0:23

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining me

0:23

for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts.

0:27

Today, I'm chatting with Jesan

0:27

Sorrells, an MA in conflict

0:31

resolution and reconciliation

0:31

from Abilene Christian

0:35

University turned entrepreneur. Jesan is the founder and CEO

0:37

of HSCT Publishing, the host

0:43

of the Leadership Lessons

0:43

from the Great Books podcast,

0:45

the author of 12 Rules for

0:45

Leaders, and much more.

0:49

Jesan, welcome to the show. Thanks for, for joining us.

0:52

Hi, Jesse. Thank you for having me on. I really am gonna

0:54

enjoy this today.

0:56

And I look forward to talking

0:56

with you and your listeners.

1:00

Absolutely. Thank you for, for reaching

1:02

out to me originally.

1:04

Sometimes people are

1:04

curious how I find guests.

1:07

A lot of times they're

1:07

old connections or, or

1:10

people that I've found. Jesan was actually one

1:11

who reached out to me.

1:13

So always glad for people

1:13

to reach out to the show.

1:16

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I do love what

1:17

you're doing here. I love what you're putting

1:19

together, the project you were putting together and love to

1:21

support folks when they are

1:25

in not only the podcasting

1:25

space, but also the...

1:28

well, just in general, the

1:28

space of trying to help

1:31

people become better people.

1:33

So, and of course , one of

1:33

our missions here is helping

1:36

leaders become better leaders.

1:39

So, so Jesan,

1:39

before we dive into how you

1:43

found your way from that MA

1:43

in conflict resolution and

1:47

reconciliation to life as an

1:47

entrepreneur, can you tell

1:51

us a little bit about all of

1:51

the things you're doing now?

1:54

I, I mean, I mentioned the

1:54

publishing company, one of your

1:58

podcasts, and your, your book.

2:00

Maybe you could kind of

2:00

tie it all together for us?

2:03

Like, like what is the, the

2:03

output that you are you're

2:05

producing as an entrepreneur?

2:07

Absolutely. So, the output that I'm

2:08

producing as an entrepreneur

2:10

really focuses around

2:10

this idea of leadership.

2:14

In particular,

2:14

intentional leadership.

2:17

We fundamentally believe

2:17

here at HSCT Publishing

2:19

that all problems in all

2:19

organizations can be resolved

2:24

through the effective

2:24

application of intentional

2:27

leadership practices. Now, I said a number of

2:29

different things there. And I made a bold statement,

2:31

and I realize that it's bold.

2:34

But it is that idea of

2:34

intentional application.

2:38

We want people to lead

2:38

with their brains on.

2:40

Right? And leading with your brain

2:41

on whether you're at work,

2:44

whether you're at home,

2:44

or whether you are in the

2:46

community really requires

2:46

you to engage and engage

2:51

emotionally, engage spiritually,

2:51

engage psychologically.

2:55

It requires you to engage. And so the books are

2:56

about engagement.

2:59

12 Rules for Leaders is

2:59

our most recent book,

3:01

as you have mentioned. But we also had a book that

3:02

came out about six years ago,

3:05

which is timely for now called

3:05

My Boss Doesn't Care, 100 Essays

3:09

on Disrupting Your Workplace

3:09

by Disrupting Your Boss.

3:11

Everybody laughs at that title. Everybody loves that title.

3:14

Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah.

3:15

It is. And then of course, the

3:16

Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

3:18

where we read a great book

3:21

for you, so that you don't

3:21

have to do it as a leader.

3:24

Or we read a great piece of

3:24

literature and then we pull

3:29

lessons from that great book

3:29

or from that great piece of

3:33

literature that leaders can

3:33

apply to their lived lives.

3:37

It is about practicality. It is about intentionality.

3:40

And of course I host another

3:40

podcast called the Jesan

3:43

Sorrell's Audio Experience,

3:43

which is a wide ranging podcast

3:46

where we talk to entrepreneurs. We talk to business leaders, we

3:48

talk to pastors and theologians.

3:52

We talk to psychologists. And we try to figure out what

3:54

exactly it is that unites

3:58

all of these folks in common. So we're doing a

4:00

lot of work here. We're producing a lot of

4:01

content, and this is in addition to blog posts.

4:04

We have a couple of Facebook groups. We've just got a lot of

4:06

things going on over here.

4:08

I wanted to

4:08

ask about that, a little bit

4:11

more about the intentional

4:11

leadership, but first I was,

4:14

uh, just a little curious for

4:14

your great books podcast is

4:17

great books like in the sense

4:17

of, now I'm drawing a blank

4:21

on the university in Annapolis

4:21

and New Mexico, that's, you

4:26

know, famous for like the great

4:26

books of the Western canon.

4:28

Is it... that canon or is it kind

4:29

of ... what qualifies as a great

4:32

book for, for your podcast?

4:34

Sure, sure. And this is a great

4:35

question because

4:37

St. John's University? That

4:38

John's

4:38

what I was trying, trying to think of. Yeah.

4:40

It is. Yes. Well, not only St John's

4:42

university, but Cambridge

4:44

University or, or even

4:44

Columbia University has still

4:47

has a great books program,

4:47

which is kind of amazing.

4:50

When we talk about great books

4:50

in the Western canon, we are

4:53

really talking about those

4:53

classics that are usually,

4:57

, lambasted very often as

4:57

being, you know, about being

5:00

written by dead white males. Right? Now, there were a lot of white

5:03

individuals and this, they

5:06

were, a lot of them were male

5:06

and a lot of them are dead.

5:09

so we can't get away from that,

5:09

but it is about reading the

5:13

books that have really stood

5:13

the test of time as foundational

5:17

books for Western thought. Right? So I'll give you an example.

5:20

We read St. Augustine's City of God on the

5:21

podcast and broke that down.

5:25

Almost nobody reads City

5:25

of God now outside of

5:28

a theological program. Right? But we're also reading

5:30

Friedrich Nietzsche's

5:32

Thus Spake Zarathustra. And we are bringing a couple of

5:34

folks on to talk about Nietzche.

5:39

Most recently, we recorded an

5:39

episode which will be coming

5:42

out in September, on, Joseph

5:42

Conrad's Heart of Darkness,

5:46

, which, , Apocalypse Now, the

5:46

movie Apocalypse Now, was

5:48

based off of that, off of

5:48

that book back in the 1970s.

5:52

But we also read books by, you

5:52

know, Virginia Woolf or by W.

