If you run a landscaping company or small business, the coronavirus and change in the economy has absolutely impacted your operation.
How you think, how you respond, and how you show up as a Leader during this time will be a defining moment on the sustainability and survival of your organization.
In today's episode, I share one of the most influential resources in my life right now: Al Killeen, a four-time CEO, author, executive coach, and self-proclaimed "old guy" who imparts some worldly wisdom gained from the last eight decades of his life including:
- What you need to STOP doing, and what to START doing, every day… NOW
- Your #1 responsibility as the leader of your organization
- A powerful visioning exercise (bring a piece of paper while you listen) to help you see the Future you need to Create
See more episodes, videos, & show transcripts http://www.landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Jack Jostes:
Alright everyone. Let's welcome Al Killeen. Al is our guest today. He is the founder and CEO at Integrative Mastery Programs and the author of several books, including Soul Experience: The 4th Level of Identity. A little background, Al is one of my business coaches. I've known Al for about 10 or 12 years. He's in an office that ... I used to have an office right down the hall. Al brings, kind of like the cover of his book here, a very universal perspective sometimes to some of the problems that I'm having in my business. I wanted to interview Al today to talk about how to really lead yourself, your family, and your business through this whole coronavirus and recession. Al, tell us a little bit about what is IMP and a little bit more about your background.
Al Killeen:
Well, Jack, thanks for inviting me. I look forward to spending a little time with you and your guests. IMP is an acronym that stands for Integrative Mastery Programs. I created about 20 years ago after having been the CEO of three organizations. I built this company up in the 90s and sold it to a group of Tennessee bankers as part of a five company roll up. A year into my gig in running two of these five companies, they came in one day and fired all the presidents and I was essentially traumatized and I felt like my life was over at age 48 and all that. So, I went home and my wife sort of challenged me to be thinking differently about how it could be an opportunity, and maybe the first 20 years of our marriage had been spent working for responsibility, but now it was time to pursue my heart, my passion.
Al Killeen:
We operate in our family out of a premise of a stained glass that she bought 40 years ago that says, Your Life Is A Gift From God, whatever you think God is, and what you do with that gift is your gift back to God. What you do with that life is your gift back to God. And she said, "What if that's true right now and it's time for you to go out and really go for it and pursue your heart?" That sort of woke me up out of my melancholy and my darkness and I thought, well, what would I do if I couldn't fail? I thought, what I'd like to do is go out and support people that have sort of lost their way, and especially successful people that often are disappointed when they find that no matter how much money they have, they're no happier, even though we all think we're going to be.
Al Killeen:
About 20 years ago, I created a program to do just that, and in the last 20 years I've spent 19 and a half of those, fortunately, being in the top 3% of the business coaches in the world to help successful people find a sense of significance and life quality amidst the abundance that they've generated.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, that's great. You helped me in particular, and the reason that we're doing this interview now, you've helped me through some really challenging times. One of which I'll never forget was, so I've been in business now for coming up on 11 years this summer, but I think it was year one or two after I had been a scrappy, just solo dude. I had a business partner and we were having a lot of chaos. We started hiring people and we weren't making any money. At one point, we even had over $100,000 of business debt because we just weren't really running the business the way it needed to be, and at that time, you recommended the book, The E-Myth Revisited.
Jack Jostes:
I read that book and it became a part of who I am and it helped me through that time, and you shared a word with me that has stuck with me, which is bibliotherapy, which is reading your way. I've found that in business there's hardly anything that other people haven't experienced that you could either read, or in this case, in the podcast, in video, learn from. So I'm really excited about that. Another time, even a couple of years ago, we had reached another level and then really fell down on that path to growing the company. You said, "Well, do you have clear written standards for everything you do?" It was like, no. It took us a while to do that, and then we did. Now we've reached another level where we're really doing great, and then this whole coronavirus thing happened. The people listening, many of them are lawn and landscape contractors who have built successful businesses. They're on varying levels of success on their path to growing their company.
