wasn't always this big company, you know, and everything. Right? Wolfe Yeah. People forget, like, You know, so when I was I was there, you know, it's still a good sized company, but, you know, we were being doubted.
We weren't having the type of external success we wanted. The stock was down at 5 bucks. You know, we were being doubted. We were in called Amazon.com and Amazon dot whole work and Amazon dot toast, you know, and everything. Right? And so leadership is a practical skill in order to engage and lead others in the in the accomplishment of a specific mission, and you can do that for yourself, a small team, a big team, and everything. Right?
The key is really understanding, like, well, what's the mission? What's the problem we're trying to Wolfe? And then what are the practical skills in order to engage others in alignment to help solve that mission. That's what leadership is, and it works at any level, and it's and it's critical. And so we worked hard at at Amazon to to really figure out, like, well, what do we believe in?
What do we think makes us difference And how do how does a set of principles help codify that and make it scalable? So Yeah. I never propose that Amazon's leadership principles are the right principles for anybody else, but taking the time to define for your success for yourself and for your team How do we compete? What do we believe in? How do we work together? How do we prioritize?
If you can think through those 4 questions and and create a set of I I don't like calling rules because rules are too too brittle, but, like, The is this is our understanding. This is how I would articulate the tenant or the principal. Right. You're really gonna be thinking about how you think Right? And one of the things I learned at Amazon was slowing down in the heat of the battle Once in a while stepping back and really going like, oh, how do we how do we work together?
How are we differentiating our ourselves? How are we getting better and then get back on the answer wheel and keep hustling? And that it's Kings one of the challenges I I have with kinda, you know, the the hustle culture and everything is in the put an interrupt in every once in a while. Step aside step out of the business as a leadership team and really talk about what are we learning, what how are we getting better? How are we creating leverage in our business and then get back to hustling?
Yeah. I think that the The unique piece that I heard you say Kings quietly was we at Amazon. Like, you you included yourself in that. It wasn't what Jeff was doing. It it's what what we did with what what did we think it was, what did we think our values were, what what we we The. And so I think that takeaway is applicable at every level like you're saying. How how does a a company listing right now? Maybe they're in a I don't know. What what would be maybe traditional business.
Amazon is not a traditional business, although I'm sure you could decline it. A a a retailer or a manufacturer. I Retail or we're not building a manufacturer's, and everything. Right? Nidsize sheet metalbendingbusinessmanufacturers. Right. And and so what's what's the question? So the yeah.
So so how do they apply either a, the leadership piece or or over here Kings secondarily, what I really like to know is that unique value perspective or what's different about us when they're in a business that's like, wait a second. We've been doing this for a 1000 years. Yeah. So so I'll start with 3 things.
The first is being really curious about who your customer is and not just in how they what they do with your product or your service, but understand their job, their day fuller than what you think you know what it is today. So I think that customer curiosity, what we call the customer obsession at Amazon. Right? That's the principle. But that is a great place to always start. You can't finish The, though. Right?
The second thing that I would talk about is we had a leadership principle called invent and simplify. The key part of that principle isn't the invention piece. The key part of that principle is the and simplify piece. A lot of edgiest work. The hardest work I do with companies is on simplifying simplifying processes, simplifying products, simplifying policies, simplifying organization, simplifying data flows, all of those things.
And if you can create consistent simple capabilities along those Kings, you will run, a a better business. And then I think the the third one I'll just mention here is we had a leadership principle, which was called disagree but commit. And that principle is all about Kings able to have vigorous discussion and debate when we are talking about what should we do, right, our going forward plans. But recognizing that at some point, there is a decision maker.
We make a clear, pronounced decision and then we all commit wholeheartedly to making that work. If you do it right, The what you'll find is you'll be able to test that decision. And if you need to make an adjustment to it, you can make an adjustment to it. But but there is so much Kings pseudo agreement, pseudo commitment, passive progressive behavior that goes on in companies. Like, well, I didn't quite agree with that decision, or they hold back in the discussions because, like, right?
I'm I'm not sure if I should be heard here, or I don't agree with the consensus conversation here. So I'm not gonna contribute it. That's what we tried to not create in our culture at Amazon. Lead with customer obsession, lead with data, and debate the issue when you're having the debate. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that last piece, the debate, because, I mean, I've read a lot of leadership books, and and I try to help, you know, people that ask me about what I've done in my company.
