Brad Johnson: Welcome back to another episode of Do Business. Do Life. Excited to have Ken Coleman on the show here with us today. Welcome to the show, Ken.
Ken Coleman: Hey, thanks for having me.
Brad Johnson: Well, I’ve been counting down the days on this one because you work in an organization that might be one of the biggest, most well-known names in finance. Worked for Dave Ramsey’s organization. You’re one of, as they call it, the Ramsey Personality. I know you’re Ken at the end of the day but it’s really cool how that organization has really scaled and built an incredible business that now because of that scale, serves many, many more than Dave ever could by himself. So, excited to get into that. Also, I know we’re going to get into your most recent book, Find the Work You’re Wired to Do.
Before we dive into all the finance and the work stuff, though, let’s hear a little bit of Ken’s background. How did you arrive into the Ramsey organization? What was your background before you do what you do today?
Ken Coleman: Well, I spent most of my early 20s in politics, and then I got out of campaign politics and working for the governor of Virginia to build a business resume. So, I got into the world of celebrity and keynote speakers and was an agent essentially booking those speakers. And I got an opportunity to join John Maxwell, the renowned leadership expert and guru because a buddy of mine was running his company. We went to college together. He said, “Hey, come help me build succession for John.” And so, I went and joined that team at Atlanta. We did that for a few years. John sold the company, that kind of thing, which changed in that direction.
And so, a group of us that were kind of leading that company were like, “Okay. Our time is done and we weren’t staying with the company. And so, for a couple of years, I was just really answering the phone. There were a lot of opportunities for consulting and things of that nature based on what I had done, before John and with John. And during that season, that couple of years of I was going through not just a professional transition, but really a missional transition, and really starting to wonder if the path that I had thought I was supposed to be on was the path. And I’ve got kids, I got three little kids, and running my own business and just was really wrestling with what I was feeling.
And I was really struggling because I had been so driven and so clear on a long-term path of running for office and felt like that was not the destination anymore. So, it really shook me. And so, I began to stuff that down and not deal with it, get distracted by the realities of three little kids, a puppy, and my wife and all the things, and was losing sleep and really, really struggling. And so, went through a deep dive of my life and some life mapping and began to realize that broadcasting was something that was something that deep inside my gut.
Public communication, broadcasting, all of that was something that was aligned with that desire to be in public policy. But it was very, very different and I had no training in it, certainly no education in it, no experience so it was terrifying. But I stepped out little by little, got some courage, and began to do little things, and opportunities popped up, and reconnected with the company that Maxwell had sold. They had a large leadership organization, a large leadership event called Catalyst, and I started the Catalyst podcast before podcasts were cool. This is when you actually had an iPod. So, I was one of the early, early…
Brad Johnson: What year was that? Do you remember the year you started?
Ken Coleman: It would have been probably 2007, 2008.
Brad Johnson: Wow. That was super early in the podcasting game.
Ken Coleman: Very early. And I read an article in Fast Company about it, went to these guys, and said, “Hey, I think I can do this. I know I can do good interviews. I want to be good at interviews. If I do it, you guys put it out there?” And they said yes and it took off. And as a part of that, Dave Ramsey would come speak at that event and I would interview him. So, I interviewed him probably 2 or 3 times over a 2 or 3-year period, and we had mutual friends, and he experienced me in that role of interviewing him and made an impression on him that I didn’t realize.
And fast forward a couple more years, I start my own radio show on a local Atlanta talk station on Saturdays. I paid my way on and I asked him to be my third guest on a Saturday afternoon. I thought for sure he’s going to say no, but I’m going to ask him. He said yes. We went into his office and his team came in on a Saturday. And now I know what kind of a deal that really is, how huge that was. And he piped in and had him on for two segments and just made it more impression on him. Fast forward a couple of years later, he asked me to join the team in kind of a super host role and host multiple things for him, The EntreLeadership Podcast, global live events, and then his YouTube channel. So, I took that feeling like it was a seat on a rocket ship. And so, that’s the quickest version I can give you that got me today.
Brad Johnson: Wow. There’s some really cool lessons there. I thought I was early in the podcasting game and that was 2015. So, you…
Ken Coleman: Oh, man, I’ve been doing it for seven years.
Brad Johnson: Beat me by almost a decade, man. That’s impressive.
Ken Coleman: Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Johnson: So, a lesson in what? What spurred you the very first…? Had you been doing a bunch of interviews before you started the podcast?
Ken Coleman: No, I never done an interview. I had only done one interview in my life up to that point. That’s another amazing story. I’ll try to tell it really quick. So, when I’m working for Maxwell, he had this simulcast called Leaving Leadership, and it was simulcast to 90,000 people. This is the old days, like real satellite trucks and we had a big leadership event and we would do it live in Atlanta, probably 4,000 people. And then we would pipe it out to churches all across the country. They would be the venues. They invite business people. So, that was the model back then. And we had Coach K, the legendary Hall of Fame coach for Duke, scheduled to speak.
And we got a call one day. And it was coach and his assistant and I was not in the room, but he called our CEO and said, “Look, I’ve never canceled an event before. I hate to do this, but one of my best friends is Steve Wynn, and he’s opening up a brand-new casino in Las Vegas. He’s asked me and my wife to be there. They’re dear friends. There’s no way we can’t go. I feel terrible but I got to choose my friendship here.” He’s just apologizing. Very classy. And he’s like, “So, I’ll give you a full refund or I’ll do a video interview or something like that. You can play it because I know you’ve advertised me.” This is like two months before the event.
