Driven By with Sam Coates

My guests this week are Jim and Amy Yurchenco. Jim and Amy have both live and work in Palo Alto, California. Jim was the first employee for worldwide engineering firm Ideo and Amy, most recently as a software engineer for Intuit. In addition to their professional careers, they have canoed the Mississippi River and hiked tens of thousands of miles in 10 different countries (Wales, Turkey, Spain, Scotland, Slovakia, Japan, Italy, France, Australia, USA). In case you didn’t know it is 24,000 miles to travel around the world! Their mileage is incredible.

It’s no secret that this year has taught us how much we value the outdoors, silence, nature, and adventure. This is a fascinating conversation where we discuss:

• how to prioritize what matters most to you and live it out
• the lessons you learn by spending extensive time in the back country
• what it is like paddling the Mississippi River from start to finish 
• Living differently than your peers
• Life is shorter than you think
• Each of their different perspectives about work
• No one starts as a master builder
• If you’re willing to fail you’re willing to learn
• how every adventure ads up
• Leaving your mark on the world and more! 

This conversation was a blast to have, and I am excited to share this week’s episode with Jim and Amy Yurchenco with you. For more information on Jim and Amy you can check out their website here: http://doingmiles.com/about-us/

RECAP

1:32 Daily rhythms of an active lifestyle

5:31 Enjoy practicing my craft

6:36 Fell in love with a shared passion

9:49 Sunday tradition, hiking every week sun up to sun down

10:26 Completely changing our environment

11:00 How much we don’t know

12:37 Natural World was not created for us

16:12 The river is so much bigger than you are

19:02 Software development pays the bills

21:22 Career advancement was not important to me

26:32 I drew the line with work and non work

31:14 Compounding miles

31:32 No one starts as a master builder

44:59 By the time you’ve reached stress your prepared

48:44 Passion for getting as much out of life as possible

51:22 Riding for the joy of riding

52:00 Knowing when to turn back the risk is not worth

55:07 Not failure, I just learned it won’t work

56:36 We were prepared for whatever could happen

1:01:34 People who died always prepared for the expectations they expected

1:02:22 What’s the opposite of the desired outcome I want

1:13:54 Clarify what’s necessary and what’s not

1:16:55 Life is shorter than you think

1:17:15 trade offs for what you value

1:21:36 How do you make your mark on the world

RESOURCES

• http://doingmiles.com/about-us/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My Guest this week is Shawn Askinosie. Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award-winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri. They source 100% of their beans directly from farmers. Shawn travels to Ecuador, the Philippines, and Tanzania to source cocoa beans for his chocolate. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled authentic single origin.

Their mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers, and each other. The company is currently sustainably feeding over 1,600 students per day in Tanzania and the Philippines without any donations. Askinosie Chocolate has also been featured in Forbes, NYTimes, WSJ, MSNBC, Oprah Magazine, and numerous others.

Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Missouri- Columbia and Missouri State University. Askinosie Chocolate has received 3 Good Food Awards, considered the Oscars of food, 6 silver awards from the Specialty Food Association; and 7 International Chocolate Awards.

During this episode, Shawn boldly opens up about changing careers, past experiences that shaped his future, threats of having a driven personality, simple living, strong relationships with his farmers in developing nations, facing dark seasons of life, marriage, changes of life, and more.

This episode covers helpful insights, but more about life in its raw for and how to live it in a meaningful way. Available now- I hope you enjoy it!

RECAP

0:28 My grandparents were huge inspirations to me in starting my chocolate business about 14 years ago, and they have long since died, but they were farmers, they were very kind, patient, sweet people, good hearts, lived a very simple life on a small farm, lived on that farm, same place for over 65 years

7:05 Some goals in terms of top line growth, but really it has more to do with cash flow and debt reduction and pay for people and stuff like that.

