Great leaders adapt to their situation. People say, well, I just wanna be myself. You know, it's inauthentic not to be myself. Yeah. And I think there's some truth to that, but I think the bigger question is, like, doesn't every great leader understand their audience? When a CEO says something like, well, I know that having engaged employees is important, but like we have other priorities. And I think, like, What bigger priority is Chaz your humans that work for you every day?
If people aren't your priority, I guarantee you your organization is not gonna perform well over time. It comes back to time. Shouldn't it be good? Should shouldn't you want to invest your time in something that, like, speaks to you right here? What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Gathering the Kings podcast. I'm your host, Chaz Wolfe. And today, we are joined by James Lawrence, the CEO of Happy a platform that's transforming organizational culture from college dropout to industry leader.
James's journey is a story of humility, personal growth, and embracing servant leadership. Get ready because we go deep on culture. James Lawrence. Welcome to the King stage. How are you, my friend? I'm doing fine, Chaz. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, man. We we are gonna have an interesting conversation. We always have interesting conversations, but you have a unique business, not not like another one that I've had on the show, actually. So tell us What is happy? What do you do?
Well, I get the elevator pitch right away, Chaz. I'm on now. So I I will ask you a question. Can I turn the tables on you? Oh, okay. Alright. I'm defensive now, but Okay. Yeah. Okay. So how long have you been working? Oh, like, in my life? Yeah. Like, first time scooping ice scream is, like, forty year old kid high school. Yeah. Picked up a a, concrete hammer, or a shovel or a a a form, probably, at thirteen years old. Okay. So in total, like, 24 years, 24 years.
And then how many different, like, jobs or bosses have you had? Like, how many different environments have you been in? Goodness. Let's say a dozen. Okay. So 24 years, a dozen bosses. So I'm imagining you've never had in that whole time frame any seen any challenges with people. Right? Never. Not once, actually. No. No different ways of doing things. Nope. No. They they came all out of the same box, Yeah. So no no conflict, no no disagreements about, you know, so so that's what happy does.
It. And so, you know, we just apply behavioral science and AI to helping humans work together at work. A lot of So that's our elevator pitch. Here's a question for you, James.
I when I think about harmony or Chaz you said, maybe alignment or however you wanna address up, they're we can work together, but I I find that when when there's a common common definite purpose, right, so in in thinking of a rich, Napoleon Hill defines the mastermind principle as 2 or more mines working in harmony, unto specifically a definite chief aim.
And so for Harmony's sake or alignment sake, how important is that, like, that one singular focus that we're both working on so that we can maybe overcome some of the conflict or work together in a scenario? How does that play into all of this in your mind? Yeah. It's an interesting question. I mean, I think where I start answering that is I think everybody knows what a poor team alignment looks like.
And I think, you know, I got a chance to spend a lot of time talking CEOs, and we can talk about that later in the show, but I got a Chaz, in 2020 19 to, like, meet with more than fiber and CEOs and, like, VPs of people and and, heads of human resources. And it's like what you just ask is one of the questions I actually ask. So I have to say it's a darn good question, Chaz. Yeah. But it was like, the way I said it was like, what does a win look to you?
Like, what's a victory look like to you with your team? And, you know, you mentioned harmony earlier.
I think, like, mission alignment is really important, and I think, like, that north star of, like, what we're looking for, whether it's, you know, getting there through the happy platform or understanding, you know, a disc assessment or a leader of coaching, but it's what can we accomplish together, and it's gotta be, like, 1+1 equals 3, right, or if you've got six people in your leadership team, it's like, We don't want, you know, 1+1 +1+1 equals 2.
And, you know, a team that's not effective is a detractor. And I'll I'll tell you one line real quick. Sometimes you hear CEOs say something like, I couldn't do this without my team. Or, you know, the team is more important than any one individual may include it. And to me, that's when I know that, like, a team is gonna drive toward good outcomes.
And then I think the opposite is, well, I have to make all the calls because, you know, I don't have a very good team or my leadership team isn't right or, you know, they're not don't have the information they need or I don't trust them.
And so suddenly now you've got a CEO surrounding him or herself with seven or eight people in the leadership team, or you have a manager surrounding themselves to people, but they're making all the calls anyways because they don't have the right people or they don't trust them or there's not alignment. And that's really like a waste of human capital.
But Yeah. You know, that's a team that's not functioning, right, as you know, you've got, you know, someone that just just making all of the decisions and doesn't trust the people around them. Yeah. The principle that you're talking about here is is, you know, known, right, maybe even cliche. Which is like, well, yeah, of course, like, the leader who makes all the decisions. Like, we know that that's bad. Everything that you said probably isn't hitting the listener going, Oh my gosh.
That's revolutionary, but they still do it. And so what I mean by that is oftentimes I find even in entrepreneurs who are, you know, 50 or less people. You're talking about in corporations that have probably a 100 plus people. Both ways, I find it's this person entrepreneur or leader in an organization who's doing too much. Right? And and they don't know how to how to maybe leverage a teamwork or cohesion or alignment or harmony.
And and so then, therefore, they're just a pretty strong individual. It's probably how they got into leadership or business ownership to begin with, and they're just, like, thrusting themselves forward. And everybody else is just kinda trying to hold on. And it doesn't really ever work out that way. Can you speak to this for a little while? I mean, why do we keep doing this as entrepreneurs? Or I've made all those mistakes. Me too. I mean, and still and still make them.
I mean, you know, there's no perfect leader. But, no, I mean, you're right. I don't think any of this is is groundbreaking. What I do think is, I mean, I wanna comment something you said earlier, which is you were talking about, like, different organizations and, like, different size organizations. So it's like, when I first started talking to CEOs, like, I was a CEO myself for 20 plus years and mainly in the automotive space.
