Entrepreneur Intel

EI - Mike Maddock

Intro: [00:00:00] This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw. No BS. No sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Matthews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5 percent learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family, and business.
This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI, and no surprises.

Wes: So I'm super excited, uh, to have the guests on today's podcast. Uh, introducing our guest today. He is a serial entrepreneur. He has written four number one bestselling books on Amazon. He is a global keynote speaker and growth strategy coach. Uh, Mike Spends, his day is advising CEOs from both Fortune one hundreds and startups on how to create the teams and products that change the world.
Welcome, Mike Maddock. Welcome, Mike.

Mike: Hey Wes, nice to be [00:01:00] with

Wes: Uh, so happy you're here. Uh, lots of questions for you. Excited to dive in, but I gotta ask you first, uh, your companies, you have a long track record of being a successful entrepreneur. 33 years to be exact. You've had headcount up to a hundred team members in, in some of your companies.
What's the most important lesson you've learned thus far on your journey?

Mike: I would say that, um, my friend Marshall Goldsmith said what got you here won't get you there. He wrote a book about it. And I think that, that lesson, that your, your superhero power, your greatest strength is also tied to your greatest weakness or your greatest blind spot. And the sooner you realize what you, those two things are and surround yourself with people that can, um, you know, take care of that blind spot, the better.

Wes: Now you have an incredible journey. I mean, 33 years, that, that's, that's a lot of time being an entrepreneur. I'm sure you have just. You've multiple businesses, just a different type of [00:02:00] experience across your journey. What, what, what got you down the path of becoming an entrepreneur or going off on your own?

Mike: Well, I was lucky because everyone that I worked for in high school and then in college was an entrepreneur. And in a lot of ways, I got to look behind the curtain. I saw how messy and scary and ugly and, uh, wonderful it was to run a company. And I also saw that you didn't have to be perfect. All these entrepreneurs, these great, uh, craftsmen were flawed and they were, I remember I had a job in high school working at a luxury.
apartment or condominium building in Chicago. And it was, uh, you know, rich people were building out entire floors and I was a laborer. So they had master carpenters working, um, the best of the best. And I remember hearing one day a litany of swear words when this woodworker had miss cut a piece of Walnut.[00:03:00]
It was a 20 foot board of Walnut and he cut it wrong and he swore up and down. And my takeaway was, wow. That's the best carpenter in Chicago, and he made a mistake, but he kept going. It was a great lesson for me. Entrepreneurs, um, what's the, Phil Knight, my big takeaway from Phil Knight's shoe dog, just keep going, which is a wonderful piece of advice that every entrepreneur should hear from another entrepreneur.
Wes: So what was your first, what was your first business venture? Like, what did, what did you start your career with early on?

Mike: Well, uh, so I, I needed money in my pocket as a kid and to pay for gas to go on dates. So I, I cut lawns and I shoveled snow and I realized pretty early on that I could sell the next house and the next house and the next house and get my friends to help me, you know, shovel the driveways or whatever. So that was my first, um, taste [00:04:00] of entrepreneurship.
In college I had a greeting card company. And then a little design firm. And out of school, I started a company called Maddock Douglas with Wes Douglas, um, my first business partner. And we grew that company up to about a hundred people. Um, it went from being a design firm to a marketing strategy firm, to an innovation consulting firm over the years.

Wes: So what, what year, what years does that company take you to? Like how many years did you run that company?

Mike: it's, it's, it's still, it's still around today, but I started it in 1991. I remember. The tagline, our first tagline should have been sure we can do that too, because I would just take anything, you know, do you do logos? Of course we do logos. Do you do advertisements? Of course we do advertisements.
Brochures? Why not? And any work that we could get, we would just figure out how to do it. And then eventually I had this epiphany that advertising and marketing were taxes you paid for bad ideas. So I'll say that again. [00:05:00] Advertising and marketing are a tax you pay for a bad idea, which is to say that as social media became a thing, if you came up with something that solved a real problem, people would tell each other about it and you had to pay less and less to get the word out.
So we pivoted at Maddox Douglas from being about marketing and advertising and more about being about research to find gaps in the market, inventing a new product or a service or business model that solved a real need. And then we could market or advertise it, but you had to do less of that because it solved a real problem.
Wes: I noticed that you have, uh, you know, fortune 100 companies. I mean, did you? Split your company into, we're going to go after large enterprise companies and entrepreneurial companies. Or like at some point, did you make a decision or do you serve both of those markets?

