Coming Soon

Coming Soon

Peter (00:00):
You're listening to the PK experience podcast. My name is Peter King. I'm the host of the show. And today I sit down with one of the top CEOs on the planet. His name is Brian Scudamore. Brian is an American born Canadian entrepreneur, best known for the brand 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which really revolutionized the junk industry if you will. Um, but the parent company that owns that is called [inaudible] brands. And Brian is the CEO and founder of that brand as well. OTE stands for ordinary to extraordinary, and it's got a number of other brands underneath it that are top tier brands in their respective verticals as well. Um, Brian really does have the Midas touch when it comes to creating successful businesses. Uh, the culture of this, frankly, honestly, I think it's the, his biggest legacy in my opinion, is his ability to inspire and create greatness within the people and the culture of these various brands. And that's really what I wanted to dive into on this call. In addition to his recent book WTF, which is not the acronym that you might be thinking it is WTF, willing to fail, how failure can be a key to your success, how failure can be your key to success that was published in 2018. So we get into all of that here on this call. So without further ado here I am with Brian. Scudamore alright. I'm here with Brian. Scudamore Brian. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast show. I really appreciate it.
Brian (01:26):
Yeah. Glad to be here, Peter. Thanks for having me.
Peter (01:28):
Your story is so inspirational and you know, every once in a while, when I have guests on the show, I have, I get a feeling of like, I think this is going to be a really impactful one. And I just researching you a little bit and watching some of the other stuff online. I just, th th there's something about your approach to business that is, um, unfortunately at least in my experience, somewhat rare, the level of thoughtfulness and purpose that you bring to, I didn't, I don't know. Maybe you can educate me on some of that, but, um, again, I just wanted to thank you for your time today and, and, uh, I'm looking forward to diving into picking your brain a little bit and figuring out how you've done, what you've done. Cause it's pretty remarkable.
Brian (02:06):
Awesome. Well, thanks for the kudos. And I don't know, you people have a choice when building a business, do it the right way, do it the wrong way. Why not take care of people and make sure you've got the right people treat them right. I haven't always had that philosophy. You know, I've made some, some mistakes along the way, and that's what business is about. You fall, you get back up, you learn. Uh, but we, we believe in caring about people and, and you spend so many hours at work. You might as well work with people that you become friends with. People that you take care of people that you help them accomplish their goals and dreams. And it's, it becomes more of a lifestyle than a really, just a job, which is the fun part.
Peter (02:45):
So I've noticed that there's often two tracks where the things that you're saying seemed like common sense to me, but there seems to be another track of people that say, you know, that are, that are very hard line driven, you know, very profit driven. And I don't need to be friends, you know, give me results. It's very results oriented. And, um, speak to that for a second, if you would. And the significance of peep, a people first culture and, and you know, corporate identity, basically.
Brian (03:13):
Yeah. One of my mentors, Verne Harnish, who runs Gazelles and they coach a lot of businesses and do a lot of great work. And I've known Verdun was the founder of EO, the entrepreneur organization, which I've been a part of for about 22 years, 24 years. And one thing I learned from Verne, he said, you get what you give. And so why not put it out there to the world where you, you help people with their dreams, you help understand what's important to them. Now, when you talk about hard line numbers and profits, I think if you focus on just the bottom line and just the numbers, then you know, you get people that realize that all that's all you really care about. You don't care about them. You care about the bottom line, but if you show that you care about the top line, the people, the most important assets you have in your business, and you take care of them, they'll take care of the bottom line.
Brian (04:03):
I promise you. I mean, that, that's how it's worked in our business. When we started involving people in our great game of business, a profit sharing program inspired by Jack stack who wrote the book, great game of business. When we started taking care of people and saying, listen, we want to share the wealth that we're creating. People got involved in a deep way and started to manage expenses and save money. And they took care of the company and took care of the profits. So I think people just get it wrong. Sometimes they turn it upside down and focus on people. First, everything else flows.
Peter (04:34):
Well, you said that you started out not being that way. So what was the pivot point for you and where did you learn that from? Yeah,
Brian (04:42):
I wrote a book recently called WTF, willing to fail. And what willing to fail means is you've got to put yourself out there and you've gotta be okay, making some mistakes, but then stand up and own them. And I think the, the first real WTF moment that I talk about in the book is five years into the business. I had a half a million in revenue. Small company was in business five years with 11 employees and five trucks. And I said, you know, I'm not having fun anymore. I'm building the business cause I want to make money, but I want to first and foremost enjoy the work I'm doing as I'm doing it. And I took all 11 people one morning and a standard morning meeting we'd have every day. And I said, guys, I feel like I've made a mistake. I haven't either brought in the right people, trained you, given you the love and support the belief in you.