And I worked with a lot of CEOs already, but but in 2019, 2020, when I was researching happy, one of the things that I I did was I made a commitment every day. I put probably 30 or 40 small groups together. Kind of like many little mastermind groups, but mainly for research purposes. And I said, like, I'm gonna talk to 5 CEOs a week, and I'm gonna ask them some questions because I was really passionate about creating happy back then. That's when we really started doing a lot of our research.
And I thought I had this perception. Like, you know, big businesses have figured this out. So if you're like a fortune 500 company or you're a big FANG company, you're in Silicon Valley, you know, you've been in business 30 years. Like, you've figured this people thing Like, people oh, yeah. You're good. Like, little companies, 100, 200 employees, small businesses, startups. Like, they probably, like, trying to navigate through this people thing.
So I'm, like, talking to these CEOs, and I'm talking to CEO of a fortune 500 company. And I go, well, tell me a little bit about your people. And know, you've probably got this all figured out and tell me about, like, I ask one question, which is like, so when your people get hired, Like, tell me about your onboarding process.
Like, the work relationships that occur between your different employees Like, is that up to them to figure out or to, like, do you have an entire process of, like, onboarding someone? And it's like, you know what? These big companies they're way more screwed up than the little ones. I mean, the CEOs were like, no. It's were too big. I mean, And so in a lot of cases, these larger organizations had bigger problem, bigger people problems than the companies that were 500 people.
Yeah. And I think it comes down to a very simple thing. People are messy. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. Like, the people business is not easy. And in big companies, largely employees are just left to figure out their work relationships on their own. Kinda dependent on their department head or whoever they're you know, whoever runs that division. But it's not always pretty. No. I would say most times it's not.
Unless I have been in situations and built companies of my own even where it's it's more put together. So I wouldn't call it pretty, but maybe a little bit more organized. And so Let's let's use this as a transition to talk about happy. I mean, it starts with a simple assessment, like there's many others that you mentioned, but this idea of being able to take a look at someone and their traits or who they are, there are so many benefits to this.
And the rest of the show, we're gonna go deep on this. Because this is I feel like for me, personally, like, if I can identify why individually Chaz Wolfe has been successful. 1, it's been from personal development inside of that, I know who I am, like, truly to the core, because of assessments like happy, I can just not only self reflect, but I can just be honest. With myself, and then I can modify. And so we're gonna talk about this, but give us an idea. What's the happy assessment look like?
Why why does someone take it What do they do with their results? Let's start there. Can I talk about myself and the third person? Because if I can do that, I'm gonna be happier in this podcast. Let's go. Let's go. Talk about this amazing guy named James for me, if you don't mind. Oh my gosh. So, yeah, you know, what's funny is, you know, we we have developed our own assessment.
It's you know, based on disk, which is, you know, probably the most popular behavioral assessment in the world to use by three quarters of the Fortune 500, most the branch is the US military, but there's a lot of great assessments out there. And, you know, we started working 20 years ago with DISC from a company called TTi and you know, TTi's got great assessments. And so, you know, assessments are kind of like a religion.
Like, if I started convincing you that my assessment was better than your man, it's like, you know, we're kinda getting into, like, you know, you're Protestant on Catholic. Like, well, let's let's let's go toe to toe on this. It's not a religion like that we're all that interested in winning. The fact that anybody uses assessments is a win. Like, you talked about self awareness. Self awareness is a really critical part of becoming a great leader or a manager or developing your own business.
And so, I mean, the first thing is, like, I think assessments are fantastic tools, you know, if if you're invested in them. Happy art. We've got a little bit of a unique view. And I'll kind of just explain it to you like this. And and it takes about 30 seconds, but, you know, we are a technology, a platform, that a company installs, and all of their employees go into the happy platform. And everybody takes this 10 minute assessment It asks you, you know, 30 or 40 questions.
It doesn't take very long. And as part of asking you those questions, you know, it understands your work style. And once it understands the work style of everybody in the company, it can then render advice, insights, and guidance to each person that's personalized and contextual to them. And I'm gonna give you an example. Chaz, give me somebody you work with at work every day. Or every week? Yeah. Sandy Elliott. She was just on the screen here a few minutes ago. Sandy, I love Sandy.
So if you and I and Sandy work together, and you looked up Sandy's happy profile, and you looked her work style up. And I looked up Sandy and looked up her work style. We would see some of the same things, but the insights and guidance that it would actually show up on your screen and the insights and guidance it would show up on my screen would be different. Because you and I are different people.
Sure. And so the way happy works is because it understands everybody's work it provides personalized guidance and insights. So it's essentially like an assessment, but that's personalized and contextualized to each person. So it actually gives you unique advice because you need different advice in working with Sandy than I do. Interesting.
So that's the first thing that Sometimes people don't really understand about happy is the secret sauce isn't really in the assessment per se, but it's in the contextualization. Yeah. Because I'll give you an example. If you're a type a personality, which I'm not saying you are, but let's say you're a type a personality. And, Sandy wants somebody to be, you you know, the right thing to Sandy is she likes honest candid conversation.
And the advice to you in Sandy's assessment is, Chaz, you need to be, you know, honest and transparent and bold with her. Wolfe, you're already that. So now you turn into a crazy person because it's telling you to go even more, you know, type a on her. Right. Right? That's bad advice. What it might actually say is, Chaz, you're already pretty transparent and candid with her, make sure to do, you know, but she also likes data.
So it might say something like, We know you're gonna be candid, but make sure you bring a few pieces of data to the table when you have a meeting with her. Now I might be a data person. It doesn't need to tell me to bring data. I do that naturally. So it wouldn't be like James. Remember to bring a bunch of data to your meeting with Sandy because it's like, I already do Chaz, but it might say, like, hey, James. Make sure that you're frank and open with Sandy.
