So 80% of our clients came from just referrals and getting to know people. The other 20% came from having a strong LinkedIn presence. this is Art of Connecting Podcast with Haydynn, and I'm gonna do a little clap real fast for you, Mathias. There we go. We're all good to go. Welcome back to The Art of Connecting Podcast. This is your host, Haydynn here with another episode for you guys, and today I'm honored to have my friends AJ and Michelle Baker on. How are you guys doing today? Awesome. Yeah, great. Great to be here. I'm glad to be here too. We just went through the whole like rigmarole that it is to set up a podcast now that I have fancy videography and things of that sort. So super excited. You guys are actually my first like multi-angle podcast, so this is super exciting. It's an honor new ground. Yeah, that's right. Giving us more work. Awesome. So, the typical layout of my podcast, the way we get started is just a quick introduction, and since there are two of you guys, I'll let you each introduce yourself. Okay, are we gonna do the ladies first thing? Mm-hmm. So I'm Michelle Baker. I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Stone Legend Enrichment. I'm sure we're gonna get into what we do and how we do it as we go out through the, throughout the podcast, but basically we're a leadership development and resilience. Company working with leaders and organizations on those two topics. But really a, a good part of my background is 24 years as a senior leader with the Walt Disney Company. So picture everything from land-based roles with Disney Cruise line on board ships as an officer, and then seven years as a director with the Disney Institute. So I bring that up here because it. Feel like it really flavors and kind of colors my approach to life and business and consulting and all of it. So that's me in a nutshell. Love it. What about you, aj? Well, I'm AJ Baker, co-founder and COO of Stone Ledge enrichment. So right now it's content branding, social media, but it's kind of grown into infrastructure. And I'm sure soon it'll be full on COO, just operations and how everything ties into the business. And a little bit about my background is I went to University of Tennessee for a couple years in business, but I also, I ultimately ended up graduating with a degree in anthropology from Valencia College in Florida. So I have a little bit of that background in regards to. People and psychology and the science behind how people operate. And that's ended up helping a little bit in our business. Definitely.'cause leadership is all about people really. Yeah. That's awesome. Hey Haydynn, could I touch on something before we kind of dive in for real? Yeah. Is it okay to say where we are right now? Yeah, of course. So we're at Brickyard. And the reason why I wanted to bring that up because there's a certain vibe here that is just compelling and entrepreneurial obviously, but also just just there's just this high vibration going on right now and, and being fairly new to the Chattanooga area. I've been a fan of the concept of Brickyard for a long time. So. It just feels really good to be doing this podcast with you, who I think is brilliant at Brickyard, which is kind of like the. The, almost like the, the mothership of all things. Creative. Entrepreneurial. So it just feels good to be right here. Yes. Oh my goodness. I'm so, so excited that, so this is, the studio's fairly new. We've had the podcast equipment for a little while, but that microphones are new. This being a sitting podcast studio is new as well, so it's great to get to be here at Brickyard. It's just such a. Creative, like you said, it's a creative hub, you know, it's energy. That's it. Awesome. So I want to tell the story of how we met each other because I have a, like God-given ability to kind of just remember how I met people. And I do remember when we first met and you had messaged me on LinkedIn, I believe it was because there was through a connection, one of our mutual connections, and you reached out. Based on them recommending to, for us to grab coffee. And we went over to Common House. We met, we talked about what you had done with Disney and you had just started Stone Ledge and just moved here like, I think two or three weeks before. And so a lot has happened since we last met. And then you're like, we talked about cars. And you're like, oh, my son, who also is in the company with me, he loves cars, if I remember right. And we ended up connecting on that too. So super cool to see. As we're gonna go through this podcast. What's happened from that, that first meeting we had at Common House sitting there having coffee, no business really existed. I think you had like maybe half a client at that point, maybe. And, and then it was like, and now you guys have, have done a lot. So why don't we go ahead and just dive into the introduction of what Stone Ledge is and what you guys do for people. Yeah. So it, it's interesting that you mentioned when we first met that Stone Ledge was. Almost like half a company with half a client. That's, that's pretty accurate. I retired from Disney in, in 2021 to start Stone Ledge with aj. And at first we were really focused on just wellness because when I was at Disney