There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. Martin Lanik, CEO of Pinsight and the author of the business bestseller, The Leader Habit, says what makes their process different is the realization that traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. They focus on 5-minute daily leadership exercises that build positive habits. They work with organizations to help them hire better leaders, and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high-potentials that they should invest in and to develop them to prepare them for executive positions. Martin shares some effective leadership behaviors you can practice to the point that they are your second nature.

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Hiring and Developing Better Leaders with Martin Lanik

We are in Downtown Denver with Martin Lanik. He’s the CEO of https://www.pinsight.com/ (Pinsight) and the author of the business bestseller, https://www.amazon.com/Leader-Habit-Master-Lead-Minutes/dp/0814439349 (The Leader Habit). I had the good fortune of getting a copy before it was released and finished reading it. Martin, thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast.

I’m happy to be here. Thank you, Bob.

Martin, if you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

I run a software company called Pinsight and we focus on leadership development and leadership assessment. We work with organizations to help them hire better leaders and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high potentials that they should invest in and to develop them and prepare them for executive positions and work with those high potential as we are developing them.

I’m paramilitary so the leadership model was pretty understood and taught and so on. What took you down the path of working on leadership and developing solutions and applications to help?

I have a background in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I have a PhD from Fort Collins from Colorado State University. I started very early on in my career focusing on leadership and leadership assessment and then development. Then I worked as a consultant out of Pittsburgh and London working with global organizations, helping them with their leadership strategy. When the recession hit, I identified an opportunity. I thought, “There’s an opportunity here in the market where you can take all the really good parts of general leadership programs and then streamline them so they become much more cost-effective and scalable globally. That’s how I founded Pinsight.

I think about the folks that are listening and they’re going, “There’s a number of leadership programs with one description or another.” It’s really module-based inside the book where you could go through and try to do some work with big topics and work your way through, what led you basically to the thought process to start chunking it for lack of a better term?

You are absolutely correct. There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. What makes our process different is the realization that your traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. This was actually why I decided to write the book. Several years ago, I came across an article in the Journal of Consulting Psychology that shows that American corporations year-over-year are now spending more and more money on leadership development, to the point that it was about $14 billion in 2012. Our general confidence in leadership is actually decreasing. There’s a negative relationship. We end up spending more on leadership development, but we are less confident and our leaders. Then I started thinking, “Why is this happening?

We often hear the saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” However, no one would think of applying this when it comes to business. Thinking about the end is often overlooked that it becomes a problem. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or did not transact with the value they think they should have gotten. Holly Flores, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Exit Planning Institute, talks about exit planning, succession, and why it’s important for businesses to take this in mind. She covers the EBITDA which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation, as well as the valuation, the processes, transactions, sales options, and more.

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Why Businesses Should Think About Exit Planning with Holly Flores

We have Holly Flores. She’s the President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the http://exit-planning-institute.org/chapter/epi-rocky-mountain-chapter/ (Exit Planning Institute). She is also a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. We’re very fortunate. Thanks for taking the time to come in.

It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here.

Holly, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Exit Planning Institute as well as what you do as a Certified Exit Planning Advisor?

I got to the Exit Planning Institute via my day job as a Value Advisor with https://goquantive.com/ (Quantive) where we do business valuation. Those business valuations are often a triggering point for Exit Planning. What Exit Planning is, some people think of it as a negative because exit, they think I’m coming near the end of my life, but it means succession planning in business. Exit Planning does not mean planning for an exit for tomorrow. It means planning for transitioning out of your business sometime down the road, whether it’s six months from now or five years from now. We often say you always want to start with the end in mind. We transfer that over into other parts of our life but when we run a business, sometimes we fail to have that conversation.

With the Exit Planning Institute, who has done a great job over the past five or so years, bringing that vocabulary to the forefront of advisors all across the country, I wanted to be part of it and see how I could integrate that into my business. From day-to-day, I may work with the business on determining their current value and maybe looking at that for a handful of reasons. First of all, for transaction, for litigation, for tax planning but often that conversation, when they see the value, all of a sudden, the light goes on. They see what it’s worth and they’re excited or they see what it’s worth then they’re a little disappointed and they start thinking about, “What does the path forward look like?”