And so, really, what happy is all about is contextualized personalized advice. And one of the things that, is interesting about learning in humans is when you really study, like, how people learn, like, I'll I'm gonna play a little, play along with you. Can I ask you another question? Of course. Yeah. Love this So tonight at 8 PM, Chaz, I would like to ask you if you would like to participate in a 3 hour seminar on negotiating with Japanese business people. 7 o'clock tonight. Okay. Possibly.
Okay. It's it might be 4 hours, 7 to 11. 7 to 11. It less possible, but still possible. Okay. So maybe your intellectual curiosity is like, hey. That'd be pretty cool. Like, I'd like to, like, I'd like to actually learn how to negotiate better with Japanese business people. Yep. But you're like, now I can't watch NCIS with my, like, spouse. I can't play with my kids. Like Right. Means I have no dinner. Right?
So, like, But tell me very plainly, what is it about what I just asked you that made you go? Like, man, that's a waste of my time. Like, Why would why would you why don't you think that? Well, I didn't know the context of the situation or more specifically what I would be learning there. Although I was open to whatever it was. So let's say you and I were flying in the morning to Tokyo. And we were negotiating a $10,000,000 deal Right. With 2 Japanese business people that we'd never met before.
How attractive would the 4 hour seminar be tonight were gonna have. Oh, yeah. I couldn't get enough of it. Right. So the difference is context. Right? So the way the human brain works, is it learns? It's it's fascinated by learning when there's an application. And you and I just wrapped on that. Like, you know that to be true any ways, but you really know it because we just went through a little little exercise on it.
Yeah. So learning how to, for example, learning a little bit more about, let's say, Tom in accounting. If it's like, hey, you know, Wolfe you like to spend some more time learning about how Tom in accounting works? You might be like, Maybe. But when Tom has rejected your expense report for the 6th time in a row and you're, like, ready to, you know, march into Tom's office and freak out, it might be really useful, right, at that moment for you to learn how to work through a conflict with Tom.
Yeah. That's what happy is all about. It's not the unique secret sauce and the assessment, it's contextualized learning. It's like, how do I learn at the moment I need it and apply it to, like, something at work. Right. And so using this example here of Tom, in accounting, I'm frustrated. I log in to my happy platform and I, like, type in there somewhere that I'm gonna go meet with Tom and I'm frustrated and kinda like Chaz to EBT. It's gonna send me some advice.
Is that is that what I'm understanding, or is it a little different than that? Yeah. I mean, It Wolfe. It does do that, but what actually more likely is if you're in Microsoft teams, it actually knows your meeting with Tom because it monitors calendar, and it actually, about an hour before your meeting sends you tips on meeting with Tom before you actually have to do anything.
Wow. So the way the tech works, yeah, the way the tech works is, you know, we have this little saying, which is, like, the right piece of advice at the right time at the right moment into the right person. And so, like, I will say, like, our technology is relatively new or about a year old. So some of this is, like, an ideal state. Like, a lot of what I'm talking about, what we have, but in the perfect world, you know, we're anticipating you know, the human interaction you're having.
So the technology happy platform already understands who you're already who you're working with. So you can go through and, like, build a team and go like, hey. I'm gonna follow Sandy. I'm gonna follow Tom. Like, I'm gonna go follow a few people, but we use some technology called Smart Follow. So it's kind of our own proprietary technology. And we understand who you're working with in the organization.
So if you're using Teams, Slack, email, Google products, like, we understand who you're interacting with. And so we're delivering coaching to you and insights already on the people you're working with. Yeah. And so, yeah, so the technology is smart enough to, like, understand who's in your cohort. And sometimes it'll give you coaching on somebody you don't want. It'll make a suggestion. You can be like, hey. I only work with Tom for a couple of months, and then I don't work with Tom anymore.
So you can, like, unfollow Tom for coaching, or you might have somebody new in your team that gets hired, and you might be like, well, I just wanna proactively follow them. But, I mean, the ultimate goal here is this technology works in the background. Yeah. So you can go look it up. Like, if you're gonna go have a review with your boss, and you're like, hey, or I'm like, I have a really important meeting. You can go, like, or I wanna pitch an idea.
Let's say, like, you're meeting with the CEO, and you're like, hey. I gotta I'd like to prepare for that. You can, like, go to the coach tool and go like, hey. I I'm gonna pitch an idea to the CEO, and it'll give you guidance how to do Chaz. But a lot of it's just like how naturally can we integrate into the flow of work. Yeah. I love the the technology piece there. I I have not seen another platform do that. So kudos to you.
I love that you're spearing, this into really all the assessment world because the assessment world has changed leadership and people communication and all that. I wanna I wanna use this opportunity to go, okay. So it's an hour before my meeting. I get this little note. Right? Personally Chaz Wolfe right now doesn't have this technology, so I can't do that. But what I can do is I can go to my assessment. I can go, okay. I'm gonna meet with James. Here's his his assessment.
Based on my knowledge, I can kinda, you know, maneuver this thing together, what's our topic. So manually, I'm doing this. You have any technology, which is amazing, but I've called this the scenario modification, but you're you're sending me information to tell me how to adjust or adapt or modify in that meeting What we think is a good outcome of, like, working together in conflict resolution and, you know, harmony, but it is telling me to change. What what if I don't wanna change?
What if I don't think that that's authentic? Why why can't it just be me? Why can't I just show up to the meeting? Help me understand. Yeah. I'm gonna answer that in two parts. So the first part is, you know, you brought up a great example of you doing this manually. And I would say, like, that's how people have been doing this for a very long time, right, is like, hey.
I'm having some conflict with someone in, like, Chaz I pull up can I get access to their disc assessment or their culture index or whatever assessment that exists? And I'm gonna read theirs and look at mine, and I'm gonna kinda, like, do some jujitsu to figure out, like, how to work better with them. Right? Yeah. But I think the ideal state's a little yeah. Mental digits. Yeah. But I think the ideal state is a little different.