especially the Disney Institute, we, we worked with organizations literally all over the world on three topics. Leadership, culture, and service. And so when we started Stone Ledge, I didn't wanna talk about leadership, culture, or service because we wanted to do just something that was very unique and, and on our own. So we took that very traditional entrepreneurial journey which I know many of us have been on, where you, you're trying to figure it out and you're making mistakes as you go and you're figuring out what works and what doesn't work. So. Fast forward to where we are right now after a couple of years of just as the expression goes, eating glass and staring into the abyss, trying to figure it all out. We have, we had a record breaking year last year, best year ever for Stone Ledge. A good part of that was doing leadership consulting and service consulting with a big company here in. Tennessee we probably did four times more leader in executive coaching than originally forecast. So we've got, I've got executives that I coach from, you know, here to the West coast. And then we've also introduced some really gritty resilient workshops, and so we're basically coaching workshops and then consulting as needed. That's where stone Latch has grown into. What would you add in terms of filling in the gaps there? Just that our backstory goes far beyond and far deeper than what she described. Like we, as in our entrepreneurial, don't know what we're doing. Journey. She likes to say she had a chip on her shoulder. Mm-hmm. Because not naming any names there are. A various number people, there's a large number of people that leave Disney and basically start a company and say, I worked for Disney. Come learn Disney Secrets. Yeah. And we decidedly did not want to do that starting stone ledge. We wanted to develop all of our content from scratch mm-hmm. Using her experience, but not straight up ripping Disney content. So it took us a lot longer to develop all that content. But we actually started as a, a wellness company, like Straight Up Wellness. We wanted to use an app that exists called Just Coach and create a program on there for people to do like stretching, meditation. We recorded a ton of like stretching videos and and. Her mom, my grandma's basement. Yeah. Like we were, and looking in, looking back at it, it's like, what were we doing? We were pretty gritty. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we've, we've definitely been through all the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship. But I'm really happy to be here. Now the one thing. That she didn't say probably'cause it's still in development as we're developing a course. Mm-hmm. Online. So we will have that kind of on demand. Just log in and go at your own pace. Content probably come in later this year. Fantastic. Awesome. So now that we have some context of the company, what you guys do, who you guys are, I would love to dive into how important connections have been. In your journey.'cause obviously we're on the art of connecting, so that's what we talk all about. So I would love to just hear, you know, some, maybe some stories of. Things that just ended up happening because meeting the right people, I'd, I'd love to hear about that story and how important connections have been in your business. Yeah, yeah. First of all, I love that you're doing this podcast and, and you're absolutely right that the way that we connected was because of networking and someone recommended, Hey, reach out to Haydynn. I can tell you that when I was when I was at Disney, I was in a bubble, you know, like I connected with. People at Disney, and it's only because our business paths crossed. So it wasn't until I became the co-founder of Stone Ledge that I really started to connect and network in earnest and huge shout out to just Chattanooga in general because the business community here, the, the way that people connect and kind of open their arms in terms of. Connections to people like you, connections to people like Lulu Copeland, who I'm a big fan of, does a lot of work with Cha Tech and other areas, chamber of Commerce, Toia, and her team with the CoLab. There's so many different routes to connect with people here in Chattanooga if you're willing to go through that, that door. So I, I credit a lot to this business community in, in Chattanooga for. Helping us, you know, connect and get to know a lot of people. And from a specific person just here in Chattanooga, I do wanna call out you Haydynn, because you've introduced us to people. And I think that the art of connecting isn't just the name of your podcast. This, that it's like in your DNA, you're phenomenal at it. And you even showed us that one time your systems for how to keep it all straight and how you. How you interact with each individual and, and whether there's any affiliate kind of connections there and how to represent your, I mean, it's just brilliant the way that you do it. You, you do know you're like a brilliant guy, right? I try to say humble. I wouldn't say brilliant. Brilliant is not a word I would use. I just I like systems. I like to think through things. Yeah. Yeah, definitely systems driven. But yeah, so that's that's how I would answer. What