We hear triggering event and we hear exit and succession and go, “I died.” That’s usually what you get. In going backwards a little bit, the statistics around Exit Planning, succession planning are pretty grim, aren’t they?

They are. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or do not transact at the value that they think they should have gotten. If you think about that, the opportunity that is out there for us to improve upon this is huge. It’s limitless, especially when you think about how many small businesses there are in every city in America. If you are an advisor working with business owners and you’re not having this conversation, then maybe there’s an opportunity that you’re missing as well as there was a part of me that thinks we’re failing as advisors if we don’t have that difficult conversation and say, “Have you thought about what’s next?”

I think about that and for folks as well, I don’t have much sympathy for the business owner, but the next step past that is the number of peopl...

Being the fourth generation President and Chief Executive Officer of Babson Farms Inc., Taylor Kirkpatrick takes his responsibility very seriously running the family office. His job is running the family business and managing assets created over 100 years ago by his great grandfather. Right now, Babson Farms’ core asset is based on agricultural holdings, with supporting operating businesses like captive crop insurance company, tiling company, drainage, bin storage, trucking and transportation operations. Taylor shares that running the family business is a demonstration of patience and fortitude because you’re charged with seeing the future and trying to take advantage of an opportunity that might occur in the future. He always keeps the mindset that like everything in life, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to keep a generational thinking, map out strategies and figure out how to do things on a daily basis as well as look at the bigger picture.

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Successfully Managing a Family Office with Taylor Kirkpatrick

We have a treat now. We’re in http://www.babsonfarms.com/ (Babson Farms) and we’re with the CEO, Taylor Kirkpatrick. Taylor, welcome to the show.

Bob, thanks for having me.

Do us a favor, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

The easy answer is Babson Farms is a family office, which is a term that a lot of folks may or may not be familiar with and what it is, I serve one family managing their assets. These assets were created 100 years ago when my great grandfather, Henry Babson, went and visited the Thomas Edison at the Columbian World Exposition in 1893 in Chicago and said that he was willing to go and sell the phonograph for Thomas Edison outside of the United States. He took a prototype of the Edison talking machine and went to China and India and sold several thousand of those over the course of about two years.

When he came back, he took those winnings and started a mail-order catalog that competed with the Sears catalog in the South side of Chicago called Babson Brothers. That sold everything from sundries and fabric and things like that to dairy equipment and other farming equipment. He was selling a piece of equipment that he realized was not that great. It was difficult to clean. There was some sanitation issues. It would taint the central plant of the milk if you didn’t have clean vulcanized rubber tubes and things. He ultimately invented and patented and then sold the majority of the world’s dairy equipment called Surge Dairy Products for a period of about 50 years. In the‘70s, we had a liquidity event when we sold that to Westphalia which is a German conglomerate. The proceeds from that sale lead to the core assets that we have now.

Our core asset is based on agricultural holdings that we have, which are mostly in North Central Illinois. We have a bunch of farms that grow corn and soybeans up in North Central Illinois. Then we have supporting operating businesses or products and services that we use ourselves. Then we said, “We can do this in-house and then we can also help our neighbors as well.” Those are everything from a captive crop insurance company to a tiling company, which is a drainage situation to bin storage and some trucking and transportation and then GIS mapping services. Those are the types of things that we do for our customers and that’s what we’re trying to do. When you say who do we serve? The question for me is the constituents are the family themselves. That’s everybody that is a lineal descendant of Henry Babson.

Then there are also the employees that we have that worked within these businesses and then the partners that we have. We have operating partners that manage and work on all these farms. We have to make sure that we’re being smart about doing what we can and helping the family me...