Jack Jostes:
And it's a scary time. There's a lot of uncertainty around, you know, what's today's date? The 30th, March 30th, the whole stay at home orders, and in some states my clients are deemed essential and they can still work and in some places they can't. There's a lot of uncertainty around the economy and will people be spending money? There's massive layoffs and things. What are some of the challenges that your clients that you've talked to in varying industries are experiencing at this time?
Al Killeen:
Well, first of all, congratulations on your leadership over the years of what you've done with your company, Jack. I work with about 50 different CEOs and senior executives and high level folks in 20 companies. So, I get the benefit of having a broad view of people that come at me and I look for the common patterns, and to your point, I think everybody's going through some version of what your landscape contractors and owners of landscape companies are going through. Funny thing is you were articulating your story about your company, I think it's emblematic of the stock market of how there are valleys and mountains. It's pretty universal that our lives also have those trajectories that can kind of climb, but they have some down moments in between. What I often find is the difference between people that are able to weather the storm of the valleys, if we want to put it that way, and people that don't, is the expansion of our perspective to be able to see where the opportunity is within the Valley.
Al Killeen:
I remember well, back in the '08 fall down when I was already eight years in business and I had a lot of clients that were deeply traumatized, I was doing a lot of work at that time with Wells Fargo. The CEO of Wells Fargo was a guy named Dick Kovacevich, and I remember in '08 when it looked like the world was crashing in and we were going back into a depression, Kovacevich came in when Wells Fargo stock fell down to $8 a share and he bought 100,000 shares at $8 a share. It did several things. One is it stopped the free fall because the guy running the place is buying the stock. Secondly, it seemed like a crazy move at the time because, put $800,000 out at a time, well first of all, who has that? I don't. But as he put that out, what has that stock done in the last 10 year since?
Al Killeen:
It's gone up like 800%. That to me is emblematic that what we have in situations like this is not necessarily what it seems to be, which is kind of lions and tigers or bears. What am I going to do with my employees? We have all those concerns and we have to address them, but what people are really looking for right now, what I'm really in the process of doing with my clients is reminding them that this is your moment when you are now going to show up and get paid to do what it is you were originally hired to do. It's like being an airline pilot that 99% of the time is boring, you're driving a bus, and 1% of the time is raw terror when you're paid for your skills. That's every leader of every company right now in the country.
Jack Jostes:
Right. One of the things that we had talked about that I really believe in general, and especially in times like this, is that you can only control what you control. We had talked about habits that we can have that we can control. I'll share one of mine, is that I've doubled the amount of walks that I go on. I used to go on one walk in the morning. I now go on two, and I've found that by increasing the amount of steps that I take, which is something that I control, that my stress has gone down and I feel better and I'm more able to then come back and whatever chaos I was dealing with at work, I'm able to shut that off a little bit and come back home and transition there. What are some of the other habits and things that people should be thinking about controlling, that they can control during this time to get through it?
Al Killeen:
Well, I love that example. I think the first order of business, the first habit to control is what you are focusing your attention on in your mind. Right now I'm asking clients to turn off the nightly news. I'm asking clients to limit their news time to five minutes a day because you're going to get what you need to know, and then turn it off, because there are forces at work out there in terms of the media and the news and the politicians and all, that are all busy vying for our attention. We have 24/7 programming going on, on why to be afraid. A leader can't afford to be afraid. So, the first habit to control is to take responsibility for where your mind is focusing. As a rule of thumb, the bigger picture and longer term that you can see based upon your own experience in life will give you the tools you need to be able to accomplish that expansion of perspective.
Al Killeen:
First habit to change is to not succumb to the programming of fear and to instead, not deny it and not ignore it. We have to practice social distancing and all that, but to see where there may be an opportunity within it such as your two walks a day. I've noticed that this is in a sense of time when the world is being given a chance to grow its qualitative experience of life rather than its quantitative acquisition of things. We live in this constant illusion of control that feels like we've got control when things are going well, but when things aren't going well, we drop into, and it's physiologically based, we actually drop into a reptilian brain of survival. That is where fear comes from. The more we feed that with programming of how bad it is and how bad it could get, we end up dying a thousand deaths and fear of the ones.