Brian (05:30):
You don't have the belief in me. And we had nine bad apples just takes one disposable whole bunch. And I just said, I'm going to part ways. And I got rid of all 11 people and the next day started the company over. But what I realized, maybe not literally the next day, but several months later is that a company is all about people. That's all you've got is people, no matter what you sell, no matter what you create, it's people that are doing it. And I don't care if you're in AI business, it's people programming the AI. So nothing matters more than people. And when I realized that that's all that is a business has, and that became our focus. Even at our head office, the junction, we call it here in Vancouver, anyone that would ever come see us, the first thing for a heavily branded company, I mean, I'm always logoed and branded. Our whole company is all about branding. People walk into our head office. The first thing they see is not a logo. They see a sign on the wall that says it's all about people with my name below it. And that's our commitment is finding the right people, treat them right, simple and easy to say, not easy to execute on, but it's a commitment that matters
Peter (06:37):
You. You are the simple and easy to say, guy, if I were to pick one, because your, your brand names are like a direct response, marketers, wet dream. I mean, they're, they're perfect. They're concise. They're clear that it's a call to action. It's all in one. It's brilliant. So, uh, you mentioned the branding piece of it. Where, who does the branding for you guys and, and, uh, where do those ideas come out? Cause they're, they're brilliantly simple.
Brian (07:03):
Yeah. I've been heavily, heavily involved in leading the brand creation. So 1-800-GOT-JUNK was all me. It was, you know, we were a small company and I came up with this concept. We were called the rubbish boys and our phone number was seven, three eight junk. The problem was people would see our trucks around in town and half the people would say the company was called the rubbish boys. The other half would say the company was called seven, three eight junk. It caused confusion. So I came up with this concept based on the got milk campaign, a big ad campaign from the eighties, nineties. And I said, you know what? If we change the company to one 800, got junk with a question, Mark, it asks the question. It's one simple name, simple number Weber dress the whole bit. And so we came up with that, but the fun part of the story is I said, okay, so great.
Brian (07:50):
I got this idea. I picked up the phone and called one 800, got junk. And the number was taken and it wasn't available in my local area. So I called friends and family in different States and provinces to try and figure out what's the phone number answered by someone. And it wasn't 10. I couldn't figure out who owned it. I made 60 phone calls, found out the department of transportation in Idaho own the phone number I got in touch with the guy from the phone room and my third call to Michael in the phone room. I said, I need this number. And he was just about, you know, stop calling me. I don't know why it's important. Here's the forms signed off the number's yours. And so I got this phone number, but I actually created the logo for one 800, got junk, the colors and brand exactly as we use it today, before I even own that number, because that's how committed I was to building that brand. Well,
Peter (08:40):
You're talking about vision and that's one of the huge takeaways that I've gotten from listening to your stuff online is the power of vision and painting a picture. Tell the listeners what you mean by painting
Brian (08:51):
Specifically. Well, they say a picture worth a thousand words. Why not take the picture from your mind as an entrepreneur, as a leader and put it down in writing in actual words so that people can see inside your head. What happened was I joined the entrepreneur organization, uh, in 1990, uh, six, uh, eight years into my business. I was at about a million in revenue. That's what you need to join. And one thing interesting happened was I started to compare myself to others. I started to see that other entrepreneurs had bigger, better sexier businesses than my little junk removal company. And so I went and took a retreat to try and get creative and understand what was going on in my brain. Cause I was in a little bit of a depression, a little funk. I went to my parents' summer cottage on the water and I pulled out a sheet of paper, one page double-sided.
Brian (09:39):
And I just started to write very much a Jerry Maguire type moment. If you've ever seen that film. And I wrote out my manifesto, my painted picture, I ended up calling it of what the future would look like. Not could look like not what we'd hope it to look like, but what it would look like. And it basically came down to this. We would be in the top 30 metros in North America, by the end of 2003, five years out. We, we started the business in Vancouver, the rubbish boys. Why couldn't it be in every market? That's bigger than Vancouver and they're 30 cities. So we, uh, I, I wrote it all out. I said, we'd be the FedEx of junk removal, clean, shiny trucks, friendly uniformed drivers. I said, we'd be on the Oprah Winfrey show. Everything I laid out in that picture immediately transformed me from a doom loop to a place of, wow, I can see this.