It's kinda understand a similar vein here, but you have Kings two tracks. You have this you know, we want you to speak up and we wanna argue and really get in there and get nitty gritty, maybe not argue, but debate and and really get to the nitty gritty. Sometimes Chaz looks like an argument.
But at the same time, we wanna have a clear decision maker, which means that, like, at the end of the day, we all look probably towards an individual or a an individual or 2 to make a decision on behalf of the group because, really, you're never gonna make a decision if there's more than that. You know? So how do we find a married middle here? I I I don't think you're trying to find a middle. I think you're trying to do both of those things. Right?
Love. And the technique that I think we really revolutionized at Amazon, and I've used in so many of my clients is You have to write these concepts out. Writing out in full narratives, write full paragraphs, complete sentences, complete thinking on Kings know, what the situation is. Right? Like, here's the current situation. Here's the problem. Here's what I'm proposing to do about it. Here's what I understand really well. Here's what I don't really understand well.
And if you get a team to actually write that out, that creates such better focused debate, and you're actually moving the conversation forward if you update the document through those conversations. So writing is a superpower. Powerpoint Dums us down. And so if you actually wanna have better planning, better thinking, and better debate and decision Kings. And I write about it in my books. Others have written about it. The Amazon writing culture is a critical mechanism in order to help do that.
It's not the only way that you can do it, but it is a proven way. And it's hard. It this is this is not easy medicine that I am suggesting here. It but it slows you down. It kinda puts you into that Stowick moment. You can't do it in an interrupt driven way and everything. Right? So you slow the system, and you're really thinking about the situation. Yeah. That's incredibly powerful.
Wolfe, I wish we had just our whole time The we could discuss that because I think we could probably wrap for a whole hour on just that. I wanna move forward to a good decision that you have made personally in your business now since leaving. And and, obviously, you've made plenty because you're quite successful. You've got multiple books. Like you said, we're gonna get some of that. You got a new one coming out. You spoken. You've done all these really cool Kings.
And so a practical, though, something that you've done Chaz we can take away and maybe go put into place in our businesses today or tomorrow. Well, I mean, the probably the best decision I ever made was it was 6 years after I left Amazon and a client of mine He goes he goes, man, you do a nice job of taking these little techniques and inserting The into our into our business. You ought to write a book. And that's a that was a signal from a client, you know, and everything. Right?
Most people, I think, would've I my temptation was just, you know, I'm not a writer. I'm, you know, and I'm a partner at consulting firm, you know, and everything. But I was like, I listened. I I listened to a a customer that I really respected. He Chaz done no gates to book projects for him, so Greg knew what he was talking about. And I was like, oh, yeah. I I I and so I forced myself to do something that was, really uncomfortable.
And to some degree, it was suboptimal, meaning it took it took a big chunk of time in the short term to write the book in which it could have been earning client fees and everything, but I deferred that because I was like, I think writing a book is a way to help scale my mission and to scale what I want to do. And so that that was a fundamental decision that I think would have been really easy to pass by. So The the lesson is listen to your customers 1st and foremost.
And when you hear something that is is a disconnect from how you're you're operating today, just stop. Think about it. Consider it. Play it out a little bit. Like, what would it mean? How would it impact? Chaz that that's the underlying first principle is listen to the market. Listen to your customers. Here, The dissatisfactions Hear their feedback, hear what they're frustrated about. Right.
Yeah. That's it's cool that you said that because we hear, typically, like, hear the frustrations piece of it that you just shared. And And, of course, right, like, that's how you grow and you learn. Still, companies don't do that even, but that that's that's the easy one. Here here are the grumbles make adjustments get better, but the the option there that you gave firsthand was a suggestion, not necessarily to do things better.
Although it was, it was just like a really like a, like, an encouragement. It was like, hey. You're, I think, highly of you, and you should go do x. And I could say the same thing about our YouTube channel. YouTube is still new for us technically. But the podcast has a big a big connection point to that. And I had an old friend of mine that became an employee who back then years ago was like, when are you gonna start a YouTube channel? I was like, oh, no. No. No.