Al Killeen:
So if there were some habits to change, it would be of course practice... Look, Jack, the way I look at this phenomenon we're going through is there are three elements to it. There is the phenomenon itself of the coronavirus, stock market, and you can't do anything about that. That is going to happen regardless of what you do. The second area is what you can do within that, which is to do your part to be a good citizen and to practice social distancing and don't hoard toilet paper, and make sure that you're being reasonable as a citizen of the world and a citizen of your community. The third thing is, and maybe most important, where you have the most power is to manage your mind. This is a time to be a good steward of your mind. I personally believe we go through these very moments in our lives just for the test to see where we are with issues like courage, faith, resolve, creativity.
Al Killeen:
What people forget in a time like this is we look at, I've got X number of employees, I've got X amount of overhead. The time is going to run out when I can afford to have them and we aren't generating new revenue, and we get frozen up in our fear of reptilian brain. Often, those are the moments where the greatest breakthroughs can come through where we can learn how to break patterns of what we're used to doing, whether it's personal patterns of health like you've done, or it's business patterns to take a look at really, what is going to A) survive, help the company survive during this time, and B) how do we take advantage of this time to actually grow the footprint for the next mountain that's going to come where opportunity revisits us? Which is going to happen. It may be a month, it may be a year, but it will happen.
Al Killeen:
It's like people right now that are investing money in the stock market when everybody's running for the exits. I'm absolutely convinced based on being an old guy, that five years from now people are going to look back and think, boy, was I smart, because I bought when the market was at 21 or 15 or wherever it goes. I'm not looking at sell it next week. I'm looking at what it's going to do for me over the next five or 10 years. This is an opportune environment for people that are willing to break patterns. I'm fond of a quote that says, "When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge." It's time to break patterns that we took for granted we can continue to operate under.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. The part about managing your mind and reducing the negative information that comes in is so critical right now. I have significantly reduced the amount of news. I don't check it during the day. I'm at home, I'm working. If something major comes up, I'll find out about it, but otherwise, I'm able to stay focused through that day, collect the information, put it in a box and then move on. I can't remember off hand who it was. There was another business coach. I'll share a link to this in the show notes if you're watching or listening. But there was a business coach like you who works with CEOs of companies and he recently did this study where he interviewed, I think dozens of people, and then he used a tool to analyze the words that they used.
Jack Jostes:
There were three groups of people. One were people that mentioned the news and fear and recession and the economy and Donald Trump. All of these things. That was the first group of people and their words were clustered together. Then there was a second group of people who were in the middle and undecided at this time of what were they going to do? Then there was a third group of CEOs who were seeing the opportunity and they were thinking about the way to lead and the way to serve. What they found also was the majority of those people, those third group of leaders practiced meditation every day. They were deliberately, and that goes back to the habit of something you could control, they were influencing their mindset. Let's talk about, how do you really lead your team through a time like this? Many of the people listening, they might have employees, they might have vendors, many of them have been used to being in a position where they're providing, and they want and they want to be because of the circumstances that has changed.
Jack Jostes:
They can still provide, and what they need to provide may be different from what they thought. One of the things you and I had talked about, is how you can't really manage your way out of a crisis, but you can lead your way out of a crisis. Talk to me about, for the people who are listening who are leaders of their companies, how can they lead their team through this?
Al Killeen:
Yeah, it's a wonderful point, Jack, because again, this reptilian brain of survival within us has us automatically resort in a reactive way to try to manage our way through crises. Of course, we have to do things and we have to have a pathway for doing it. The question is what's guiding what we're doing? So, I look at leadership and management as different skills. Basically, leadership is the ability to create a vision of the future while still being absolutely objective about the current reality we're in, coronavirus, stock market, and all of that, but we have to have the wisdom and the courage to see a bright future, and that we have to make it so big and so bright that we create a place of inspiration and resolve and passion to get there whatever it takes. When we do that, we now set a process up called creative tension.