10:17 It’s been there and you've just seen it escalate or maybe as you've been given more opportunity or more blessing, however you would want to define that

11:18 The trap is, especially for hard-driving entrepreneurs, for people who have a social justice equality mindset, and what I mean is that if we're not careful, we fall into the trap of overwork, and we tell ourselves for years that it's okay and we justify this over work, because we see that the end result is good

16:24 I've been doing that for seven or eight years now in the mornings, and I rarely change it up, and that's the first most practical thing

18:11 Which is how I begin my morning, and that really, I think, sets the tone

25:10 I made a ton of money, I was a sought after lawyer that I could pick my own cases, and so that level of quote, and I really do mean success prompted me to start asking this question, well, maybe I need to think about this hurt in my life, the sorrow, this heartbreak

27:40 Then this kind of paradox, this mystery occurred, which was this really tightly wound, hard-driven, hard-charging lawyer who had to know the answer to everything

31:40 It can be a very scary place, and I know you would probably say, Well, I didn't really figure it all out, I didn't have the seven-step process, but how are you able to kinda keep all the balls in the air, I guess, for those five years as you went through that season

39:12 I think is this that you described is a pathway, and so I would say that it doesn't always have to be that way, but I think in the pathway of... Let's call it in the pathway towards spiritual maturity that we need to experience those doorways, those pathways in order to reach an understanding that we don't need those anymore in order to experience non-duality, so once we can reach a place of understanding and awareness of the non-dual nature of our soul.

RESOURCES

• https://askinosie.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnaskinosie/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My guest this week is JP Dinnell. JP is from Northern California, enlisted in the Navy out of High School, served as a U.S. Navy Seal for 10 Years, and is now with Echelon Front, teaching leadership development and organizational management worldwide.

We talked life's highs and lows, life transitions, and everything in between. This episode is a great perspective on making the most out of your current situation by taking it one day at a time, giving up good for something great, knowing what truly moves you, taking action, and fighting complacency.

Additionally, we cover:

• Checking your ego in all of life
• What limits people and teams
• Putting back together a marriage
• Getting back on the path
• Faith 
• And more!

RECAP

8:12 The guys I trained him in MMA with, I was really close with them, they really helped me with my transition out of military, just having that friendship and that camaraderie and that brotherhood again, when you're sweating and training hard with somebody and you're fighting and believing, and you're literally, you're so exhausted, your bodies are picking you back up and getting back into that five to train and you're doing the same for them

11:13 When you're driving to do something and you're pushing hard, you have to be comfortable doing that by yourself, because not everyone's gonna see the same picture that you see, not everyone's gonna believe in the level that you believe it

11:46 You also have to have the understanding that if other people don't see what you see, that's 100% your fault, because that means that you haven't cast the vision of your belief on to them so that they understand what you're fighting for

14:03 But I had a fire within me to provide for my family and to serve my clients unlike anything else, and so when you can find something that provides that to your stand-by, because it's gonna be fun and it's awesome

42:36 Well, there's times that she would get us kids up at 3-34 in the morning, get us ready for the school day, we would go to the gym with her, we would go into the nursery that wasn't open and we would sleep there while she would teach classes

46:55 A lot of individuals have a hard time checking their ego, they have a hard time showing humility, and we'll have companies bring us in and they're like, Hey, if my team would just take ownership

49:29 they don't understand the priorities, they don't understand the mission, people interpret your mission, your message the wrong way, and then when that happens, decentralized command never works

57:35 And so for me, building a team that can go out there and execute, it's not about me, it's about what they're doing, but it's all on me to get them to that level as a leader

1:03:25 I appreciate it, and that makes me feel good about sharing that story I'm always wary of doing a Podcast just because I'm kind of like why would anyone want to listen to me?

RESOURCES

• https://echelonfront.com/jp-dinnell/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiahdinnell/
• https://twitter.com/JPDinnell
• https://www.instagram.com/jpdinnell/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My guest this week is Warren Doyle. Warren holds the informal record for hiking the Appalachian Trail the most times. That number is 18 times. Yes, he has hiked 18 total times from George to Maine, which is 2,190 miles and typically takes 5-7 months to complete. In 1973, Warren set the unofficial endurance record of hiking the trail in a record time of 66 days.

Since then, Warren has gone on to start the Appalachian Trail Institute, which teaches and equips hikers with the training they need to have a  better chance at completing the trail. The trail has a 75% failure rate.

This conversation is much more than just about hiking the Appalachian Trail. It also covers, What drew him in early on, going against the grain, how the trail changes you, the power of nature, how society can conform you, dancing, joy, and more. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode, and I hope this episode gives you more clarity on the power of nature, being tested, and much more.

RECAP

17 Seconds: Don't know whether I would call it struggling, I was wondering, that's a little bit different than struggling

2:04 I decided to go on and covered and remove myself from the society that I was being conditioned for to fit in and remove myself to some place where I could look back in and get an unbiased on prejudice, undisciplined motivated viewpoint of the world. 