Mike: When we, when we pivoted to be about innovation, we bought a research firm, um, called Markitecture out of [00:06:00] Connecticut. And, um, you know, I remember in our company, um, Uh, we had a, a theme for a year, make the vapor go away. We had this really honest conversation about what we were really good at and what we didn't know how to do.
And one of the things we didn't understand really was how to do great research, qualitative and quantitative research. And as soon as we figured out how to find gaps in the market and size them, we could make a really compelling case. in boardrooms that mattered about, you know, that there was a gap in the market that was worth, worthy of a 300 million new product or services minimum.
Um, and that we would deliver, we would find that gap, come up with a product, um, and help them launch it or the project was free. And it was quite a compelling guarantee. And, you know, um, one day we were working with the, the plumber down the street, and the next day we were [00:07:00] on the phone with General Mills and Kellogg's and Kraft and, uh, Nationwide Insurance and Allstate Insurance and Transamerica.
And so it became, um, We, we very quickly went from being, working with very small companies to being in the boardroom. We also stopped working. We were working with the CEO, because it turned out that when you're launching a new product or service, that's the visionary's job. And that's typically the CEO.
It starts at the CEO and moves down. So it's quite a shift for us.

Wes: How did you, how did you think about that concept of doing all of that hard work for essentially free? If it didn't work, right. Or you as an entrepreneur, you're responsible, you're on the hook for your team, your people. I mean, was it just you and a partner? So it was your time or how did, how did you architect that model?

Mike: Well, people that are way smarter than me told me stories [00:08:00] about guarantees. And if you could find a guarantee, something that, a promise that you could make, um, and get behind that people would trust you more, it would become easier to sell. So I remember hearing the story of the scooter store, um, which is a wheelchair, electronic, electric wheelchair store.
And their guarantee was they took the number one issue. Which was insurance and said, look, if we say we can get you covered by insurance and we can't, we will give you the wheelchair for free. We will give you your scooter for free. And what the reason they could make that guarantee is because they became experts in understanding how to qualify for insurance.
That expertise allowed them to write a 10 point questionnaire. And if you got those questions, right, they could, you know, they would say, we'll get you insurance. If you didn't, they wouldn't take you on as a customer. So that was the guarantee. They never had to give away a scooter because they really understood where the questions were.
We [00:09:00] knew. That we could find a 300 million gap in the market. We did our homework. We still can today. We knew that we could align that with a customer and a brand where you had the right to launch this and people would buy it. We could prove that they would buy it and we could prove how much they would spend for it.
Ultimately, what would happen is most companies won't launch a new product or service because of their own stuff. It has nothing to do with, um, you know, having the idea, having the idea is easy. Getting it through the meat grinder, the sausage machine is really hard. And most companies lack the courage or the will to actually do that because most companies are designed to mitigate risk, not take it.

Wes: Yeah, that's interesting. So like, were you, was that your only business at the time or did you have some other activity going behind the scenes? Cause I'm just kind of [00:10:00] hypothesizing. The life cycle, the sales cycle of something like that. Like talk to me about the timeframe of something like that. I'm, I'm curious around that.
I

Mike: Yeah. So a project that type of project takes about six months to do. So, and, and what was interesting is that our average client went from engagement, went from about 50, 000 to probably 500, 000. We added a zero and what I didn't see, and it was really hard. It was kind of like skiing moguls, but the, they got.
Bigger and bigger and bigger. If you missed one, if you missed a client or, you know, there was a gap in, you had to have a pretty big team to do that kind of work. And if you missed a project or it got delayed, it put a tremendous strain on overhead. So it's a good lesson as an entrepreneur. Um, if I could start all over in life, I would, I would make recurring revenue businesses instead of going, becoming a professional whale hunter.
Cause [00:11:00] it's, it's hard to chase whales all over the ocean.

Wes: love reoccurring revenue. You and I share, um, I read an article in Inc, uh, interesting seven, seven signs that your forum isn't delivering value. I think it is, but. We have a connection because we're both affiliated with EO, Entrepreneur Organization, and I think you're also part of YPO, uh, which is similar, just more zeros at the end of the number.
So you have a lot of experience with entrepreneurs. Talk a little bit about, you know, and this kind of ties into your four bestselling books on Amazon, which is pretty amazing because Amazon to me is this, this big ocean of content, things, and items. So for you to be able to have best selling, that's pretty cool.
Talk, talk a little bit about like, when did you start writing books? Um, you know, what, what are the topics of those books and how did you ultimately become a four time bestselling author on Amazon?