So, I get a phone call from the president and he’s like, “Hey, all hands on deck.” It was three or four guys he really trusted. I was one of them. He’s like, “What are we going to do?” And we came to the conclusion that, well, since we’ve paid him and we’ve advertised him, let’s see if he’ll give us a big discount and we’ll do a video interview. And so, then he was like, “Well, who’s going to do it?” And I immediately went to fulfill the request of my buddy who’s the president of the company. And I was like, “Okay. I know this guy named Bob. He’s the voice of the Atlanta Braves on TV and the Atlanta Hawks, the sportscaster. I’ll ask him if he can do it.” These are great ideas.
I call Bob. Bob’s like, “I’m in. Here are the dates that I can do it. We get it with Coach. We get it all lined up.” But Bob said to me, “I’ll do it but I’m crazy busy and I know you’re a huge Coach K fan. Would you be willing to help me write the interview?” And I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I was like, “I’ll write the whole interview. You do whatever you want with it. I’ll do everything. I’ll research. I’ll give it to you. You do whatever you want.” He’s like, “Great.” So, I go buy the book, The Leader Within You by Coach… No, that’s not it. That’s Pat Riley. I’m blanking out because I’m trying to tell this quick.
Brad Johnson: Well, we’ll throw in the show notes. We’ll find it.
Ken Coleman: Yeah, it’s great. That’s great. So, I read the book, I write the interview, and a week before that I say, “Listen, I’m going because I want to meet Coach K. That was part of the condition.” So, a week before, we get a call from Bob. Bob goes, “You’re not going to believe this. We had a rainout last week. Major League Baseball has scheduled the game. Leading with the Heart, by the way. Leading with the Heart is the name of the book. Thank you. Leading with the Heart. And he goes, “I can’t do it.” And so, I go tell my buddy, I was like, “We’re in trouble.” So, get that same group back together again and one of them is one of my closest friends.
We’re all very close to this day but we’re sitting in there and Kevin, who’s the CEO, is going, “We got to get somebody to do this.” And my other buddy, Gabe, pipes up. He goes, “Coleman can do it. He wrote the interview. He can do it.” My buddy looks at me. He goes, “Can you do it?” And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a moment where you get an opportunity where your heart says, “Oh, yeah, baby,” but your brain goes, “Oh, I don’t know.” I don’t know if you’ve ever had a situation like that but they’re simultaneous voices. And I just shut my brain down, and I went, “Oh, yeah, I can do it. I’d love to do it.” So, next thing you know, we’re doing it.
And so, I went and did that interview, sat knee-to-knee with Coach K. I had never done an interview in my life but I was super prepared. And this is back in the day. This is 2005. No, it was 2004. And we change tapes about 30 minutes in. So, we had to stop the interview and we’re just sitting there. And I had gone from barely being able to swallow in the first couple of questions to I was like in a hot tub with him. It’s how relaxed I had become. But I’m sitting there kind of going, “Okay. Now, I got to do small talk with him.” He looks at me and I’ll never forget this. And he hits me on the knee and he goes, “You’re really good at this.” And he goes, “You remind me of one of my best friends.”
And I was like, I’m looking at this guy named Brad, who is producing, who’s standing there and like, “Are you listening to this?” And he says the very famous broadcaster’s name who is an interview legend. And I was like, I’m looking at Brad, I look at coach, “Did he just say that?” It was in that moment that I really knew that doing deep-dive interviews and having conversations to pull stuff out of people or something that not only was I good at it, but I loved it. And so, that was the first interview and only interview I’ve ever done before I go in to these guys at Catalyst and go, “I think I can do a podcast.” I was still living off of that unbelievable belief that Coach K gave me, and I got to share this really quick because I think this might inspire some people.
Earlier this year in May, we had our EntreLeadership Summit event. And it’s the signature leadership event and they brought Coach K in and they asked me, “He’s going to speak for about 30 minutes and we want you to interview him for 30 minutes.” And it was 20 years, 20 years to the month that I had done that first interview with Coach K. I had not seen him since. I was able to share the story with him backstage. He goes, “You got to share that on stage.” I go, “I’m planning to.” And I publicly thanked him for being a true coach. Because what he did for me that day was what all great coaches do and true leaders do and that was he injected me with his belief and it sustained me for a long time. And so, anyway, I didn’t know we were going to go there.
Brad Johnson: I love that story, Ken.
Ken Coleman: That was a full-circle moment 20 years ago.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. That is so cool. As I was listening to your story, I was inserting part of my journey into your story because nobody… By the time your audience gets sizable, most people don’t realize the very first interview that all of the work you did to lead up to that point, they don’t see it. They don’t see the sweaty palms and nervous before the first one. And we have a principle in our family. We say Johnsons get uncomfortable and do hard things. And I also have three kiddos and it’s really important to me to kind of infuse some of those beliefs into them as they grow and start to lead their own journeys later in life. And I think that right there, you listen to your heart, not your head. Sometimes listening to your head is the thing that can get you in the most trouble. It’s like, here’s why it won’t work versus trusting that it will.
Ken Coleman: So, number one reason why most people never chase their dreams is because they listen to their brain. The brain is designed to protect us. There’s actually a part of our brain which you probably know called the amygdala that is the fight or flight center of the brain. And it is designed to detect fear and then designed to address the fear through either fighting it or running from it. And I’ve coached over 10,000 people live on the air and I had a podcaster and bestselling author, Greg McKeown, who wrote The Essentialist.
Brad Johnson: Yup. Big fan.
Ken Coleman: Or Essentialism. Excuse me. He asked me one time, he said, “If you could boil it down to one thing,” of course he’s Mr. Essentialism so he’s like, “What’s like the essential thing that these callers are calling you for?” And I thought about it for about two seconds, and it became very, very obvious to me that it is belief or I could say confidence. They are calling me, and the most confused person, they may present themselves as confused to me but after I’ve spent a few minutes with them and I’ve now learned over the years through repetition to hear things and dig deep, and I’ll get the question behind the question, and they’re looking for belief. They’re looking for my belief.