No. You just same thing you just did. Right? Oh, people don't wanna hear. It it wasn't your natural inclination. Maybe something you're slightly uncomfortable with. Something that obviously take doesn't pay pay short term dividends. It's a long term team. Right? It's a long term investment, and you don't really know if it's gonna pay out, but It sounds pretty smart. Those are really important signals to listen to. Yeah. I I love how we've been able to define that.
That's that's pretty cool because we all have them. Right? They're all, like you said, signals. The cool part is is that you can ignore it, like purposely or just ignorantly, and typically The come back, but they're not gonna come back forever. Like, they're not gonna keep bumping you upside the head usually. Right? I agree. I mean, in my case, that was a one time signal and everything. Right? And it would never been on my road map.
I've never thought of myself as an as an author or or really as a thought leader, you know, and everything. I was I was, you know, a client partner. I was a problem solver, you know, and everything. Right? And so it was a significant one time Kings like, okay. That's that's, you know, a signal, a jolt, a lightning bolt, Yeah. And and I and I thought about it. I didn't immediately react to it. Right?
And I went and talked to a few other people that I respected, and I started just noodling on what it could be about and why to do it and all these Kings. And I never predicted Kings what would come out of it or how much I would enjoy the process of actually for this podcast. You know, that's really what I meant by YouTube. We started with podcast as transition, but, you know, top 2% globally ranked now, 400 plus episodes, and we just started it just to help some just like, ah, sure. Why not?
You know? I think both of us have done a pretty good job here of encouraging the listener around some of those signals that other people give to Chaz. I think that there's probably a principle underneath, and I'm curious here what you think, is that you've gotta be this curious individual, right, to to be willing to listen to their grumbles, or the encouragement. And so as an entrepreneur, a lot of times we're busy, and sometimes we miss the opportunity to be curious.
And so what are some tax told maybe that you've done or maybe given some some of your clients to just, like you said, slow down a minute to actually hear the The. Yeah. Yeah. So one is metrics and put and especially, you know, people tend to have just financial metrics. And even that, they sometimes don't do well, but they're always backwards looking financial metrics.
You need both operational metrics, but what they really are we get is really customer experience metrics, not just customer sentiment metrics, but actually trying to figure out a way to measure the customer experience. Right? So that would be one thing And then the other the other practical tool is there's a framework really simple concept and framework called the jobs to be done framework. Right? And and what this is about is about being people, your customers have a job to be done.
And what we typically orient to is, well, here's my product or service, and what the jobs to be done framework Encourages us to do is truly understand the job they're trying to to get done. What's the outcome What happens when they have a bad day when something goes wrong in their job?
And you will find insights signals about both, how you can improve your product and service, how you can differentiate it, as well as maybe, oh, there's things upstream or downstream from how I work with my customer today that you could grow and innovate on. If if you were to ever think about, well, how did Amazon a books music video retailer get to be a conglomerate business today The would be one of the core approaches that we didn't call it the jobs to be done.
We called it customer cure curiosity customer obsession, but really what we're doing was we were exploring the big job. My customers were sellers, were merchants. Right? The people had developers as customers. Other people, you know, had had, you know, true customers. But really, especially in those b to b customer relationships, understand their job way bigger than how you understand it today. Yeah. I think that that's I mean, again, it goes back to curiosity. Right?
In order to understand it better, you just get curious. And I think The level of curiosity there is really it's not like a checklist of locusto. Learn about when he comes to work and what problems does it like, no. No. It's like, as you're building the relationship, you're you just want to know more so that you can increase the level of experience or or the the the the The outcome of the experience. Is that what we're saying?
I I I I'm guessing you've talked about this, but there's kind of the concept of are you working in the business or are you working on the business? Right? Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's really easy to get trapped in The most of your effort going to working in the business. And what we're talking about is stepping back and working on the business, investing in things that don't directly impact today but set the stage for tomorrow.
And that's what a real leaders the balance they need to to create is You know, how much am I working in today's business The quarter's business versus how much am I working on next year's business? Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolfe. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast into the content that goes out every single day.
And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the Kings. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible.
Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So Let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Yeah. I love that. Alright. Well, let's transition. I wanna hear a bad decision. That you've made, you know, that probably led to an okay outcome, but maybe maybe it didn't. Maybe it was your worst hour. It was that, that bad decision.
