Franklin: [00:00:00] Right now, the world needs great men who will stand up and lead with honor, serve with purpose, and courageously fulfill their God given roles and responsibilities as husbands, fathers, leaders, and men. It's time we see more men thrive, marriages filled with passion, and families that flourish. So whether you're a man struggling to figure it all out, or an awesome husband and dad looking for the next level, you've come to the right place.
We're your hosts, Franklin Swan and Tanner Hayes, bringing you practical, applicable tools and strategies you can use every day to build yourself into the man God is calling you to be. This is The World Needs Men. Let's go Welcome back to the world needs men Podcast I am your host [00:01:00] Franklin Swan here with my co host Tanner Hayes and we have the pleasure of introducing today's guest Cullen Talley, he is the CEO of exit momentum business coach and consultant the proud father of three amazing daughters Happily married man and a grand, a young grandfather,
So Cullen, welcome to the show, man. Really a pleasure and an honor to have you on today. Yeah, ecstatic to be here. Thank you. So, man, I guess start off, just introduce yourself. Yeah. Give us a little bit of backstory of who you are. And today we're gonna get into a conversation that's really gonna be aimed more at business for someone with a career, or especially for a business owner.
This is gonna be a very relevant conversation and we're gonna dive in. to some, uh, some strategies and tactics and principles in and around running a business, leading people and not having a business that runs you, but rather having, uh, you run your own business. [00:02:00]
Cullen: Yeah, great. So super happy to be able to chance to share that and and hopefully make an impact for for people.
One of our brand promises of our company is to deliver value with every interaction. So for us today, it's about making sure that you get value from the time you spend here and you take away at least one thing that you're going to implement. You know, we were having a little bit of intro discussion before we got on and Tanner mentioned so that I said four or five years ago that still resonates.
So be looking for that one thing today from maybe not just for me, maybe from Tanner or Franklin, but hopefully that's what you're gonna find out for yourself today. So as far as background, so I, uh, Colin Talley as, uh, Franklin shared, grew up in South Louisiana and, uh, was an endurance athlete, uh, throughout my teens and actually ended my adulthood as well.
We'll talk a little bit about my. Some of my Ironman journey, I'm sure, uh, in the midst of that. But quite frankly, I was exposed to business from the time I was five or six years old. My parents were entrepreneurs in their own right. And so I literally grew up stocking shelves, doing product demonstrations, going to meetings.
Cause I was an only child till nine. So six, seven years old, I'm, you know, in Houston, Texas at a [00:03:00] conference with a suit on sitting and listening to keynote speakers. I know that seems weird, but I was connected to that from the very beginning. So I've always been passionate about why people make decisions to purchase the process.
what is going on, how you create value and so start in sales. Uh, it was in the, it was in the, uh, apparel business for a long time. For the first part of my career, they wound up in the payments business and then wound up getting connected to early stage investors. They're investing in new technologies. As the payment system started to change, think of the electronic changes that are happening in payments.
We're starting to merge with the mobile device. We're starting to do marketing on the phones. All of that's coming together between the carriers, the banks, the retailers and these services need to get created. So for about 15 years we built and scaled companies. We had some significant successes. We were the first mobile banking provider in the country.
We built a company. We raised 20 million. We exited 24 months later for 220 million. So our investors were very happy. With 11 X return in two years. So that was one of the stories and we had others [00:04:00] like that, but we also had times where we raised capital and we over a shot, we didn't perform like we wanted to, and I had to come in and cut a sales force by 70 percent and try to grow the business at 20%.
And so those were long nights and long days. So yes, I've had a lot of success. I've been fortunate to be around some incredible mentors along the way, um, that have really led me, but then eventually wound up learning lessons on both sides of that equation. I got introduced to this idea of a. business operating system, a professional operating system.
When I was recruited to come in and run a firm out in California, COO of a holding company that had five, six different divisions. And in the midst of that, there was really no structure, no process, great creators, great entrepreneurs, great marketers, sellers, but not really a scalable business. And so came in.
Put the system in place and saw dramatic results in terms of really doubling the business from 10 million, almost 20 and triple in the net profit. And so I saw the opportunity in that. I saw the value in that and the valuation, quite frankly, for the owners and the freedom we created and the [00:05:00] opportunity we created for the team.
And so then at that point, I founded the company. We moved back to Louisiana where our children are. And, uh, we found an exit momentum had been working with clients ever since across the country. We've worked with almost a little over 100 companies now, maybe closer to 200 now. We have five other coaches on the team.
We're supporting that. And so we try to pull the best of the best outside of this business coaching world to create results for our clients across a number of areas. So happy to go deeper on any of that, but that should probably do us as far as an intro.
Franklin: No, that's great. I appreciate that perspective in that that background.
So you got introduced as a client to the idea of an operating system. Had you had you been like, so you'd been in business for a lot of years before that concept was introduced to you. Had you had you Any exposure to it at all before that was
Cullen: so, so it's interesting because when we would, uh, when we would build some of the startups or early stage companies that we would be series a investors in or whatever, and we would exit right and we would exit to a larger company.