5:56

E. B. Du Bois or Chinua Achebe.

5:58

Right? So we're expanding the canon.

6:01

Our longest podcast episode,

6:01

which was a four hour one,

6:04

featured Miyamoto Musashi's

6:04

A Book of Five Rings.

6:07

And so we talked about a book of five rings. We talked about how martial

6:09

arts and sales, how jujitsu

6:12

and jeet kun do all meet

6:12

together in Miyamoto Musashi's

6:17

understanding of What does it

6:17

mean to actually be a warrior?

6:21

What does it actually mean

6:21

to be a focused sales leader?

6:23

And have you apply that those

6:23

lessons to your real lived life?

6:27

So a lot of content there

6:27

and I read about four heavy

6:30

duty books a month to make

6:30

sure that this happens.

6:33

For those of

6:33

you who love reading and

6:35

love reading the thicker

6:35

denser books, there are

6:38

other opportunities besides

6:38

professorships to, to

6:41

engage with these things. You were talking about

6:42

unintentional versus

6:44

intentional leadership. What are a few things an

6:46

unintentional leader does

6:48

versus an intentional leader,

6:48

just to get a better sense of,

6:52

of what you're doing there?

6:53

Sure. Sure. So an unintentional

6:54

leader does all of the

6:56

things that we identify

6:56

as bad leadership, right?

7:00

So an unintentional leader

7:00

is tone deaf to their people.

7:03

An unintentional leader

7:03

lacks emotional intelligence.

7:07

An unintentional leader makes

7:07

decisions that are more reactive

7:11

than they are proactive.

7:15

An unintentional leader doesn't

7:15

often care about their people

7:18

because they don't know how to

7:18

care about their people, because

7:21

they're not paid very often

7:21

to care about their people.

7:25

An unintentional leader may be a

7:25

bureaucrat merely following the

7:28

rules, collecting a paycheck and

7:28

then going home and not really

7:33

leading their people, sitting

7:33

in a position, holding a,

7:36

here's an old school word from

7:36

literature, holding a sinecure.

7:39

Right? And not really moving forward.

7:42

And it's not as if anybody

7:42

intentionally becomes

7:44

an unintentional leader. Usually it is through

7:46

circumstances.

7:48

Usually it is through

7:48

position and status, and

7:51

usually it is through habit.

7:53

And so breaking those

7:53

habitual behaviors, making,

7:56

helping people, not making,

7:56

helping people recognize

7:59

what those habitual behaviors

7:59

are, is a key piece of

8:01

the work that we do here.

8:03

So I'm, I'm pretty

8:03

fascinated by how you went

8:06

from grad school to, to this.

8:08

And if we could just go back

8:08

a little bit in time, I

8:12

know that you have a BFA,

8:12

was it in design of...?

8:16

So, yeah, so my,

8:16

my bachelor of fine arts degree

8:18

is actually in printmaking,

8:18

with a minor in drawing.

8:21

And I almost got a minor in painting.

8:23

So when you

8:23

were wrapping up that BFA,

8:26

what were you, what were you

8:26

thinking in terms of why you

8:30

wanted to go to grad school,

8:30

what you were hoping to do?

8:32

I mean, just in general,

8:32

but also that shift from BFA

8:36

to this, you know, conflict

8:36

resolution, reconciliation.

8:39

Not, not exactly a linear

8:39

path that that most of us

8:43

would assume, uh, someone

8:43

would take after finishing

8:46

your undergrad degree.

8:47

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Jesse, if, if your listeners

8:49

go and look at my LinkedIn

8:52

profile, and please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you're listening

8:54

to this podcast, but, if you

8:57

go and look at my LinkedIn

8:57

profile, it is a winding road

9:00

through many different, uh,

9:00

through many different areas.

9:03

And so coming out of the BFA

9:03

program, I'll be honest, Jesse,

9:07

my first thought was, How do

9:07

I get a job and feed myself.

9:10

And I applied to, , a number of

9:10

different printmaking studios

9:14

to be a printmaking assistant. You know, I did the

9:16

hard work, right? But at the same time, while I

9:17

had been in college, pursuing

9:21

my artistic endeavors, I had

9:21

also at the same time been

9:24

trying to learn business. And so I had taken a couple

9:26

of business classes, , which I

9:29

wasn't really impressed with. And then I had also wound up

9:31

working in the administrative

9:34

end of higher education as

9:34

a residence director and

9:38

basically a jumped up RA. And if any of your listeners

9:40

have ever lived on campus, you'll know what that is.

9:43

That invariably led me down the

9:43

path towards conflict resolution

9:47

and reconciliation and

9:47

entrepreneurship, because the

9:50

work that you do with students

9:50

in a highly administrative

9:53

environment, the work that you

9:53

do with 18 and 19 year olds

9:57

really does involve leadership. It involves team building.

9:59

It involves conflict, it

9:59

involves managing a budget, it

10:03

involves making hard decisions

10:03

financially about what can

10:07

be done in a particular year. And what can't.

10:09

It also involves listening to a

10:09

lot of wild, crazy, hair-brained

10:12

ideas and saying No to some of

10:12

them saying Yes to others and

10:17

being in the gray area with

10:17

many of them and just seeing

10:20

if they are going to work. And so all of the elements

10:22

of creativity that you

10:24

would think would be in the

10:24

arts are also in the space

10:27

of working with students. So over the long course of

10:28

years, I wound up working at

10:31

the University of Minnesota. And while working at the

10:33

University of Minnesota, I was able to pursue, the degree with

10:34

Abilene Christian University,

10:38

through a partnership there. And pursued that degree, and

10:39

literally every day that I

10:42

showed up to, to work on that

10:42

degree, I was experiencing

10:44

something similar in, in

10:44

higher education in my,

10:48

in my administrative work. That invariably led me to

10:50

entrepreneurship because after I

10:53

got done with higher education,

10:53

once again, I was looking around

10:55

saying, How do I eat here?

10:58

And at the time I was married. I had a few kids.

11:02

And, you know, they, they

11:02

do like to eat and they,

11:05

they do continue to grow. And so you do have to

11:07

do something, you gotta

11:10

live in the world. And so, really looked around

11:11

and I said, What are all the

11:13

skill sets that I have here? And this is a critical question

11:15

for your listeners as well.