Well, many people would would would crush me like, oh, you know, so I left Amazon at late 2005. What again, what most people forget is Amazon stock was flat for, like, 9 years there from 2000 to 2008, 2009. It was mostly flat. I left in 1005. So to some degree, I consider and others would go like, oh, man. Like, that was a horrible decision. Maybe. You know Chaz? Everything. Right? Like, I I go, a, nobody saw this coming, b is, I I just don't live life Kings through the rearview mirror.
And so I don't consider that. And, you know, I made a decision both for personal reasons and for business reasons on on why I did that. I wasn't reacting to the situation. And so in some ways, my worst decision was also my best decision by far. Yeah. I understand that completely. What do you think as you were going to that decision? Right?
Because That's what I'm really trying to analyze Chaz your good and bad decision here is what what your thought process was for you to leave, you know, a a great opportunity, but was it more about doing your own thing? Was it about providing something that you couldn't provide there? What what what went in? It was it was a combination of factors in, a, I had a great opportunity come to me.
I had been a partner at Arthur Anderson before Amazon and some of my former Arthur Anderson partners were at a a a new consulting firm, and I was getting a a great opportunity But b, it was really about control. Right? I wanted, you know, more control into The decisions, the commitments, how, like, what business I was going to be building. And at Amazon, I largely had, you know, kinda others making big commitments that I had to be accountable The.
And the firm I went to is a great firm called Alvarysm at A and M, I truly ran my own business. And so it was it was it was that control that I was seeking at that point in my career. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think every entrepreneur listing goes, yep. I get that. There's a a different level of fulfillment that comes for that. That's for sure. Right. Right.
What would you say is, you know, because you've you've just been a part of a lot of other businesses now. What do you think the the biggest mistake or the most common mistake that you see your client's Kings? Well, when it comes to innovation, so a lot of the work I do with my clients is is like, okay. How do we create a systematic approach to innovation.
And the biggest mistake Chaz they make 2 versions of this mistake, but the underlying mistake they're making is good decision making on whether to continue, kill, or pivot on an innovation idea. To scale an innovation idea. And so the two versions of this are, you know, we've done a pilot. It's not perfect. Right?
Not nothing ever is and they're either impatient, like, oh, you know, we're not gonna continue to invest in this and they pull back in the and the real mistake they make Kings to go, and we will never do anything like this again. Right? Yeah. And so that's their solution is we will never try to innovate again.
Or the other part version, the the flip side of the coin on this is that they they fall in love with the idea, and they keep or customers don't truly love the product and they decide, well, we're this far into it. We have to scale it. We have to go for it and everything. Right? And so having that appropriate decision making lens, patience when you should have patience, impatience, on on the things that you should have impatience about, that is a really delicate and hard thing to do.
And And my clients are typically really good operators, but they don't they think they're really good innovators, but they actually don't understand The really subtle but critical differences in how we make decisions when we are in the innovation portfolio game. Yeah. I love that.
I think that that even though that sounded complex or or or a for a high level, complex, not the right word, but for somebody with 2 people listening right now who's very much in the biz I still think that that decision making ability comes down to the same things because really what we're saw, it just it just goes way down and they're going. They're just making a pivot every other day. Right. Right. Right. You know, no patients, no boys, all the things Chaz you're talking about.
We're figuring out how we actually win, how we actually compete in everything. Right? Well, not yeah. I mean, you're really in the innovation game The, and stuff. And the other time is like, oh, no. We know what we're Kings, and we're having success. And then we're trying to figure out how do we just scale that success or how do we add additional products services, new value propositions to our existing The?
Both of those are working on the business and and fall into the same category of, like, you know, how are we truly going to scale this business us. Yeah. I love that because that happens in every business size. Every business. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I was gonna say. I think that that applies literally to everybody. Which decision making is what we're really talking about, and that applies that applies to life.
I I mean, I generally believe we are where we are based on the decisions that we've made. You just said, I left Amazon. I don't know. Good, bad decision. I don't know, but I am where I am because of it. So yeah. It is one of The Decision Kings tools that we put in place at Amazon to help address this this exact Kings of situation is a concept called The way doors versus two way doors. And so we basically broke decisions into one of these 2 types.
A one way door decision is a decision where once you make it, you really can't come back from it. Right? So these are the real high stakes decisions. Well, what do you wanna do on one way door decisions? Slowing down. Think about them. Write them out vigorously debate. Proceed carefully and thoughtfully. Figure out how to make it an experiment. Right? Versus a two way door decision, well, these are decisions that we should make with calculated risk and understand that speed is important.