Mike: well, so since you brought up EO, I'll bring up my friend Vern Harnish, who's the founder of EO. [00:12:00] And he got in my ear many years ago and said, Mike, you got to write a book. You got to write a book. You got to write a book, Mike. And the reason he said that was because If you write a book, you have to do the work and you become an instant expert.
People just assume you know what you're talking about when you write a book. Ultimately, you kind of do have to know what you're talking about to write a book. Um, the first book I wrote was called, um, Brand New Solving the Innovation Paradox. The innovation paradox is the harder we try to innovate, the worse we get at it.
And so the whole book was deconstructing. What happens when you put pressure on a team and say, we have to change everything and what to do about it? What to ke what you can do to keep the the train rolling smoothly down the track. It has a lot to do with design thinking. The second book was called, um, free the Idea Monkey to focus on what Matters Most.
Free the Idea Monkey is about the tension between, um, an idea monkey and a ring leader and operator and a visionary and how to keep a team in balance. The third book was [00:13:00] called, um, flirting with the uninterested, uh, which it describes my dating career in college and also talks about how, uh, uh, large companies often tell their customers what they want instead of listening to what they need, uh, it's about selling, um, uh, Specifically insurance.
You need it. You need it. You need it. Instead of going, what do you actually need? And then the fourth book is called Plan D and it's about disruptors, business disruptors, and specifically the seven superhero powers that my friends who are business disruptors use to Pivot, and to change industries and businesses.

Wes: So what are some of your learnings from that? Right? So you're, you're, you're a successful entrepreneur. Vern Harness shakes you, says you have to write a book. I think a lot of entrepreneurs might have that seed in the back of their head, right? Like what, what would this do? What type of impact? I mean, I think myself as an entrepreneur, you have a lot of head trash, right?
Like who cares about my book? [00:14:00] Who am I, who's going to read it? You know, what, what were the emotions like? And then after, like, is there some big things that changed or that you saw from, you know, whether it was your effort or time you put into that, or what are some big things that you noticed from that experience?

Mike: Well, so nobody makes money writing books, hard stop, which is an exaggeration. Very few people make money writing books. And my intention wasn't to make money writing books. My intention was to understand a topic and have something to say. in front of clients or on stages. And so what happened was I wrote a book, people started to come ask me to speak about the book, which led, it turns out that all those detentions I got in grade school at St.
Joseph's Catholic school at Homewood, because I talked too much and doodled too much turned into a career. Now I get paid to talk and doodle on stage. So I know how to talk. And people would, you know, invite me to be on [00:15:00] stage and, um, talk about things. And that led to bigger and bigger stages and it led to engagement.
So it was really, and the reason Vern said you need to write a book is because there's no better business card than a book. Um, I think just, I think it's some takeaways from writing a book. I think number one, you can't write one book in one sitting. You have to write an outline, and then write articles that eventually will become a book, write a little bit at a time.
It's like you can't eat a whole side of beef at once, one plate at a time. Um, number two, and this is really, this is something that my friend Mike McAllowit shared with me, who's written some wonderful books, um, and a lesson I'm trying to learn still. Most great business books are about one singular idea, and it's usually in the headline.
Uh, the power of habit. Uh, if you think about your favorite business book, I [00:16:00] bet you the headline is the topic and every chapter is about that one thing. And if you can find one thing that, um, might feel like a cliche, but it's true, like it All cliches are cliches because they're true, and write about it in a way that makes people go, wow, and there's one singular takeaway, you've written a good book.

Wes: no, that's really, that's really good feedback. Um, one that stands out in my mind is Dan Sullivan, right? 10 X is easier than two X. Like that sentence sums up, you know, what that book is, but you and I share experience around EO, and I think one of the big parts of EO and YPO. Our, our forums. Right. And I think as an entrepreneur.
If you're aware of what a forum is, uh, great, keep doing it. And your article might add a lot of value, but to entrepreneurs that aren't familiar with what a forum, I mean, forum completely changed my life. Um, but you'd written an article for Inc, which is awesome in and of itself, but interesting that, you know, seven signs that your forum is not delivering.
[00:17:00] Like talk a little bit about that and what, you know, what inspired you to write that and what does it all mean?