I think you just hit on it, which is you ask, like, what if I don't wanna change? And I think the first thing is is that There's different levels of self awareness. Right? And what you just described is, like, you have a real commitment to where you've seen value. Like, you've seen value in the legit Right? Like, you have challenged yourself to understand yourself and then ask yourself, okay. I've gotten good outcomes by learning how others like to work. And then maybe adapting to their style.
And so you've gotten some really good outcomes, and so you continue to do it because it makes your work output better. It helps you build your business. And that's a beautiful thing. I think I wanna say one thing is I think happy is trying to solve a little different problem, which is trying to get rid of the jujitsu, and just kind of giving you, like, the, karate kid approach.
Like, you know, you're not having to think about necessarily what to do because happy is kind of doing seeing around a corner for you. And then over time, you're gonna start learning how to work with those around you, like, because you're getting good outcomes. So for example, gonna give you a quick example, and then I'm gonna answer your original question. Have you ever walked into a meeting and had the person in the meeting be relatively quiet Yeah.
So a lot of people that are outgoing or extroverted or like me, I talk with my hands, I might have walked into a meeting at the age of twenty five and had somebody be very quiet and analytical and think I might have walked out of that meeting. And said, Chaz, I don't think Betsy likes me. Yeah. Hell, Betsy did was just listen. Like, Betsy was being Betsy, which was being an analyst and listening and observing. And I was being, you know, a core d in disc.
Mister Super extroverted and going, well, she didn't talk a lot. I don't, like, think she really gets me. And that's a fatal flaw. That's thinking everybody looks at the world like I do. Yeah. And so in the happy world, we don't have to give you all that information. We can just say something really simple to you before your meeting. Chaz seat tends to listen a lot. Don't be surprised if she takes a lot of notes in the meeting.
Chaz little nudge to us is the difference in building relationships because it's giving you a little context on who Betsy is. And how Betsy likes to look at the Wolfe. And you don't go into that meeting. You don't walk out of it going like, man, Betsy doesn't like me. Yeah. And so, hopefully, you know, it's I know you didn't, like, graduate college at 21 and become super emotionally intelligent. Like, you've probably been through some pain to get to where you are.
Yeah. So I think solving that equation, like, that's the real that's like the heavy left, right, is, like, how do we make it so you don't have to necessarily, like, wake up and be like, man, I really wanna change and I wanna be self aware. It just like it's like cliff notes. Just makes your life easier. So I know I answered your question with a very circular question. I don't know if you found that interesting. No. No. It's super good.
I think the the the feedback there for the listener is, 1, not everybody looks at the world like you do. Like, we know that, but in situations that you just gave, super plainly, we forget because we're seeing things through our lens only. When we have the ability see things from the other person's lens, it basically just gives them permission to be them. And now we can take it a step further and go, okay.
Now we're not just coworker and maybe, like, you're giving me a little tip to, like, work better. As a leader, I've always taken it as my responsibility to not meet them in the middle, but to hop over the fence, and come all the way to them. It's my responsibility. Right? And so what that has meant for me, you know, in this case, right here, like, I'm leading this show. Am not an extrovert on a piece of paper. I may learn extrovert, or I'm modifying as we talked about before. Right?
So what how boring would this show be if if I just didn't have much energy. Right? And maybe there's show there's shows like that, but not about success. And so Chaz I'm coming over the table wherever you are now you're an expert, so it's easy, but it's my responsibility to come to you. So let's talk about it from a leadership perspective. Right?
So it's not just, like, the little tips, to give, like, the other person, like, room, but it's, like, now it's a responsibility as a leader, in my opinion, to, like, make this meeting the best it can be. And if that requires me to modify so that Betsy can listen and take good notes and whatever, because she's gonna same tips that you are about me, but as a leader, I still think it's my responsibility. Talk about from a leadership perspective is what I'm trying to get you get to.
Well, you're totally right. I mean, great leaders adapt to their situation. And it doesn't mean that, like, hey. There's always that moment where you gotta have that go to the mountain top moment where, like, you know, you might have to, motivate and inspire. And and, you know, you hear this a lot of times Chaz when people say, well, I just wanna be myself. You know, it's inauthentic not to be myself.
Yep. And I think there's some truth to that, but I think the bigger question is, like, doesn't every great leader understand their audience? Yeah. Like, to me, great leadership is about understanding what someone needs from you. And, like, I know this isn't super evoque, but, like, I'm a big fan of, like, historical great leaders, like, like, Vince Lombardi. Like, I'm a big I love football. And, like, I'm really am a student of Vince Lombardi.
And, like, a lot of people didn't understand Vince Lombardi. Like, he kind of over time, kind of got this reputation of a hard ass coach where he drove his players really hard and, you know, kind of like in cultural folklore, people are like, well, you know, you can't coach like Vince Lombardi coaches anymore. Like, you know, players today are different.
Well, if you actually go back and look at what Vince Lombardi said about his players, I think I don't remember how many players were on a football team back in the sixties. Let's just say it was 50 or 80. There's many quotes where Vincent Barney said I have 50 men on my football team, and I treat them as 50 unique people. And or saying something like my team is comprised of 50 individuals.
And in one of the, biographies on Vince, It said, you know, he knew he had this art of knowing when to put his arm around somebody and quietly to them and win to light them up in front of the team. Love it.
And he said, like, I forgot the name of his, like, famous offensive lineman, but he had, like, 2 offensive linemen that, like, he said that I knew after a bad game, I had to, like, in front of the whole locker room, I had to dress those guys down and they would come out the next game and they would just dominate. Right? But his quarterback, he couldn't do that with. If he did that to his quarterback, his quarterback would go in the tank.