They’re going, “I’m going to talk to Ken about it and he’s going to do his thing. And I need confidence. I need belief.” And so, it’s really important to understand that the heart, if we can shut our brain down long enough to hear our heart, then now we have a chance. We got a real chance to make right decisions. And that’s huge for people and that it comes belief. Many times, we have to borrow it from others. But at the end of the day, following your heart, trusting your heart like that’s huge. And so, I can’t emphasize that enough. Yes, the logic matters, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to listen to your heart or you’re going to end up like Teddy Roosevelt in that famous speech, The Man in the Arena, “A cold and timid soul who knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Brad Johnson: How important, when you’re looking through that belief lens, do you think perspective of short-term versus long-term matters?
Ken Coleman: It’s massive. You’ve got to have the long-term. You’ve got to get really clear on the conviction, the heart, the desire. These are important things. When we look at long term, we’ve got to get crystal clear on that long term. We’ll use a mountain as a metaphor. That’s the mountain we’re going to climb. So, we get long-term locked in and that determines the short-term. So, my short term must always be in servitude of the long term. But once I make those, so this is true in our personal lives. You know, I’ve been married 26 years, and I can tell you it’s because Stacy and I decided individually and collectively because we both come from great marriages.
I’ve been married a long time. And we decided on May 9th, 1998, we decided before that, but we really decided that day we’re going to be married for our entire life. That’s what we’re doing. This is the decision. So, we made a long-term decision. And so, that decision just I’m using a personal marriage example here now determines all of my short term. My short-term decisions relationally with Stacy are all predicated on the long-term decision. That’s the way I look at it. And then, professionally, same thing because you can make some pivot. You can say, “This is the mountain I want to climb.” And so, now I’m going to go, “Okay. That determines my short-term.”
So, the advice I give to a lot of young people and parents in my space is, “Do you need a college degree?” Well, here’s how you answer that. Two questions. Is it the only way to do what you want to do? Is it the best way to be able to do what you want to do? Okay. That is an example of I look at the long term that allows me to determine the short term. And so, if the answer is, “No, I don’t need a degree. It’s not required and it may not be the best option,” now I can start to make some short-term decisions about my life that allow me to actually go further, faster. So, same thing with leading a company. Your audience, you know, think about your audience.
They’re trying to grow a business. What’s the long-term vision? Okay. What are the long-term values of the organization? Like who do you and your organization, who do you want it to be 15, 20, 30 years from now? These are long-term answers. And then once we get that very clear, the short-term decisions become a lot clearer and thus I think a lot easier.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I love that. I knew my take. I wanted to hear yours and our takes definitely align, especially when it comes to the big decisions in life, marriage, future trajectory of career, building a business, raising a family, all of those things that matter. Well, you had it. I didn’t know the Maxwell background. I knew the Ramsey background. I didn’t know the Maxwell background.
Ken Coleman: I’ve been blessed to work for two giants.
Brad Johnson: Well, that’s what I’m saying. Like. you’ve worked for, the word thought leader I kind of overused but let’s just use it in this context, two of probably the most well-known thought leaders that have existed. What leadership principles have been similar between Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Ramsey and where have they differed, just out of sheer curiosity?
Ken Coleman: Yeah. That’s a big question. That’s an entire…
Brad Johnson: I know. I’m sorry. I had to ask.
Ken Coleman: No, no, I’m not telling. I’m just letting you know I need to think through this because that’s an entire podcast. I mean, that’s a 90-minute discussion to go, “Here’s where Dave and John are similar. Here’s where they’re different.”
Brad Johnson: Maybe one same, one difference. So, it doesn’t turn into a…
Ken Coleman: Yeah. No, I’m going to give you something. I just, I’m truly, I want to be authentic here.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Coleman: And so, I think one thing that they share that just popped in, there’s a lot of, so this is off the top here. They’re both extremely driven by what I think is a unique core value to them. So, in other words, some leaders and some people that are in it are in it for like a lot of superficial things. Getting to know both men where it may seem to their critics that you could say, “Well, they’re out there to make a bunch of money and blah, blah, blah, blah.” Both men when you get them out of their public role, and I’m talking spending time with them like I’ve been able to spend time with them and truly get to know both men, very driven. Very driven. Maniacally driven. Two very different things.
I think Dave is driven by pain and John is driven by influence. And again, I’m really, this is such a good question. I’ve never been asked this before. So, I’m not sure I’m getting the right word so let me define what I mean by that. John comes from a pastoral background, ministry background, and the idea of influencing as many people as possible for transformation for the glory of God. He has a pastor’s heart, very much so. Okay. So, John, he’s very driven by the value of transformation and for the good of mankind and the glory of God and all that. This is really fascinating because my brain is like my publicist, Curtis, sitting right here, he’s never, ever seen me process a question like this before because I’m trying to get it right.
Dave, you could also say Dave is about transformation, obviously, but John’s is more like this is what could be, should be, or of a ministry being there. And it’s the heart or just to help as many people as I possibly can so that lots of good can happen. Dave comes from a very painful personal experience. Their stories are very different that way. Dave’s story is one who is a young guy comes from a rough and tumble hillbilly background and hustle, hustle, grind parents, didn’t come from money. And he starts to make money, loses it all. And bankruptcy feels like his marriage is coming. So, Dave’s is a little different.
The value there is he has an unbelievable drive to help save as many people as possible from going through what he went through. Because I think deep down that it so hurt his self-esteem when he went through that, that I think he’s trying to make up for it. I’ve never said that before. And I think he would be honored. But, I mean, I could be wrong, by the way, but that’s just my take. When I’m trying to go, “How are they different?” They’re both guys that want to help transform people’s lives, right? But their drive is from two very different places. Pain for Dave and it’s more glory and that kind of it’s just a very different…
Brad Johnson: No, I love…
Ken Coleman: Hit me with a follow-up.