Al Killeen:
What people need out of leadership, and think about ... I'd ask your audience, look into your own life. Everybody has what they need already inside them. They have the information, the wisdom. Look at moments in your own life when you were least secure, least certain, most afraid, and maybe in a darkest space. What did you really need right then? You didn't need somebody coming and telling you, you got to stop drinking or you got to do this or do that, because that fell on deaf ears because they didn't know that you were operating from a deeper place of uncertainty. What you needed right then was leadership. You needed your dad, your mom, your brother, your friend, somebody to come along and remind you, as my wife did to me 20 years ago when I thought my life was over, when in fact it was just starting. They need to remind you of a bright future.
Al Killeen:
People need to have a place where they are operating toward an inspirational future that inspires them and is bigger than their fear. Think about moments in your life when you've had a tough situation, what you needed then more than anything was a shift of perspective that a leader provided. The best example I can use is I happen to be ... right now I'm spending my time watching a lot of inspirational things on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I'm doing that because I want to program my mind with a bigger picture of positive potential as opposed to, oh my gosh, lions and tigers and bears. I'm watching a thing last night on World War II, and in coming in today's conversation, I was thinking, Jack, this is a time, and you may or may not be familiar with the brief story of it, but in the '30s as Hitler was building up Germany and they began taking over countries, Neville Chamberlain was the prime minister of Britain.
Al Killeen:
He kept trying to appease them, he kept trying to say, "Well, maybe if we're nice and we're friendly, then they won't keep going." They kept going. Meanwhile, there was this guy who was on the outs called Churchill, was over the corner saying, "These are bad actors and they're going to do bad things." Nobody was listening to him. So, Chamberlain came back, Czechoslovakia, they gave it to him, peace in our time, that whole thing. The next thing is they take over Poland, and now Chamberlain's perspective on how this was going to be managed didn't work and now essentially Germany owned Europe and England was next and so they voted Churchill in. Now, you've got to remember at this time, and I'm using this example and put your audience through this because everything we're all going through individually right now.
Al Killeen:
Think of it. London, England has 9 million people, the largest city in the world. The Nazis had been bombing at 24/7, and as a result, 2 million of those 9 million people were living in the subways and they don't know when the next rocket is going to hit them, and 60% of London is destroyed in the airstrikes. We aren't in the war yet as the US, so England is alone facing this behemoth of Nazi-ism that's taken over the world. The country is on the edge of being lost before we ever got involved. On a speech to parliament to the nation, Churchill comes on and basically says, "We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the mountains." He goes through this whole thing about whatever it takes, we are not going to give in, we are not going to be conquered. We're going to fight them, every man, woman and child everywhere we have to.
Al Killeen:
And it awakened something in the British people, that was a sense of courage and resolve commitment. That bought them the time for the US to come into the war, and then of course, we know how it turned out. It didn't have to turn out that way. It could have been lost. My message for your listeners is, this is one of those moments where you need to be Churchill, not Chamberlain. You need to be a leader that's reminding people of the longer term, and you can use your own life at moments when you thought it was over and it turned out not to be, and in fact got better afterwards. We forget that in our reptilian brain. Have the wisdom, have the courage to make the hard decisions you have to make right now, but make them with compassion, operate with faith, passion, inspiration, commitment, resolve and awaken that in your team to do the, whatever we have to do to get through this together. In doing so, you're going to come out the other side stronger as I've watched you do so beautifully through the years, Jack.
Jack Jostes:
Thank you, Al. I really believe that is the space that we need to come from with compassion and inspiration and leadership. Ultimately, that will come from managing your mindset, right? You can't really get there if you're just reading the news all day and thinking about how terrible it is, and it is terrible. There's a lot of terrible things happening, but okay what to do next? I'm excited for the people listening because that's why small business exists. That's what entrepreneurship is all about. I can't remember which book it was, but they were describing entrepreneurs as delusional. You have to be delusional to see the situation and see the opportunity. That's I believe your number one job as the leader of the company, is to be delusional in the right way and inspire people to seeing that brighter future and getting through this.