11:17

When they're thinking about

11:17

their path, What are the

11:20

critical skills I have that

11:20

other people don't and that

11:25

they are willing to pay for? Now, that's an important

11:27

intersection because we

11:30

all have skills that other

11:30

people don't have for sure.

11:33

We all have that. But we all might not have

11:34

skills, that other people

11:37

don't have that other people

11:37

are willing to pay for.

11:40

That's an important distinction. And so we have to

11:42

recognize that.

11:44

And we had to put, I had to put those, the intersection of those two things together.

11:48

And then I thought, this is my second thought, Where can I go with this?

11:54

And what's the number

11:54

one place where people

11:56

spend most of their time? And the number one people,

11:57

number one place where people spend most of

11:59

their time is at work.

12:02

I'm curious

12:02

about the, the program itself.

12:05

, is it a bit of psychology,

12:05

philosophy, political science,

12:08

like, like what were you reading

12:08

and studying in that program?

12:12

So there's three different tracks in the program. There's a theological track.

12:15

There's a school track, which

12:15

I did not go down because

12:18

it's mostly K through 12. There's a, a divorce

12:20

and family track.

12:23

And so out of those three tracks, that was the one that I picked.

12:26

I went down the divorce

12:26

and family mediation track.

12:28

And so I learned a

12:28

lot about mediation.

12:30

I learned a lot about how

12:30

people's emotions work

12:34

in the mediation space. We studied a lot of, as you

12:36

mentioned, psychology, , but

12:39

also a lot of philosophy.

12:41

A lot of thinking about

12:41

how do you structure

12:44

the mediation table? And what does an act of

12:45

mediation do for people?

12:48

Or what does it not do for people? Why do people in the United

12:50

States maybe favor mediation a

12:53

little bit less, whereas people

12:53

in Europe and in Australia

12:57

favor it a little bit more. And by the way, there are

12:58

fundamental differences in the ways in which the cultures

13:00

of Europe, the culture of

13:03

Australia differs in, in the

13:03

face of mediation in comparison

13:07

to the culture of America. And of course, we

13:09

looked at the law. Now that doesn't mean I read for

13:10

the law or that I'm a lawyer.

13:13

Don't get, don't get wrong. I'm not, don't get it confused.

13:16

I'm not a lawyer. And I do not give

13:16

out legal advice. But we did learn how to read

13:18

certain pieces of the law.

13:24

And how to examine those in

13:24

light of what was happening

13:27

at the mediation table. This allowed me to become a

13:29

Texas state certified mediator,

13:32

which I am by virtue of

13:32

having my, my master's degree.

13:36

It also allowed me in various

13:36

other states in the union

13:38

to do mediation work at a

13:38

very high level, higher than

13:42

a usual volunteer would be. And most of the volunteers

13:44

at community community

13:46

mediation centers are great. It allowed me to do that work

13:48

that a much higher level than,

13:51

than what they were doing. And it certified me to be

13:52

able to train other mediators

13:55

in how to do this work.

13:57

Were you planning

13:57

on, maybe not a full career,

14:00

but were you planning to,

14:00

to work in marriage, family

14:04

therapy services of some sort? What did you end up

14:05

doing right after that?

14:08

Yes. I was planning on

14:09

working in that space.

14:11

That was the initial, that was the initial thought. And I found out very quickly

14:13

that people in America don't

14:18

really want to pay for that. What we like in America

14:20

is we like litigation.

14:23

We enjoy, and we are

14:23

structurally and culturally

14:27

oriented towards litigation. And that's not a

14:29

knock on America.

14:31

That's just a, a state, , a

14:31

statement of fact, you

14:34

know, about where we are. We would prefer if we're in a

14:35

car accident to sue somebody

14:38

or have our insurance companies

14:38

sue each other, right?

14:41

Whereas if you're in a car

14:41

accident in Australia and I'm

14:44

sure your Australia listeners

14:44

can confirm this, you go

14:46

directly into mediation or

14:46

your insurance companies

14:49

go to mediation, right? And here's the other dynamic

14:50

that almost no one talks about, when you're dealing with

14:52

divorces, when you're dealing

14:55

with family mediations, you're

14:55

seeing other people's trauma.

14:58

And you're seeing it in a

14:58

very raw, very real way.

15:02

You are seeing abuse.

15:04

You are seeing drug abuse,

15:04

physical abuse, psychological

15:07

abuse, emotional abuse, and of

15:07

course, sexual abuse, sometimes.

15:10

You are experiencing and

15:10

dealing with other people's...

15:15

not only other people's

15:15

trauma, but the trauma of

15:17

people around the people who

15:17

are involved in the mediation.

15:20

Right? So it's not just the two

15:21

parties who are involved.

15:24

It's also their kids. It's also their neighbors. It's also their in-laws.

15:27

It's, it's anybody who the trauma touches. Right?

15:29

After doing a few few,

15:29

a few hundred hours of

15:32

practice mediations, you

15:32

know, I, I, I decided that

15:37

I didn't wanna bring that

15:37

trauma home to my children.

15:39

Right? I wanted it to be a little

15:40

bit more removed from me.

15:43

I have known many mediators

15:43

in my time who have gotten

15:46

divorced themselves after being

15:46

divorce and family mediators.

15:50

And so I thought that's

15:50

not really something that

15:52

I want to go through,

15:52

either unintentionally

15:55

or intentionally. I don't wanna get caught

15:56

by someone else's trauma,

15:58

at least not at that level. So switching over to

16:01

workplaces for me was very

16:04

easy because workplaces are

16:04

a place where we bring all

16:07

of this stuff, but we put a

16:07

sheen over it and we hide it.

16:10

And we put on a good show. Now post COVID that's a

16:12

little bit different because

16:14

everything has collapsed. All the boxes that we use to

16:15

use to separate ourselves,

16:18

have all collapsed together. But back then 10 years

16:19

ago now, , that was a

16:23

dynamic that I didn't, I didn't want to deal with.

16:25

So, you know, you

16:25

did your few hundred hours and

16:29

you decided it wasn't for you. What type of roles did you

16:31

have after that before you

16:35

ventured into entrepreneurship?

16:37

Yep. So I had stayed in

16:37

higher education. And I had kind of, sort

16:39

of advanced through there.