Mike: Yeah, so I have been involved in forum, in an EO forum and a YPO forum. My EO forum for 23 years now, my YPO forum for 15 years, and they're both my second forum. My best friends, some of my best friends in life started in peer groups and forums. And, you know, I had some, I've had some personal tragedy in my life and my forum mates literally carried me.
They made me a better father, a better husband, a better friend, and a better business person when I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. So I have mad love for forum. I think every, uh, CEO has blind spots and a CEO's job is to deal with those blind spots. So. If you are in a peer group, here are seven ways to know that you're not getting the most out of your peer group.
The first one is that everyone goes to the same [00:18:00] church or the same bathroom. So, uh, my favorite saying is you can't read the label when you're sitting inside the jar. and what contributes to it. That means our expertise gets in the way. We know what works. We know what we can afford. We know what we've tried in the past.
We know what our customer needs. Uh, we know, we know, we know. And a peer group, the right peer group, should be able to look at you and say, you're missing something. But if everybody is in the same religion or goes to the same bathroom, there are intrinsic blind spots that that you just can't get away from.
My friend Dave Liefeld works for a company and it's a, they have Christian men's group Um, peer groups, and he's a coach, and he, when he was going through the interview process, he said, you know, I don't think Jesus would, uh, be able to get into one of these groups, which I thought was funny. So that's the first thing.
Y'all, y'all go to the same church in the same bathroom. The second one A [00:19:00] way you know that your peer group isn't delivering for you is that, haven't you heard this presentation before? You keep hearing the same presentations again and again and again. It might be you who keeps coming up with the same presentation, or one of your forum mates.
That's a sign that you're stuck. And it's a sign that you're, there's this axiom in design thinking that if you keep working on the same problem over and over and over again, and you can't fix it, you're probably working on the wrong problem. You need a forum or a peer group that sees your problems differently than you do.
If they don't, You'll you'll be stuck and they won't be able to get you unstuck. So the diversity of thinking in a group in a peer group is critical. It's why I started Flourish Advisory Boards, but I'll talk about that later. Um, no, I'll talk about it now. I think that every peer group should have at least six different types of lenses.
There should be a an operator, there should be [00:20:00] a strategist, There should be a Rainmaker, there should be a Visionary, a Tech Orchestrator. Uh, you can test to understand what is, uh, the lens a CEO sees things through, but when you have all six of those lenses in a group, you'll get unstuck much more quickly.
Does that make sense, Wes?

Wes: So my experience with my forum and just being around EO, like I, I love what you're saying right now because it makes perfect sense to me. You know, I was, I was talking to a client the other day and they want to hire an EOS implementer. Because there's like four visionaries in a room. So what did they do?
They started interviewing visionary coaches. And I said, the last thing you need is another visionary in a room full of visionaries. Like you need to find the biggest integrator coach to help you because you guys are just kind of crazy. So your concept of the flourish advisory on the six different lenses is fascinating because.
You [00:21:00] talk about your company filling this big void. I see forum as the same thing where now you have six different perspectives and people aren't stepping on toes and you're going to get that full 360 perspective on any problem, personal, family, business, or whatever the case, I'm, I'm fascinated with it.
Like you've taken it to another level, which I think is pretty awesome.

Mike: Well, thanks. Well that you, and it's a great segue because the third way, you know, that your form isn't delivering for you is that everyone's a hammer looking for a nail. And so my own personal experience, I mentioned that I got a company up to about a hundred people. We did, it wasn't me, it was us. And we're 20 million in revenue.
And then we're 18, then we're 16, then we're 15. And I, I'm like, what is happening? And it's out of desperation. I brought in a coach who tested all the people around the table. And I was shocked to find that everyone, everyone, except for our CFO was a quick start on Colby. In other [00:22:00] words, we were all about pivoting and under pressure or when we were having the best day of our lives.
We wanted to invent something new, so even when we found a winning formula, we didn't want to execute on that. We just wanted to reinvent ourselves, which explained why we were so good at innovation, so good at figuring out things for our clients that were different, but really not good at executing and follow through and systems and processes.
And I was blind to it because, you know what? I loved all these people. They laughed at my jokes, you know, they, they were like me and I did, but I didn't see it until we did that test. Um, the next

Wes: how much did forum like, how much did forum open your eyes to that? Right. Like I have my own personal experience where I remember meeting my forum and I'm like, there's all these problems happening around me and I don't know what's going on. They're all like looking at me like, yeah, dude, like you're the problem.
And I finally came to [00:23:00] grips to, I'm a quick, I'm a quick start. I'm a visionary. And. I realized, man, I'm, I'm causing a lot of these problems and I have to get out of the way. So it's really cool that you figured that out right in your journey.