And so you need to balance kind of the the how long we think, versus making the decision, right, in a lot of times we suffer from analysis paralysis when really we should we should figure out how to get the best input, the best signals, make Kings best decision, and move forward on it knowing that if we make the wrong decision on it, what makes it a two way door decision is that if we make the wrong decision on it, It may cost us a little bit,
but we can actually come back from it, you know, and everything. Right? It's not gonna have no mistake. If people just understand decisions, well, is this a one way door decision or a two way door decision? Then you have a path, a tool to know, like, oh, well, here's how I should operate on one of these, and here's how I should operate on the other one. The the word picture there is really powerful.
The freedom that you get when you understand 1 or the other, it it removes, you know, stress, anxiety, pressure, because, oh, The I'm just in this situation. These are the tactics that we handle this situation. I I love that. And and if you have a team that's that's working for you, have this discussion about, well, here's one way to our decision versus 2 way to our decisions. Here here are the types of one way door decisions that come in the into the business.
Those are the ones you should come talk to me about. Here are the two way door that typically happen every day when you're out on the job site or out working and everything. Here's how I want you to think about those decisions, but you're empowered to make those decisions, you know, and everything. Right? Like, that's a way to then help scale across a team, to be, you know, both make good decisions, but appropriately responsive to the situation.
Yeah. Also giving them freedom to know The, like, hey. If you pass through the door and it is a mistake, We just come right back, and it we can recover, and it's okay. Yeah. And and and you and you're you're not just solving for today's business, but, you know, you're building leadership. You're building culture through this and everything. Right? Those are the you know, short term and long term things that we need to think about in building a business. Yeah. Love that. What have you done?
Practically, I'm gonna change gears here on you, but know what you've done practically outside of the business. So I just I just generally believe that there's more than life than than business, even though I'm completely obsessed with my business and businesses and like we said earlier, the The, like, I'm all in on making my hobbies, effective for my businesses. But The are other pieces for me.
It's my wife, my kids, my health, my relationship with god, like, all of these things that I also wanna be all in on. How how are you or how have you through the course of being successful? Been able to obsess about those things as well. Yeah. Well, A a couple of stories I'll I'll tell you is, you know, I've got 2 boys. They're 25 and 23. They were both very good athletes.
And I made and my wife and I made very purposeful decisions that were suboptimal from a business standpoint, but we're optimal from a family and experience standpoint. And I Yeah. I never regret the decisions I made on those, you know, those are the on your deathbed decisions. You weren't ret optimizing for another buck versus the decisions we made.
And so I I had a couple of of of great ones there that we made, but, really, my day my daily habits are about Gathering up early, going to the gym, getting that workout in. I feel great. I know that I can tackle anything, and I have just especially as I've gotten a little bit older, The connection between being the best in your business to being the best in my fitness, in my rest, in my diet it becomes even more important.
So if you can create some good habits when you're younger, you you will see the benefits of those things Chaz you get a little bit older. They become more and more important.
Yeah. I like how you kinda brought those things together because that that's what it's been like for me and for many others that I run with, which is over the course of time, You realize that not only are the other areas as important, if not more, than building your business, but that you just didn't know how to necessarily have it all at the same. But with good decision making, good habit building and discipline to consistently follow through, then you're like, oh, okay.
Well, this is even though I'm still building the same intensity with my some things are habitual now or subconscious. And so I can add other lanes, if you will, even though it's really, like, what you're just saying, It's the same mindset across. It's the same habits. It's the same mindset across these other areas of life that I've been applying in my business. I just gotta you know, do it in multiple areas. I I love it. That that's exactly it. What do you say about, resources.
You're you're a a man of solutions. You're you you call yourself a problem solver. You help people with wicked problems. We've got, I know a book coming out of your own, so tell us about Chaz, but also just what resource has just really unlocked a lot of things for you or some of your clients? Well, I mean, recently, Chaz GPT. Right? Like, a leak. Yeah. If you're not using chat GPT, it's like you're like, hey.
I need some ideas on something or quickly quickly inform me about this topic or give me 10 ideas on something. You are missing out. And so You have to understand what a a, large language model is good at versus bad at. It's not good at facts. Chaz it's really good at is creative. It's it's like a brainstorming partner and everything. Right? So I'm here for brainstorming Kings it's magic, and that's way good technology should feel. It should feel like magic. So, short term, it it really was that.