do you think? Hmm. Well, I, I kind of have to. Echo what she said first by saying that you do make connecting in art. Mm-hmm. So I think that is a very appropriately titled podcast. The other thing is Chattanooga, and I'm sorry to steal your answer, but it's. Partially Southern pride. It's partially the combination of southern pride and the progressive nature of this city. Like things are happening, things are building and things are moving. But the reason I say the Southern hospitality is people are very open here. You might, anybody listening, you might be in a city where it's like. Yeah, people are not as open to meet new people. People are kind of in their own head doing their own thing. But as an entrepreneur especially mm-hmm. It is so exciting and it just makes it a lot easier to, to get out and network when people are open to having conversations and open to getting to know you as a person kinda like you have been. And a lot of people have been, since we're new to this city. Mm-hmm. It's, it's feels like we've been welcomed with open arms and we feel like now that this is home, it feels like we're a part of this community. So I'm really appreciative to Chattanooga and all the people in it. Can I kind of throw a question at you? Sure. Because I think we both agree that you are, you're, we, I'm trying to think of a, a different word that brilliant because you don't want brilliant, but you. A unique gift for connecting people. Why is that important to you and how did that get started? Yeah, so how it got started is, I guess, the easiest place to start. I. It's is a talk I do now when I get asked and tapped to come and speak at different events. I have actually a photo of my first ever networking event.'cause it's on Instagram. It's really cool. We live in the age of Instagram and social media.'cause I can go back to the exact date, the first networking event that I ever went to. Noga networking in April, I believe, of 2022 was my first ever networking event. Okay. And I went to that and ended up learning what networking is. And ever since I was a kid, I always loved learning how things work, right? Like I. You know, say I came into Brickyard and I didn't know anything about this place, I'd be like, like, what do they do here? Like, like how does it work? And as I've been here for the last, you know, few months, it's like, oh, they're a venture capital fund. They bring in different startups and they do pre-seed funding. Oh, what's pre-seed funding? So I love learning about what, like, makes things run, how things work. And I've. It's been that weight since I was like six years old, basically. So probably younger than that. And when I went to my first networking event, I realized that I could go. And walk in and meet a bunch of business owners at one event. And I always love meeting owners because it's like, if you know the owner, you don't have a problem, right? Like, if, if there's a problem, it's you don't have a problem. Because if you know the owner and they like you, you know, it's like, Hey, you know, I, I was there for your store the other day and that that person really wasn't that nice to me. You know, you're gonna go back next time. That person ain't gonna be there anymore. Right? And, and so. It's kind of, I guess, a little bit of a power thing. I don't really care that much about power, but it's more about influence. I like to, I like influence like a 99 eye on the disc and. By being a networker, it gives you a lot of influence and I try to use that for good rather than bad because there's a lot of people that want influence to go and, you know, raise their wealth and you know, just kind of extract. But I want influence people for the better. Like I want people to realize that through connections, there's nothing that's not possible if you wanna do it. And like that's the kind of positive influence I wanna be on people. Nice. Yeah, I love that. And 99 Eye on disc. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 99, I, I don't know where the other 1% went, but never heard that before. You haven't? Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm a, I'm A ISC. Wow. So I'm a high eye with an SC wing, so it's like my disc profile's, like it's pretty crazy to look at,'cause I'm like. I'm a very rare disc breed, I guess, but it's part of it. The biggest client we have uses DISC for hiring. Mm-hmm. And they have to almost be like in a certain range. Yeah. So I'm not sure would they hire me? I don't know. I don't know. But I think it's amazing and I also think that there's a lot of value in. I, you know, just even just talking about AJ and I, we're, there's a lot of similarities, but we're so different in the skills that we bring to the table, and so I'm a big believer in not just having everyone within a certain range. It's like, you need some high i's mm-hmm. You need some high Ds, you know, you need some, you definitely need some high C's to keep mm-hmm. All the details. Mm-hmm. It kind of put together. So I'm, I'm more swinging on that side in terms of, you know, you soar with your strengths and bring all the different talents to the table to make the, the picture full. Yeah, that's fantastic. So I'd love to talk about some stories of, I. You know