4:10 The expectation for our first generation working class, college-educated people is to become a member of the middle class, and basically the middle class expectations was to get educated, to get a job, to find someone, to marry someone, to start a family with sub on and to buy a house, and to work and be a responsible husband, father until you retire, and then hopefully to be able to hang on somewhat comfortably until you die

6:29 I wanted to see not how much I could take, but how much I could give up how much I could give up of the cultural conditioning that I had had up to that point in time in my life

8:45 So everything has to be done intrinsically, there's no extrinsic motivation to do the trail, no one has ever gotten rich doing the trail, but now the trail, if you allow it, if you humble yourself to it

12:02 I never really wanted to be an administrator. I've been director of a few things, but sometimes you have to report to people on a college level who have no idea about teaching and effective teaching, and they've just risen up to their highest level of incompetence

13:45 another good thing that you can't change the trail

17:47 . I sit in the front of the class, but when I got into middle school, if I raise my hand and set the right answer, I would be be little or even beat up on the playground by bullies

22:21 he would listen to people and he would listen to their posts their dreams and their frustrations and their anger, and he would write these beautiful poems of their thoughts

49:34 you should go to see people who have been successful at something that you wanna try to do

RESOURCES

• http://www.warrendoyle.com/
• https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/don-west-1906-1992
• https://mercuryontherun.com/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My guest this week is Clark Butcher. Clark is back on for a part two episode. Last week we left off at what happens when you go all-in on your business, and it burns down one month after starting. This week, we will dive into what it is like to build a high-touch retail store.  This episode is an in-depth conversation on what it looks like to make a brand and build a successful small business that reaches far more than just a local market. Additionally, it is fascinating to hear how Covid 19 is affecting the cycling industry. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode.

RECAP

1:12:26 Yeah, there was nerves to it for sure, I didn't have any overhead, I just sold my home and fancy car and all that stuff, I don't need any of that furniture and stuff.

1:15:27 It was so intense to pull up and see that happen, and while, yes, that was only my business for 28 days operating for the last 60 days in my life, I had moved gravel, I had cleaned, I'd help life floors, I had painted, I had stressed on getting vendors like, dude, there were so many things.

1:23:15 Service... Man, I'm glad you asked that. That's the one thing we did.

1:25:05 Like the store's tiny. So we got to build a rapport with you and build a relationship with you, and you did not get that anywhere else.

1:27:35 But it's one that I wake up fired up and I wake up typically most creative.

1:38:06 So one is obviously the only way a partnership or a team works is somebody else has a strength or your week, or somebody else has a strength that complements your strengths, that's the only... It's really the only way to look at it

2:00:00 Every single day, victory is open, 30 minutes before we open, we have a mandatory sit-down meeting that's where everyone brings their note pads, that's where we delegate tasks for the day, that's where I cover who's coming in and what's going on.

2:01:32 I've never seen this many people on this bike lane out front, I believe we're about to crush it.

2:19:33 And while yes, I was a 100% freaking out

2:40:16 I'm not gonna waste anyone's time or energy, and by then it was a very seasonal thing at that price point

2:45:09 So it is hard to swallow. I gotta get that out. It was tough to spend that kind of money and that kind of energy, and all those articles came out on pedal town and the cool stuff we were doing, and to have to close it regardless of what is a success financially

RESOURCES

• https://victorybicyclestudio.com/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My guest this week is Clark Butcher. Clark is a cyclist and owner of Victory Bicycle Studio. I wanted to have Clark on the show for a few reasons. First, I read earlier this year when he was asked how he thinks about Covid-19 and how it affects his business, he answered they would continue to serve and deliver a customized service to his clients and focus on that. In other words, it struck me that he was playing offense when it was common to think defensively.

Secondly: Why cycling?

What has he learned about the sport?

What are some of the drivers that make you love the sport?

What can anyone learn about endurance sports?

Why are these things pertinent to what he does today?

And more.

This week's episode is the first of two episodes where next week, we take a deeper dive into building a business and all the ups and downs along the way.

RECAP

0:45 Difference between riding and training, both are great, I found out too late on that both are equally important, you gotta ride and you also have to train

1:59 How can you talk about that kind of ruthless sense of being competitive in ambition when it comes to cycling and training

2:00 I was never the strongest, but I consistently place higher just because I could read the race and understand it

5:35 Did you ever think about quitting early on?