16:42

But I'd wound up moving along

16:42

from the work that I was doing

16:45

at the University of Minnesota

16:45

to doing the same work at Ithaca

16:48

College, which is the other

16:48

college in Ithaca, New York,

16:51

that is on the other hill. So, I went there and was

16:53

tasked with, with building

16:56

a program, for first year

16:56

students, which I did somewhat

17:00

successfully, I think. I think the program's

17:01

still going on there... and built relationships

17:03

and engaged with folks and

17:06

eventually through a whole

17:06

series of somewhat unforeseen

17:11

events, which would take too

17:11

long to go into on this podcast,

17:14

but, you know, through a series

17:14

of unforeseen events basically

17:18

quit that role, you know. And I, and I didn't have

17:19

anything, on the horizon.

17:22

And so entrepreneurship looked

17:22

really good because the area

17:26

that I was moving into was

17:26

an area where there weren't a

17:29

lot of opportunities for a guy

17:29

with my particular skill sets,

17:33

coming in from the outside.

17:35

So after you,

17:35

you left that role and you

17:38

said entrepreneurship looked

17:38

like one of the better things

17:40

on the horizon, did you have

17:40

this idea of leadership?

17:45

Where did you start? What was your focus initially?

17:48

Yeah. So initially my focus was in

17:48

conflict because I thought,

17:52

and I was, and, and I still

17:52

think this today, conflict

17:54

gets you into everything, kind

17:54

of like The Godfather, right?

17:57

The Godfather used to tell his

17:57

sons, you know, If you become a

18:00

lawyer, you can steal more money

18:00

with a briefcase than a gun.

18:04

Back in that old school movie. And so the the, the flip

18:06

on that is you can get into

18:11

everything if you're willing

18:11

to go and engage with other

18:14

people's conflicts, even if

18:14

they're conflicts at work.

18:17

Most people are afraid of conflict. Most people are afraid

18:19

of confrontation. They confuse those two things.

18:21

They think that confrontation

18:21

and conflict are the same thing.

18:24

And by the way, just as

18:24

a side note, they're not.

18:26

Right? Confrontation is just

18:27

saying, Jesse, you and I

18:31

are at a crossroads here,

18:31

because there is some issue

18:35

about which we disagree. That's all confrontation is.

18:37

It's saying that there's a disagreement. It's recognizing that

18:39

there's a problem, right?

18:42

Conflict is everything that

18:42

happens after that statement.

18:46

Whether you agree, whether I

18:46

agree, whether we disagree...

18:49

how does that path go? What the escalation

18:51

looks like, what the deescalation looks like.

18:54

How do we negotiate?

18:56

Do we bring in a third party? Do we appeal to rules

18:58

and regulations?

19:00

All of those things come

19:00

after confrontation.

19:04

Most people, however,

19:04

don't recognize that

19:07

confrontation and conflict

19:07

have a gap in between them.

19:10

And most people can make intentional decisions inside of that gap and

19:12

choose to have a conflict.

19:17

What did your, your first venture in entrepreneurship look like?

19:21

Yeah, the first venture entrepreneurship looked like me literally pulling my

19:23

grad school syllabus, looking at

19:28

all the topics that were covered

19:28

on my grad school syllabus,

19:31

and saying to myself, Okay that

19:31

topic, I could take that topic

19:35

and turn it into a product. And I think the topic was, just

19:37

conflict, Conflict Management

19:40

101, something like that. Because again, around

19:41

those, the intersection of those two questions, what

19:43

skillsets do I have that

19:46

people will pay me for? So I think people will

19:48

pay me for conflict. I'm gonna take a bet and

19:49

make ...and not take a bet, I'm gonna make a bet, right?

19:52

People will pay me for

19:52

resolving conflict or they'll

19:55

pay me for teaching them

19:55

how to resolve conflict.

19:57

Teach me how to fish

19:57

or fish for the man.

20:00

Which one do you want to do? Right. And so I was gonna do a

20:01

combination of both of those. And so I started out as just

20:04

a, a jumped up trainer.

20:07

Right. A jumped up consultant. And running around.

20:10

And literally I was running around going to networking events, doing

20:11

speaking engagements for

20:14

free back in the day. This was 2013, 2012, 2013.

20:19

Podcasting was not the

20:19

thing that it is now.

20:21

Although if it had been, I

20:21

would've gone on podcasts.

20:24

A lot of self-promotion. I wrote a lot of blog

20:25

posts, back in 2013.

20:28

To date, I think I've written

20:28

close to 500 blog posts around

20:31

conflict leadership, dealing

20:31

with difficult people, dealing

20:34

with dysfunctional behavior,

20:34

confrontation, all these

20:37

...entrepreneurship, marketing,

20:37

all these kinds of areas.

20:40

Right? And I built a plan for

20:41

how to market myself

20:44

fairly aggressively. And I will say this, you know, I

20:46

blogged for nine months straight

20:51

into the void and distributed

20:51

that on LinkedIn and thought

20:54

no one was looking at it. And then did find out that

20:55

someone was looking at it and

20:58

they gave me my first big break. And I wound up working, working

21:00

with them in partnership

21:02

with our, our local community

21:02

college in the area that

21:04

I was in at the time. Wound up getting into a

21:06

partnership with them where

21:08

they basically sourced leads

21:08

for me, sent them to me.

21:11

And then I went out and did the work. And then after that,

21:12

the business exploded.

21:15

So, so the

21:15

first product was essentially

21:18

you, you and your services. I mean, you were doing the,

21:19

the, the blog posts and the

21:22

appearances in hopes that

21:22

people would contract with

21:25

you to help their organization

21:25

understand and solve and

21:30

remediate some type of conflict. Is...

21:32

correct. Yeah. Oh Yeah. absolutely. Yep.

21:35

How long were

21:35

you a solo consultant before

21:39

building a, I'm not sure

21:39

how to phrase this, but

21:43

a product that wasn't...

21:45

Me?

21:45

You, yeah, yeah.

21:48

Yeah , that's a great question. And so I did, I did everything

21:49

backwards, so from 2013 to

21:57

about 2016, 2017, , you know,

21:57

I was solo, I had people

22:04

come to work with me on projects, things like that. And, and as, as we were going

22:06

along, or as I was going along,

22:10

the training content became

22:10

a product in and of itself.

22:13

I began to see that the

22:13

manuals that I was developing

22:17

and the approaches that

22:17

I was developing were a

22:20

product in and of themselves,

22:20

which is great, except

22:24

it's a product that really

22:24

still focuses around Jesan

22:27

showing up and being Jesan. And I thought, Well, okay,

22:28

that doesn't scale, but I don't

22:32

know how to crack that nut. So maybe I need to

22:33

get more people. And so from about 2016, 2017

22:35

to right here on the right

22:41

on the back end of COVID. So 2020, we built a crew.