A lot of people in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Maybe they had two or three good ideas that just went down the drain. How do you translate your idea into something that creates value for a patient? According to Arlen Meyers, the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network whose mission is to help members get their ideas to patients. Arlen is the president and CEO of the said society. He’s also a radio co-host in Colorado Business Roundtable, and a professor emeritus of otolaryngology, dentistry, and engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He discusses in detail what the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is all about, and touches on data and machine learning, physician entrepreneurship, digital health technology, and the experiences that helped him progress down the road.

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The Society of Physician Entrepreneurs with Arlen Meyers

We’re extremely fortunate to have Arlen Meyers. He’s the President and CEO of the https://www.sopenet.org (Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs). He’s also a radio co-host in https://www.cobrt.com/radio-podcast/ (Colorado Business Roundtable). He’s a professor emeritus of Otolaryngology, Dentistry and Engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Arlen, thank you for taking your time to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with the Society of Physicians and who you serve.

The Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network. Our mission is to help our members, which are fairly eclectic, to get their ideas to patients. Everyone I know in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Typically, it goes down the drain in the shower. Maybe you had two or three good ideas and they went down the drain. How do you translate the idea into something that creates value for a patient? That process, which we refer to in sick care have a $3.2 trillion healthcare spending, which is masquerading as a sick care system. 90% of the budget goes toward taking care of sick people. I’m a recovery Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon. I spent my career at the Anschutz Medical Campus in the University of Colorado School of Medicine teaching people how to do surgery on that stuff.

I’ve had a fairly complicated medical career. I didn’t like the idea of how this was playing out in terms of innovation. I felt that for a very long time and to a certain extent now, the two most important components of the innovation supply chain, the doctor and the patient, were ignored. It was the biomedical industrial complex that came up with bright shiny objects and said, “These are great. Why don’t you buy them for this ridiculous cost?” Now, we wind up with high-cost, low-value stuff. Why? Because of a number of reasons, but one of them is because we didn’t engage end users early enough in what is described as design thinking, lean startup methodology, consumer engagement and customer discovery. I didn’t like that, I thought that was stupid. I decided with some other folks to do something about it.

When did you decide?

This is something that I had been involved with for a long time. I graduated from business school in 1984. In those days, having someone with a white coat sitting next to pinstripes was rare. I’ve always had this bug about the business of science and medicine. Part of it comes from my background. My dad was a pharmacist, he was a son of an immigrant. It was a great generation, depression to immigration, the whole drill. He worked like a dog and was the embodiment of the American dre...

Chris Hetherington Resilience Code CEO,  Resilience Code is an amazing place. It is technically a data-driven, evidence-based, multi-specialty medical performance center. We serve anybody really, whether you’re an athlete, where you’re a non-athlete, whether you’re a corporate athlete, an executive, a housewife, chronically ill patient, a surgery patient. We have this multidisciplinary integrated approach. We have all these amazing specialty providers under one roof. The goal of what we’re trying to do as a company is spread health literacy.  Arming people with the knowledge of how their body works and their mind works to make better decisions going forward and reliably guide their wellness.  So whether you’re looking to…you know, performer seekers, whether you’re looking to perform better at work, at life, at sport, we’re the place for you to come.

We’ve developed this one-stop shop for all of your medical and performance needs. It’s for people that are looking for subtle changes, people that are looking for very comprehensive programs. We’ll re-manage your meds, your supplements, your fitness etc., but really for everybody. Our goal is to spread health literacy one person at a time, to create this dynamic cultural shift.

I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I grew up in Connecticut. I was lucky enough to be a good, natural athlete. I played football, hockey, baseball, golf. My dad and I went to golf driving range as a kid, so I grew up a golfer. But I went to Yale, played football and baseball. I gave up hockey. Then I was fortunate enough to play in the NFL for 11 years for 5 different teams.  I had a wonderful experience and was lucky to realize from guys that I respected, older guys, experienced pros that you have to take care of your body. Later on, in my career, I was very focused on recovery and going off campus to get IVs and taking supplements. I was the crazy guy carrying around this tackle box of supplements to the facility and getting bodywork.