Mike: yeah. So, uh, the example that I use just to bring this home, I said, there were six lenses. So if, if I came and said, oh my gosh, we're not profitable, what are we going to do? And I had six of those types of people. The operator would say, let me see your PNL. I'll punish it. You'll be profitable in two weeks, I promise you.
The strategist would say, well, how are you measuring? I mean, are you measuring lagging indicators, leading indicators? Maybe we should change your KPIs around. The rainmaker will say, what's your pipeline like? Maybe you're not charging enough. Maybe you need to 80 20 your pipeline. The visionary, us, we'd go, we need to reinvent our company.
We need to buy somebody. We need something completely new. We're not profitable because we're no longer relevant. Uh, the, The, um, the Tech Futures would say something like, you know, let's, maybe [00:24:00] our tech stack is wrong. Let's bring in, you know, AI and have the robots make us better. And then the orchestrator would say, well, maybe it's about trust.
Maybe we have a culture issue. We're not holding each other accountable. Um, and the question is who's right? And the answer is they're all right. Everybody's right at a different moment in time. But unless you have all those lenses to see your challenges through, you're going to just keep being what you're the hammer looking for a nail.
And for us visionaries, we just want to reinvent stuff. I'm a great starter. I'm a lousy finisher. I need a great operator to go, come on, you know, Walt Disney needs to write Disney.

Wes: That's really awesome. I mean, that's really cool. I mean, to be, to be able to see that, you know, is, is really cool. Um, so what does that process look like? I mean, is it. Do you take six random entrepreneurs and just kind of group them together like the real world show and like, let's see what happens or, or what does that look?

Mike: No, [00:25:00] no, I, I actually, it's, it's, um, it's a really difficult business model because it's like playing Tetris. First, I have a pipeline of people who are like, I need a group. I need a turnkey advisory board. I, I, you know, most of them have been in peer groups and they've outgrown a peer group and they're looking for something, you know, to go to the next level or find a new tribe.
Um, many of my. Many of my members are in a lot of peer groups. They're, you know, they're just looking for a different type of peer group. So I use the Colby to understand which of the six seats they run to when they're having the best day of their lives or retreat to when they're having the worst day of their lives.
It's the same seat. Most entrepreneurs or CEOs or P& L owners can do two of those seats really well. Um, and then I start putting together groups where there's at least one person in each of the seat seats and they're in the same zip code in terms of employee count and revenue. [00:26:00] Um, and then every group has a professional moderator and a professional executive coach.
I moderate a number of groups. I don't take on coaching clients anymore cause I'm too busy, but I actually do have a couple of seats open in, a couple of my groups. Um, and it's awesome just being in the middle of those folks who have these panacea moments because things they've been stuck on for a long time are finally being viewed through a different lens than, um, you know, the, they see the world.

Wes: No, that's really cool. I'll get you back on track. What what's number four. I took you off

Mike: Um, it's so good. Number four is that you give more value than you get for years. A peer group is like a savings account. You know, you come every month and you give and you're attentive and you're present and you're, and, And you're putting money into a savings account. You're like, that's [00:27:00] building equity and trust with the group, people around your, the, the, the room.
And, you know, oftentimes your life is going great. You don't need help, but when you do, if you've been putting that, um, if you've been investing in the group, you're going to be able to make a huge withdrawal. That's something that I learned when my wife got sick, I needed those people to help me and they.
They were there for me. Um, if you give and give and give for years and you're, it feels like you're always giving and never getting, you may have outgrown your group. Yeah.

Wes: That's interesting. We have a, so just, just from my perspective on forum. So for me, what I see when I talk about forum mates or forum group, it's for us, it's, it's. It's that top 5%, bottom 5%, the good stuff, the great, but then also the worst of the worst, right? So your top 5%, bottom 5%, personal family business.
We kind of have a run. It's not like a running joke in our forum, but [00:28:00] you know, you've been through a lot in your own life. We've in our forum, there's been a lot, right. And it typically moves from guy to guy. We kind of have this thing. He's like, uh, I mean, there was a period where he's like, man, I'm, I'm glad it's not me this month.
But he's like, I know my time's coming, you know, but it's been one of those things where I think, so for people to understand that, you know, if you're an entrepreneur being around like minded individuals that are like to your comment of same zip code, you're going through life, personal family business of people that are doing similar things as you, uh, experiencing the same stuff.
So like, it's, it's a phenomenal outlet, life

Mike: Yeah. There's, I, I often tell people that, um, Don't be ashamed when you're having a really bad year or month or when you're having a really good month. Cause you feel bad. Like I'm killing it, man. I am absolutely landing the plane. I am killing it. And the guy right after the guy before you presented in tears because their [00:29:00] company's about on the verge of bankruptcy.
And what I say to folks is, you know, just, Be patient because entrepreneurship is like a rollercoaster and you just never know. I mean, look at what happened during COVID. Some people's businesses got just hammered, devastated. And some people are like, this is the best thing that's ever happened in my business.
It was just luck of the draw. Um, two years later, the other businesses are doing well. That's number one. Number two, the thing about a peer group for P& L owners is who do you talk to? You can't go to the neighborhood barbecue or a family reunion and go, man, I have to figure out a comp model for my executive team or geez, uh, I have to, how am I going to fire my best friend, you know, because these are first world problems to these people.
Oh, look, the business owner wants some advice. That must be really rough. Well, it is rough and you need a group to talk to. The crown is very [00:30:00] heavy.