You know, wouldn't perform and what he had to do with his quarterback is put his arm around him, go for a walk around the, you know, stadium and talk to him And that's no different. Right? That kind of leadership is no different than happening in 2024. Know your people. Right? If you invest in knowing your people, and treat them all as individuals. Like, you're just gonna get better performance. Right? Are you gonna it's Yeah. You're gonna win more Super Bowl. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf.
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 things.
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 business is to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Yeah. Well, I love that. Well, let's let's talk about this unique.
I haven't had a chance to bring this up in a podcast yet, but since you're a a football fan and a and a Super Bowl, mention there, We've got, you know, Travis Kelsey yelling at, Andy Reid in the Super Bowl just a few weeks ago. I'm in Kansas City. Chiefs fans love what's going on, but the rest of the world was like, who is this maniac? And talk about the the moment there that happened.
And then the subsequent moment that happened later where Andy then followed up with it with a little bit of, you know, a shoulder bump to to Travis a few minutes later. Talk about that. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, I coach football, youth football, and, you know, You wouldn't wanna see me on the football field. Sometimes Chaz, you know, it's it's like how the sausage is made isn't always the prettiest thing. That's right.
There's a beauty of the game of football of a mixture of strategy, passion, effort, motivation, technique, physical skill, But football games are won by teamwork. It's not collections of people, right? And I actually think a football team is a great analogy for a business. Right? Like, you know, your CEO and your leadership team develops a playbook. So to coaches. You walk out of the locker room. Hopefully, everybody sees eye to eye on the playbook. They might not all agree with it.
There might be there's 20 coaches. They might not all agree with it. When they walk out of that room, they coach that playbook. They coach their players. They're in alignment. That's what a great leadership team should do. Yeah. Now It's good. It's not like there's not gonna be any disagreements. I mean, well, you just mentioned like, hey. There's a lot of passion on the field, right, and, you know, football, maybe it's a little different than, you know, the average business.
But Travis Kelsey cares. And one of the things that I love look. I have to warn you. I'm a a LA chargers fan. I've had chargers. He's in tickets for 22 years. But I am a huge, a huge fan of what the chiefs have done their dynasty. I hate to say it, but I've got a quote from Bill Belachek on the back of one of my race cars because erase cars too for fun. I love it. And, you know, there's there's the most important thing is passion and engagement.
And, like, sometimes it's not the prettiest process, but, like, there's a lot of respect that underlies those players relationship with Andy Reed. And, you know, a lot of people didn't understand Chaz one of the reasons that Andy read a seller respected is because he's created an environment of psychological safety for his team where they can be honest with him. Yeah. And that's a big thing. Yeah. And sometimes safety is about honesty.
And in the moment, it is not only the pretty prettiest thing. But what did it mean better if Travis Kelsey hadn't said anything? Like, what did the Chaz have won that game if he hadn't said anything or he hadn't had that moment? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. It's tough in those moments as leaders because, it takes probably experience, but then tools, like, happy to be able to really train this in us. And and so even keeping this example here with with Andy Reid.
It's like, his initial reaction wasn't to turn around and, you know, tackle Travis and bite his head off and tell him don't ever embarrass me in front of the Wolfe, you know, he basically allowed space, right, knowing Travis's profile, whatever that big, excited, passionate outspoken, you know, dominant winner profile is that he has, he gave him space. He let him do his thing. It even caught him a little off guard, like, physically, and he kinda just did his, you know, you know, walked over.
But then later, He came up to him like a good leader, like a good dad, like a good, like, hey, bro. Don't ever do that again, but, you know, Go freaking win. Like, the reason why I called that is because you probably made a knucklehead move or whatever he said, you know, like, they got back into alignment. And he he drew that passion back in. He let it go out of the lines a little bit, but then he he refocused it.
And so I find myself doing that as a leader myself going, whether this person is introverted or extroverted, you know, that neither here nor there, but I'm I'm gonna modify or I'm gonna allow space or, right, autonomy even. For this person on my team or in my businesses to be able to maneuver and be truly them. But if I'm being honest as a driver a big personality, I kinda have to, like, be aware, not kinda I have to really be aware of me so that others can shine.
Just like in that example, can you speak to that for a a quick second? Yeah. I mean, that was a master class from Andy Reed on leadership. Yeah. I've handled that if you if I go back to my 1st 10 years, as a leader. I have made every mistake in the book, and I have not done what Andy Reid did.
I mean, I had one scenario in my early twenties where, you know, I got, you know, somebody that kind of Travis Kelsey'd me, And instead of building space, you know, I lost my marbles and reacted inappropriately for a CEO, got really upset, Had a confrontation. And I remember, you know, just really thinking about that later, about the shame I had of being reactive in the moment and not being the person I wanted to be. And but it takes time. Right? Like, I guarantee you when Andy Reid was 25.
Like, he didn't know how to handle Chaz. Right? And then So it really, to your point, it's just about understanding, like, what tools you have at your disposal. And so, like, know, I don't think you're gonna see happy on the football field anytime soon, but not like, for me, I'm a type a personality. I'm a d a DI. So in happy, we call that a catalyst because we kinda give everybody a persona. But I've got a lot of fire.
And so, you know, knowing where to not react for someone like me is really important. And it's funny you should bring up making space because, like, for for type a personalities, that's, like, a really big thing. And I had a business coach in my early probably, like, early thirties, which, I mean, his name's John Delmetoff. And, ultimately, like, he's the one that I owe like, all of my passion for coaching came from John. He helped me in my career.
And he gave me probably some of the best advice that I've ever gotten in my life, which was I kinda was saying to him, like, Adam, like, so frustrated sometimes, like, something happens. And I'm, like, so frustrated. And I just, like, can't, you know, I have a hard time, like, controlling my emotions. And he's, like, Well, you're gonna have to build a coping mechanism. So what could that be for you? And I'm, like, trying to think about it. And he goes, how about I'm gonna give you one?