There’s no better place than Resilience Code to come here and learn from all these amazing people, starting with Dr. Chad Prusmack, who’s the visionary here and the founder of Resilience Code. One of the most intelligent guys I’ve met but one of the most dynamic charismatic guys and a unique guy.

The corporate athlete. “I’m going to be in the arena for another 10 or 20 years.  I know I need to do something so maybe these guys can help get me pointed.”  What should he or she expect?

The problem is, people only get tested when they’re sick, go to the doctor when they’re sick and tested when they have issues. We’re trying to prevent issues before they happen. The process is, we want to learn about the client, we want to know the client, “What are your goals? What’s your lifestyle? Do you work out? Do you not work out? Do you follow a strict diet? Do you not? Do you take supplements? Are you open to taking supplements?” So everything is 100% completely customized to the client and what their goals are.

Typical time allocation once he or she walks through the door here?  Our most comprehensive program, we call it iCODE. That’s our executive health and wellness program. The way that works is they come in for this two-and-a-half-day testing experience. There’s a lot of information we collect before you come here, obviously, and then you come here, we do this testing experience. That’s the biomarker test, your KinetiCode or moving-based testing and your MindCode testing. From there, we collect the data. All of our amazing specialists collaborate and come up with an intervention a plan or recommendation, and then it’s an ongoing, we’re tracking your data, we’re making constant interventions.

We’re this data-driven, evidence-based facility.

As a certified grant consultant and a very successful grant writer, Sherita Herring debunks the enormous misconception around what people think about grants, one of the most common of which is can a nonprofit make a profit? Sherita’s answer is yes, it can. Many small towns are drying up across the country, and there is a need to coach them on how to implement sustainability efforts and go after funding for their town. A lot of small town mayors are not getting their dollars through the government because they just figure there’s no money. Most people aren’t aware there’s millions in tourism grants. Sherita says a grant proposal is nothing but a business plan and to approach an investor is the same language used in the nonprofit arena as the for profit arena. You’ve got to learn how to go after your own money. She teaches how to raise capital, how to speak to investors, and how to prepare your documents to give your grant proposal the best chance at success.

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Making Profit From A Non-Profit Through Grant Proposals with Sherita Herring

I have as my guest, http://sheritaherring.com/ (Sherita Herring). Sherita is a non-profit expert and business strategist. She’s the owner of http://www.kifoundation.org/ (Kreative Images Foundation). She’s a certified grant consultant with over $30 million worth of grants secured, the largest being around $14 million. She’s a very successful grant writer. Sherita, thanks for taking time to be on the show.

Thank you. It’s an honor.

Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.

I serve individuals that want to make a difference in the world. That could range from celebrities and athletes to someone that has a soup kitchen and they’re working with the homeless. Anyone that wants to make a difference, that’s my ideal client. In the past three or four years, most of my clients have been these super entrepreneurs and small business owners.

For most of us, when we hear about grant, and I certainly did before I had listened to you speak. This is the second or third time I’ve heard you speak about grant. There’s an enormous misconception or disconnect between around what people think about grants. Let’s dig into what they do and how you view grants and cover some of that.

In the past few years, it’s been entrepreneurs and small business owners because before they would not look or even consider that grants are non-profit arena. They felt like, first of all, I need to make a profit. The misconception and one of the main things that people ask is can a nonprofit make a profit? Yes, it can. There are multimillion and even billion-dollar non-profits. Non-profit just means it’s a non-stock corporation. Once I get them past that misconception in their mind.

You’ve got a project going on now with some small town mayors. Let’s walk through it if we can like a case study of what you did for the small town mayor that you did the grant for.

I was on tour and it took me through small town America, and I realized that many small towns are drying up across the country. We did a little research and there’s the graying of America that’s going on. What does that mean? Where you got young kids that live in small towns, they can’t wait to grow up and leave and then what’s being left in these small towns are individuals that now on an average are 60 years old and older. They’re losing jobs, empty homes, empty schools, and you’ve got the older people that are left there. That’s what’s happening. Towns are drying up. Being on tour, I went through my uncle’s small town in Arkansas. He’s the mayor of Twin Groves, Arkansas. Did a workshop there and had been coaching them on how to do sustainability efforts and...