Larger companies were [00:06:00] already doing that. They work and they were working with a Boston consulting group or a Bain or McKinsey or something like that. So I was able to be part of some of those kind of consulting arrangements that are more vision, strategy and plan oriented. The words we now they wouldn't call it that.
That's what we call it now. And so it's part of that. Yeah. Interestingly enough, I enjoyed those experiences, but oftentimes I would look back two weeks, two months, two years later. I'm like, I don't think much changed. We went to a really cool spot. We had some cool discussions. We put a bunch of stuff on the whiteboard, but I don't know that anything changed.
So I was a little bit jaded about this idea of outside person coming in who didn't really know our business and all this kind of stuff. I was like, these guys are useless. And we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that. So I was already jaded. So when I got recruited, I had, I didn't know about that.
Somebody handed me this book called traction, which probably many of you have read and introduced me to this idea from Gino Wichman of the entrepreneur operating system. And so I'm like, first off, I didn't have time. I mean, I like to read, I like to listen, but we were so busy when I took over that company, I really didn't have time to go really study this.
And so I had not been introduced to us. I just said, Hey, can we fast track that somewhere? Is there somebody who knows [00:07:00] how to do this already and can bring that to us? And that's when we hired a coach or what you call an implementer that wrote to come in. And that was our introduction. And so then we went to work with that third party in our business, but I had never heard of it before, especially in small to midsize companies, certainly larger companies were used to doing this.
But I would tell you in that world, I just was again, like I said, I didn't see a lot of great results in that in terms of impact for our teams and such. And it just felt kind of like a cathartic brainstorming exercise more than anything else at the larger companies, even though they were doing, we were doing billions of dollars, you know, in those companies that acquired the smaller companies we created.
Franklin: So for someone who is sitting there going, okay, what do you mean by an operating system? You know, thinking back to when you got first introduced to it, how would you now explain just in layman's terms and simple terms, what is an operating system? What do you even mean by that? And so that people can be on the right page.
Cullen: Yeah, it's interesting, interesting because we actually don't use that language as much anymore because I think [00:08:00] it requires explanation. I'm happy to explain it. The best way I can explain it is think about whatever device you carry. You carry a Samsung device or an Apple device. It has a base operating system that runs at I.
O. S. Or or Android, right? But then you have other programs. You got a chrome browser. You gotta ways up. You gotta up. you know, Netflix app. Those are running on top of that. And so those are the things that customize. But you have to have that base operating system for that device to work. And so to me, that is what we're talking about in terms of what it is.
You know, today, really, we talk about it's just a method for executing. It's a method for driving clarity and accountability in a business and really getting clear. And so sometimes referred to as a platform really We don't, we now just start being business coaches and strategic planners for our clients more than the operating system.
And once you understand it's a good term, but I like to use language as simple as possible, but that's really an ultimately when we say a business operating system, it's how you manage your people. It's how you do your strategic planning. It's how you meet [00:09:00] every week. It's how you make choices over varying priorities.
It literally is the mechanism that allows you to run the business across the organization, because many times you will have a thing like, think about it this way. In most companies, they might use HubSpot in marketing, they might use Salesforce in sales, they might use Asana in the technology space. And so everybody has a system they're using, but it's a little bit different.
And so when I say lead over here, you mean opportunity and somebody else means prospect. So language is different, systems are different. And so we're trying to eliminate some of that, not those tools. Those are amazing tools. We just want to operate at a base level because that's what allows our clients to get clear and that's what allows them to actually execute against it.
So to me, what you call it is whatever you call it that makes sense for you.
Franklin: So what make it a little more relevant to someone listening to this, talk through the benefits that you see. From when you first come into a [00:10:00] company that doesn't have an operating system and you even take our business, right?
We've been around for well over a hundred years. When you came in, we just kind of did things the way that we did things. There were some of the problems that we were. Facing and dealing with it had existed for a long time, and we just couldn't get out of our own way. We didn't have the systems and processes in place to move past them.
So when you come in and you start with a business that doesn't have an operating system, and then you help them to implement it over time, what do you ultimately see is the greatest benefit and outcome, especially for the business owner or the leadership that's in place? In terms of they're just day to day within the business and what it does for them personally as well.
Yeah, awesome. Thank you for that
Cullen: question. Make sure I stay on track there because there's a couple of components to that. So the first thing I'll say is. What we hear from clients, especially early on and what we call our implementation phase, the two words that constantly come from them is we have clarity and we have [00:11:00] accountability, unlike we ever had before.
So that's the end result. They are clearer and they understand who owns what, who has the ball, right? So the benefit of having it for us is initially in the first day, like I had a day one with a brand new client yesterday, I've done some really cool innovative stuff in the construction space, 3d printing, these steel beams and all kinds of cool stuff in any event.
The first thing we have to do is get clear about where we are from a people standpoint. And I talk about it in terms of, you know, sports because I love sports and everything. It's like, do we have the right players on the field before I figure out what play we're gonna run? Do I have the right players on the field?
Then, then, then, then are they set up in the right spot? Because just because I got the right 11 people, if we're talking about football on the field, that doesn't mean they're in the right spot. So that's the first piece. So getting clear about that. Then we can talk about what plays we're gonna run and all that.