Brian (10:27):
I can see this happening. And the vision in writing that painted picture became a document that I would share with others, family, friends, employees, and what started to happen as people went, one of two camps, one camp was, Oh, gee, Brian, you're smoking the hope dope here. There's no way this is ever going to happen to the other camp that said, wow, I want to be a part of this. This is cool. And it fired people up. And I think that that's what we do best as either entrepreneurs, small business owners is fire people up about a better, more compelling future than we're in right now.
Peter (11:01):
This reminds me of a, I brought this up several times on several calls, but, um, there's a book called the King warrior magician lover that four different archetypes of mature masks of the mature masculine or something like that. Okay. And, uh, the magician archetype is the one that, that paints the vision that creates the clarity and it gets buy in from others. And that's very magician like of you to, uh, to do that. But you, um, going into that weekend where you, you got some time out for yourself, I mean, you were really dealing with, if I understand correctly and seeing some of your stuff, that there was depression, there was panic attacks. I mean, this was what an identity crisis or what, like w what were some of the other things that you were dealing with at that time? Cause most people don't really understand the entrepreneurial journey. So paint that picture for us, what life was like at that point, I think I was not happy
Brian (11:54):
With what I was doing and where I was at in life. I wanted more, I didn't want it wasn't money. It wasn't toys and things, but I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing. I was contributing, creating. I'm a very creative type. I love to cook. I love to learn new languages. I love to try new things. And so to me, a business is an Avenue a, uh, a way to create, to build teams and people build something much bigger and better together. And I felt like I wasn't creating something I was proud of or happy with. And so it was that painted picture that gave me that direction, that North star, if you will, of what could this look like and where could this go? And once I latched onto a possibility, I could see and believe in that made all the difference. I didn't know how to get there, but I started recruiting a team of people who believed, who saw my vision, wanted to be a part of it helped shape the future of, uh, where we were going and brought in people like Cameron, Harold, who was our COO at the time that grew us from 2 million to 106 million, then went on to another CEO, COO years later, Eric Church who's here today.
Brian (12:58):
And hopefully here forever, uh, happened to have been friends with Cameron, Harold, but he took us from a hundred million to 400 million. And, um, it's finding that executer that can take the reality that the visionary sees in their mind and puts in writing to make it, uh, to make it come true.
Peter (13:16):
Have you read traction? Are you familiar with the ELs model?
Brian (13:20):
I own traction. So the, the funny thing about me in books is I buy a lot of books. I don't read a lot of books I'm so add, which is why when I wrote my book WTF, I made it a little bit shorter and easier to read so that entrepreneurs, the audience would get through it. I have not read traction, but I know a lot of the stuff that we talk about, um, you know, similar circles, um, to, to genomic and we wrote the book, but, uh, it comes from this EO network and, and different circles that we all kind of play in, but we do some similar things.
Peter (13:53):
Yeah. It's um, I guess in your journey, you'd talked about how, as a visionary, you were partnering with other visionaries and how that created maybe more chaos or that is, that, was that the dynamic between you and your previous partner?
Brian (14:08):
My, uh, so my w wasn't a partner, but Cameron, Harold was my, was my COO. Now we're great friends. I mean, we, we talked last week. We talk all the time. He's a, he's a great guy. And I'm so grateful for all. He contributed to one 800, got junk. The tension was not really tension as much as it was. I think irresponsibility as we grew that we had two entrepreneurs, entrepreneurially minded people who were very add shoot from the hip fire, ready, aim types, running the business. Now what worked to take that little motor boat and steer it on a dime in the early days. That was great. Cameron and I were on fire together. But then when, when things started to grow and get bigger, taking a big ship that you're trying to a little more slowly and trying to steer it on a dime created havoc. And we just got to a point where we were still having fun together. We were still great friends, but his skill set, we needed a COO with rigor and discipline that could really move at a different pace.
Peter (15:05):
Yeah. Um, and so you ended up letting him go, uh, w how did that, how did that come about?
Brian (15:13):
Yeah, so that was hard, you know, here was Cameron, uh, he'd gotten married recently and I was the best man in his wedding and sort of fire your best friend and all that sort of stuff. I mean, fortunately again, if you were to interview him or talk to him, he'd say, you know what? It was the right thing for both of us. And sometimes the entrepreneur has to do right thing, even if it's the hard thing. And so it was hard for both of us. It was painful. And it took me a long time to get to the right CLO Eric Church. Now, fortunately Cameron and Eric were in the same fraternity together at a university. And, uh, one of the people of three that introduced me to Eric was Cameron. So it's good that Cameron and I repaired our relationship and made everything okay. And it was the right thing to lead us to the next stage.
Peter (15:59):
Um, what, what excites you today? What, when you wake up and get out of bed, what do you get? What drives you to get into work every morning?