22:44

And so, you know, wound up

22:44

having 25 people working for me.

22:48

And we began to develop

22:48

more solid product

22:52

based thinking, right? And so our thinking began

22:53

to shift away from services

22:56

and towards products. This is where we began to

22:57

develop the Leading Keys

22:59

platform, which we currently

22:59

have at LeadingKeys.com,

23:02

which is an asynchronous

23:02

platform that's a subscription

23:05

as a service, a SaaS

23:05

product basically, that we

23:08

developed over the course

23:08

of time, initially targeting

23:11

towards long term care, the

23:11

long term care industry.

23:14

And now it's targeted much

23:14

more towards a general market.

23:17

And then after that, right on the heels of that, we began to put our training

23:19

content together and we

23:21

developed what we call now

23:21

The Leadership Toolbox,

23:24

which you can check that out at LeadershipToolbox.us. It took me a long time to

23:27

figure that out, and to figure

23:30

out how to do that and how to

23:30

architect all of that together.

23:34

And the biggest challenge

23:34

was figuring out how to talk

23:37

about the architecture of that

23:37

because I'm inside the journey.

23:41

So it makes sense to me, but

23:41

anybody outside the journey,

23:44

it may not make sense to them. Over the course of time, we

23:45

also took some of the training

23:48

content, the insights, the

23:48

blog posts, the ideas, and we

23:51

began to put together books. So the first book was

23:52

Marketing for Peace Builders,

23:54

How to Market Your Value

23:54

to a World in Conflict.

23:57

That book was incredibly

23:57

niche and self-published,

24:00

incredibly niche. That was, it was my first

24:01

self-published venture.

24:03

I'd never done anything like that before. I didn't even know if

24:05

it was going to sell. And it sold in the mediation

24:07

world like hot cakes. As a matter of fact, it

24:09

still sells a couple of different copies every

24:11

month, you know, still, still

24:13

floating around out there. And then my second book

24:14

came out, My Boss Doesn't

24:16

Care, and got a little

24:16

bit better in production.

24:19

We hired a graphics, hire graphic designers. We worked with,

24:21

professional editors. We worked with copy editors,

24:22

developmental editors.

24:25

We began to mold together the

24:25

underlying again, architecture

24:29

for having a publishing company. And then on the other side

24:30

of COVID, we relaunched

24:34

as a publishing company. And so, we published

24:35

training content. We published our books.

24:38

We work with authors on

24:38

refining their scripts and

24:42

refining their content. And of course we still do

24:43

training and development work, but it is inside of that

24:45

leadership toolbox construct.

24:49

And so the Leadership Toolbox product is the product that we sell.

24:52

The Leading Keys platform is the, is the product that we sell.

24:55

And just to

24:55

clarify with your, your

24:57

publishing company, are you

24:57

seeking authors or are authors

25:03

who have a specialty in the

25:03

leadership space coming to you?

25:06

Just, just kind of curious. I mean, cause it sounds like

25:08

the majority is, is content that

25:10

you and your team are producing. I'm just kind of curious about

25:11

what else you're publishing.

25:14

Yeah, we have authors that are coming to us. We also have organizations

25:16

that want to work with us.

25:19

And so that's an untapped market

25:19

where organizations have content

25:24

that they would like to have

25:24

either edited, or published

25:26

internally to their own folks,

25:26

or even facilitated to their

25:29

own, to their own people. And so we have a couple

25:30

of, we have a couple of clients that we're doing

25:32

that work for right now.

25:35

And so there's some definite

25:35

space there, particularly as

25:38

you think of brands that are

25:38

moving in the direction of

25:41

having their own podcasts and

25:41

doing their own and, and I

25:44

mean, brands have been doing

25:44

internal blog posting for years.

25:46

For a long, long time. But how do you

25:48

bring that together? How do you create PDF content?

25:52

How do you create

25:52

eB ook content?

25:55

How do you unite that

25:55

with podcast content

25:57

and who produces that? And so that's a lot of work

25:59

that can be outsourced.

26:02

And we're the service that

26:02

can take that on and does

26:06

take that on for clients.

26:08

You've, You've described yourself as an entrepreneur and you're,

26:10

you're starting new businesses

26:12

and, and things like that. To you, what is the difference

26:14

between a business owner

26:19

and an entrepreneur? Thinking of listeners who, who

26:20

might think about going on their

26:23

own and, you know, the, the kind

26:23

of different paths that they

26:27

could consider, entrepreneurship

26:27

versus business owner.

26:31

Depending

26:31

upon what I am doing on

26:35

any given day, I'm in one

26:35

of three roles, right?

26:38

And I could even shift roles during the day. So there are some projects

26:40

I work on during the day

26:43

where I am a freelancer. I'm doing work, I'm

26:45

getting paid the money.

26:47

Done. Right? That's freelance work, right?

26:50

That kind of work doesn't scale. I don't wanna frame it as small

26:52

potatoes cause every project

26:54

matters, but it's projects that

26:54

I care about that are personal

26:58

or that are passionate to me. Those are typically

26:59

freelance projects. That makes me a freelancer.

27:04

Then there are projects

27:04

that can scale.

27:06

So anytime I work on a

27:06

book, anytime I'm working

27:09

on a book with a team or a

27:09

crew, anytime I'm working

27:12

on publishing a piece of

27:12

internal content for a client.

27:16

That's entrepreneurship, right? Because that's a product

27:17

that can scale, right?

27:19

And so your listeners should

27:19

think of entrepreneurship

27:22

in terms of, We are

27:22

growing a particular thing.

27:26

Right? We're growing a book or

27:26

we're growing an audience

27:29

or we're growing a community

27:29

or we're growing a platform.

27:31

Leading keys is an

27:31

entrepreneurial product.

27:34

Leadership toolbox is an

27:34

entrepreneurial product.

27:36

The books are entrepreneurial

27:36

products, right?

27:38

When you look at a product,

27:38

you can think of 10,000

27:41

more ideas that go along

27:41

with that particular thing.

27:44

That makes you an entrepreneur. A business owner, however,

27:45

and I can be a business

27:48

owner during the day too. A business owner is in

27:50

that third space where they

27:53

are looking at the overall

27:53

scaling of the business

27:59

as an entity, right? They're working on the business,

28:01

not necessarily in the business.