Brad Johnson: I know. I love that answer, Ken, because as I’m processing your answer, you mentioned that John came from, he was a preacher kind of background. They’re preaching for different reasons, but they’re still trying to transform and convert and Dave’s coming from pain like the passion is there and the benefiting lives is there. It’s just for a different root cause, which is really fascinating. And if you look at the common theme of how they’ve both been able to build such incredible followings almost like to use a church term ‘disciples in their beliefs,’ it’s because of that passion and because of the commitment to that passion and it’s transforming people for the better. So, that’s a really cool like but different root causes. That’s fascinating.
Ken Coleman: And I give you a much shorter answer on the other part of the question. So, that’s where they’re similar and in this thing is just different values, but their leadership style couldn’t be more different. Dave is very buttoned up, disciplined, you know. And John is just kind of free-flowing. So, their personalities in the way they lead is very, very different. John is way more hands-off. Dave is hands-on.
Brad Johnson: Well, let’s go. I want to look through the lens of serving a bunch of independent financial advisors out there that at the root are entrepreneurs, right? They’re building small businesses. I mean, some listeners have two, three, four team members. Some have 50, 60. Probably some have 100 plus. One of the things that I’ve seen Dave, well, John did this as well, but one of the things I’ve seen Dave do, we mentioned kind of Ramsey Personalities. And I think at one point in Dave’s business, the whole business was built around Dave. It was like the Dave Ramsey Show, the Dave Ramsey books.
Obviously, the philosophies could be shared by many, but it was all like Dave himself. And as you were kind of sharing pre-record here, you said kind of really we focus now three areas of content: money, work, relationships. There’s technically five Ramsey Personalities, three that focus on money, one on work, one on relationships. You’re the workplace guy. But I’m curious of the lesson behind and how it could apply to entrepreneurs of what things have you seen when, and I don’t know if you were there right when Dave hit that inflection point of going from kind of a solo player game to a multiplayer game, but how…?
Because he’s pulled it off and you guys have pulled off, he’s brought superstars onto the team, like great personalities that have your own spin on it. How did he do that? Like, if you deconstruct the business lesson, how did that shift happen?
Ken Coleman: I was not here when he came to this moment of reality but the answer is that he sat down and had a dose of reality to say, “I am this very unique individual and we’ve had tremendous success based on my story and all of my content. But I am going to die one day.” And it starts there. “And what would it look like if I’m not here and this is not sustainable.” And I think he went from, and he didn’t think this, but this is how I’m describing it. But I think in his mind, he was like, “I’m not interested in being a legend. I’m interested in leaving a legacy.” And that’s my own take on how I’m describing that.
And because I’ve seen a lot of people in the faith-based world, in the business world, that they were okay with just being a legend. In other words, they die. We all remember them. We talk about them and they themselves a legend but they didn’t leave something still operating is my point. It’s not breathing anymore. And this is my homespun, trying to give people an understanding. So, legend-legacy. I think it works. I think it makes sense. And so, he’s like, “I want this thing to continue on. And in order to do that, I can’t have the audience just check out because I’m gone. So, how do you do that?” And I’ve heard him say this a million times.
He’s like, “People trust people. People don’t trust organizations in this space that we’re in.” In other words, they learn from people. They don’t learn from an organization. So, you got to have some people who can be the face of an organization to keep that going. So, that’s the quick answer. And so, he was like, “We got to figure this out. We’ve got to transfer trust.” And we’ve gone through some people. We’ve had people come and go because it’s not for everybody. It’s also not easy to do or else we’d be telling stories right now of how many big shots have done it. By the way, you can’t think of many.
Brad Johnson: I’m trying to think like, is there somebody else that’s done it? I don’t know that there is, that comes to top of mind.
Ken Coleman: I’ve not seen it. I’ve seen a few churches do it well, like megachurches go from a founding pastor to another pastor. It’s been done there. But you don’t see it. You don’t see it. I mean, I’ll give you a public example. Disney tried it and it’s been up and down, right? So, you go from Michael Eisner, you know, you go from the Disney family to Michael Eisner. They did it pretty well there. And then Eisner gives it to the current guy. His name is escaping me and my brain is failing me today. But he leaves. Bob Iger. And so, Iger leaves and it doesn’t go well. Now, Iger’s back and they’re trying to do it again.
But that’s a big multinational corporation and the brand is Disney. It’s not a person of content. So, when you start talking about somebody who’s like what’s going to happen with Maxwell? You know, what’s going to happen with Jim Collins? You know, you start thinking of people like that. And if they have an organization that’s large, that’s built behind them, then you got to do something with it or else it will die. So, it’s not done very often. I can’t think of many people have done it well in this particular space. And by the way, it remains to be seen if we’ll do it.
I mean, we’ve had some success with it, but there are real business realities of the five of us have got to get to a point where we are generating significant revenue that would be sustainable, but then also simultaneously be trustworthy enough that the larger audience that we’re serving right now goes, “Man, Dave’s not here. That’s awful. He’s the legend but we’re still getting the same level of content and service.” That’s the balancing act.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I heard Michael Hyatt, he was out at one of our experiences and he’s been an incredible partner to Triad. But he said, his observation of the finance space or the financial advisor space is most businesses are built on personalities. And the problem, to your point, you’re making it loud and clear, is when that personality is gone, so is the business. And so, that same thing that Dave is working on organizationally, that is many of the listeners right now that are founders that have built a very successful financial advisor practice, but it’s all based on them and their shoulders and them showing up or doing the presentations. And we call that success. We call significance, building a business that’s bigger than you that outlasts you, that can be that legacy.
Steve Jobs, here’s an example on the other side. Steve Jobs was a legend, but we’re still all carrying around an iPhone. So, he did leave a company that became a legacy and has continued to create world-changing products. So, it’s really interesting when you look through that lens.