how you guys have met customers.'cause a lot of people that listen to this podcast, they've started a new business or they're getting started in real estate, or they're getting started in insurance sales, or something along the lines of that. You know, a lot of people listen to this are starting something new and they're looking to build their connections from the very beginning. What are some methods that you guys have used to meet new customers and grow your business? You know, since I, I mean, it's only really been what, a year and a half now? Yeah, maybe a little longer. About two years that we've been focused on developing leaders and and leadership consulting. And so it's a switch from wellness and we still definitely infuse wellness and and, and resilience into the content itself. But yeah, it's been about two years that we've been really hitting our stride. Okay, great. And so how did you go about like, alright, we're moving into consulting, working with executives. How do you get clients? Like how do you create those connections to gain clients that are gonna pay you money? It's okay if I jump in. Yeah. You are our resident client getter. Yeah. So I'm the, yes, I'm the resident, client getter. It's so interesting to hear that question on the already connecting because. Especially in a service-based business, and especially in consulting or executive coaching, it's about relationships. And so about 80% of the clients that we have right now came through referrals, came through conversations, at networking events. It just, it came, we have this expression, no, like trust. Mm-hmm. And so it's people that know us, they like us, they trust us. And then it's just that little bit of awareness of what we do. And it's like, I need that. If I had even a dollar for every time someone said I need that, you know, that would be a whole revenue stream. So most of it is just relationships. It's to your point, getting out, meeting the business owners, having conversations. We never pitch when we're interacting with people, especially in a networking event. It's like, Hey, would you like to buy, you know. That doesn't work. It's just getting to know people and finding out, you know, if there's a need that you can uniquely solve a problem that you can uniquely fix then you kind of continue the conversation from there. So 80% of our clients came from just referrals and getting to know people. The other 20% came from having a strong LinkedIn presence. So we've been not as consistent as we wanna be, but we've got 7,000 connections, which is not great, but it's not super low. Mm-hmm. And we're building that. And our big client in just outside of Knoxville, they were looking for specifically somebody that had Disney Institute experience that was in the leadership in service consulting space. So they reached out to us January last year, and we started the conversation there. But that initial connection is never enough. It has to be then the follow through and the quality of the work. I wanna brag on AJ for just a second. If I could go a little bit, just slightly down the rabbit hole is this client that we have outside of Knoxville, signed one small contract with us in February last year. We've renewed about five times. And a big part of it is. You know, the quality of the work that AJ does on Hi his side of the house. So everything from the slide decks to the videos to any of the collateral, the content, the workbooks, he put together 120 page workbook. That's one of the nicest workbooks for, for culture training I've ever seen. But so much so, and then they just love him, like the presence that he brings to the table that they hired him. He's not a website designer. I. But they hired him to design both of their websites, knowing that he's not a website designer, but feeling so strongly that he just gets them. Hmm. Like he gets their, their ethos, their vibe, the message that they're trying to come across. So I. To wrap up the point, it's, it's really about relationships. It's not, I don't believe in, like if you just cold call a thousand people and you're just like right from the get go, pitching them like, Hey, saw your profile on LinkedIn. Would you like to buy my service? To me, that doesn't work. I would buy a service from someone that developed a relationship first. And then I really like you. I think that what you're doing is great, and you know what? We need that. So to me it's all about relationships. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I wanna add to that you paid me a compliment so I have to pay one back. She, I would consider her an expert. Networker, not just building, but managing her network. Because she has decades of experience at Disney she's, I feel like she's frequently talking to somebody from her past having coffees, virtual coffees. And then when we first got to Chattanooga, we had to leave to New York for a bit to take care of my grandma. But when we first got here, she was using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Mm-hmm. And she was, I would say, milking that thing because she was like maxing out the messaging constantly having coffees. But again, it's that no elect trust. It's not. Let me pitch this person the first time we have