But that's really kind of step four or five. Next is what are the key priorities yesterday with this team? They had 47 key priorities for the next 45 days. Now, I don't know if you understand that. That's one more [00:12:00] priority. They have days per week, and that's not included. That's including weekends, right?
That's a problem. So we really had to help them work through what were the 345 that really mattered over the next six weeks. And it's really hard for teams to do that, especially they're growing and innovating, and they're aggressive and all that kind of stuff. So there's an ability to narrow down and get clear what they're committed to.
We talk about being able to say yes to some things, No to some things and night right now to others. So that's that's the next piece. The third piece to me is getting clear. How do we win? Like what is winning look like for us? And again, if we go to a sports analogy, if I've got more points than you at the end of the at the end of the game, that means I won.
And so for many of our clients, they're working really hard. Their team cares a lot. They enjoy each other, but they don't really know how to say, Did we win last week? Did we win last month? And so setting up that parameter of it's not perfect. Like there's there's some wins that are ugly sometimes. But what does a win look like metrically in the business?
And lastly, how are we going to interact and meet as an organization so that we use our time [00:13:00] very effectively? Because most meetings are absolute disasters. Once we've done that, we can get super clear about vision, which we can go in another components there. We get clear on the strategy, which is a lot of deep work.
Oftentimes this takes quarters or years to get right and then what the plan is. And so by having all that, that's what our clients get. And so what it does for the owner is they're clear where the gaps are. I think a lot of times and frankly, you probably speak to this. It's like, yeah, You knew there were some gaps and you kind of had a sense of where they were, but you weren't quite sure where they, an inch wide or a mile wide and you weren't quite sure how was it going to take a month to fix or a decade to fix.
Right. And so like, there's this, I know I have a problem. That's not new. It's hard for me to size. And I'm not sure which tactic to take. And so I keep kind of getting stuck in the same spot. So most of the clients that we see have been kind of stuck in some key areas. They're growing. So like, we don't, we're not a fix it shop.
If you're, if you're looking for Hail Mary, we're not it. If you're a startup, we're not it. So we're so fortunate to get to work with successful companies, but oftentimes they've been stuck at this point around a people [00:14:00] issue or on a product issue, something else that they just couldn't quite figure out how to unlock.
And they get into this paralysis situation. So for the owner, we're now taking action, even if it's a mistake and it's the wrong action, we're at least taking action on those key items. And so they feel a sense of progress and it's spreading out. I watched it happen yesterday. I got two owners and by the end of the day, there were nine, there were seven other people in the room.
You could feel the eight or 10 things that were most important to them get spread across the team. I got my piece, I got my piece. And so now it's not all coming back to me because I don't have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. So what that does last and I'll close this up and answer some other questions is it creates margin for the owner from a personal standpoint.
You want to be able to go on vacation and not have to call the business 14 times a day. We've got to enable and empower some people and they've got to be clear. You want to be able to coach your daughter's soccer, soccer team at three o'clock in the afternoon and be able to leave and know the business is still gonna run.
We've got to make sure there's a rhythm in the business. You want to be able to volunteer time, energy [00:15:00] and effort or contribute money because of the profits coming in. We've got to build that into the business. So from a personal standpoint, we literally build. So you get to deliver on whatever the thing is that God's putting on your heart and in your soul that you need to be doing that quite frankly, right now, your business is robbing from your life.
Franklin: Men and people who run businesses, especially entrepreneurs, you step in with this vision, this dream of what you want to create and build, and everything's going to be great. And then the next thing you look up and the business owns you. I know that for so many years I would leave town. And when I came back, I knew that I was coming back to a couple of days of, of fire drills and cleanup from the mess that happened while I was gone.
And that would create stress while I was gone that would create a disconnection from my family because I just had that plane in the back of my mind. And for the men that were wanting to serve through this podcast, that's, I think, to me, what is so profound and [00:16:00] real and meaningful about what you're saying.
It's like, It's not the operating system that's so exciting. It's the fact that it gives you the freedom. It gives you on the other side of that to pursue your, your mission in life, to show up in your marriage, to be there for your children. All right, like that's what we're really after, especially for business owners, because if you can get the business to be stable and consistent and growing, but doing it without killing you, then you're able to take all that additional energy and focus and ability and poured into the other things that you have the opportunity to impact.
And so, you know, to another simple way of looking at it and what I really look at over the past few years of what's transformed in our company is we've, we've been able to get the right people. in the right seats, doing the right thing at the right time. And when you have those four things happen, then you, then it gets to a point where I get back from being out of town and I'm like, okay, I'm looking and it's like, okay, [00:17:00] so where are the problems?
And everyone's looking at me and they're like, there are no problems. And it's like, oh, nice. I can, I can actually relax now when I leave, because I know it's not going to be burning down when I get back. And so that's just such a, a really powerful. element to that, that I think just drives the whole thing home.
Cullen: Yeah, for sure, man. And then you think about, you know, in your case, the value for Brooke and the kids, you know, I think about my case, I just did an 11 day trip to Italy. I haven't done that in ever. And, uh, even in my business, cause we run our business just like this to be able to be gone and know that we're going to run and be effective.