One other thing and then I want to get to your book because I know time is ticking by here. So, if I look at organizationally, I love the structure and the intention that you all have really laid it out. But there has to be, I’m guessing, some level of train you up on the company’s philosophies. Is there like a Dave Ramsey boot camp? Do you read the books? Do you listen to podcasts? Like, what’s the training so that you all are echoing each other instead of contradicting each other?
Ken Coleman: Yeah, I mean, in the extensive hiring process and we have a legendary process that’s pretty long. There’s a lot of checking up of values and kind of vetting people in that process. But once you come on board, we don’t make you take financial peace university. But it’s there for people and those services are there. And we’ve had companywide initiatives where we’ll offer the class to everybody that wants to show up and then we kind of have drive to go, hey, and it’s a consistent thing though. Every month, it’s like, hey, are you leveling up? And you’re baby steps. If you’re working for us, we don’t require you to be debt-free when you come here and we don’t require you to get out of it, but we encourage you to do so. And we support our team on that.
There are a list of books that everybody is required to read when they get here, and that kind of drives home the value. So, yeah, the answer is yes, we do that because one of our core values is that we’re crusaders and we’re on a crusade, and so, this is a very intentional place because we are taking on a huge cultural issue and we’re countercultural. And so, we’re not, what? Don’t have a credit card? What? You don’t have a credit score. What? You people are nuts. I mean, so it’s very much a crusade. And so, we do our best to drive the importance of what we believe and why we believe it.
Brad Johnson: We say a lot, language creates, and I love because if I hear– listen to the word crusade, you don’t half crusade. It’s not like, I think I might do it. It’s like here in or you’re out.
Ken Coleman: Well, think about the Crusades. This was you left your family, you left your wife and kids for almost certain death. Almost certain death. And if you didn’t die, you were going to be gone for a year or two. I mean, we’re talking about the Crusades, the historical Crusades. That’s where we get the word crusader. This was a, I am leaving family and I am following the crown for my faith. This is like, what you’re going to go get? I mean, it was an intense deal. So, to your point, when we use a word like crusader, if you understand where it comes from, we’re talking about this is intense stuff. It’s an intense word.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, you better believe. Back to your book, believe like you. Well, then that’s what when you said kind of the driven, the similarity between Maxwell and Ramsey and the driven like, that makes a lot of sense because you only do what you guys do if you’re all in and you’re incredibly driven for that cause.
Ken Coleman: Yeah, like John and Dave are very wealthy men. They do not need to show up today. Don’t need to at all. I mean, Dave 64, John is in his 70s, mid-70s. I still go all over the place. Guy could get up today, have a massage, go play golf, come back, eat lunch, have another massage, have a world class bottle of wine. These guys can do whatever they want, whenever they want. And they do. But they keep doing the work. That is your point. They don’t have to do it. Why do they do it is who they are. They don’t do it, I think a huge portion of them die. That’s my whole thing.
My whole thing is you were created to work. You were needed. You must do it. And if you don’t do it, you are dying slowly, emotionally, spiritually, whether you believe in God or not. I think even the strongest atheist would go, there’s a soul here. There is something. This is not… There’s a difference between us and an animal, right? And so, your soul is dying if you aren’t doing something that is a contribution that matters to you. That’s why those guys still do it.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Now, when I transitioned out of a 13-year career, I took probably two or three months off before Triad was a thing. And I was not the best version of myself. I was not created to sit on a porch in a rocking chair and have a coffee all morning. And I think that’s a very common theme and driven. I mean, you’re a form of an entrepreneur. I mean, I know you’re working within an organization, but you’re building a platform like an entrepreneur would. And I’m guessing like you would echo some of that personally yourself, Ken. Is that fair?
Ken Coleman: Oh, yeah, 100%. No question.
Brad Johnson: Well, let’s go. Now, we’re getting a little bit into the book. So, you talk about really, I believe you call them three wires, talent, passion, and mission. We’re hitting all over the passion one right now. So, I don’t know, if you want to do them in order, if you want to just jump them out.
Ken Coleman: I’ll just do it real quick. Yeah, so if you and I, if we cut our chest open right now, we’re going to metaphorically say we’re going to see three wires that all humans share. One is talent. So, we’ve all come into this world. Babies come into this world. And without any training at all, at some point, they become toddlers, they become elementary school kids. And we begin to see they have some innate talents. I got three kids. They’re all three different. And we, early on, and you’re a dad, this kid’s got this talent, this kid– and we see that. All right. So, that’s just we’re hardwired for talent.
And let’s think of that wire as the technical wire. In other words, talent are tools. Okay? If I use a handsaw to cut this desk right now, it will take a lot longer and it’s not going to be as good as if I use a power saw. We get that. So, we want to be understanding our talents. Those are our power tools. God gave us those talent that with education, some type of learning and experience, some type of doing, we hone that into a sharpened skill, a power tool. So, those are the big clues, always our talent because those are the clues. You want to answer the question, what should I do with my life? We start with talent. God didn’t design you to suck. He designed you to excel. This is clear. And if you’re not a person of faith, get over it. Genesis, Chapter 2, it’s very clear we were designed to work. And so, boom, we start there. So, we call that talent.
Second wire is passion. And I chose this word because the root word of passion in Latin is pati. And it means to suffer. And this is what we need to understand. Passion has been turned into a romanticized word, romantic relationship, passion, even sexualized. The real meaning of passion is to suffer. And so, when we understand that, we go, we love doing this type of work so much that we’ll suffer for the opportunity to do it. We’ll suffer for the chance to be good at it.
See, this is the idea of the furniture craftsman. I’ve had the opportunity to see some old guys who make furniture by hand, and they’ve been doing it for years. I mean, their hands are all beat up and arthritis has set in. This is hard, painstaking work. Why do they do it? Because they love it. They will suffer physical pain. They will suffer mental anguish and frustration because it must be, right?