coffee. It's literally getting to know them and then taking an approach of problem solving. Mm-hmm. Like, let me hear what they're saying, rather than wait for an opportunity to pitch. Hmm. And try to, if it works, solve their problem. If there's no alignment or if there's no clear connection, then you know. It was nice having coffee with you. But yeah, something that bill Allen, a good friend of mine, he was just here on Wednesday speaking at an event he mentioned he a way to, to do sales without being salesy is you go through, excuse me, you, you just describe. What you do and how you do it, and you say, do you happen to know anyone that might be interested in something like what we do? Mm-hmm. Because when someone is being sold something, what is their option? Yes, I want it, or no, I don't. Right. You're giving them the third option. Right. It's like,'cause there's no way they can say no to that question. Right. There's no, there's not a no. At that end of, end of that path. Do you know anyone that might be interested in what we do? No. Like, no, no one's just gonna say no. Right, right. They'll be like, ah, let me, let me think about that. Oh, yeah, yeah. My friend, you know, this person's the CEO of this company. Maybe they need something like that, because I know personally in my networking, a lot of people you meet, it's just not a fit for what you do. You know? It's just, you meet'em, they're, they, they, it's, it's all. What is it called? It's like I need to get this saying now. It's like where it's like it's like all show and no cattle or something like that. What is that call All big hat, but no cattle is what it is. Yeah. Big hat. No cow, big hat, no cattle. Yeah. And there's a lot of people out there like that, right? Like you look at their LinkedIn, you look at their socials, you're like, man, they've got a huge organization. And then you get coffee with them. Like, yeah, it's me and my assistant. And I'm kinda like that, right? Like it's, I have a, a large reach in different things, but it's, me and my assistant we're like, like balling on a budget, like low building a business. And sometimes, you know, you get into coffee with those people like that who you thought they're like, oh, this is gonna get perfect client for me. And then you sit down and you're like, oh, their business is tiny. You know, like they can't even afford us, right? Like, and that's okay.'cause maybe one day they can, and you can make a great impression. But then you ask that question to those people and say, do you happen to know of anyone that might be interested in the types of services that we provide? And then be like, oh yeah. I knew this person, this person, this person, go connect with them because I love you. You're great. And I'd, I'd hire you right now if I had the money to. Mm-hmm. And so, but if you just said like, Hey, would you be interested in our services? Ah, you know, I, I have two really too small of a business. We can't afford to, you know, we can't afford to pay for consulting and strategy because we're, we're just too small right now. Okay. I totally understand. Thanks for your time. Right. It just ended like that. Yep. Done. So there's like, that's the way you can in connecting, you get what you ask for, right? If you put out there what your goal is and you say, Hey, do you know of anyone that can connect me to someone like this person? It, it's automatically you likelihood of that happening just increase by a hundred percent. Because if you don't ask, there's no possibility that that person can connect you to who you need to know. Right? Mm-hmm. So I just want a little tangent there. But yeah, I think it's a great way to sell without selling because we all need to sell. I like that a lot. And I want to just echo something you said,'cause I think it's a really important part of the, the equation. When you, when you were sharing that store and you said, Hey, do you know anyone that might need our services? And the comment you made is. Is the person you were talking to said, you know, I just might because I love what you do, or I love who you are. I think that's the part that's most important. It's not necessarily a quick get to know, like on surface level and then say, Hey, we've got this service. Do you know anyone that might need our services? Because it is social capital. When you make a referral, Hmm. Like when you refer someone, I'm sure that you're pretty careful about who you refer to whom and so you have to have that know, like trust first at least to a certain degree, so that you're not referring someone that just turns out to be. Not that great. And then you've burned some, so social capital there. So I think that that's a really important piece that you mentioned. Yeah. It's incredibly important to have a great relationship with the people that you refer business to. And if I don't, I'm just incredibly straightforward about it, right? I, if it's someone I just met. A week ago, but they happened to do exactly what that person needs and they're the only person I know that does that. Mm-hmm. And it's like, Hey, I just met this guy last week. You know, he can probably help you out, but I don't know him, you know, I don't know him from Adam. So I'll connect