In our lives, we often are influenced by two things, the books we read and the people we meet. Those two things set us off in a new directions. We always have that influential person or a few in our lives that are so influential that they take us in a new direction. For Bob Cornuke, that person was Jim Irwin who had been to the moon and back and had a cathartic moment while seeing the earth from space. Their first of many expeditions started with the search for Noah’s Ark. More expeditions followed and eventually, it led him to write books. Storytelling, Bob shares, is a skill set that he’s never tapped into as a young man. He likes to encourage people to take advantage of every season of their lives and try to find those things they have buried deep inside of them. The only way of finding and tapping buried skill sets is challenging yourself and going out on a limb sometimes. For Bob, it was writing, and now he’s doing it as a profession.

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Tapping Buried Skill Sets: Living The Life You Were Truly Meant To Live with Bob Cornuke

We have something a little unusual. I’m sitting in the living room of http://www.baseinstitute.org/pages/bob_cornuke_biography/3 (Bob Cornuke)’s house. He’s up the http://www.baseinstitute.org/ (Base Institute). Bob, it’s a lovely day in Colorado. Thanks for the hospitality.

Thanks for having me on your podcast.

We’re sitting in the living room. I have a buffalo head behind me with a Sharps ‘52 carried by one of Bob’s family members or built by Bob’s family members.

Actually, I’m the great, great grandson of Christian Sharps. If you saw Quigley Down Under, that’s a Sharp rifle, a true grit. I am the great, great grandson of Christian Sharps.

I’ll make sure I behave.

Behave yourself.

We’re sitting here, we have this beautiful day. We’re overlooking a pond and part of a golf course. I’m going to take in, go off-grid, and let you explore and talk to some of the folks about what it is that you do and what gets you going down this path.

It’s certainly not a place I’d ever expect to go to in my life. Early on, I received a football scholarship at Fresno State early on, and then had a real desire to be in law enforcement. After college, I got involved with the Costa Mesa Police Department. I was about ten years on the department and an FBI-trained homicide investigator for the department. Then I got in a bad shoot out and the man died. I came out here to Colorado and was doing some fly fishing with my brother, Paul Cornuke, and he was an air traffic controller out here. I fell in love with Colorado immediately. From LA and Orange County and the traffic, and especially after the shooting, I said, “I’ve had a nice experience in law enforcement and I’m seeing all the older guys straining to retirement, not liking the job, and complaining about everything.” I didn’t want to be that. I thought it was a good time to step away from law enforcement and try some new challenges in life.

I came out to Colorado and I got involved with real estate development and within a few years I had 125 employees in three offices and made partnership with my brother Paul. He left air traffic control. To date, he’s very successful in real estate. He has 1,900 employees now in Florida. He’s doing quite well. We got into real estate, did well together, a good partnership, and meshed really well, but during that process, I met a man named Jim Irwin, who is the eighth man to walk on the moon, the first one to drive the car on the moon. In our lives, we often are influenced by two things. The two main things are the books we read and the people we meet. Those two things set us off in a new direction, and we always have that influential person or a few in our lives that are so influ...

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There is a level of sophistication in the cannabis industry that most people don’t know of. It is operated by a lot of bright people doing smart work with organic nutrition and data gathering. Tom Regan, President of Mindful, a cannabis company in Colorado, has taken the business from growing and extracting to distributing and retailing. Coming in to the company, his biggest challenge was to balance the cannabis culture and the corporate culture which meant that respect needs to come from both sides. More than just data collection and management, he needed the company to understand the history of cannabis and its social issues, where it came from and where is it headed.

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Balancing The Cannabis Culture And The Corporate Culture with Tom Regan

We have a unique treat. We’re here with https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomregan (Tom Regan). He’s the President of https://bemindful.today/ (Mindful). Tell us a little bit about what you do and the customers you serve.