Great inventors, it must be. They will suffer. You think about Thomas Edison, how many times he failed. Why did he keep going? There was a deep, abiding passion there. In other words, he was willing to suffer. So, if I take it relationally, you and I, without question, would suffer for our wife and we would suffer for our kids. Why? Because we love them. And so, suffering, so passion is, am I willing to suffer? Let’s talk about suffering. Suffering rejection. Rejection sucks. Okay? Suffering failure. Failure sucks. Suffering waiting. Oh, my gosh, waiting sucks. But if I’m willing to wait, if I’m willing to fail, if I’m willing to be rejected and keep going, we got ourselves a passion. We will suffer that.
The third wire is all about intrinsic motivation. So, I went to study motivation and I went and looked at all the research on motivation. There’s six intrinsic motivators. In other words, intrinsic motivation is I do something because I want to, not because I have to. Okay? So, when I tell my teenage boys to clean their room, “Ughhhh”, and they do it. They gripe, and I threaten them with, you can’t go with your friends. Or if you want to go to your friends, you got to have the room clean. They do it, but not because they want to. They do it because they have to. This is manipulation. It’s great parenting, horrible leadership. Horrible leadership. Don’t manipulate people, figure out what motivates them. You as a leader cannot motivate anybody. You can manipulate them, but you cannot motivate them. No coach can motivate a player. The coach, a great coach, figures out what motivates the player and gives the opportunity for the kid to achieve that or receive that, and then the kid becomes motivated.
So, that third piece, the third wire is missional. What is missional to you? What is an intrinsic motivator for you? And we have six of them, and they’re in the book and in the assessment. The assessment, the Get Clear Assessment measures all three. So, that’s the quick breakdown of what it is.
And here’s what it looks like, when I use what I do best, my talent; to do work I love, passion; to produce results that matter deeply to me, mission. Now, I am absolutely doing the work I was wired to do. I am doing the work I was wired to do. Psalm 139:13-14, my two favorite verses of scripture, David uses the metaphor of “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And I love that. I think the three wires, I think that’s our wiring.
So, parents, leaders, if you understand this methodology that I just walk through, it is a cheat code. It’s a cheat code to help your kid figure out what they’re supposed to do with their life. It’s a cheat code to get the right people in the right seat of the bus. And what happens is flourish. It’s unbelievable to watch the human spirit realize this is who I am. This is where I’m doing what I’m wired to do. And now, you’re going to get maximum performance.
Brad Johnson: I love that. Thanks for breaking down the framework. So, Ken, I’m just going back to the lens of the viewers and listeners here. So, let’s just say I’m a financial advisor out there. I’ve been successful. I’ve got 10 team members now. And I’m starting to hit that glass ceiling of this can’t all be on my shoulders anymore. It’s time to maybe add that second advisor grow the team.
And by the way, thank you. We’re going to put the assessment. Everybody watching and listening will be able to take that. We’ll put that in the intro. But how do you start to assess? Do you have a framework? Like, if you were consulting this founding advisor, how do you start to assess talent? Because I’m assuming, obviously, back to right seats on the bus, we got to make sure that aligns before we get to passion and mission. So, how do you start to think through that?
Ken Coleman: First thing, I would do is for the first hire to the second hire, every individual hire, we’re going to start with what seat do I need right now? What seat do I need? We got to figure that out. In other words, what do I need? Because you start off as the chief everything officer, certainly, in this particular industry.
So, first thing I’m going to do and by the way, we can set this up through you, but I consult with leaders on this. So, what I’m about to do, we could unpack in a day or however we want to help your team, but here’s what we’re going to start with. What do we got to get off your plate? I’m going to start with talent, passion, mission. I want them to take that assessment. We’re going to look at it, go, listen, these are your super talents.
And so, anything that you’re average or below average on, that you’re having to do now as the chief everything officer, we’ve got to do three things with those. We have to, one, hire for it, remove it completely, right? So, we automate it or something along those lines. Something else, some service helps with that, or we delegate it. So, if you don’t have anybody to delegate it to, now we’re saying, obviously, we’re hiring. So, we want to look at what allows you as the leader to maximize your efforts within what I call the sweet spot, using what you do best. You need to spend 75% of your day using what you do best to do work you love, to produce results. That’s going to lift the lid off the organization. You’re the lid.
So, we’re going to start with what do I need to get off my– so now, that determines, ah, this is the seat that I need to fill. I need a seat that does this work so that I can scale, right? So, then once we know what that is and here’s what I mean by seat, what is the work that needs to be done? I got to hire to do this work.
So then you take another step. You go now that we know what the seed is, this is the role. Now, who’s the ideal candidate? Now, here’s where we use again the methodology that I just went through. What’s the non-negotiable tasks that this person has got to be good at? Non-negotiable. They got to be good. I can train them. They can become better. But they’ve got to come in good out of the gate. Great. So, they got to have this talent. This is non-negotiable talent for this.
Then you go, what’s the non-negotiable passion? What work, what roles does a person who’s going to sit in this seat, what are they got to love, right? So, for instance, if you’re hiring an administrative person, they got to love checking off a list. They got to love organization, right? They don’t need to love influence because I don’t need them to influence anybody. I need them getting stuff done. And so, that’s the idea.
And then you look at the last piece. What results are non-negotiable for this person, that they got to really be motivated? They got to be motivated by these results. So, if you’re hiring them in the same role, they need to be motivated by efficiency. They need to be motivated by service. Those are two of the six in the assessment and in the book Find the Work You’re Wired to Do. So, that’s what I would do with the leader. And you do that with every hire. And it’s enormously important as you’re scaling and building the team, because you can’t get away with it when you’re bigger. I still think you’ve got to do it.
