Was there a pivotal learning moment that you went to discover these principles? Well, I struggled

to go to step one.

Here's this idea of taking this brush plating, electric plating operation where you'd plate these parts by hand.

I need customers and we need money to pay the bills.

Because again, we never took a dollar of outside investment.

My credit line was maxed out at 75 grand, a few credit cards.

I'm all in and I can't fail.

Has that been a temptation you've

Are we doing damage by sheltering our kids too much?

Well, we're sort of stunting their development, if you will.

So it's taking them longer instead of at 18 being an adult, like when I was a kid.

Now there's this emerging adult phase from 18 to maybe 34 years old before they actually step up and do that because we did it.

Now, an easy way to think about this for me is that the environment changes, but human nature hasn't changed throughout recorded history.

It just hasn't.

We haven't fundamentally changed.

And so how do we as parents, as leaders, delineate between healthy struggle and where is that liminal space where it starts to become unhealthy? And how do we recognize we might be near or in that liminal space?

What was the first six months like after you closed the business?

I'll get tighter with you there, Nigel.

What was the first three days like? Because I had to kill the business off.

You know, I'd been working for people before.

It was the first time I'd ever worked for myself.

So there's no rule book to tell you how to work for yourself.

And I'm left-handed and I'm dyslexic and I can't read spreadsheets and all this stuff.

Go on, go on.

Mm-hmm.

And so every single team in the organization had one number that did two things.

Above all other metrics, it would describe the value that team was designed to create, and the se- second thing it would do is drive the majority of the right behaviors, because pursuing a number can really help or really hurt a business depending on how they do it.

So we would look at that.

They would always measure other things, whether it was 5 things, 20 things, but they only measured other things if they could make the case about how it would help them make decisions to improve their most important number.

So the most important number for the business, um, how would you value an aerospace business? Well, they were typically sold as a multiple of EBITDA.

So that profit, um, calculation was the most important number for the business, and we wanted it to continually grow over time.

Mm-hmm.

W- what are some ways that you, you balance out that, that spiritual bucket?

Yeah.

I'm, I'm always careful when I talk about this, and I, I do a lot of speaking.

I work with teams everywhere.

It's, uh, it's a, it's an amazing life in terms of driving this message into the world.

But I'm not affiliated, for example, with any political party.

I'm for better conditions for the citizenry at a lowering relative cost.

How do you go about trying to talk to somebody that's introverted and, and they're not, they're not comfortable thinking about that and, a- and getting themselves into a community? Like, how do you, how do you approach them and try and help them get out of that mindset to, to find a community and actually be a part of it, not just say they're a part of a community?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I, I agree.

I mean, we, again, we should have leaders that can hold up their part of the business.

And when they do that, you and I can more effectively...

Ano-another term, like all these business virtue signaling terms out there, work on the business, not in the business.

Okay, what does that really, [chuckles] what does that really mean? Um, but we want leaders that are holding up their part of the business, and then we can step back, and we're sorta navigating all of that and making sure they're all in balance.

We get a view that they don't, that they don't get.

And if you, you know, if you embrace the growth that's gonna come from those things, y- not that you look forward to them [chuckles] 'cause no one wants that stuff, but, but you don't look at them as, "Oh my God, my world is ending," or, "There's something wrong with me," or, "I'm not good anymore." You just look at it as a new opportunity to become even more than you were before.

Again, go to thedadedge.com forward slash join for that promo in June.

Yeah, for sure.

And there's a pretty big distinction between values and creating value.

So I think all of us, it's a really great idea to have a list of values, things that we sort of live by, character traits as well.

And the work that I'm doing at Dinner Table with so many families out there and growing is about helping families intentionally create value.

and create value holistically.

So when I say holistically, it's like keeping it in balance.

that all makes sense.

Right

... whatever you would use to value the business, but every single team does.

And then the, and then what drives it? What are the things they can leverage that will drive that value creation? And so I could just see on a dashboard red, green, or yellow for every single team, and I knew where I needed to look, and if they picked the right number, and that's, that's a, a, a bit of an art, if it improves, it accretes up and improves all the way to the top and increasing the value of the business.

So I could see that in seconds.

And for any leader with your organization out there, how easy is it to get that information? And most can't get it.

They spend a lot of time getting the lay of the land.

I spend zero time getting the lay of the land.

But before we go, please do remind people about what you do.

And I could, I could see how probably behavior improves tremendously versus having to tell a kid 10 times, you know, and, and how camaraderie and probably even morale of a family just really, really comes together when you do this.

Oh, 100%.

And I, I think step one, like, all families that I run into want what's best for the family, what's best for the kids and all of that.

If you want to intentionally create value more effectively for the family, and, and maybe backing up a little bit, when I think about creating value, it's holistic value.

It's material value, which is money, incredibly important.

Our lifestyle matters.

We, we wanna maintain it.

Yeah.

[gentle music] Novel.

I just love the beauty of the desert, all the changing seasons, coyotes, javelina, bobcats, lots of rattlesnakes in the summertime.

That's Lee on guitar.

The band was called Three Degrees West, played over 1,000 nights on stages, clubs, concerts, all of that.

So music's going on.

Martial arts is going on.

I've got my aerospace companies going on.

Life is full and amazing.