Brian (16:08):
Yeah, so great question. I love inspiring entrepreneurship entrepreneurs in our franchises. We've got four different businesses from one 800, got junk shack shine. You move me wow. One day, painting all these businesses that we're creating. Um, thank you all these businesses we're creating. It's about taking people who might not have started the business before in their lives, and they want to run their own show and we help give them the training and support to help them be successful. I love inspiring entrepreneurship. I love inspiring people internally at the junction to help support entrepreneurs. I mean, you need entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs working together. But to me, everything that drives me is building something bigger and better together. Eric and I, and the team talk about building a billion dollar group of brands, you know, while we're 40% ish, the way there we'll get there, no doubt. And it isn't about a billion. It isn't about the money. It won't do anything to change anyone's lives here. But what it'll do is it's the significance of look at all the lives we're impacting from customers to our franchise owners, to people here in the junction.
Peter (17:16):
It seems to be a common thread through, um, the limited amount of, uh, very wealthy people that have been able to come in contact with who are billionaires and up is that, that intention to create deeper impact in the world. And when you look at, you know, the mega billionaires out there, the Elon Musks of the world, there seems to be a very deeper cause to what they're doing beyond just, Hey, how do we make more money?
Brian (17:39):
Um, that seems to be a smaller,
Peter (17:41):
Limited mindset. Um, and yeah, I, that, that fascinates me because, uh, how do you serve a bigger audience other than to have that deeper care for, for people really? What's what kind of, what it comes back to, right?
Brian (17:56):
Yeah. And like a focus, you and we talked earlier, a focus on the bottom line, you know, I think it's, that's a shallow focus if somebody is just putting their energy there. Well, same with focusing on your own bottom line and your own wealth. Right. I think what's important is people have to see that there's a deeper meaning why they're here on the planet. Everyone's got a gift. Every single person I've ever met, they don't all know their gift. It took me awhile to discover mine, but it's, how do you take that gift and give it to the world and make the world a better place. And I love that you talk about the Elon Musks of the world and people that are understanding that there's a greater purpose to what they're doing. Uh, money is shallow. I mean, yes, you need money to exist and survive and feed the family. But beyond that, I think that, you know, money doesn't buy happiness and happy people know that to be true.
Peter (18:45):
Who inspires you today?
Brian (18:49):
I'm inspired by humanity. I mean, I'm inspired by every single person I meet. Um, and it, it doesn't need to be somebody who's, who's a brand name out there. It can be just a general, you know, I was out for, uh, for French food with my wife. We were out on date night and our date night turned into a, uh, uh, someone sitting beside us who joined us. And it was a young gentleman, uh, who was in a wheelchair and, uh, was a quadriplegic. And he rolls up and he's controlling his wheelchair with his mouth and the whole bit, and he starts talking to us and he just said, hi. He goes, how's your night at 19 year old kid. And, uh, I was inspired by his ability to get out, get on a bus and get out around town as a university student with not a lot of money to, uh, to go sit in a fancy French, well, not fancy, but fancy French restaurant because he loves eating and trying new food and strikes up a conversation with two strangers that inspires me. You know, we think of the challenges we have in life sometimes. I mean, my wife and I always joke about, Oh, gee, you know, wherever we're complaining, we try not to. But when we do, it's like, wow, first world problems. Right. So I'm, I'm inspired by humanity. Just people in general are good. Yeah.
Peter (19:59):
I love that answer. I love that answer. Um, you talked about date night. How do you H how does someone with busiest schedule, as you do find the time to, uh, I shouldn't say create the time to, to have a date night.
Brian (20:13):
It's tough. And I, I hate being this guy to say, I, you gotta put it in the calendar. I mean, how unromantic is that? But the reality is with three kids and both my wife and I have businesses, how do you, how else do you do it? You gotta put it in the calendar and plan for it. Uh, I got a buddy who lives in Dallas, Rick Sapio and he, and his wife for something like 10 years since they've been married, have never missed a Monday night date night. And they just make it one of their habits. And they're like, you know what? Grandparents, every Monday night have the kids every Monday night, they're out at a different restaurant in Dallas. And I think you got to commit to the things that are important to you in life. And sometimes we get too busy and we forget about our commitments. That's natural, but it's putting it in the calendar as what works.
Peter (21:00):
Yeah. Um, talk to me about your grandmother's. You said that she was a pretty big influence in your life. What, where did you grow up and how did she, how would, what was her role in your life?