So we eat our own dog food. This is not something we preach. We, we run our business the same way and we have the same challenges and I have to bring in a third party for me because I can't see outside of my own jar. Right. So I need that help from time to time, but from a. from a personal standpoint to literally be able to be on vacation because I remember so many, so many times basically vacation was for me was just moving my meetings and my phone calls and my stress and my emails to another spot.
And then for me, oftentimes that meant trying to leverage alcohol to get me to calm down enough. To be able to be sort of [00:18:00] present that I didn't sleep as well. Then I was tired. Then, you know, so I'd be okay for like if the vacation, cause I probably would never take a week, I might take four or five days over a weekend and probably hooked to some other work thing.
And so the first day would kind of be me, you know, as, as Tanner, I thought about landing the plane a little bit, day two and day three, I'd probably be a little bit present, but then I'd start getting agitated and aggravated and already started thinking about leaving. I'd already started like unconsciously starting to pack.
And then all of a sudden I'm robbing my kids and my wife. Of the rest of the experience. So we're an amazing place. We're in a place that they want to be an amusement park or a beach or a mountain or whatever. And here I am completely disconnected for the first 24 hours. And certainly for the last 36 to 24.
So in a five day trip, they might get two good days with me. And that was about all I could manage. And so I lived it as well. So I want everybody to understand we're really, really good at doing this work, but we live it and breathe it ourselves. And so for me, that's the coolest part is for when I get those phone calls from my owners, you're like, Oh.
My gosh, especially with so many family based businesses. I got a husband and wife in there. I got a mother and daughter in [00:19:00] there and that stress just pulls across to every holiday, every vacation, everything. And so for us to be able to have that happen and then secondarily outside your family, so many of you that own businesses or will own business in the future, your team members are gonna be some of the closest people to you.
And so while you're gonna get to serve your family, what happens there? There's a secondary family that shows up in your business because so many people that we get the pleasure to work with, they love and care about their team so much. So if you are stepping away from some of the stress, you don't have time to develop your team members, to invest in your team members, to have helped them figure out what their dreams are and where they're going to start creating margin for their families.
It really shifts your role, you know, from chief firefighter and what we call the, you know, just playing whack a mole every day into somebody that's truly developing talent and stepping into, as Franklin said, your purpose. You're why your mission in life,
Tanner: Colin, you've worked with chiropractors with small businesses like mine, then owners with businesses like Franklin's, you know, like that midsize and then [00:20:00] I'm sure even large businesses.
Would you say there is, these are principles that are applicable across Each of those different size companies. Absolutely, man.
Cullen: So what we see and we talk about with our clients, when we talk about was we have a couple of different levels of ideal client. So we've worked with teams as small as four or five people, you know, one of our best clients, the most longest started with six people, wealth management firm and stuff like that.
They're literally, it's amazing. The story, which we had time to tell it there, or when we deal with teams that are 20 or 30 or even a hundred and we get the teams that are. Multiple hundreds of people closing in on 1000. And yes, it is the same principle. And so I kept thinking, Oh, it's gonna be different when we go from, you know, 2 million to five.
It's gonna be different. We get to 25 million when I get to 100 million. We get it's still the same thing. Now there is a level of complexity and rolling it out and replicating it. So when we have a large organization, there's a financial institution we're working with right now that's just acquired another.
So they're gonna be a billion dollar firm with, you know, 300 employees with, you know, 15 ish locations. That's [00:21:00] a different level of complexity of getting the system rolled out. And I really have to turn each one of those entrepreneurs You know, a branch manager of a store or of a of a bank or credit union into like almost like their own business and having them think that way.
So we have to teach it a little differently moving it through. But as far as the principles working with you, Tanner and your team and you know, the chiropractic offices that we've done so much of as well as so many of the businesses again, my bias when I started this was it would be different. And it's not,
Tanner: well, that, that makes me feel better on some levels at my size, knowing that, you know, no matter where you grow, it's still the same problems and, and just the complexity and the implementation that changes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Franklin: So I'm curious and would love for you to peel back a little bit because you hinted at it a little bit. So you've got professional operating system that we're talking about, but then talk a little bit about leadership or ownership. And when you come in and you're trying to bring in the, the professional [00:22:00] side of that, but then What about the business owner and the leader?
What if, if they're just drowning in the business or it's running their life, it's, you know, going home and, and cracking a beer or pouring a drink as soon as they get home just to, to deal, try to deal with the stress, just to, to deal with the pressure. And they don't want, I mean, it's not that they want to be there, but it's like, how else do I handle this?
Because there is a pressure. And especially if you run or own a business that is unique to that. that is hard to understand until you're there. And then when you get there, there are very few resources that help those people to understand how to deal with it. And so let me just numb it, sedate it or try to try to maintain.
So go with that where you want to. But I think you get a lot to offer in that area.
Cullen: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm always gonna be somebody who speaks to this from from my own experience first because I cannot stand. It drives me absolutely bananas. People that [00:23:00] speak from theory and the coaches that talk a game but don't actually do it.
So that'd be a whole nother episode. Uh, in any event. So yeah. So for instance, for me, let me just speak to him when I'm with the team. I did four full day sessions this week. There was a lot of good, there was a lot of stress. So for me, I could feel yesterday as I came off four, eight, nine hour days with different teams in different locations.