11:19 For years, it was work, I don't believe in work smarter not harder

12:00 Early on, I would never have figured out where I was supposed to land and how this business was supposed to play out

12:43 control the controllables

15:16 It's a lot of strategy and it's a lot of paying attention at the end of the day

28:11 Because I could at least put that to practice immediately, and selfishly, I was pumped to learn stuff and I could apply it literally immediately on the bike or in my diet

28:31 I studied it because I enjoyed it

33:46 And then that's where it took some time, it took about a year of dilly dally and other little goofy jobs

40:46 Okay, so I learned to listen, and that's where I learned to be polished

45:35 You use a human emotion piece, you use in the life experience piece, and then you go all in on that business

1:00:00 Yeah, 28 days and store burns down

RESOURCES

• https://victorybicyclestudio.com/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

This week's guest is Matt Cook, Matt is currently the VP of Engineering at Tilled; before that, he launched his own startup, and before that, he was head of platform for Shipt. As you may know, Shipt was started in 2014 and was acquired by Target in 2017 for $550 Million Dollars. As you know, we live in a growing gig economy where people get to work in flexible ways that were not possible before. This is powered by technology, consumer needs, and how platforms bring together service fulfillment quickly, trackable, and cost-effectively. Even if you are not interested in how businesses like this scale and what it takes for them to operate well, you can still learn many things that can be automated with your own day-to-day experiences and where the world is continuing to move from a technological perspective. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode with Matt Cook.

RECAP

00:12: The first real interest I had was the game StarCraft as a predecessor to world to Warcraft, the really popular modern game. But yeah, it was a real-time strategy game. It required a lot of keyboard usage and there were just a lot of variables, you built up an army and attacked other players

9:09 My challenge would be to take it one level further than wherever you're comfortable now, so let's say, for example, maybe you're comfortable with Microsoft Excel and inputting some data and maybe generating a chart, I take that one level further

13:03 All of you guys and girls data ambitious, and does that ambition or drive carry over to other things, there's... It merely just this engineering and creating possibilities where there's currently no possibilities

13:21 certainly the best engineers I've worked with at their core are very curious, and so the idea of taking a challenging problem and solving it, just bringing into the light a solution

15:35 Just whatever your current problem is, take that to someone who's got a technical background and really just brainstorm homes, get in front of a white board and map out how long is the process we'll get 17 steps

16:52 You get obsessed with what the problem is, they can really use their creative energy to devise solutions that you wouldn't have actually described as the business owner.

18:12 You really have to push yourself to stay focused on the product and even sometimes make sub-optimal in engineering decisions, because at the end of the day, if you don't make a product that users love

21:22 What you measure improves, so if you tell the team consistently, hey, here's what we're measuring is our conversion rate on the funnel, if you give that data back to the people who are actually building the product, they'll find all kinds of creative ways

24:42 I get pretty obsessed with whatever the problem is that's the most valuable to the company, and so I really tend to focus on whatever kind of the biggest fire is

40:03 One of the key moments in ship's trajectory taking off, I was actually Amazon purchasing Whole Foods

47:13 one of the changes that it's just hard to understand until you experience it, but the company is constantly changing, so the things that you did to launch one city, they don't want to launch five as you have to adapt

RESOURCES

• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/

• https://abjets.com/

Did you know that there are currently over 81,900 missing American Service Members around the world? Why does this matter? Why is this important?  What does it take to identify and bring home Service Members? Why is closure essential, and how do these experiences affect us today? We cover all of this and much more.

These service members served our country, sacrificed their lives, and they haven’t yet come home. Today’s episode is about a group of men and women from all over the world that dedicate their work to finding these service members and bringing them back home to their families and much more.

My guest today is Justin LeHew, who is Chief Operations Officer of History Flight. If you missed last week’s episode, go back to last week’s episode, and hear my first conversation with Justin LeHew, Retired Sergeant Major with the United States Marine Corps. I hope this episode impacts you as much as it did to me. If you want to learn more about History Flight and to support them go to historyflight.com

RECAP

00:05: You never leave a fallen comrade behind. I grew up with people in hometowns that were still missing

2:24 I went from a failing high school kid to reading everything I could get my hands on as it related to my profession

3:01 I know it succeeded so we can get past the personalities that are here

9:34 To be able to do this in the second version of my life

11:41 Do not question why they are asking me. Be grateful they are asking me. Because they are asking you for something that you may not see that they may need. And they may not know what they need until you get there.