28:04

Right? So working on the business

28:05

means figuring out what are

28:09

the processes and procedures

28:09

that need to be improved?

28:12

What are the gaps or

28:12

holes in our strategy?

28:15

Who needs help on our team, and

28:15

how do we increase our team?

28:20

What does the actual vision

28:20

and mission, goals and values

28:24

look like of this organization? That's what a small

28:25

business owner does.

28:27

Right? Now don't get me wrong, very

28:28

often a small business owner will work in the business.

28:32

The challenge with being

28:32

a small business owner is

28:35

knowing the line between

28:35

working in the business and

28:39

working on the business. And being able to walk

28:40

that line very carefully.

28:43

And I'm gonna go back to this

28:43

word again, intentionally.

28:47

What do you enjoy most about your work?

28:49

What I enjoy most about my work is the fact that I get

28:50

to get up every morning and do things like having

28:52

this podcast conversation.

28:55

Every day I get up is something

28:55

different, something new,

28:58

something engaging and exciting. I'm also fairly, I'm gonna

29:00

use a, a broad word here.

29:03

I'm also fairly parapatetic. So I have wandering interests

29:05

and I've built a model of

29:11

work, a model of making an

29:11

impact in the world where I

29:15

can dump all those interests

29:15

in that, in that bucket.

29:18

And I can shake it and

29:18

then something will fall

29:20

out that will get me paid. Now there's many things I've

29:22

dumped in that bucket that don't get me paid at all.

29:25

And there's some things I've dumped in that bucket that are just wild and crazy.

29:28

For example, some of your

29:28

listeners may be familiar

29:31

with the actor William Shatner

29:31

famously enough on Star Trek.

29:34

I, I would guess so. Yeah.

29:36

Some of them may be, I, I don't know. I don't know who watches

29:37

TV or who doesn't. I'm a big fan of William

29:39

Shatner's spoken word albums.

29:42

I think they're hilarious. I think they're great.

29:44

And I would love to do a spoken word album. And so I have a project

29:46

that I'm working on with some friends of mine.

29:49

That's inside the

29:49

bucket of this work.

29:51

And I spend a couple

29:51

hours a week moving

29:54

that project forward. That's an

29:55

entrepreneurial project. Cause at the end of it, there's

29:57

going to be a product that

30:00

can then be sold in a bunch

30:00

of other different places.

30:02

And eventually I'm gonna have a spoken word album and my wife thinks I'm crazy.

30:05

My kids roll their eyes. And it's something that

30:07

I've been wanting to work on for quite some time.

30:10

I'm sure. When I was a kid, I

30:10

had heard of like...

30:12

Rocket Man was

30:12

his first big one?

30:15

Yeah. I actually remember kind of

30:16

discovering it in reverse.

30:19

It was, he was on like a

30:19

Ben Fold's side project

30:24

Yes.

30:24

and, I can't

30:24

I can't remember the,

30:27

I think it was maybe one or two tracks on... Fear of Pop?

30:30

I think was the, the album. So I, I discovered him then,

30:32

then I kind of discovered that,

30:34

oh, He'd done this, you know,

30:34

half a dozen times before this.

30:37

I was... you know, it's interesting

30:38

how we discover those things, but yeah, I, I found those

30:40

pretty entertaining too.

30:43

I, I love,

30:43

his version of Common People.

30:46

And I, I listened to a lot of that stuff in college with my buddies and we

30:48

all thought it was, you

30:50

know, hilariously funny. And at the same time,

30:51

there's a little seed

30:54

that was planted there. Sort of of, Hey, you know,

30:55

if you build a structure,

30:59

you could maybe do this too. And that's, that's

31:01

what entrepreneurship allows you to do.

31:04

It allows you to build a

31:04

structure that again, you

31:06

can dump a bunch of different

31:06

things in, and then you

31:08

can do some exciting stuff.

31:10

We've talked

31:10

pretty extensively about how,

31:13

when you started your business,

31:13

you went back to your, you

31:16

know, master's syllabus and

31:16

how so much of what you see

31:21

in the business world relates

31:21

to the conflict resolution and

31:25

reconciliation and leadership. I'm curious, are there any

31:26

other skills that you picked

31:30

up in grad school or working

31:30

in higher ed that we, we

31:33

might not have discussed yet

31:33

that have helped you in your

31:36

life as an entrepreneur?

31:38

Yes, so,

31:38

and this is a big one.

31:41

And it's one that gets overlooked. It's the skillset of caring.

31:46

C A R I N G. Caring. Caring.

31:48

One of the challenges

31:48

that we have in our world

31:51

today is that there's a

31:51

lot of talk about empathy.

31:53

And we've, we, we've raised

31:53

at least the conversation

31:56

around empathy to its

31:56

highest possible form.

32:00

But if you go out and deal

32:00

with real people in the real

32:04

world, you find out that

32:04

there's actually two different

32:08

kinds of empathy floating

32:08

around in the world today.

32:10

There's empathy you see in

32:10

marketing, where empathy is

32:14

marketed to us as a way to sell

32:14

products or goods or to get us

32:18

to care about a social cause. And then there's the

32:20

empathy that you actually

32:22

have in your real life. Most of the empathy that

32:24

people have in their real

32:26

lives, most of the empathy that leaders have in their real lives is very narrowcasted.

32:31

It is to family,

32:31

it's to friends.

32:34

It might be to people that they work with or that they are leading, but

32:36

very often they're not...

32:39

Leaders, particularly

32:39

positional leaders, , managers

32:42

and supervisors usually may

32:42

not feel as though they are

32:45

paid to be empathetic because

32:45

emotional labor is hard.

32:52

It's hard to care. It's hard to care about your

32:53

employees when you may not

32:56

have liked them from the jump.

32:59

It's hard to care about

32:59

your employees when you're

33:02

stressed or you're burned out. And no one seems to

33:04

be caring about you.

33:07

It's hard to care about your

33:07

employees when change, like

33:11

what we're going through

33:11

right now with COVID seems

33:14

to be hitting you left and

33:14

right, and you are asked, and

33:17

you're being demanded, to be

33:17

reactive rather than proactive.

33:21

And so what I learned

33:21

in higher education was

33:25

that you have to care.