He's like, you're gonna go for a walk. A 62nd walk around the block. And he goes, I don't care where you are. You're in the middle of a meeting with, like, your leadership team, and you're literally like, hey, guys. Gotta go to the bathroom and no go to the bathroom walk past the bathroom and just walk around the whole building and come back. That changed my life, Chaz. Like, 60 seconds. I made a lot of laps around the building that year. People are like, where the hell is James?
It's like the dude's walking around the building. They're walking me while they see me just walking around the building. I still have the same emotion. Yeah. But I, like, modified my response to it, and I'm not always good it. Like, I'm still I still love my moments, but that was really good advice. Like and so I think, like, that's what, to your point, like, Andy redid. He couldn't walk away from the sideline, but he built, like, that space for himself.
Yep. And then he was able to come back and, like, be responsive. Yeah. And that's, like, what a real that's what real leadership is to me is, like, not reacting in the way you would instinctually do it, but, like, thinking you're like, how am I gonna respond in a smart way? Yeah. I wanna give a practical, piece on this. We talk a lot about family here on the show as well. I think that family and even marriage plays a huge part into success in business.
And so I wanna ask you a question on that here in a second, but tie this in, even with my kiddos, I've got four year old son who is fiery. Like, he's ready to go to war. Like, he's been shooting a bow for about a year. He's He, I went on a helicopter hog hunt last week, and he's like, dad, like, I got my stuff. I'm ready. I'm like, Wolfe, you're 4. What? That's what we do. With our four year olds, we give him weapons when they when they hire you. Yes. Give them weapons.
He has he has many of them, which has led me to Chaz how to use them, not necessarily stay away from them, how to use them. But, regardless, I digress, he he's this He's this individual who's gonna get angry or frustrated. Maybe that's just him being 4, and maybe all four year olds are like this. My girls weren't quite like this, but he knows to count to 5. Now he doesn't always remember. And so when he's exploding, all Julia I have to do is go, woah. Woah. Woah. Tatum.
And he goes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then he usually smiles and laughs and thinks how ridiculous that this scenario is that he even got upset about it, Hugs his sister, and they go back to playing. And it's like, wow. If I had been not one self aware, 2, aware of just the functionality or the emotional peace that was happening inside of him or my other children, how could I lead him? To even be the best version of himself. And this is really what we're talking about in organizations.
It's like, okay, as a leader, I'm going to, a, take responsibility for being self aware. And that means to study myself, really learn the nuances of how I think or how I act my emotions, and then how can that interact best with my wife my tea my my kids, my team, my businesses, people on a podcast, whatever. And I think we've given the the listeners a lot of practical on Chaz. What do you think about just assessments, maybe even happy in marriage, in kids?
How does that help maybe a high performing our CEO, maybe balance things out a little bit. I don't like the word balance. I like obsession, but how how can I lean into some like that with even a tool like yours? Boy, you're you're queuing me up. Perfect, Chaz. You've done this before. Just a couple times. I'm gonna I'm gonna do since I've done this six times in this podcast, I'm gonna do this for the 7 time. I'm gonna turn the question around.
So I think what you're saying is, like, you've discovered the value of self awareness and then the assessment is a tool that you use as part of your arsenal, and then that modifies your outcomes, right, your behaviors, even you're describing with your family. Right? Like, If you didn't have that self awareness, you probably wouldn't even be able to talk to your son about it. Right?
Right. So I think the first part of unlocking the key, whether it's your family, your marriage, your business, your organization, is I think some CEOs. And I think right now, this is really important for a CEO or leader because the world's changing. The future of work's different. Like, workers expect more flexibility. They wanna work from they all wanna work from the office. They wanna have a hybrid experience.
You know, our gen z is looking for totally different things that works that, like, maybe you and I looked for. So I think the first thing is, like, what is a CEO or leader or someone a family? Like, you start thinking about it and they go, well, what could I get? With a great marriage. Well, you get happiness. What do I get if I have my children that can be adaptable and patient and listen, Wolfe you get, hopefully, kids that'll be higher performers in life.
But there's one really thing that I think that I think, and it's a controversial thing. But I think a lot of CEOs that don't get it or that haven't gotten it yet, say the following words. Wolfe, I know that, you know, having a good culture is important, or I think that, you know, having engaged people is, you know, that's important. But I have other priorities right now.
And it's usually followed by, like, my board's asking me to grow profits by 20% or I have a new product line or, like, I have some other initiative. And it's this, like, this kind of, I call it, you think people, like, getting people better Chaz like a vitamin. It's like, well, that's just like good. It's like a multivitamin. Like, you know, I do I want my people engaged? Sure. But it's like, you know, it's like a bonus. But I really need to have a company that performs.
Yeah. And that's ridiculous because the data it's not even close. The data shows that organized that companies that have engaged people and that have high levels of co of organizational culture and happy employees, they are way more profitable. They are way more productive. They have way more retention They have better customer reviews, but some people can't see that.
And so whether it's your family, your job, your work, you know, your career, your wife, your kids, you gotta start with, like, what's your outcome? And, you know, because how many times have you and look, we've all done this as a parent. You know, your kid has done something that makes you super frustrated and you overreact. Oh, yeah. Well, in the moment, that's maybe, like, you're so frustrated that you just, like, yell at your child.
You're not I don't mean a mean way, but you're just, like, you know, you're frustrated. But then You know, what are you teaching your your family? And I think of it the same way when a CEO says something like, Well, I know that having engaged employees is important, but, like, we have other priorities.