Thanks, Bob. Thanks for having me. Mindful is our retail and cultivation brand. We are a cannabis company located in Colorado. As President of the company, my job is to make sure the trains run on time and we serve our customers. Part of our business is we have a 40,000 square foot grow here in Denver. We have a 25,000 square foot extraction facility and a retail footprint throughout the Colorado area. On top of that, we have a B2B business where we sell our products to other retailers.

You were kind enough to give me a tour and it reminds me of a surgical suite when you come in here. The place is clean and the data gathering here is incredible. Shed some light on what you did before here.

In my prior career, I was a Director at Cisco Systems for about twelve years. For those of you that don’t know Cisco Systems, it’s not the food company, it’s the computer company. Cisco is about a $50-billion a year company now. My job was to manage the worldwide supply chain, do product integrations when we acquired companies and launch new products. Before that, I worked at a bunch of small high-tech startups in the networking space in the Boston area. A bunch of them got bought by large companies like Cisco and Intel.

You said it was a $1 billion event that you managed at the time?

At Cisco, I was responsible for about $10 billion of Cisco’s revenue from a manufacturing and supply chain perspective.

I met many people here that had significantly advanced degrees in agronomy and horticulture. We had an engineer that was a farmer that is consulting all over. The misconception about the business is profound and I would tell you that this is a sophisticated. What do you reckon one grow room would take to set up?

A 1,500-square foot to 2,000-square foot grow room would cost anywhere from $400,000 to $700,000 to set up.

I was fortunate enough to see them. If you’re a gardener at all, you’re jealous. There are misters and there are fans and there are hydroponic stuff going on and all the RFID chips to manage. Not to belabor the point, but this is a highly sophisticated operation with bright people doing a lot of smart work on nutrition, organic work, and data gathering.

You mentioned our workforce. We have about 90 employees in all of those four businesses. At the grower we’re at, the cultivation facility, we have a woman that has a master’s in horticulture. We have engineers, the whole gamut. If I had to go top of my head, of the 100 people, over 40 have a bachelor’s degree and a little less than fifteen have master’s degrees.

I was unaware of the industry but the level of sophistication, tracking and compliance, you walk into the lobby, it’s gated in,

1980 was one of the largest booms ever in the oil and gas business, and David Allard was in the right place at the right time. David just got out of college with a Geology degree and was lucky enough to get a job with only a BS degree and covered twenty plus countries over a twenty plus year period of exploration around the globe that comes with being a geologist in the oil field. Over his career, David has survived five major downturns. David chronicles 30 years of being a geologist in a book called A World of Culture, Oil and Golf which is journal of his life lessons, and business and cultural experiences. David said it’s key to the success for the business to engage the host country and follow the rules and create value for everyone involved.

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Exploring A World of Culture, Oil and Golf with David Allard

We’re fortunate to have http://www.davidallardauthor.com/ (David Allard). He is a chief geologist and author of https://www.amazon.com/World-Culture-Oil-Golf/dp/1633020363/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 (A World of Culture, Oil and Golf). I went through the book and I would encourage you to go through. I think there’s no place on the planet that this guy hasn’t either landed on, been in or been over, or so highly traveled. Thanks so much for taking time.

Thank you, Bob. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Let’s start with the story that got you into the oil and gas business.

That’s fun because growing up I knew I was going to be an Earth Scientist from junior high during the sand experiments with little rivers. I grew up and went to college. In the first orientation day, I was going to be a forestry major. I met some professors and they said, “That would be a good thing if you’ve got a PhD, but then you probably wouldn’t get a job. Why don’t you be a geologist?” I changed right there and I’ve been a geologist ever since.

Where did you go to school?

Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Geologists in Pennsylvania in the oil field, I usually hear Colorado School of Mines, South Dakota or the Dakotas and elsewhere through Pennsylvania with the kind in mind but the Marcellus kind of brought that in.