you guys together and see where it goes. But that's the benefit to having deeper relationships too. It's like with my contractor that I do a lot of referral business to, it's like I know I can trust him. He's done jobs for me, he's done great, and like we each have our own shortcomings and you know, like there's things that don't always go right, but like he. Always make sure that it's right at the end, which is all you could ask for out of a contractor. And so I created a referral relationship with him. I've seen him, you know, if he closes the job he looked at yesterday, we$250,000 of business together this month. So like, you know, that's pretty cool for a contractor to be able to have somebody that. Just as a connected person bringing in 250 grand a business mm-hmm. I get paid a little bit outta that, you know, to bring the business in. And so it's a total win-win because it's just a great partnership, right? But yeah, you have to make sure that you're, like you said, social capital, right? Like, you gotta make sure that when you're connecting people together that to the best of your ability, it's a good connection, right? Mm-hmm. Awesome. So I want to talk about. Like, I really wanna dive into the building process, like you mentioned, building out all of your systems and how difficult that's been. Have you guys had any people that have come alongside you to help build out your systems? Or are you just like every day, like grinding and building it all yourself? We are definitely grinding and building it all ourself. Especially last year with our biggest client. Well, let me first break off into a tangent. We're reading a book called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber, and one thing that he says is there's, there's three people in you as an entrepreneur. There's the manager, somebody who manages the operation. If you have people working under you, you manage the people. There's the entrepreneur, somebody with the strategic vision always looking forward in the business. And then there's the technician. Somebody who has to get down and dirty and do the work. And in order to balance that out, you need to step away from being a technician a little bit. And what he says is, you work on the business rather than work in the business. So I say all that because this last year with our biggest client, we were both full into technician mode. Mm-hmm. Like we were. Pleasing this client, and they probably recognized that like we were going all in for this one client, but that's exactly what it was, is going all in for one client. We were not pushing the business forward and we were not managing our operation. So that's what is so exciting to us about this year is balancing it out a little bit more, being more of an entrepreneur, being more of a manager while getting the technician stuff done. But in order to do that, you need to expand your team. And of course the best way to do that is to connect with the right people and to connect with people you trust because any entrepreneur knows your business is your baby, so you want the right people taking care of your baby. So I don't know if that directly answers the question, but this year we're going beyond just doing the work and. Working now on building systems in order to get the operation running and scaling. Hmm. And I'd like to, to tag onto that as well. Part of the reason we're familiar with the E-Myth. Is because we, we do have a really strong finance team now which was as we, we had a big year last year, and so we needed the team to, because I was doing the books, I was the CFO, the, the CEO, the CTO, the, I mean, he was CTO. Anyways, we were doing all the things. And so now, you know, we have a great bookkeeper, great CP, a great banker who introduced us to the E Myth through Mastermind that we went through. We do have some pretty good software systems. So we use Meister Meister Task, keeps all our projects in order. We use that for communication. We use HubSpot for our CRM. And we've, we've used systems pretty well in the past. It's just that we're not using systems to. Scale the business, like we, what we need to. So this year it's all about systemizing everything. We have a business plan review meeting on Sunday.'cause we just fleshed out our business plan. We know what we wanna do for the next three to five years. And, and so to AJ's point, this is the year that's, we definitely spend more time working on the business than in the business. Mm-hmm. And you need. Systems and processes to be able to do that. Yeah. Hmm. That's awesome. Well guys, I wanna take a quick second and go to the show sponsor. Oh, hey there. It's me again. I know you expected Morgan Freeman to come on and talk about the biggest company in the world. Well, I'm sorry, but you get the next best thing. This show is sponsored by the company that I co founded, Acadia Capital, and acadia is a hard money lending fund originating loans in Southeast Tennessee and Northern Georgia on residential one to four unit renovation properties. We are regulation D five Oh six C fund and are actively seeking accredited investors. We provide fantastic first position real estate back returns. If you're ready to get your tired and lazy capital to work