Brian (21:12):
Yeah, I was born in San Francisco. I moved to Canada when I was seven or eight. My, my mother remarried and I was adopted and brought to Canada. And so my, my grandmother had an army surplus store. She and my grandfather used to run this army surplus store and a really sort of, uh, rotten neighborhood in San Francisco. And, you know, it was a little sketchy and I would go in there on summer vacation, Christmas break, and I go work in their store. Um, but what I loved about working in this little shop beyond just a passion for business was they taught me about customer experience, customer service. They treated everyone with respect to came into that store. Now you'd get, you know, some, some homeless people coming in asking for money, and my grandparents would never give anyone money, but they would give them any year.
Brian (22:00):
They would give them the time of day and they would talk to them and give them respect. And so word out on the street was that the Lord verse, it was called Lorber surplus, uh, that the lawyers were great people and you don't mess with them. And what I found interesting is the number of times I noticed other stores on either side of my grandparents, surplus store getting robbed, but never my grandparents, because they had a word out on the street that, you know, good people, good people. So my, my grandmother inspired me and taught me the, the love of customer experience and taking care of the customer and also taught me just the, the, the fun and building the fun that there is and building a business.
Peter (22:36):
Oh, that's cool. Um, when you think about, um, you were talking about before about creating a vision and, and being the visionary of a business, how do you go for somebody that's out there that's listening that has a smaller business. They don't have unlimited, um, funds. How do they go from where they're at now to manifesting that vision? What advice do you have to help somebody bridge that gap?
Brian (23:01):
Yeah. So for me, the lesson learned, I read something about this years ago about your reticular activating system. And I always remembered it. It's the, it's the part of your brain that pays attention, tells your brain what to pay attention to. So important details you're in the airport and the white courtesy telephone pages. You, you know, Peter King, please go to the white courtesy telephone. You're busy, you're stressed, you're rushing for a flight. You still hear your name because your brain says, even with everything else going on, pay attention. Well, a painted picture of vision is you putting it in writing and reading once a week, once a month, your goals, your vision for what's important. And when you see things that will get you closer to that decision, your brain goes, Oh, I need to do this. I needed to do that. It's, you know, people talk about law of attraction, law of attraction, quantum physics. I don't know if I'm a, I don't know enough about it to really comment, but I do know that it can sound a little airy fairy. What I do know though, is that your brain paying attention to what you put in writing and what you look at off often, your mind is paying attention to what you're saying is important to you. And it goes and chases it.
Peter (24:10):
Um, there's a piece of that too, where you're sharing something very intimate with people that your, your deeper beliefs in your vision. And I mean, that can be scary for some people to be that vulnerable. And you've talked about putting it out there to the world. And like you said, finding out who's on board in this camp and who's not, um, what, what input do you have for somebody to, to, to, you know, how vulnerable do you get? What, like, you know what I mean? Like what, I don't know if I'm, uh, I'm searching for the right question, but I,
Brian (24:42):
I think I get you. I mean, I think that vulnerability leads to trust. If you're not vulnerable, people see you as not being real, how vulnerability you get, just be yourself, be real. You know, why do you have to hide, uh, you know, behind some facade? Why not just, Hey, you make a mistake, you mess up in the company. We try and teach people here to own up to it. You know, WTF, be willing to fail, make a mistake and, and fess up. Uh, we want people just to sit there and go, Hey, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm scared, whatever it is, be vulnerable to me, it's more of a, just, just be real. And people trust you. They like you, they support you. They work with you.
Peter (25:21):
Um, the trap that I found myself sometimes in is, um, trying to create that vision, but then also finding, being my own bottleneck, because I'm, I get, I'll get into the trenches, trying to do some of that work. What advice do you have for somebody like myself and other people who are working through that growing pain?
Brian (25:40):
Yeah, I think it's learning to let go as an entrepreneur, many founders don't grow well with a company because they become their own bottleneck and they just can't let, go for me. I had to learn to let grow, go through failures, through realizing when I fired all 11 people. I'm like, Holy crap. I'm down to zero employees. I'm just myself. I can only drive one truck, not the five that I own. There's not a lot I can do in the business. I was forced to rebuild a team and let go of control again if I wanted to grow it. And so I think that, you know, we had a PR guy on our PR team, our first ever PR hire named Tyler, right? And I gave him one of our goals, which was to get on the Oprah Winfrey show. It was in the painted picture and I couldn't have chased it.
Brian (26:26):
I didn't have the time. I didn't have the energy to do it properly. I gave it to someone who believed in what I believed and worked hard to make it happen by relinquishing control and empowering him to get out there and pitch, pitch pitch, you know, little over a year later, he got us on the Oprah show, incredible massive PR for us, couldn't have done it myself. And so I think as entrepreneurs, we have to recognize as leaders, we can't do everything ourselves. And when we try look what happens, I mean, things fall apart. It gets stressful. We can't do it. We become, as you said, our own bottleneck.