12:10 I have to learn in a rapid manner

17:48 There are other countries that do not care like this. They do not care about bringing people home.

20:43 Do what you can do during your time for what you are responsible for. You may not be able to fix everything. But if you can walk away saying you left it better than when you found it.

24:50 We are not going to quit

29:00 The best way I can honor my buddy

32:34 My hardest days someone put their arm around me

34:42 How can I make the pages come alive?

37:59 The mission doesn’t stop because Covid is here

55:08 One of the most functioning clocks you have ever seen

RESOURCES

• https://historyflight.com/ 
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

My guest this week is Retired United States Marine Sergeant Major Justin LeHew. This episode is the first of two conversations with Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew. The second one will be next week and also including the organization that he leads today.

Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew has been awarded the Navy Cross, The Bronze Star. He is also known as the Hero of Nasiriyah for his work taking part in the 507 Maintenance company's rescue operation, including Jessica Lynch in 2003. I quote: “Under constant enemy fire, he led the rescue team to the soldiers. With total disregard for his own welfare, he assisted the evacuation effort of four soldiers, two of whom were critically wounded,” LeHew’s Navy Cross citation reads.

In 2010, Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew was honored by the Marine Corps with an obstacle named in his honor at Parris Island, South Carolina, called LeHew’s Challenge. Every recruit, both male and female, hears from their drill instructors about the heroism displayed by then Gunnery Sergeant LeHew.

It was a privilege to have this conversation with Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew. We discuss topics such as: why he from a young age knew he wanted to serve in the Military, why the Marine Corps prepares you for any situation, what drives him, how our world and war is evolving today, why nothing new is under the sun, lessons learned about building a family with a demanding calling, why we’re all equal as human beings, and more. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. And, thank you to every person serving our country, protecting us, keeping us safe, and sacrificing your own life for our good. 

RECAP

5:45 My Father stormed the beaches of Normandy

9:38 I thought my dream was over

13:18 My mom didn’t know what I wanted for myself. I wanted the harshness.

13:57 You want to throw your life away in the Marines?

24:11 The Marines had a way looking at who you are and making the best out of your shortfalls.

27:11 I’m dealing with a different generation with the same problems my Dad did. They are the same motivators.

32:56 Tenacity happens when you know the deeper why. Quitting a calling is not an option. Stay on the path.

42:30 What you get when you take a personal interest in someone else

49:07 What is my drive?

54:45 Look at another human being first before you layer anything else on them.

59:18 Military gives you a set of skills to be successful at any level.

59:57 You have to remove the distractors

1:10:00 You rapidly execute when you know what you need to do

1:19:31 Why do African Americans go to war and then get persecuted when they get home?

1:28:19 We’re dealing with extremities on both sides right now.

1:37:48 There is a big way every 20-25 years

1:50:06 You don’t badmouth the home team.

2:05:36 When we have to face a problem unlike any in the past. There are no knew problems. Open up the book and see how someone else solved it.

2:22:51 You try to do the best you can with what you have at that time

2:40:21 Marriage is not easy

2:49:49 Don’t give time to distractors

RESOURCES

• https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/06/29/hero-of-nasiriyah-set-to-retire-after-thirty-years-of-service-to-the-corps/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_LeHew
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/

Educational inequality is a significant problem today. Last week’s episode covered what it takes to make a positive impact on this problem. When you think about childhood education, you also understand the importance of the child’s development as a person. Teachers are crucial in how this happens, and this work is more than just teaching curriculum.

This week I am releasing the 2nd part to the series with Larissa Gregory. Larissa is over social-emotional learning for Memphis Teacher Residency and is trained in Educational Psychology and much more. I enjoyed this conversation learning more about educational inequality, getting to the root of what a child needs to grow, why teacher burnout is so high, addressing this to create better long-term engagement and more.

I hope you enjoy this week’s episode also consider how things we discuss here affect our society today.

RECAP

8:41 The quality of education you receive can depend on the zip code you’re in

9:31 How tax dollars affect education

10:05 The effect of Covid and how this plays out in poorer zip codes

16:56 You have to challenge the way things have always been done

21:48 How to create a safe space for someone to learn

23:30 How this works in your brain

27:16 Challenge your frameworks

28:17 The less stable the environment the harder it is

29:15 Why you need to get to the root cause

30:41 Why we need to invest in educators

RESOURCES

• https://memphistr.org/
• Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/
• https://abjets.com/