with a minimum 8 percent return, go to Acadia loans. com backslash invest. Not only do we accept standard investments, but we can also accept self directed IRAs and other self directed retirement accounts to take advantage of tax advantage investing. Thank you so much for listening to art connecting now back to the show. All right, welcome back. So we've had some great conversations about building out systems, what it takes to. Create connections with people. I, I think to, for our final subject, it would be really cool because you've seen the inside of a lot of executives minds, right? And coaching executives and some of the challenges that they have. What would you say, like would be a piece of advice that you'd give to someone who's aspiring to be an executive one day or to own their own business and be successful? What are some of the commonalities that you've seen, traits that you've seen in those people that you coach? That's an amazing question. And I love that you tied in people that wanna become executives or really be successful in their business.'cause I think it's a common thread that goes between those two. And for me it's this, it, when people are climbing the company ladder or building this successful business is because they're incredible doers. I mean, they have an incredible work ethic, smart mind. They can see the big, they just see things and they're not afraid to roll their sleeves and get it done. So that can only take you so far though, you know, to continue to do, to continue, continue to say, I've got this. Just follow me. That is only gonna take you so far, whether you're a business owner. Or a senior leader. So the thing that can really get you over the hump is to become really incredible at two things. One is delegation. There's a lot of different things that you can do to delegate to other people, and it's not just taking stuff off your plate. And if people do delegate and they're not great at this, what they do is they take the low impact stuff and they just give it away. The great delegators look at assignments as something's gonna develop you as the person I'm giving things to, but it's also gonna let me work on the really high value stuff, the, the strategic, the vision setting, all of that. So that's one is to become really great at delegation and not just say, I'll take care of it. The second part is what we call clarity, support, and accountability. Again, some of that's just great doer. They're not as used to providing clarity to the rest of the team, to their peers, their partners getting really good at providing clarity around what needs to be done. Support is letting people know, all right, you're clear on it, by the way, what I saw you just do. That's exactly what we need. That's perfect. Keep doing that. That support part, a lot of people miss in the middle. And then the third part, a lot of people miss because it's friction is holding people accountable. Hmm. And it doesn't necessarily mean you're beating'em up or you're, you know, talking'em down. But if you provide crystal clear clarity up front. You provide that ongoing support along the way when you need to hold someone accountable. They have so much faith in you and trust in you that if you pull'em aside and say that's going down the wrong path, they actually appreciate you for it because you are someone that they admire. They're someone that they feel strongly about in terms of helping them develop. And I think we would all agree that the best leaders that we've ever had in our lives are the ones that weren't afraid to hold us accountable. In the right way. So those two things. Delegation, clarity, support, and accountability. Love that. Anything you would add, aj? Yeah. This is just something, again, I read from the e myth, but it is to avoid leading with abdication rather than delegation. And the main difference there is abdication is where you just. Shove the task in the person's direction. You don't give them clarity, support, and accountability, but you just tell them like, you've got this right. Okay, great. And then you kind of run away and do your own thing. Delegation really, and I'm just echoing what she said at this point, delegation is. It's done right. Delegation is showing them clarity, support, and accountability. Little bit distracted, but some good energy here at Brickyard. Yeah. You'll probably hear a gong ring here in a little bit. Nice. That's the energy we were talking about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The gong's about to ring. Sweet. What does it mean you got a little loud? Yep. That, that gong means that it looks like the people that just rang it, they won a contract for their self, defense business. So, wow. Yeah. So at the, at the yard here, anytime we've got a, got a big win at one of the companies, we ring the gong, usually not that loud. So but yeah, been a big win. Yeah. I, I, they, they just got their first contract last week, so it's huge. You know, they're, they're finally getting momentum. Perfect. And. Big contracts like, like with big, government organizations. Yeah. So really cool. Depends, that's, yeah. Big. Yeah, exactly. Well guys, we are coming up on our time here. So I want to go ahead and finish out with our