Like for me, I have the same, like whoa, whoa, whoa. And like, I'm trying to manage the amount of energy and I'm trying to be able to present for dinner last night. So it's a real thing for all of us is we absorb. And again, it's not all bad. Like there's just a lot to deal with as leaders and owners. And.
People that are making a change in this world. And so, yeah, managing that becomes critically important in the way that I think about it is I'm not a big rock climber or anything like that, but you know, if I've done the walls a few times, not very good at it, but regardless, if you think about the professional operating system, at some point you're going to reach a height, but if you're down here personally, You're not going to be able to reach any further with this arm until you bring that along.
And I'm not saying one has to start before the other. I think they work for me. It was [00:24:00] kind of, it was kind of a collaboration. There's times where personal was moving a little bit, but professional was moving ahead. And then I really worked on some things personally across. me who I am as a human, as a physical being, as a spiritual being, my relationships, all the things you've heard these guys talk about because they're absolute experts and practitioners of this.
And so the personal operating system to me becomes the accelerant for the professional. And that allows me to become a better leader and owner, but then I got to build my capacity some more. And then I got to go against it for me. When it was originally just me running this business and I was the only coach, that was a certain level of professionalism that I need and a certain level of personal capacity.
Well, guess what? I got five coaches on the team. They got questions, they got needs, they're dealing with the same issues. What has to have, how to stretch myself personally, me professionally, which I did. And then I wound up feeling a year, a year and a half ago, had to make some real clear decisions about what I was going to do in terms of number of clients and everything else to then reach again to rebuild who I am as a person, because I could see some of the some of that kind of fading away or starting to get dull.
And I'm like, I refuse to live that way. But that's an easy thing to think it's a hard thing to do. And so [00:25:00] building those habits. So I got exposed to a number of different things. That's actually the way Franklin and I were connected. So You know, a program that I was a part of the sort of like in 2016 and wake up worry that made a massive difference in my world and happy to dive in further on that.
But to me, these two things are interchangeable and that one is gonna limit the other at some point. And you're gonna have you can't. You can work on both at the same time, but you're gonna tend to lean one way or the other. So for us, what I notice is we get owners or leaders to a point, and then I have to have a conversation about, okay, it's time to have a different conversation.
And while we're gonna continue to work on the business and develop the team, You got to go work on you because these are skills you learn. If you want to be a great leader, you got to learn how to do that. We're not born with that. No matter what somebody says, that's a skill you develop. You want to develop talent on your team.
That's a skill you got to develop. You want to be able to inspire people with your vision and your strategy. That's a skill you got to develop. And so we've got to have time to do that. But that comes from a, a knowing and a confidence in who you are. And your connection to whatever matters to you from a, from a God and a divine standpoint.
To me, that's the [00:26:00] source of that. And then there's activities I have to take weekly and daily to make that a reality.
Franklin: What holds business owners back the most from being willing to step into that personal development that that's so important that you see?
Cullen: Usually they say it's time, so they don't have the time to do it, right?
That's the number one excuse. What they don't understand is it's an accelerant of time. I actually don't need you to work as much. If you will go work on this, your work will be significantly more valuable. You will be much more clear. So if you will spend two hours on you in the morning versus two more hours of the work, and we reduce the amount of time you work to seven or six or eight or whatever your timeframe is every day, you will be more effective in less time.
But time is the number one that comes up for me, or it's, I'll do that when. I'll do that when, when we get here, when my kids are this, when I have this much money, when I can do this, there's something about this future, this rolling forward into the future. So currently I don't have the time or when I get to this point, [00:27:00] this future point that keeps moving on the horizon, then I'll do it.
Right. Then I'll do it. And I think sometimes, too, if we dug underneath that a little bit, they're afraid of what they might find.
Franklin: Or have to face what they know is there.
Cullen: Yeah, yeah. Right. And deal with that and stuff like that. So, which always, you know, every time we see people go through this, it's, it's never as scary or difficult as it seems up front, no matter what the issue is.
And we've heard them all. As we've watched men go through this personal development process, because I've been very involved in that both personally and in coaching and guiding people to that beyond the professional work we do, but that's coming up to something being willing to step through and say, I'm going to face this.
I'm going to deal with this. I'm going to unhook myself from this no matter what it requires and that level of commitment. Right? So here's the other thing I'll say about that. Tanner and Franklin, you've seen this before. We see a lot of men in particular. Yeah. Show up to these kinds of awakening events, whichever ones they go to.
They make a lot of declarations in the event, in the emotion of the event, the inspiration of the event. And the reality is very few actually fulfill [00:28:00] and start doing the stuff every day. And every week that you guys have been talking about your podcast, your listeners about what's required to actually make a fundamental change.
Franklin: It's a really important for. men for leaders, for business owners to realize that there is nothing holding us back more than ourselves. I think we like to blame the economy, the president, the industry, the market cycle, whatever the case may be. But the real, the real answer is when we can level ourselves up.
From a professional standpoint and a personal standpoint and humbly accept the fact that we are our biggest enemy most of the times, and it's our own habits that we haven't figured out. It's our own patterns that we haven't dissected and reestablished. That really is what's holding us back. It's not.