Peter (27:00):
Yeah. Um, for you, you talked about inspiring entrepreneurs. What are some of the common mistakes that you see that entrepreneurs make?
Brian (27:11):
I think entrepreneurs have a challenge with focus of doing one thing or two things really, really well. And now we're human beings here at OTC brands. And we often take on too much. We're ambitious, but you've got to balance it. You know, one of the things that drives me nuts is when the team will come to me or to, to Eric and myself and say, Hey, we want to do this, this, this, this, this, and this, you know, try and get them to repeat those seven things back to you. It's almost impossible. And so scale back and go, what are the two or three things that really matter most this year and do them well at a home run. I'd rather someone hit a home run on one big audacious goal versus trying to do seven things or five things. Uh half-assed
Peter (28:00):
[inaudible] um, how much do you mentioned AI before? How much do you think about technology and the influence that it's having? How does that impact a business of your scale?
Brian (28:12):
You know, we, we definitely have people here that are looking into AI and, and, uh, our data and how to really take the business to the next level for benefit of the customer. Uh, we love to try and make things easier. And if we can use technology to do that, I mean, in many ways we're a franchise or, but the, the reality is we're probably more a tech company or booking and dispatch software and systems that we, you know, get one 800, got junk jobs and trucks all over the country. You know, we really are a tech company in many ways. Uh, but to me that's inspiring others or empowering others to get out there and do the research and to, to grow again, I can't know everything I can't read and research and do all these things. So you bring on specialists who are passionate about passionate about something and let them chase, uh, some goals and dreams that can help, not just them, but also improve the company.
Peter (29:06):
Um, I don't know why this just came to me, but w how would you finish this question or, or sentence life is what, how would you, how would you answer that?
Brian (29:17):
What you make it? You know what I mean? It,
Peter (29:21):
Go ahead. I was going to say, what, what do you make?
Brian (29:24):
Yeah. I mean, to me, it's, it's making, it's making life better. It's having control of, you know, I hear here, I talked to you about how do you let control go and give control to others, but at the same time towards what you want in life, you know, I want build a company or group of companies that's known for taking care of people, doing the right thing, having great values, making a difference in the, in the world. Um, I believe in making meaning versus making money. Now, again, the money will come and you've got to make money, but to me there's so much more that's important. Um, we, we've got a book that we just rolled out internally in the company called the 101 life goals book. It's a big thick book that has 101 different people, each achieving one of their 101 life goals, someone climbing, Machu, Picchu, someone swimming and diving with the sharks, uh, someone swimming in the blue lagoon of Iceland. I mean, there's some cool things in there, but we cheerlead each other to accomplish dreams that the business can help them with or dreams outside of the business. But again, to me, you're, you're making meaning when you're cheerleading your people to do great work in and out of the business. And to me, that trumps just about everything else.
Peter (30:37):
This is a, you said there's an internal book. This is from your people that ended up
Brian (30:41):
It's from it's it's our people. Yeah. So it's just an internal culture book. If you will. We just did the first edition. We rolled out around Christmas time and, uh, yeah, it's something we'll do the next hundred one life goals. We've got to roll out a of people accomplishing cool things. We'll create another book. And it's a bit of a take home yearbook, if you will, for people to go out, look at the people in my company, look at the cool stuff. They've all done. Look at what we do together.
Peter (31:07):
That's fascinating. So where did that idea come from?
Brian (31:12):
Was that a program, a business program that I take every year, I'm in my 17th or 18th year of at called birthing of giants in Boston, at MIT. And it's a reunion class. Now it was a three year program, but our class gets together each and every year to continue on the program and the learning. And there was a guy, a Ted Leona who, uh, was one of the founders of, of, um, all. And he created this thing called the 101 life goals. He was actually on a plane. A small plane was going down is like, if I survive here, I'm going to get all these things done that I'm writing out that I want to do for myself and my family. And it happened to be 101 things. So we share that within the business, people who have business cards on the back of the auteur brands business card, it says, what one of their 101 life goals is it's a good way to, it's a great way to get to know people. Um, you know, I ran into a woman today, Christie, and I said, Oh, how was your vacation? Your holiday? She's like, awesome. We just got a puppy. And I'm like, Hey, that was one of your 101 life goals. Cause it was on the back of her business card. So it's neat when you can get to know people through their dreams and aspirations and have meaningful conversations about how you can help each other.