Wes: Yeah, it's really good. Really good stuff. Alright, so that's number four. What's, uh, what's number five?

Mike: Number five is daddy won't let me do it. Um, it's critically important not to have victims. In a peer group, if you're a P& L owner, you need to be surrounded by people that can pull the levers of the machine and make things happen. And I've literally been in groups where A member or members would come and complain about how their father or their mother who really was running the business wouldn't let them do anything in the business.
And it is maddening being around someone that complains but can't create. And those people can't be in a good peer group. They can't. Um, that's Any questions? Have you ever had that experience? Come on, admit it. I want names.

Wes: Uh, that's good. That's good.

Mike: No comment. No

Wes: comment. [00:31:00] Yeah.

Mike: Well, I've had that experience and I remember early days in EO. I was so excited to be in a, with a group of entrepreneurs who were like, Changing the world and, you know, had the keys to the castle and could drive the car and any metaphor you want. They could take it anywhere they wanted to go.
And then being shocked to be in a group with people that were complaining because they didn't, they felt powerless. And they were. And I thought to myself, Then why are you in this group? And I wasn't being mean. I just wanted to have conversations with people that could, could put ideas on the ground.

Wes: Yeah. That was kind of one of the things that led me to EO was just having, you know, you had to be the founder, you had to, you know, start the company. You know, cause up until I think I joined EO in 2014 and up until that point, I'm like, man, I didn't know this existed. Like this is unreal because everything that led up to that point was, you know, it might be a salesperson that's part of this company or yeah, family [00:32:00] company.
It's just, it's never the same type of, of, uh, you know, relationship, right. From entrepreneur to entrepreneur, my forum, my forum, like there's more zeros on some of the, you know, Some of the members, right. But what I noticed is the problems are all still there. It's just different, different level of variation of those problems.

Mike: and that's going to happen when you're in a group for 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20 years, some, some members are going to have explosive growth. Some will be on their third or fourth company. Um, but having someone to, who can empathize with where you've been and really cares about your success and is willing to tell you that your baby is ugly is critically important.

Wes: Yeah, I had a, I had an experience where I sold a company and I kind of didn't listen to the feedback, right. I kind of went to it like this and certain amount of months happened. And two of my former mates are looking at me like, yeah, we told you that [00:33:00] this is

Mike: Yeah. Gestalt is,

Wes: You know,

Mike: Gestalt is difficult. So like for people listening, the Gestalt protocol, which I, I think is awesome is that you share experience and that advice. And the way that looks is if I tell you, Wes, you should do this, you got to do this, or you're going to really regret it. And if you do it and it blows up in your face, you're going to be mad at me.
If you don't do it and it blows up in your face, I'm going to be mad at you. But if I say something like, well, Wes, something similar happened to me and here's what I did. And it blew up in my face. So I just want to share that with you because I wish on the look back I'd handled it differently. You can't be mad at me for sharing my experience and you can do whatever you want with it.
Um, and so as much as possible, I think sharing experience rather than advice is, should be the protocol. And it's, you know, another way to say it is don't shit on me. Don't shit all over me. [00:34:00] Um, It's really hard because we run businesses and we're used to saying, no, here's what you need to do. But in a peer group, the moderator, uh, needs to try to control that as much as possible.
And that is number six. You know, you're in the wrong peer group. If it's a goat rodeo and a goat rodeo means that there's, there are, there's no agenda. There's no controls. People are interrupting there. Every meeting is different, yada, yada, yada. And, um, I believe that a great advisory board, a great, uh, peer group needs a chairman, needs a professional moderator, someone that can be a benevolent dictator.
My friend, Mickey Williams, she ran Vistage Group for years and she let me sit in on a couple and I remember her telling me, I'm a, uh, benevolent dictator. I, these people all run their own companies. I love them. And if I let them, they would run each other out of the room. So I [00:35:00] decide what they're going to talk about.
I decide when we're going to stop. I decide, I decide. And it's been my experience that guess what? Uh, CEOs really like that. Their time is incredibly valuable. They want things to be run in an orderly way. They're okay with when, can I say something? No, not yet. Cause we got to get through this. They appreciate it.
And one of the flaws. Um, in my experience, EO and YPO forums is that they're member led, which means the moderator is volunteer, is a volunteer and we're busy. It's not their job. And so oftentimes, You get a goat rodeo when you really want a peer group.