It's not all the external stuff. It's the internal work. That I think opens up the most, most potential. And you get to see this every day. [00:29:00]
Cullen: I do. And I'll just listen. I'm gonna reflect it right back at you because obviously you and I've been at this together now for coming up on five years. You know, I roll into your world as you had navigated or still navigating the covid impact.
And it's like there was no excuse. You had to literally close your retail stores, close the doors. I want some of you to think about that. He's in retail and they say you cannot open. Okay. For some of you, you'd have just fallen over. Then we deal with supply chain. Hey, what used to take us three months now takes 12 months.
in terms of that. Then labor shortage. I can't even get staff on my floor and in my warehouse. Then, you know, impact the economy. And so, you know, you're not, you're not listening to someone and these two men in particular, my more Franklin story. that hasn't just looked at this and continue to go through it.
So it is possible. And again, this is not theory on this podcast. This is a reality and their results we can show to you in terms of dollars, hours and relationships that exist because of this mentality of, I'm not going to be a victim to whatever's going on. And the cool thing for me is the people that have done the personal [00:30:00] work are like, it's like the nitrous oxide button and fast and furious, right.
Or whatever movie you love. Like they literally can, we can be doing stuff in business, in their industry. And because they have more. connection to themselves, more confidence. And it's not without risk. There is real risk, real potential losses, real potential risk. But there's an uncertainty and ability to make decisions quicker and pivot when necessary and understand what the impact could be that doesn't exist in the other.
So velocity decision velocity is a real thing. And when you've done the personal work, And you're connected to yourself and you're surrounded by other men or other people who are doing that, whether you're an owner or just a business leader, you're going to make decisions faster. You're going to do less second guessing, and that just means you get results and information faster versus talkie talkie, talkie, talkie, talkie, talkie, talkie.
Frank is going to do some stuff in two days. It's going to take some of you two months or two years to do.
Franklin: I remember when we had our first phone call, I think it was June, July of 2020. Yep. [00:31:00] And that was right when COVID was hitting and we didn't have an operating system. And this is a business that, you know, said at the beginning is.
was around for what? 126 years when you came around. Yep. And we just did things the way we did them because that's the way we'd always done them. And there were problems that existed for so long. And, and I look at the, um, I look at how much, Personal work I had done prior to meeting you or prior to working with you and and how much that accelerated my ability to, to really take what you were bringing in and implement it.
But man, I think back to COVID and if we hadn't had the structure and the operating system and the way of making decisions, the way of getting clear, moving quick that was brought through implementing EOS. I don't know that we would have made it as a company truly. I mean, the disruption was just so great and the pressure [00:32:00] and the stress was so much that if I hadn't had it, I don't know that I would have been able to make the decisions.
I know the company wouldn't look anything like it does today. And I certainly wouldn't have the peace of mind and the quality of life that I have. where I'm able to run a successful business that doesn't kill me in the process.
Cullen: Yeah. And think about all the things that came after that. Like I said, like supply, you couldn't predict supply chain was going to do was you couldn't predict what was going to happen labor wise.
You couldn't predict that what was going on the consumer market based on some of the things economically. So that was just, that was just the first chapter of. four or five that we got to walk through. But what's interesting to me is you're talking about that. Franklin, think about it this way. You had done a ton of personal work, right?
Long before we got connected. And then we got connected to this professional work. But then as we started working, you started seeing gaps in who you were as an owner and as a leader, as a man, which caused you to reinvest on the personal front, as I'm pushing you and saying, Hey, we're starting to see a gap in who you are as a leader, as an owner, as a man, which is like, okay, I got to double down again.
And I got to go invest in this program from a financial acumen standpoint. I've got to go invest in this program from a spiritual connection [00:33:00] standpoint. And so you just kept digging away, digging away, kind of handling those things. Cause as the, As we created a more successful, larger opportunity, it exposed the gap in you that was necessary to then for you to go fill.
And I think that's the beauty of the life we get to live and why it's so cool you and Tanner are having these conversations because it is that that opens up for us. And then it becomes, there's, it's hard. But there's joy in it. There is life in it. There's fulfillment in it, right? So it's like the next chapter unfolds.
You're like, man, here we go again. It's like for any of you that work out, you know, and you've done a hard set or if you're an endurance guy, like I was for so many years and doing these long sets on runs or bikes or swims, like you do a couple, you go hard. All right, it's time to go again. But there's something about having that fitness, having that ability.
To be able to go again and know what's going to happen on the other side of that is something incredible and valuable and life giving and life fulfilling and legacy creating.
Franklin: Man, that's so good. You know, the whole [00:34:00] purpose of what we're doing with this show and this podcast is just to help men. Just to help guys like figure a few things out so that they can enjoy their lives, show up as great husbands, fathers, leaders, and just the concept of a personal and a professional operating system and the combination of those two things.
And if, and especially when it comes to a business owner, entrepreneur, even an entrepreneur, like if you can grasp what those are, create them, implement them, and in the one, two punch of both of those things and what that creates. And then, and then the man on the other side of that, how much more he's able to do in the world and how much more he's able to serve and give to his family and give to his community or church or whoever it is, like is just, it's exponential.