But man, when you’re building that team, you got to get those seats and the right people in the seats. You got to win that. And the reason is, if you don’t do it well early and you know this as you’re scaling, so you’re going from 1 to 5 or 5 to 10, it will really frustrate you. And you will be reluctant to keep trying. If you don’t have a system, you’re just going to stick your finger in there. I think this is a good hire. And if it sucks, it’s cost you time and money to replace them.
And then what happens is you start to not trust yourself. Watch out, leaders, I’m dropping a bomb right now. When you screw up these hires by not doing it the way that I just said, you begin to not trust yourself. Well, you’ll rationalize and say, “Oh, I don’t trust people. I got to keep doing all this.” No, no, you really don’t trust yourself because you’ve seen you screwed up a hire and it’s in that deep, dark, insecure corner that nobody likes to talk about. You don’t trust yourself. So, you keep all that stuff on your table and you’re operating like this all the time, trying to keep the marbles from falling off the table. And you become an ironclad lid on your organization.
So, it’s really important to have a methodical but very simple approach with this methodology that I’m teaching because now, you can put together an all-star team. And in the business you’re in, I would think of it like a basketball team. I love basketball. I love football. So, if you and I were having lunch today and we just wanted to have fun conversation, I go, all right, give me your top five NBA players all time. If you’re going to fill out an all-star team and we give you 10 players, who would you pick? You got to have that mentality because you can. In a small organization like that, you should be able to put together an all-star team.
And that would be my encouragement. It’s like, look, I only got to fill eight positions, 10 positions. I’m going to be patient, but I am going to put in, I got to have a sales maniac, great. I’m going to get an all-star salesperson. I got to have an operations whiz, great. Got to nail that. And if you build it right and intentionally, game changer. Then you can scale that because you go, this is how we hired early, this is how we’re going to keep hiring.
Brad Johnson: Can you hit all over a point I want to expand on? I love that. I love the sports analogy. I was a football guy, but I can go basketball, too.
Ken Coleman: I can talk football, too. I’m a nut about all sports.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, I won’t take us too far off track because we could do a whole another podcast on that.
Ken Coleman: What position did you play?
Brad Johnson: Free safety.
Ken Coleman: Okay, great. I’ll just have that in the back of my mind, in case I need it, go.
Brad Johnson: Okay, cool. Cool. So, well, it’s interesting, I’ve actually had many conversations over the years with advisors and they hit that three, four, five, maybe they get up to like six, seven, eight team members. And to your point, they’re kind of like throwing people at problems versus intentionally saying here is the role we need to fill and let’s interview for that skill set. And they’ve gotten to the point oftentimes where they throw in the towel, they’re like, it’s not worth it. I’m not going to do that to myself again. That was horrible. That was a train wreck. But you hit a point. Oftentimes, it ends up being this, that person was a bad hire. That person was a bad hire. And what it isn’t is look in the mirror, who hired them? Who’s running the show here?
Ken Coleman: You. You sign that kid. You put him on the field. Coaches lose their jobs over that. If you don’t recruit talent, you ain’t going to win many football games and you will not stay as a coach for very long. It’s the same thing. You’re not going to fire yourself, but your organization isn’t going to grow. It’s not going to win like you want it to win.
Brad Johnson: I heard it said, this was a really interesting take, the other day back to the sports scene. Let’s go with basketball. Five players, right? So, just mathematically, everybody’s 20% responsible, although I know that’s not how the actual game works, right, but 20% based on just five players on the court. I heard it said when you’re starting a company, let’s just say you’re a solo founder, your first hire mathematically is like a co-founder because it’s two people, right? It’s like 50/50. Three, now we’re 33% co-founders, or four, 25%, five, 20%. And what’s interesting is it’s so hard in the early days because you have no team to help hire.
Ken Coleman: That’s right.
Brad Johnson: You don’t want to take the time to write the job description because you don’t have the time, but it’s exponentially more important in the early days. So, how do you balance that act?
Ken Coleman: Well, there’s no balance. There’s no balance. The answer to that question, there’s no balance, and bullcrap that you don’t have time. You don’t have any other option but to sit down. And this is not like a day-long exercise. It’s just like if I were sitting with everybody listening and watching this over coffee and I just said, “All right, tell me the non-negotiables. What talent does this person have to have?” And I just wrote down what you told me. That’s the exercise.
But what are they got to love to do? A person who’s going to win in this role, they got to love– write it down. Boom. What results do they have to care about? What are they got to be motivated by? Boom. Write it down. This is not difficult. Interview for that. It’s that simple.
So, you’re the problem. Well, if you aren’t hiring good people, you are the problem. I don’t have the time. Yes, you do. You do have the time. You have to have the time to do it because you’ll never grow if you don’t. So, yeah, my challenge would be those first couple hires are huge because if you don’t do it right, the negative effect it has on you, which I addressed earlier, is massive.
I didn’t get frustrated. What do we do with stuff that’s frustrating? We never take it super serious. I don’t even want to do stuff that I get frustrated by, and thus, we don’t want to hire. I don’t know. I’m just hoping to hit the lottery. So, it’s like pull into the gas station, buying one of those stupid scratch lottery tickets. No, I mean, come on. So, it’s really huge. And again, I love the coach analogy because I’m blessed to know a lot of college basketball coaches. I don’t know how it’s happened. Just the work I’m in.
Brad Johnson: Have you crossed paths with Bill Self? Our company is based out of Lawrence. So, I have to bring up some…
Ken Coleman: I’ve never met Bill. But I know a lot of college basketball coaches and football coaches that I know behind the scenes. And I encourage them. And they’re very lonely. And so, I got nothing in it. I’m just there to help them. But one of the things I’ve learned is, is they are only as good as the players they put in the program and on the field. And they’ve got a system and the really good ones have a system. And I can tell, in football, they know what kind of linebackers they want. You played free safety. You could go to five different big 12 schools and probably get five different answers on what a defensive coordinator is looking for in a free safety. And it’s going to be heavily related to their personal preferences as well as the system. Am I right?