I'm I'm sorry. What was the what was the other part of the question that I answered? Oh, just yeah. I just wanted to see what Kings of resources you would suggest Chaz huge, but then you've got a book coming out. Let's see. Yeah. I've got a book coming. How Chaz I forget that? Exactly. So the name of the book is Big Bet Leadership.
Your transformation playbook for winning in the hyperdigital era, and this book is for senior leaders help them do the very things we're talking about, which is to recognize when there are signal from the market that they need to change. They need to compete differently, how to think them through, and the how to put those experiments into the right environment and how to manage them so that they're actually smart bets, but not big bets.
And you change and win in business by the decisions, by the bets that you make. And so this book is meant to be for any scale of senior leader, your guide, your playbook, to propel you to make better big bet decisions. I love that. The the good decision. I'm sorry. And the offer that I wanna make is so the book releases on February 27 2024 So if you go to big betleadership.com, give me your Kindle email address and tell me what podcast you heard me on. Right?
The I'll make a drawing for for the podcast and give away 10 or 15 days, of the kit, at launch. And the only thing I'd ask and it's a request but the request is that you write a customer review. So those customer reviews are critical, especially for kind of a self made author And so I really appreciate those. Yeah. Of course.
Yeah. I think that, you know, the the any tool that can help us continue to make better and better decisions especially as leaders, really just anybody should make making good decisions. But as leaders, there are other people, and that could be our team, our family, our clients, that are counting on us, the the weight of those decisions is is heavier. So, I just like to take that, the weight of the crown Chaz I like to call it, for us to gather the Kings.
It's like, we take that weight seriously. So with that in mind, I will put all the links in the in the show notes as well. Of course, you've got other books you've written, we'll, I'm sure we'll include those as well. But, John, I got I got one last question here for you. Maybe a little bit more of a reflective question, but if you could whisper in the younger John's ear, What do you think that you would tell him? In my particular case, it would be a bet on yourself earlier.
I I I didn't grow up in a family or an environment that encouraged you to take calculated risks. It was always like, you know, be satisfied, take the job, you know, work the job, be satisfied with that. I wish I had The on myself earlier. That doesn't mean, you know, start a company or being entrepreneur. I mean, it would mean push myself, test myself, think a little bigger, take The more exciting path. And don't worry as much about, well, the what if it works out? What doesn't work out?
What if what if I don't have my job in 3 months? Like, trust that those things are are gonna be there if you're, you know, adding value if you're solving hard problems and stuff. So the advice that I wish I had had younger, and it's the advice I give to my boys, which is bet on yourself. Yeah. I love how you tied that back, you know, to solving big problems because you're right.
As long as you're solving problems and the bigger the problems, the more value that you add, you you It doesn't matter if this one particular opportunity goes away. There will be so many other opportunities if if you add value, which often leads to solving problems. And, you know, the underlying thing we've been talking about here is learning along the way. Right? And so That's right. Like, you have to actually slow down enough to learn.
That's why I think books and long form podcasts like this are so critical to the learning life because this is how you actually explore topics and get expertise much different than a blog post or a little you know, quip, you know, or everything. Long form content is the key to being a lifelong learner and actually becoming a better leader. Yeah. Well, John, all those are not only just insightful, but they're real.
You can tell it comes from a place of you figuring things out along the way and And, of course, now you get to, pass along to your boys and many other entrepreneurs you get to work with on a daily basis. So how can you already give us the the the connection point for the book? But give give us that again. But then if we wanna find you, maybe even work with you or disconnect with you, how can we find you?
Yeah. So it's a big betleadership.com is for the sign up for the free Kings, rossmanpartners.com is for my business or find me on LinkedIn, John Rossman. Awesome. Sounds good. We'll put all that The the show notes as well. They'd be silly not to take you up on a free book offer, especially when that helps them think and solve problems, make great decisions. John, you've been incredible. Blessings to you and your family and all the businesses that you're influencing here this year.
Thanks for being here. Thank you for sharing your platform. I really appreciate Thank you for listening to Gathering the The 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 over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to Kings together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 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 suit of excellence in those areas Chaz 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 Gathering.
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.