And if more men could grasp this, I think you would just see so many more men. Like doubling down in the hard times on their personal work, their professional work and moving forward in the face of [00:35:00] challenge and, and obstacles rather than, well, let me just go home and, you know, open up another bottle or sedate in some sort of way and just try to numb it out and make it through the next round.
Cullen: Yeah. I mean, I just, as you're talking, I just, you know, my mind goes back to, you know, my own story, right. And just, uh, just the difficulty of, you know, standing in, uh, You know, we had just built a custom home. That's an amazing place to live and stuff like that, that we'd spent a lot of time investing to be able to, to, to do an amazing location and, and to have that, and I had success.
I had a really nice balance sheet, personally, no risk as far as that goes. Uh, I had been a, um, you know, 15 time Ironman. I had broken 10 hours, which is a pretty, pretty, pretty 948 at Ironman. For those of you know, it's a pretty good, pretty good deal in your forties. And I stood here empty. and gray. So I'm not one of these cats that was like that.
I'm talking about this from theory and I'm not somebody who the world was burning down. You know, I've obviously known people who dealt with [00:36:00] addiction or infidelity or other or financial bankruptcy, other challenges like that. I literally stood in my dream home so that I could not imagine 10 years before I had a balance sheet I never would have expected to have.
I had done things physically. I didn't think it was possible. I had a 20, approaching at that point, 20 year marriage with my best friend, some amazing relationships with my children. And yet I stood in a world that felt great. I talk about it. It's still, I talk about it like, uh, Dorothy, uh, in the wizard of Oz when she's on the Kansas side and she steps through to the color side.
And I had been living in the gray and I wasn't sure what to do. I, uh, it's hard. I'm still, you know, carry some of that, obviously, but the emotional response to this, and, you know, I'm happy to share all the details, but there, I mean, there was no major moment. There was no, uh, you know, that I've, I've heard the stories and believe and have felt those stories.
There was no, there was just this malaise that had come across my life. And I was like, I just sat with this. Is this it? Is this it? If you'd have told me I was going to [00:37:00] be here 10 years ago, I'd have been like, Oh my God, I'm going to be ecstatic. I'm going to be so happy. I'm going to be so fulfilled. And yet my world was great.
Disconnected. Even in the midst of connection, but most of that was disconnected from me, disconnected from God in my own way. And so then it was about an awakening and going to work and doing a bunch of stuff over and over and over and over and over again. And then I started to notice change in me that caused unconscious things to shift.
So for me with the personal operating system, I cannot think myself when people say, well, Cullen, when this happens, just say this, I'm like too late. I needed to start from the inside out. I need to be a different soul and human being. And for my family to say, wow, that person said that and you didn't get aggravated and snap back.
And I'm like, I sure didn't. Or something comes to me that's stressful instead of carrying it all in. I just noticed that I'm aware of it and I'm not taking it on. And so I could tell you, there are hundreds of examples of things. [00:38:00] They used to trigger me and push me and put me in a spot and everything else.
And I'm a smart, capable person, but that was my reality. But then this personal operating system, you heard stretched me. And quite frankly. I don't stand here in front of this mic today, having served thousands of people in business and hundreds of companies. If I don't do that work, that dude, good dude, not capable of doing this because they're linked there.
If you think about a rubber band, like a workout band, they're, they're, they're linked. So this professional operating system that you want is linked to the personal. You cannot let them go. So if you want to have that success, you're going to have to become more. And again, it's been the greatest joy of my life to have had that happen.
Franklin: Our kids can be some of the greatest reflection. I don't want this to be like out of left field for you, but you shared at a, uh, at a particular offsite, I think it was right before Markey got married and she shared a letter with you that I think is, you know, is just such a testament to what this work can do.[00:39:00]
Cullen: Yeah.
Franklin: We're talking about, would you mind sharing a little bit about that? Not at all.
Cullen: Yeah, I mean, if I read it, I'd be, I'd be a wreck. Uh, it sits in my office, uh, next to my desk and will always sit there. So my middle daughter, who does actually work for us, the organization as well, she's our director of operations, got married a couple years ago, and she sat down and wrote a letter and just thanked me for the spot.
And I'm actually her stepfather. And, uh, you know, she came into my life when she was about five. Lauren and I started dating when she was about five. We got married when she's about seven. So, you know, this is 20 years later. And just talking about the lessons she learned, the challenges we went through, and then ultimately how, how, who I am as a man impacted the husband she chose.
And so for those of you with daughters, they're paying attention. And I hope that you get that letter one day or that conversation, because it is one of the true treasures of my life to say there were choices that I were made, there were sacrifices that were made, there were [00:40:00] things that I faced that changed.
The choice and what my daughters expect in their partner because of what they saw from their father. There's no, there's no number that fills that space for me in terms of success. There is no race that I could finish that fills that success for me. There's nothing else that fills that for me. And so having that and having that in my life.
that is true. That's the other thing. I was able to receive that because I knew I had done the work. It wasn't just a nice letter. It was something that landed in my soul because I was able to say, yes, that is true,
Franklin: man. Thanks for sharing that. That should be a call to fathers. That should be a wake up call.