Wes: It's a good visual. It makes sense.

Mike: You've been to a goat rodeo, right?

Wes: Oh, I, yeah, sometimes I, yeah, I live in it. But I do like, you know, for me, the [00:36:00] gestalt or like speaking from experience has changed my life. Because I'm a visionary and before I learned that, right, somebody would have a problem and I'd feel like a hero, right? Like, oh, I've got, I've got the smoking gun. I've got the answer, right?
And, and now, like, after learning, it's like, Man, I can't tell you what's good for you. Like alls I can do is speak from experience. You make the decision. You've got to live with the decision. And if I can't speak intelligently from the experience, maybe I know somebody that could help that had an experience.
Otherwise just keep my mouth shut and I don't have to get involved. I mean, it really changed my life. Sometimes my wife or my kids get mad. Cause they're like, can you just tell me? And I'm like, no, like, I don't know what's good for you. Like, let's talk it through. Like they hate that I speak from experience here, but I think one day they'll appreciate it.

Mike: Yeah, it's, it's, it's very hard to do when you're an idea monkey. You're just like, I, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? My big moment was when someone, we were studying the drama triangle, David Emerald was teaching our executive [00:37:00] team. And I, Um, come from a background where there is a lot of addiction in my family and I don't like, um, enablers.
I never want to think myself as an enabler or rescuer, another word for it. Uh, Dave's word for it. And I would like, I triggered thinking that I was rescuing people and then. It occurred to me that I rescued with ideas. That, you know, people were waiting for, what's the idea? What's the idea? And that was creating real dysfunction.
You know, being able to go, what do you think the idea is? You know, you've, have you heard of the 1 3 1 framework?

Wes: I have not, no.

Mike: I love this. Um, Jamil Nazim shared this with me. He picked it up at Harvard. 1 3 1 framework. Just imagine someone comes in to your office and they're complaining about something and you say, well, listen, let's have lunch next Friday and we'll 1 3 1 it. Um, so next [00:38:00] Friday, you go to lunch, what's your 1 3 1?
One, here's, here's how I see the issue. Three, here's three ways that we could possibly solve this issue, and here's what I recommend as a solution. That's awesome, because you're, you're, A, don't complain, 1 3 1 it, okay. They're framing the issue, they may see it differently than you do. They come up with three solutions.
They may come up with different solutions than you would, and they have a recommendation. Now you don't need to take any of those, but at least you, you've been enlightened and you've created a culture where people are leading with ideas instead of complaints. So it's a great, uh, framework for people that have lots of

Wes: that's an that's an interesting framework. That's a really interesting framework. Me, I had something similar with uh, Dan Sullivan, who's who's a I love his books his trilogy of books But there's something that I learned through strategic coach, which is called the impact filter Which is uh, it's really helped my company and helped me because I think [00:39:00] as a visionary quick start Everything makes perfect sense in my brain.
But until you try to like explain what you're asking out of somebody, right? Then they do it and you're like, this isn't what I thought. And this impact filter documents are really nice way to communicate. So when you mentioned that, I quickly thought of that impact filter.

Mike: I know Dan

Wes: like,

Mike: I'm not, I'll go looking for that. Thank you for that.
Wes: Oh, impact filter completely changed my life. So like, I always recommend EO to anybody that'll listen and an impact filter, because I think as a visionary, just again, to your six lenses, people communicate differently and you need to like all look at it from a different perspective. So what is flourish advisory?
Is that the name of the company?

Mike: Yeah. Flourish advisory boards. And if you're curious about what seat you might be in, which of the six lenses you, your leadership style sees challenges through, [00:40:00] if you go to the site, it'll ask you to answer 10 questions and it'll tell you which of the six seats you sit in. So it's about a 30 second 10 question and then answer 10 questions.
If you send me a note, I'll, I'll interpret your results and tell you what your superhero power is. And importantly, what your Achilles heel is that's tied to that superhero power.

Wes: so just to confirm, it's www. FlourishAdvisoryBoards. com and they can go on and take a test, an assessment.