Peter (32:19):
Ah, that's so great. It humanizes your, your entire workforce and gives them something bigger than just the nine to five to, to care about. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's really interesting. So I'm, I'm wanting to just spend a little bit of time on how you really, I mean, you've spoken
Brian (32:36):
Obviously a ton about it, but how you actually, what are some tangible that a
Peter (32:40):
Business owner can do to develop that culture? Cause everybody's trying to find that, that sweet, uh, mix of passion and purpose, but also results too. And how, you know, within the company, how do you, what's some advice that you have on that
Brian (32:54):
Regardless. I think people have to lead by example. And so as a leader, you start with it being the culture you want to create for your own home. So to speak, if you're building a small office and you've got three people, five 15, doesn't matter, you just stick to really preserving the core culture, which means find the right people, treat them right. Get people that you want to bring into your organization that fit too often. I think people get out there and go, okay, I've got this company. Now it's a hundred people. We need to shift the type of people we're hiring. It's like, you know, don't go hire all these quote unquote gray hairs. I've got some, you know, don't go out and get all these people that you're trying to say are so smart and professional. We've got to take it to the next level. Still hire the people based on, on attitude first and skill. Second we're big believers, hire an attitude, train on skill, find people that fit your organization and fit your company culture. Cause you can't mold them and shape them into what you want to be. You've got to find people that already fit. And so it's different from company to company. I mean, you go to house party to house party, things can different wildly. Um, what you want is you want people that fit the party, the business that you're creating.
Peter (34:08):
Well, how would you define your culture? It, do you have, um, you know, what, what values do you have that define your,
Brian (34:18):
Your culture? Yeah. Are our values years and years ago, we sat down with a small team of buddy people and we did a little retreat. We took out posted notes and I said, Oh, just read the book by Jim Collins. Good to great. He says, you've got to have values. What are our core values? Let's write them out. Not who we want to be, but who we already are. And we wrote out 400 posted notes, put them up on the glass windows and then sorted them into four categories. And our values came down to passion, integrity, professionalism, and empathy. Now it doesn't mean those are the right values for any other company. They're the right values for us. And the way you know, they're right is if people are living them, people are swearing by them. People are holding each other accountable to them. People will come up to me and say, Brian, you know that decision, wasn't very pipe awesome for holding me accountable. I can reflect and apologize or change course. It's incredible when you've got to set a value. So for us have our values, talk about them, storytell around them and recognize people when they're living them and live in them. Right.
Peter (35:21):
Um, the 101, what was it again? 101, uh, life goals, life goals. I mean, talk about storytelling, a literal book. Is that something that you'd ever publish publicly or is that just sort of,
Brian (35:32):
I don't think it would have meaning to publish it publicly. You know, I, so when we created the book, we gave it to every single person who was in the book. And so if someone wants to be in the book, you got to go accomplish a goal and submit it. So you can be in the next book now, was it meant to be exclusive and exclude other people? Absolutely not. People are looking at it and getting to read it and they're going, I want to be in the next book and then it's up to them to make it happen. Life's what you make it.
Peter (36:02):
Um, I think a really true Testament to your company's culture and your values is obviously your people. And, um, I've watched that episode of you on undercover boss.
Brian (36:14):
Oh yeah.
Peter (36:19):
You went in and for those adult, don't that Daenerys it's when they take, CEO's says my connection's on stable. Hopefully I'm still, still there. Um, cover back where they, where they said you got it. Okay. So what I was, what, what really stood out to me was usually in that show, the CEO comes across one or two or three bad apples.
Brian (36:39):
Every single person that you met with was passionate. They were on fire. They worked hard. I was like, you know,
Peter (36:46):
There was no at the very end of the show, there's usually the, you know, the reprimanding, you know, we're gonna have to let you go or you to kick it into gear, whatever. But it was just a celebration of the people that I thought that was a really cool Testament to what you've created, the culture you've created and the people there.
Brian (37:01):
Yeah. Thank you. We we've got a great culture and I mean, you know, I will say that while undercover boss was a lot of fun, it's still reality TV, right? Reality. Um, there was one fellow in that show that, you know, we gave him his prize and uh, the next day he ended up getting fired because we had learned something during the filming. That was not very good, but certainly wasn't shown on TV, but you know, so there's a, there's a balance, but you know, we, you know what, we've got a great culture, great team of people and we work hard at it. It doesn't just happen overnight. You've got to really, you've got to get the wrong people out when you've got them. And the way I look at that is you're freeing someone up to a better future because if they're in your company and it's not the right fit for them, uh, and it's not the right fit for you, you know, it's up to you to help push them out. So to speak because people, you know, need a job and they're scared they don't want to quit, but if you can help them get into a better place, it's a win win for everybody.