And I think, like, what bigger priority is than your humans that work for you every Like, I don't care if you buy happy, but, like, if people aren't your priority, I guarantee you your organization is not gonna perform well over time. Yeah. Wolfe found the same thing even with, you know, clients, you know, and you're and you're dealing with you know, really enterprise level.
And we've got kind of a little bit of a smorgasbord of size companies inside of a Gathering King's mastermind group, but it's the same thing. It's like when you when you when you can, I don't know, take the focus off of the thing that you think the focus is, like, the result of what culture and happy people and joy and fulfillment and all these things in the workplace or inside the team are the things that you're actually after? But but we do this in life. Right?
Like, I I want a a great marriage, but I'm not willing to date my Wolfe. Or I'm, like, I'm too busy for that or whatever the scenario is, especially as entrepreneurs, because, you know, I'm not organized or I don't time block or some of the very basic things that help us just look at intentionality a little differently.
What I'm hearing you say is, look, the thing that you actually want If you would just take a different route, not only do other people get the benefit, you actually get what you want. Am am I hearing you right? Well, it's funny. I mean, I would say I spent at least half my life getting this wrong Chaz, which is just something really simple. You know, everybody you mentioned the word, like, intentionality and, like, Chaz, like, that's a beautiful word.
Because if you don't live with intention, it's very hard to find a North Star every day. Like, you don't walk around and just it doesn't hit you in the face of like, oh, what's my intention for my life? The most difficult exercise ever went through. I mentioned that business coach, John. So I was going through kind of like a difficult part of my time in my life where I was kind of, confused about my direction of what I wanted to do for the next 10 or 15 years.
And I actually had also, like, an aerovative doctor, which will never have time for this. But I had, like, asked some people I really respect in my life, like, to give me some some sage advice about the rest of my life. Yeah. And I kind of got the same advice for both of them. Go take a blank pad of paper, walk into your backyard, sit down on a blanket and write down, throw money out. Forget money. How do you want what are the kind of outcomes you want for the rest of your life?
Like, what do you wanna do with the rest of your life? Think of the things that are important. Make a list of everything that's important. And I'm like, this is easy. I I can throw money out. Money doesn't matter. Like, my salary doesn't matter. I'm gonna take this pad of paper, and I'm gonna, like, you know, this blank pad of paper, and I'm gonna, like, walk in my backyard with a pen. And I'm like, this is easy. An hour, and I'm gonna, like, have everything written down.
Chaz, I sat back there with this damn pad of paper for 3, 4 hours. Dude, I Chaz, like it was like a bad, you know, nightmare. I'd like, there was nothing left to the pad. It was down to, like, four pages. I had scrambled up so many papers. They were all writing your life story. It's a lot of hard work, man, to do Chaz. And that's that intentionality that you're talking about. Yeah. If you don't have a North star for yourself, How can you really live your life to its true fulfillment?
Like, you can't. You can't. But people, it's hard to do the work. It's really hard. And I and that's where happy came from. I, like, literally wrote all this stuff down, and and both of my parents were psychologists, which is explains a lot about my crazy, you know, brain. But what I ultimately wrote down on that piece of paper is like, man, I wanna do something big to help people work better together. Yeah. And, like, the I just thought about it a lot. I'm like, I gotta do this somehow.
And that's what eventually drove the next 3 years of my life. But, like, if I hadn't sat on that stupid chair in my backyard for, like, 4 hours. By the way, it wasn't just one day. It was, like, a week's worth of this over, like, 3 months. I've just felt like a total idiot. Like, who can't plan their life? Like, you can put anything you want. You want a speedboat and go to, you know, Monaco. But when you can do anything, like, really, it's hard.
I don't know if you've ever done anything like that, but it is a hard exercise. Yeah. Well, I think that you're you're spot on for off, I have to say, yes, you're right. It the intentionality, you know, sitting down and and creating space. Again, here we are, being intentional about time, really is what it is, and going, okay.
Well, if I'm calm in the moment and I'm not caught up with the passion or the money or the whatever it is that we're we're talking about, and I'm just thinking and creating space for that. And what it what's processing, because really what we're allowing in that moment, like, truly, and you probably know this from your parents, but I'm I'm allowing a different part of my brain to operate. Right?
I'm I'm allowing the deeper parts of my thoughts to to to come out, and it's not just things that are happening underneath that I'm I'm unaware of, but I'm I'm being conscious of those things now. And so the things that came out of for you, anybody can do. You know, they can they can take that exercise. And then the intentionality of going, how do I execute on that is obviously what you're doing. It's what I'm doing. Gathering the Kings is me, I have multiple companies.
But gathering the Kings is part of what that exercise produced in me, which is going, okay. What up what's what is this all really about? You know, I've got some skills. I've got some background. I've got some history. I've got some family. But what What is this? What what am I supposed to do on this ball of mud? Right? What's the purpose here? And I think that we will eventually all come to that conclusion as long as there's created space, which is driven from intentionality.
And now that I have that now that you have that, now it's intentionality that carries us through to the completion of that definite chief aim. Right? Because there's gonna have to be persistence and and a push through, and there's gonna be conflict and things that we're gonna have to overcome. And but we hold on to those moments that you create. And it's like, woah. This is powerful, and I'm going to do it. We are doing it.
There's no question on whether happy is gonna be an amazing tool for 1000 of 1000 of employees. You've already decided that. Right? You know, I'll give you you're right. I don't tell a lot of people this, but I'm gonna share this with you. So, you know, when I did that exercise in my backyard, what I ultimately came down to is, like, 7 47. So I this was probably 4 or 5 years ago. So I was in my early forties, and I realized that, like, money didn't really matter. Which money is great.
Like, I mean, it's, like, a nice thing to have, and I'm not trying to say, like, I know you've talked a little bit about getting to the where, you know, sell I'm not saying sell worth isn't important. I do think it is. I think having goals is important, but, ultimately, it's not like what the money brings. It's like, the value of time and freedom.