Back in 1980 when I graduated, it was one of the largest booms ever in the oil and gas business. They needed a geologist and my professor said you can work anywhere. I went to California and I ended up with Sohio initially in San Francisco. I was lucky enough to get a job with only a BS degree. I call myself a Boom Baby, if you will.

You graduated in ’80s while the oilfield began puny not long after that.

I maybe not so proudly say I’ve survived five major downturns and the first one you’re speaking of about 1985, ’86. There was some disruption in the force of OPEC and Saudi, a commitment of the oil reserve and it just changed the world demand and we had our first downturn. We went from thinking we’re going to have $100 oil forever. A lot of business leaders bet the farm on that future income. Many of them went by the wayside in the ’80s because of it.

You went to San Francisco. Were you married at that time or when did you meet your bride?

I met my bride at Midland, Texas in the mid ’80s.

Thinking about folks who have different thoughts, what does a geologist do in the oil field?

Our job as geologists, the bottom line is we say, “Here’s where you drill to find more oil and gas production or reserves,” whatever the objective of your company model is.

You point the drilling rig?

Essentially, and we do that with a series of tools. Of course, we map the subsurface and try to identify structures are traps for the oil and gas. That technology’s evolved quite a bit.

We’re living in an age of disruption and transformation. If you’re not innovating ahead of that change, you end up like a lot of famous or once famous companies that don’t exist anymore. Adam Markel, bestselling author of Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life, serves a community of business leaders and entrepreneurs by helping them reinvent their business landscape as well as anything they like to change in their lives. His main goal is to create a culture of empowerment where people feel emotionally safe to be creative and innovative.

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The Science Of Pivot with Adam Markel

We’re operating remote in Tampa, Florida at http://ceospaceinternational.com/ (CEO Space) and we are with http://www.adammarkel.com/ (Adam Markel). He is the best-selling author of https://www.amazon.com/Pivot-Science-Reinventing-Your-Career/dp/1476779473 (Pivot: The Science of Reinventing Your Career). I’ve read the book personally and I’ve given it to both of my kids. If you haven’t read it, I would recommend that you put it on your reading list. He was picked up by Huffington Post last year as one of the top speakers that you must see. Welcome to the show, Adam. Thanks for taking the time.

Thank you, Bob. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.

Our company is called More Love Media. We serve a community of people who are business leaders, people that are some entrepreneurs and others that are running larger organizations, some quite large organizations who are reinventing. When I say reinventing, you are right, the book Pivot is the art and science of reinventing aspects of your business and your personal life as well. It’s not a term that says things are wrong necessarily and we’ve got to change them because I’m desperate for a change. We’ve got people, whether it’s their health or something in their relationships, either business or personal relationships that they are urgent about making a change, that’s for sure, but we’ve got a lot of people that are simply looking at the landscape ahead and seeing what’s happening right now, which is that we’re living in an age of disruption and an age of transformation. If you’re not innovating ahead of that change or that disruption, you end up like a lot of famous or once famous companies that don’t exist anymore.

I think about the CEO that’s in this. There’s a show on TV about Fortune Fire where they take a piece of metal and turn it into something useful, and then you pound that thing out and you have tempered steel at some point. I think the CEO’s nowadays feel like they’ve been tempered a lot. In that timeframe, you work with organizations and try to develop a culture inside the organization that’s heart-centered. Let’s talk about that for a bit.

We call it heart space in the workplace, which is interesting when I sit down with a CEO and talk about that, but this is really about a culture of empowerment, of creating a culture where people are more free and feel emotionally safe to be creative, to be innovative. It’s important that a company these days remain ahead of that cycle of change and not manage the change, but utilize it and look ahead at where it is that you can innovate. You have to have a culture that promotes that. You have to have compensation that rewards that behavior. In many companies, there are structures and other things, the culture that’s set up, does not reward innovation even though it’s part of the company’s mission. The things that are pronounced from the top down that they want to see the company innovate and be agile, be flexible, and yet the structures of the company are anything but that.