33:28

You have to make yourself care. And it's not in terms of,

33:30

I'm gonna hold your hand

33:33

or I'm gonna give you a hug

33:33

or you're gonna come over

33:35

to my house for a barbecue. What we talk about very often,

33:37

and what I've talked about

33:40

for years is this concept

33:40

of hard headed empathy.

33:43

And it's making a hard headed

33:43

intellectual decision to care.

33:47

No emotion involved. You don't have to involve your

33:48

emotions if you don't want to. Just decide to care.

33:52

Today, I'm going care about that employee who's gonna talk about that thing

33:54

that I don't care about. I'm just gonna care.

33:56

And here's how I'm going to care. I'm gonna actually

33:57

listen to that person.

34:00

Would you say you love what you do?

34:02

Absolutely. If I didn't love it, I would

34:04

be doing something else.

34:08

Are there days when I

34:08

wake up and it's hard?

34:10

Yes, for sure.

34:13

Do I like all those days? No, I don't.

34:16

But overall, or I've

34:16

been doing this work

34:19

for almost 10 years now. , I wouldn't do anything else.

34:22

I put, I put, I've put in my

34:22

Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours.

34:25

I, I don't think I'm capable of doing anything else. I don't think I would be a

34:27

good employee at this point.

34:31

And that's not because I couldn't follow the directions or do the, do the

34:32

things that are required.

34:35

It's because I know something

34:35

fundamental that Seth Godin said

34:39

many years ago, the marketer

34:39

and writer Seth Godin, said

34:42

many years ago, If you have one

34:42

more dollar in your checking

34:46

account as an entrepreneur on

34:46

the day that you end your work

34:50

and you earned that dollar,

34:50

then no one gets to tell you

34:53

that you can't play again

34:53

tomorrow . And you've lived long

34:56

enough to play the game again.

34:58

Using one of

34:58

the words that I'm sure,

35:01

if I ran an analysis has

35:01

probably been said, one of the

35:03

most times in this podcast,

35:03

was there an intentional

35:06

decision in your life that

35:06

you had to love your work?

35:09

That you had to do

35:09

something that you loved?

35:12

Yes. There have been many moments

35:13

where I've had to decide.

35:16

The most recent

35:16

moment was with COVID.

35:19

March of 2020 our business

35:19

was shut down as being not

35:22

,was deemed non-essential by the state of New York, and was shut down.

35:26

At that point around 90% of

35:26

our clients abandoned us.

35:30

We, we saw a massive revenue

35:30

drop, right, within two weeks.

35:34

And I remember driving in my

35:34

car down the road to file some

35:38

piece of paperwork somewhere

35:38

that didn't really matter.

35:42

And I just remember yelling in

35:42

my car and hitting the roof of

35:45

the inside of my car and saying,

35:45

No, this is not how this ends.

35:50

We're not stopping here. I haven't done all the

35:52

things that I need to do yet.

35:54

And this is the vehicle that I'm going to do them in. Not literally my vehicle,

35:56

but like the, the business

35:59

is the vehicle that I'm going to do them in. And I do.

36:01

I remember driving down the road, just hitting the roof of my car, just yelling in my car.

36:04

Making intentional decisions

36:04

isn't always pretty.

36:07

People have this idea that

36:07

somehow it'll be beautiful

36:09

and very intellectual. No, there's, sometimes

36:11

there's emotion involved in it and it's visceral.

36:15

But it's a visceral

36:15

decision that still is at

36:18

the front of our brains. We're still actively

36:20

thinking about it. And by the way, what that means

36:22

is we're also still responsible

36:25

for the outcomes that come about

36:25

because of those decisions.

36:29

And we have to be okay

36:29

with that as a leader, too.

36:31

We have to be okay with

36:31

that as followers too.

36:34

We very rarely talk

36:34

about responsibilities.

36:37

And too often we talk about rights. And so the responsibilities of

36:39

intentional leadership mean that

36:43

when you make the decision, as

36:43

I did in the car, driving down

36:47

the road in March of 2020,

36:47

when you make the decision to

36:50

just say No, and just continue

36:50

going, regardless of how

36:54

bad it will be, you are also

36:54

saying Yes to whatever those

36:58

consequences are going to be. And you have to be willing to

36:59

admit to that and be willing

37:04

to be okay with that, to

37:04

be an intentional leader.

37:07

How do you describe

37:07

your relationship to work?

37:10

Or, or maybe said a bit,

37:10

a little bit differently,

37:13

how large of a role

37:13

does in your life?

37:16

I have

37:16

worked very hard to put it

37:21

in its appropriate space. To put it in its

37:23

appropriate box. Right?

37:25

So I work from home. Right? Now we have employees

37:27

all across the country.

37:29

Matter of fact, we just

37:29

recently onboarded a new person.

37:31

She's in Kentucky, but we

37:31

recently onboarded a new

37:34

person, which is great. But we have employees all

37:35

over the country, but I work

37:38

out of my home in Texas. And so, you know, I come to

37:39

my office in the morning, I

37:43

work, you know, a regular

37:43

day, you know, eight to four

37:45

or eight to five or whatever. And then I leave.

37:48

And the work stays in the office. Right?

37:51

But I've been very intentional

37:51

about that because I'm a person

37:55

who can work all the time.

37:57

It doesn't bother me. There's always more

37:59

work to be done. There's always another

38:00

project to be taken on.

38:03

There's always a new challenge to face. And so to put boundaries

38:05

around that means now I can

38:09

do other stuff with my family. Now I can, take up

38:10

other hobbies, right?

38:14

And have other interests. It means that I have

38:15

the space to go and do

38:18

things that I enjoy. Or go and do things for other

38:19

people that they might want me

38:22

to do for them, that they enjoy. I have the time to have

38:24

friends, so work stays

38:27

in its, in its box. And again, it's something

38:28

where I've had to be intentional about that.

38:31

For other folks who are listening, your mileage may vary.

38:33

You know, but I will

38:33

say this, I have advised

38:36

entrepreneurs before. And one of the key questions

38:37

I ask them is, How good

38:40

is your relationship with your significant other or your partner?

38:43

Do they understand that you

38:43

are probably going to in the

38:46

first couple of years of this

38:46

devote 80 to a hundred hours

38:48

a week of your life to this? Do they understand that?

38:51

Because if they're not on board,

38:51

if that's a negotiation you

38:54

haven't had yet, stop your idea

38:54

and go have that negotiation.

38:58

Now, fortunately I married

38:58

a woman who, , whose family

39:01

was in business for two

39:01

or three generations.