And let's, like but really, like, you know, I've spent all these years, and I've had a nice house I've got a nice view, and I live in wine country in Temecula. And so it's like this, you know, it's like, we live a nice life. The time was the one thing left on that piece of paper. Like, I'm not gonna take the rest of the crap with me, but, like, the time how the intentionality of, like, how I spend my time.
That's, like, the one thing, because I could get to 60 and have a hit product and make a bunch of money, but maybe only have 20 years left to live. Right? Right. So I write something on the top of my to do list every day, Chaz. And that is how many days left I have to live. And I estimated my dad lived to 92. My mom lived to mid 80. So I split the metal, and I I I have 85. I put 85 years.
I'm 47. I write down every day I subtract 1 day from my likely life expectancy, and there's nothing that has driven the value of time for me more than writing that number down. Because if you really wanna think about, like, how do you invest your time in your life? Like, that's the one thing is, like, that, you know, death does not escape any of us.
Yeah. And whether it's building gathering the kings or happy companies or anything else we do in life, like, that's a that's the one commodity that, like, can't be bought. Yeah. So I think to your point of, like, really being able to, like, dial in to, like, where you invest your time. Like, that's the biggest investment decision you make. Right?
And, like, for you, like, this podcast and trying to build, like, Gavin and the Kings for you, it sounds like it's part of your vision of how you wanna be intentional about spending your time. Like, it's part of your vision for your life. And, like, the fact that it takes a lot of discipline to do that. That's beautiful that you're doing now. Right? Like, the twenty year old version of Chaz probably doesn't do that. Right. Right. Yeah. It's interesting.
And and we'll circle up with this, but I had a I had a buddy, I don't know, maybe a year and a half, 2 years ago. He he tipped me off to a an app called parent queue. And parent queue, you put in your kid's names and their age or their, you know, their birth date. And and then poops up their profile, and it gives you the days left until they turn 18. And it's just like, woah. And you see it counting down every day. The days left until they're 18.
And, obviously, 18, they're know, adults and on and doing their own thing. It doesn't mean that their life is over, but it just means, like, they're under your care and time's moving. And so that same effect that you just described, I had that a couple years ago with that, but time, purpose intentionality What would you say to the guy just to kind of as a last little piece here? What would you say to the guy or gal listening and going like, I I want Chaz.
But, like, I don't I don't even know where to start. James, like, I hear you, you know, working, learning myself and working inside of an environment using tools like happy and, like, all that's good. I'm, like, check check. But for me, personally, for you, James, how did you, like, get to that place where you're just like, okay. Something's gotta give. I gotta do something different or next level, what was it? What can they do? What would you give to them? It's simple. Figure out what you love.
I think that One of the biggest misconceptions about success is I think people put money ahead of love and doing what they're passionate about. And my experience has been if you find Chaz the craft that you love, whatever you It could be snowboarding. It could be music. It could be whatever it is that just you wake up in the morning and, like, that's what you think about, you can make a career about just about anything. Some people love cleaning.
And if you love cleaning, you might own a cleaning company. Like, you like organizing, you might be run a company that organizes organizes projects. If you love wine, you might go own a winery. I just think that tapping into this into whatever motivates you and gets you up in the morning, that's what I think makes for a great life. Like, there's a there's a phrase, and I've hated this for years.
In any of my employees or anybody in my company's ever said this, I work for the weekend or something like, you know, this is just a job to me when I get home. I'm, you know, such and such Chaz my passion. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, do what you love every day. Like, if you love surfing, That's what you should do. Like, figure out just do surfing every day. Like, go work in a surf shop, go build surfboards, go make wax, Go right for a surfing magazine.
Like, do the thing that do whatever that thing is, whatever, like Yeah. Just gets you jacked up about life. Just go do that. And it makes all the other stuff. Like, we talk about happy and self awareness and all Chaz. And all that stuff is great, but it's really hard to get motivated to become self aware and build better work relationships when you walk into work every day, and you're like, well, this is just a job. And I don't even like what I do.
And this is just I'm just, like, going through the motions because it's hard to get jacked up and excited about self awareness and your coworkers when you just don't give an ass. Like, you don't care? If it doesn't motivate you, all the rest of it doesn't even matter. But when you actually care and you're motivated every day to do something you love, everything else starts falling in place.
And now you're like, investing in myself awareness matters, investing in my coworkers matters, it, like, investing and learning and education. All that stuff matters because you actually care about what you do. And I think a lot of people I know this has nothing to do with happy. But I think a lot of people just forget how important it is to, like, find what they love, whatever their craft is. Like, remember, it comes back to time. You and I talked about time. Shouldn't it be good?
Should shouldn't you want to invest your time in something that, like, speaks to you right here? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's something unique, especially for entrepreneurs, but even for those that are, working inside of a an organization, their their role in that, can be exactly what you're talking about. It can be something that they love, and I love how you've given that direction. James, where can someone find happy. They wanna sign up. They wanna use the assessment.
They want they want the AI tool to tell me how to work with my boss. Where can they find you. Happycompanies.com. Love it. We'll put that in the show notes as Wolfe. And any other contact information that you wanna give to us, it'll be right there in the show notes for you. For you to be able to click on and find James. You have been incredible here today. I cannot wait to see what happy does and how it continues to revolutionize.
And for the assessment that that we use, we need to get you attached, it sounds like, because it doesn't even sound like you're in competition. It sounds like you're an overlay We need to figure out how to get this working because they're right here in my backyard, and we need to get it done. So we're making an introduction, James. I appreciate you being here. We have blessings to you. Your many businesses, all the things that you're touching at 2024. Thanks for being here.
Thank you, Chaz. 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 in 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 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, that 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 in and resonates with you. And you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners want you to go to gathering the king's dot 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.