final question. And that is, what is a connection to a person or group of people that changed the trajectory of your life or business? And you guys can go kind of separate if you want to as well, since we have two people here. Mm-hmm. You go first. Okay. Yeah, that's a really good question. And the first one that comes to mind is actually not business related, but it could be in the future. I. It's gotta be like 12, 13 years ago. At this point I was in high school and I was playing a lot of Call of Duty, black Ops two. And I considered myself pretty good at it to where back then I was just playing by myself, but I was kind of dominating lobbies and whatnot. So I found myself in a position where I just got a little bit bored and I wanted to play with people. So I went onto this basically this website. I don't know that it exists anymore, but it's called HPI Gaming, and you kind of connect with other people looking for a group on Call of Duty. So I, I found this, this person, oh, Chicago, no, was his gamer tag. And we have been playing together pretty much every weekend since for like 12 years straight and. At this point, he's become my best friend. I've gone out to Chicago twice to see him in person. And that's actually where this hat is from, is from an ice cream place in Chicago. And we have another trip planned in April. But at this point it's transcended so far beyond gaming and it's like we care about each other as people. He's getting his master's in finance, so we're like encouraging each other back and forth, recommending books, but now it's like. He is my friend for life, and I could see him being my best man whenever I get married. So it's like all this came from wanting to connect with somebody over video games on this website. Hmm. So that to me is just like such a profound example of what connections could turn into. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, I appreciate that connection a lot too, just because they talk, they, you know, I, I don't hear the conversation obviously, but from what you've shared is you talk just as much about business mm-hmm. As you do about gaming and life and everything else. And so it's been a kind of a fortuitous relationship. So for me in terms of changing the trajectory of my life, which I think was the, the, the question it kind of goes back to that. Clarity, support, and accountability piece. My first leader, this is before Disney. So it was the first time I ever led people. She was really clear in terms of what the expectations were and, and she had very high standards. But I remember the first time she held me accountable and I'd never been held accountable as a leader before. And her famous expression that we actually bought her a bumper sticker that said that was no excuses. It's like you don't show up to a meeting without being prepared. You don't say things out loud unless you're sure of it, unless you've done the research. It's like, no excuses. You're a leader in this company. And I loved her for it because she didn't, she wasn't a manager by ab abdication. She didn't just put stuff on my desk and walk away. And that changed the trajectory of me as a leader for sure. And the second part is it's, it's fiction. But there's a book called Atlas Shrugged. Many people have heard of it. It's controversial in, in a, in a lot of ways. But it's, it was written 50 years ago and, and I've read this book like eight times, but the, the heroes of the story are business people. And it, reading that book through a friend Mary Helen Atkins, out in Arizona now, she had introduced me to it, but reading that book made me want to be a business woman. Hmm. It went from my early twenties when I was like, I don't really know what I wanna do with my life. I read that and I just identified with some of these heroes in the book about, you know, being in a business, just a business leader and, and taking action and thinking like a business person. And so I will always quote that book as something that made me want to be a businesswoman and not just working nine to five to, pay the bills and then do something different with my life. So those two things. That's awesome. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been so much fun to get to record with you guys. Glad it's been a long time in the making. Yes. So super excited that we got to pin each other down and come and do this. If you guys are still listening to the show, first off, thank you for being here. It's, it's so cool to get to see and hear from people who are watching the show and how it's changing your life, how it's changing what you're doing. It truly is such a blessing to get to do this. If you. Listen to this and got a piece of value out of it, please send it to a friend or someone who's in your network, someone who's gonna get value out of it as well. So that's the best way for a podcast to grow. And then also, last thing, if you can just leave a five star rating and review. If you're on Apple Podcasts, it's down at the bottom. If you're on Spotify, it's up at the top. Just go in and click that five stars. It's the best way for a podcast to gain recognition. So thanks again for listening to Art Connecting. We will catch you guys on the next show. Thank you.