Peter (37:58):
[inaudible] um, I hope you don't mind me asking you this, but I'm curious a little bit about your upbringing. And you said that you were adopted, that you had, um, your mother remarried. What was the, what was the, um, a little bit of that volatility like for you as a child? So my apologies, unfortunately, during the call, we lost internet connection and the call was dropped. So I had to call Brian back and we jumped back on and here is the rest of the call.
Brian (38:29):
Yeah. So, you know, my mother remarried and I moved to Canada and it's seven or eight years old being an American moving to Canada, this cold white North. And, uh, you know, it was just, it was different. But you know, I, I, it forced me to adjust and meet friends and the new country, and that ended up happening again where my dad, who's a liver transplant surgeon. This is who my mom ended up remarrying. He adopted me. And that was great. And we're, we're close. He, uh, when I was 12 years old, 11 years old, we went to England and there I was now an American who became a Canadian who became, who was living in England. I had braces, I had buck teeth and the, the Brits don't, don't generally have a lot of, uh, metal in their mouth and, and, and braces. And I got picked on and it, it forced me to, to go hold on here, I'm at a tough school getting beaten up.
Brian (39:22):
Uh, I might have to throw some punches back, which was certainly not the right thing to do in the longterm, but it, you know, it taught me to stand up for myself and to, you know, that life isn't easy. And so it, it shaped my future. And probably, you know, I think we are the sum total of our decisions that we make in this world and our experiences. And so while it was a tough time being in England and it was temporary for me, it did teach me that, uh, you got to stand up for what you believe in. You gotta stand up for yourself and you gotta, um, you know, I, I had a bit of a mouth on me as a kid, which I'm not proud of, but it, you know, someone helped put me in my place. And, but at the same time I learned the balance of speaking up. When I, when I felt it was important.
Peter (40:08):
Well, you talked about the value of empathy in your, and your company culture. I wonder if that's where some of that came from just the you've been on the other side of receiving on the bullying receiving end, which is probably not a very fun place to be.
Brian (40:20):
Yeah. You know, I think, you know, I said this earlier, you said, who do you look up to? And I said, everybody, I mean, we're, we're human beings. And we've all got gifts. We've all got beauty that we bring to the world. And, um, I have a hard time when I see people that are insecure, cause I know they're hiding behind something and they often come across as overbearing and assertive and you know, mean and grouchy and whatever it might be. But I've learned to have some empathy for, for them. And instead of getting angry back at them, a level of, okay, you know, I wonder what's going on in their world and how can I help them? How can I give them a smile? How can I give them something that might help make their day better versus what a lot of people might do and saying, Hey, you jerk, you know, why did you just cut me off? Why this, why that? So I think it's important that we all treat each other with great respect.
Peter (41:10):
I agree. It's spoken like a true Canadian.
Brian (41:15):
The only thing, the only thing I have to say after that is after that statement as a Canadian, I got to go, sorry, say, sorry for everything. Sorry for speaking up. Yeah.
Peter (41:24):
Yeah. Uh, sorry for being a model sample for humanities. I love those Canadian road rage videos. I don't know if you've ever, uh, I haven't seen them. Uh it's it's things we do who, uh, you know, I'll lay in bed and watch videos as I try to turn my brain off and veg out so I can actually go to sleep. And, uh, yeah. They're pretty funny. You should check them out. Um, well I know we're, I know we're getting short on time and unfortunately I had a little technical glitch there, but, um, I'll ask you, I've asked a few of my guests. How do you want to be remembered if there were three words that you could use that you would want people to use to describe you and, or maybe an experience with, uh, one of the OTE brands? What three words would you like them to use?
Brian (42:10):
I think inspired possibility. You know, I want to be someone that, whether it's our hundred and one life goals book, whether it's a helping to inspire entrepreneurship, I want people to go, you know what, Brian challenged my thinking and made me work towards something that I didn't even think I could do. And life's about living and you know, the way I look at it, there's a real big difference between making a living and making a life. And I've always hoped that people have as much fun building a life as I do, because you know, our days are short. Life is short. Why not focus on building a great life? Um, versus I think North Americans have sometimes got it wrong. We focus so much on building the living and status and toys. When you know what you look at, the Italians, the French, the Europeans, it's like, you know what? Let's eat together. Let's play together. Let's have fun. And, uh, I think you can have both. So that's my wish for people.
Peter (43:07):
Agreed. I love that. That's a good note to wrap this up on, uh, Brian Scudamore and the latest book WTF, willing to fail. Thank you so much for your time today. It was truly inspiring. Appreciate it.
Brian (43:20):
Yeah. No thank you for having me and a lot of fun chatting with you and you run a great show. So thank you. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.