Mike: That's right. Yeah. It'll pop up when you read on the homepage.

Wes: which brings me to my next piece is, you're a speaker, you're a polished guy, you have a lot of experience, like what do you like to speak on? You know, what's a good format for you? If, I mean, there's a lot of people that reach out all the time, like, Hey, we're looking for good speakers.
What's sort of your, you know, this is the best of the best when it comes to speaking.

Mike: Yeah. I've been speaking lately about the questions disruptors ask themselves. I think there are, you know, [00:41:00] that the greatest leaders ask the best questions and I've spent a lot of time, uh, in rooms with people who, with leaders that are way smarter, way more accomplished than I am. And really I just took notes about the questions they were asking themselves and their teams.
I wrote plan D, um, which is about disruptors and it leads to some good conversations. If you think about the questions you, you could ask yourself, if you want to change the way your business is perceived, you're perceived, et cetera.

Wes: No, that's really cool. Mike, I could talk to you all day, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, but we've got the flourish advisory boards. If somebody wants to reach out to you, whether it's for speaking or more about your books, or just to connect with you, you know, maybe for an opportunity or whatever the case is, what's the easiest way that somebody can get in contact with you?

Mike: So the easiest way is my, just a personal email because my assistant looks at them and she'll make sure we get on a calendar. It's Mike at Mike. [00:42:00] And, um, I answer all my

Wes: D D O C K. That's MADDOC as M A D D O C K, correct?

Mike: that's correct. Yeah. Mike at Mike dash Maddox. com.

Wes: Well, awesome, Mike. I really appreciate the time. A lot of nuggets, uh, today. I really appreciate it. And, uh, hopefully people reach out to you and talk about this, uh, advisory board forum. It's really awesome what you're doing.

Mike: I love it. Um, my purpose is to connect people in possibility. So it makes me feel really strong helping put. Two people together that can put a bigger dent in the universe. And Wes, just because, um, I know there's an OCD person listening to this. The seventh way to know that you're not getting what you need out of your peer group is that Everybody gets along.
There's a, um, I call it [00:43:00] a partner paradox, where if you get along really well with your partner or your forum all the time, they're probably too much like you. You, I've, I've run, um, Gathering of Titans out at MIT, which is an entrepreneurial conclave. Five or six times, I believe, which means I've had to go out and get, uh, 15 speakers for each one of these gatherings.
And then I, for years, every year, I'd look at the comments on the speakers and how they were rated, and I get really bummed if everyone didn't get like a 10 or a nine. And then I realized something. It was. The people that half the room hated and half the room loved that created the greatest impact.
Because when you hear something you don't like, it's picking a scab. There's something, it's like the, it's like the sand in the oyster that creates the pearl. And so if you have a group that you meet with every month and you love everything they say, you get along [00:44:00] famously with everyone. You're in the wrong group.
If you have a business partner that you're holding hands and everything is just wonderful. You have the wrong business partner. You need people that are going to challenge you and make you feel uncomfortable. That's how growth happens. Um, and that's the seventh way to know that you're in the wrong peer group.

Wes: That's really cool. I, I did not have the opportunity to meet you, uh, at EMP, which I did at, at MIT. So I know what you're saying. There was a time where one of the speakers that came in, half the room got up and walked out. for me, I'm just like, I'm curious. Like I love people's perspective. I wanted to hear it, but what got the juices and the discussions going was now somebody had a stance or they started to talk about why they were so upset.
And that's what I thought got interesting. Like, I, I think to be an entrepreneur, like you have to like, love the tension and love the, love the chaos. Cause yeah, [00:45:00] I totally agree with you when it's, when it's kumbaya all the time, it's like, uh, something's not right here, You

Mike: I remember calling one of my mentors, Rick Voren, and complaining about Jack Welch. And at the time, um, I had just finished working on the advisory board for GE and I saw him on TV and I just, he really, he really, um, rubbed me the wrong way because it seemed to me that his values were not aligned with mine.
And my mentor said, Mike, you need to learn. How to judge the medicine, not the vessel.

Wes: that's really good.

Mike: Yeah. And I didn't like it, but he was correct.

Wes: That's awesome. Well, Mike, one more time. What's your email one more time and we'll let you go.

Mike: It's Mike at Mike dash Maddock, M A D D O C K dot com. Wes, thanks. [00:46:00] It's been a

Wes: I recommend, yeah, I recommend reaching out to Mike. I think your concepts amazing and everything you do. So thank you so much for spending the time. I really appreciate it.

Outro: This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us. For show notes or other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel. com. Until next time.