Brad Johnson: For sure.
Ken Coleman: And so, a kid that wouldn’t get recruited by one school is going to be a top choice by another. This is what we call system. And great systems win on a high school level, college level, and the pro level. And what they’re doing is the general manager and the coaches are going, we need these kind of players. We play a 3-4. So, that means we’re really aggressive. And so, we need lighter, faster edge rushers. Okay, great. Why? Because that’s our system based on the philosophy.
The same thing with hiring. And it’s certainly when you’re building out your business, the financial, it’s so customer centric facing the customer. It’s such a relational business, I’m guessing.
Brad Johnson: Very much, yeah.
Ken Coleman: So, it’s really, really important that you create this feel, like I know nothing about your industry other than I have somebody that handles my finances and my investments, but I know what I’m looking for in a feel. And you are in the business of creating a feel, in my opinion. What’s that feel? And while the people that are on their team are all contributing, going back to your basketball analogy, some percentage of the feel that we believe we need to create so that people come to us, choose us, and stay with us.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, I want to echo some of what you just said there. Coach Self, we were fortunate enough to have him out to one of Triad’s first experiences ever. So, we were facilitating it. It was kind of our version of EntreLeadership.
Ken Coleman: Awesome, yeah.
Brad Johnson: That we brought all of our members in and he spoke. And one of the things he said that stuck with me, he said, “It is not my most talented teams that have won the national championships.” Because, I mean, he’s getting blue chips every year, some of which are only there for a year, right? And he said, “However, I had to have very talented teams that played together. They had to know their role on the court, and I had to have some role players because I had some all-stars that were the scorers, and if everybody thought they were a scorer, we weren’t going to win the game.”
And what’s funny is in the game of basketball, there are so many business lessons, but that stuck with me. I’m like, that applies so much to business right there. And it echoes everything you just shared. So, I love that. It’d be like Coach K saying I don’t have time to recruit this year. Like, how many championships is he going to win?
Ken Coleman: Well, a couple things really quick. Coach K, for those of you who love metaphors, give you some fun things to play with here, Coach K has a famous philosophy. He talks about the five players on the floor, their individual, like this, like fingers. But when they come together, they’re a fist, and that’s great strength. That’s Coach K’s philosophy there.
And then I give a lot of talks to sports teams. I love doing it. And the one that I always give is the three characteristics of a great team. And they are this. It is filled with players who know their role, accept their role, and maximize their role. Say that again. They know their role. They’re extremely clear on what their role is. That’s a leadership issue. Leader’s got to make sure, the coach got to make sure they’re clear on what their role is.
And a basketball analogy is, look, you’re going to get 12 minutes game and I want you getting close to double-digit rebounds. I want you harassing the snot out of their best player. That’s your role. If you get an open shot, okay, that’s fine, but you’re not looking for your shot. You’re going to get a kid who needs to do that, who wants to do that. They know their roles clearly. They accept their role. This is an attitude of gratitude. They’re grateful just to be on the team. They’re grateful for this opportunity to work with you and Triad and change people’s lives and change their life. Okay?
And then, three, they maximize their role. They go above and beyond. They go above and beyond what is expected of them, right? Film room early, extra film time, in the weight room, helping out somebody else in practice, being that he made you see somebody drag a little bit, go be that friend, the pick me up, whatever that looks like. So, great teams in business and in sports, three dominant characteristics, the players, the people on the team know their role, that’s clarity; accept the role, that’s gratitude; and maximize their role, that’s effort. So, clarity, attitude, and effort, that’s an entire keynote that I tried…
Brad Johnson: Hey, that was a nice little knowledge bomb right on the end of this conversation. So, thanks for sharing that. Well, Ken, hey, as we wrap, I know we’re right at the stopping point here, I just have one final question. This has been an incredible conversation, so I really appreciate it.
Ken Coleman: Thank you.
Brad Johnson: This is the Do Business, Do Life podcast, and we’ve hit all over that today. But I would love to hear Ken’s definition of what does do business and do life, kind of the integration, what does that mean to you? How do you define that?
Ken Coleman: Doing work that I was wired to do, that I was created to do, doing work that I’m good at, doing work that I enjoy, doing work that produces a result that is connected deeply to my values, that’s the doing business. That is my unique contribution. You were created to fill a unique role. You are needed. You must do it. That’s the do business.
And do life would be to first understand that no matter what you do professionally, no matter how successful you are professionally, it pales in comparison to who you need to be personally. And so, therefore, never lose sight of the fact that you’re a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter, a good friend. Those are the things that matter most.
And to the extent that I can do business well, it is solely to make the contribution that God put me on this planet to make, to the world, whatever that looks like could be a zip code. Doesn’t have to be famous, doesn’t have to be huge. So that I can have the freedom to be that person relationally that has also been already ordained for me. And so, the average will American spend 90,000 hours at work in their lifetime. I can’t imagine just doing something that didn’t allow my life to be better for the people that I want to live it with. And so, if I have success in business, but I do not have success in my personal life, I have been an utter failure and I have not lived the life that I’m meant to live.
Brad Johnson: Love that definition, my man. That’s a mic drop moment. So, Ken, thank you. Super grateful for your time and hopefully, one of these days, we get to do this in person.
Ken Coleman: Yeah man, I’d love to get out there and hang with you and your team. Any time, man, that sounds like fun. You’re doing great work and you’re a very thoughtful guy and that’s going to turn into tremendous success for you. You’ve already been successful, but it’s going to just keep multiplying because of your intentionality.
Brad Johnson: Appreciate it, Ken. Until next time.
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