39:03

She understands how business works. She's owned her own business.

39:06

You know, and did, did, did that

39:06

kind of work in her own area.

39:09

So she kind of understood

39:09

that already, but most people

39:13

who haven't, who are, who are

39:13

focused on work as a thing

39:18

that I do for an organization

39:18

and then I collect the

39:20

check and go home, that's

39:20

a different mindset shift.

39:23

It's different between an employee mindset and an entrepreneur mindset, right?

39:26

And it's not bad. It's just different. Right?

39:28

It's a different kind of mindset. An employee puts work in

39:30

a box, whereas an employee

39:33

has, an entrepreneur,

39:33

sorry, has to construct

39:36

the box around the work and

39:36

has to keep it contained.

39:39

I, I know You, you mentioned earlier, What can you do that no

39:41

one else can that people wi

39:45

ll be willing to pay for? as kind of a central question,

39:47

if not the central question.

39:49

I'm curious if there's anything

39:49

else you would add to that?

39:52

Well, step

39:52

number one, or step number one,

39:54

if you're gonna pull out a piece of paper, so you're gonna whip out a piece of paper, right?

39:57

And you're gonna write this down. You're gonna write down all

39:59

the things you know that other people don't know.

40:02

That's hugely important. Most of us underestimate what

40:03

we know and we overestimate

40:08

what other people or what

40:08

we think other people know.

40:11

One of the things that this work

40:11

has taught me is that there is

40:14

a vast wealth of things that

40:14

I know a ton of things about,

40:18

but there's also a vast wealth

40:18

of things that other people

40:20

know a ton of things about that

40:20

I don't know anything about.

40:22

Right? So in the era that we live

40:24

in, where what we know can

40:29

then create a service or

40:29

a product, because that's

40:32

where our skill sets lie. We've gotta write

40:34

those things down. All the experiences that

40:35

you've had from, you know,

40:38

when you were in high school,

40:38

and you thought it didn't

40:40

matter all the way to whatever

40:40

point it as you're at now.

40:43

Write those things down. Step number two, go and talk,

40:45

not to family and friends,

40:48

but go and talk to strangers. Talk to people who have no skin

40:50

in your game, who will give you

40:53

honest feedback about whatever's

40:53

on that list, who will say

40:56

Yes, I would pay for that. Or, No, I wouldn't pay for that.

40:59

What I learned after having more

40:59

of those types of conversations

41:03

is how to market myself. Yes.

41:05

How to frame the architecture

41:05

of what it was I was doing

41:09

in a different kind of way. But I also learned that

41:11

sometimes for some people,

41:15

it just won't work. And those are not

41:16

your customers.

41:19

Those are not your clients. And that is OK.

41:23

Sometimes you have to go

41:23

very far afield to find your

41:25

customers and your clients. And that's okay too.

41:28

And then the third thing is,

41:28

How long do you want to do this?

41:33

Look? 99% of all business projects

41:33

fail in the first year.

41:37

They fail because people run out of money? Yes, that's usually primarily

41:39

the, the answer that's given,

41:43

you know, I ran out money and I had to go back to work. But that's not the real answer.

41:47

The real answer is you ran out of will. You ran out of persistence.

41:50

You ran out of family

41:50

support from your significant

41:53

other or from your family. You ran out of ideas for

41:55

how to market yourself.

41:59

You ran out of courage to

41:59

ask other people for help.

42:02

You ran out of all of

42:02

those intangible things.

42:05

The money, and I don't

42:05

wanna be flip here, however

42:09

money is not your biggest

42:09

problem as an entrepreneur.

42:13

It's not your biggest problem

42:13

if you're in grad school or

42:15

out of grad school, asking

42:15

yourself, How do I want

42:18

to go and where do I... money is not your biggest problem. You think it is, but it's

42:19

not your biggest problem. All of those other intangible

42:22

things weigh far more into

42:26

the equation than money does.

42:28

This has been a really, really wonderful conversation, Jesan.

42:32

If you'd like to share where,

42:32

where people can find your

42:35

resources, particularly if

42:35

anyone, you know, is kind

42:37

of thinking about something

42:37

in leadership or something

42:41

entrepreneurship, anything

42:41

that you're doing in

42:43

those areas would be great to, to hear a little bit more about as we wrap up.

42:46

Absolutely. Well, first off, thank

42:47

you Jesse, for having

42:49

me on The Work Seminar. I appreciate you offering

42:51

me a space on your platform.

42:54

And I wanna encourage you to

42:54

keep going forward and doing the

42:58

work that you are doing and to

42:58

keep persisting, because we need

43:02

more folks like you, you know,

43:02

doing this work in this space.

43:05

So thank you. As far as places where

43:07

people can find me. So you can of course

43:09

find me on LinkedIn.

43:11

You can go search my

43:11

name, Jesan Sorrells.

43:13

I'm, I'm there. I'm also on Facebook and

43:15

I'm on Instagram, you can

43:17

find me there, both our

43:17

personal profiles and you

43:20

can find the HSCT publishing

43:20

profiles everywhere

43:23

all over the internet. You can direct message me again

43:24

on LinkedIn or on Facebook

43:27

or on Instagram, reach out to

43:27

me and mention that you heard

43:30

me here on The Work Seminar

43:30

podcast with Jesse Butts.

43:34

If you would like to find out

43:34

more about how The Leadership

43:37

Toolbox can help people in your

43:37

organization become better,

43:40

or if you'd like to just take advantage of some of those webinars, you could check us

43:42

out at TheLeadershipToolbox.us.

43:47

You can also check out

43:47

our leading keys platform.

43:49

Check that out at

43:49

LeadingKeys.com.

43:53

If you'd like to pick up a copy

43:53

of my newest book, 12 Rules

43:56

for Leaders, the Foundation

43:56

of Intentional Leadership,

43:59

co-written with contributions

43:59

from Bradley Madigan, it's,

44:03

it's available everywhere. Finally, the podcast.

44:06

The podcast and the book are

44:06

really the easiest accessible

44:08

ways to get ahold of me. If you don't have a whole

44:09

lot of money or you want to

44:12

get something like coaching for me without paying my full coaching rate.

44:16

And so you're gonna wanna check out the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast.

44:19

We're on all the major

44:19

podcast platforms.

44:22

All right. Well, thank you again for joining us. This was really,

44:23

really a treat, Jesan.

44:26

Thank you, Jesse, for having me on. I appreciate it.