That should be a battle cry. That should be like inspiration and motivation. And whether you're like biological father, stepfather, role model, mentor, coach, like all those things. Like [00:41:00] we have to transform who we are in order to impact the people we're called to serve. Your daughter doesn't write you a note.
Right before her wedding that's that impactful without you becoming a different human being looking at who you are today and who you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago and going, I'm not even the same human being. And that's the work if men, I'll just say like, we have to look up and if, and if we are the same person today that we were 10 years ago, it's time to wake up.
I don't, and I don't care where you are in that, like in 10 years from now, I am not the same human being that I am today. And I know that that's going to happen because of the work I'm going to do in 10 years after that, I will transform once again. So we have to realize that the people that we love and that we serve and that we do all this work for in the first place are counting on us to show up and to do the work and to be the fullest versions that we can be of ourselves to serve them.
So that they have the opportunity to write us a letter like that one day. [00:42:00]
Cullen: Amen. And just as you're saying that, what hits me, uh, you know, it's like, well, I'm associated with you guys and why I'm associated with some of the other people that we're associated with. There was a group of people that I cared about a lot, but they kept telling the same stories for the last 10 years.
I was tired of telling the same story. I want a new I wanted something different. And quite frankly, I've always kind of been that way. But it's one of those things that I look for if I wind up in groups for too often, where it's the same high school football story, I didn't play football, or the same party story from our 20s, or the same.
I'm like, Man, my life, there are new stories. I don't mind reminiscing, but if that is the conversation, there's an indication to me, I may not be associated, not because I'm better than, but because I'm pushing myself further. So I want to be creating new and to your point, becoming more. So if you're not, if you're listening to this and you're like thinking, well, is that me or not?
I would ask you, what is your association? What is the group that is around you? And what is the content that gets shared in that group? This is not the first deep conversation I've had with these two men. This is what we do and how we do life. We still have a good time. [00:43:00] We still cut up. We still act like little cuckoo head, cuckoo head, sometimes stuff like that.
But the bottom line is who are you associated with as a man? And is the story changing?
Franklin: Man, that's so powerful. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you coming on today because There's a lot of business conversations out there. Very few business conversations lead to a discussion about, Hey, how do, how do we better be a better father for our daughters?
How do we show up as a hero? For the little girls that we're raising. Yeah. How do we become men that will give them a, a right image of who they should be looking for in a husband? Yeah. Those kinds of conversations need to happen more.
Cullen: Yeah. And just for the guys that have sons, like, uh, you know, I didn't have a dad that led that.
So I didn't have, so I was constantly pulling from all these other places. It's confusing is, you know, what, as far as it relates to the boat, the young boys trying to become young men. That's why there's so much. [00:44:00] in terms of their develop I love the girl conversat three girls, got a grand grandfather. We talked ab it's just as important.
I but both are critically
Franklin: i needs
Cullen: men and the world n They won't just fall into it. The world needs men, but they have to be built.
Franklin: Man, Colin, thank you, sir. Very much. If someone, uh, especially a business owner was listening to this and was curious about, uh, having a conversation, wanting to know a little bit more resonated with this on some level, how would they reach out to you and, uh, and get on
Cullen: your, uh, your calendar?
Yeah, great. So just go to exit momentum. com. So exit momentum. com. Um, connect with us. We've got blog content. We've got downloadables certainly willing to schedule a call and stuff like that. We're not a big pushy organization. We want to deliver [00:45:00] value. If you're supposed to be a client, you will be. We don't have to force you.
So this is not, you're not going to get 47 emails of us trying to force you to make a decision and all this kind of stuff. That's wonderful. That's not how we do it. Uh, so yeah, reach out. We'd love to connect with you. We've got an amazing team and every single coach on our team. Does this work? It's required.
Otherwise, you can't coach on our team
Franklin: as we wrap up and sign off. What is one parting thought that you would leave with the men who are listening to this today? Let me give you two.
Cullen: One, who are you associated with? Who are you spending time with? And it doesn't even have to be physical. It could be virtually much of my network is spread across the country and across the world.
So really evaluating, do you have, it's not that you don't love you, but is this the right group that's going to continue to cause you to grow? And then secondarily, are you spending some time just with yourself? To say, where am I, like, what do I feel, what do I know, but what are the facts of my situation, truly, and then what do I want?
What do I want? Because oftentimes people don't know what they want. So if you'll spend a little bit of time on association and getting [00:46:00] clear where you are and what you want, I think you could see some dramatic, some dramatic, uh, changes. And last thing, keep listening to this podcast because it's going to keep delivering value to your life for damn sure.
Franklin: Man, I appreciate that such pleasure, such honor, and, uh, really appreciate your time today. Absolutely. Thanks, Colin.
Tanner: We ask that if you found value in this, that you subscribe to the podcast and share with someone that you think would find value in this as well.
Franklin: If there's a man that you know who would benefit from this, please share it with them.
We want to get these messages and these tools and resources out to as many men as we can so that marriages can be thriving, families can heal, so kids have great dads, so that wives have great husbands, and one man at a time in this world we can make a [00:47:00] difference.