Al Killeen:
Yeah, because when your reptilian brain has control of you, when your fear has control of you, it seems delusional to not be responding to it. Oh my God, oh my God. Don't you know what's going to happen? You've talked about bibliotherapy, and in addition to my book and my books, one book I always recommend to people to read because it's such a life changer, is a book called, Man's Search for Meaning by a guy named Viktor Frankl. The brief version is, it's the story of Jewish psychiatrist that actually went through the death camps of Germany and watched everybody he loved die, and he spent four years surviving the death camps of Germany by managing his mind. He realized they can take the freedom away from me to eat for life itself, but they can't take away my freedom to see things as I choose to.
Al Killeen:
That's the essence of being a leader, is to have the courage, the faith, wisdom, and the older you are, the more of that you should have for more experiences you've gone. It's time to really awaken a personal inside you since, I don't know what's going to happen out of this, but it isn't going to be as bad as it could be through a lack of my commitment and effort to make sure that, not only I'm okay, but the people around me are okay. I find in times like this, a tremendously healthy habit to have, is to think less about yourself and to think more about other people. Think about what your wife or your husband needs. Think about what your children need. Think about what your employees need. You can have empathy, you can have compassion. You may have to make hard decisions that create challenges in their life that they're going to have to react to, but what people need more than ever at times like this is a toolkit that allows them to be able to shift that perspective and manage their reality.
Al Killeen:
Viktor Frankl goes through the death camps for four years. He gets out, he thinks his life's over, his family's dead. They've destroyed his life's work, but instead, he keeps a future while he's in the death camps before him of imagining speaking to crowds about this new way of looking at life. Then, he then articulates, they rescue him from the death camps, they take him to Vienna, and over nine days, he dictates one of the 20th century's most inspirational books. It's all around the power of the mind. Right now is a time when we're being invited to explore and deepen and expand the power of your mind and then deploy what you come up with, out of your faith, gratitude, compassion, wisdom, love, resolve, those values, what I call your level four. Give other people the experience of that. Go out and help other people have faith in tomorrow.
Jack Jostes:
One of the things that we've done together that has been really helpful from a tactical standpoint, for people who are listening who are like, yeah, I'm inspired, what do I do now? Personally, I'm even taking notes right now on paper. It's just a habit of how I process things. One of the things that we've done together is, I think you call it the E of E exercise. I don't know if you have this available online or maybe we could just talk through. People could take out, if you're listening, you could literally take out a piece of paper and, at what Al's going to share with us, I believe can really help you see through it. What reminded me about that, I haven't read Man's Search for Meaning yet, but what you said was that he envisioned himself in the future talking to people about surviving and what it was like in the past.
Jack Jostes:
That's largely what this exercise is about. Can you talk us through how somebody could, who's listening, who's in the thick of it right now, what could they write down that would help them see the future?
Al Killeen:
The first step is to provoke your internal leadership for yourself and for others where you are creating a future that's inspirational and that others see their future in. For employees, this might be, I'm sorry Fred, I have to lay you off right now, but you're really great at what you do and it's not personal, and I want you back here as soon as we're back in the game. I care about you and you're somebody that I hope will come back to work for me as soon as I can afford to have you. So, people are going through a lot of things, but so we want to lead ourselves by awakening the sense of future. But then we need to deploy management in the service of that leadership. The E of E or the Echo Of Empowerment Project Process involves four different steps. Here are the steps. The first step, and I think of it as four columns that you could think ... I think of it as two big ovals on each side and then two other columns of small ovals in between.
Al Killeen:
Well, we start with the first oval over on the left, I label that current reality. The very first thing that you have to do as a leader is you have to be aware of where you're starting from without being Pollyanna. Hey, here's the current reality of what's not working. Coronavirus has impacted my business. Coronavirus has impacted my ability to generate and to proceed with activities of commerce right now because we're all in lockdown and so that is what it is. Stock market's down. I have X amount of resources. To have things go, you have to label what is and isn't working and you'll have a whole lot of not workings right now, and you can't shy away from that. You have to objectively lay it out, here's where I'm starting from. It's like an artist with a blank canvas.
Al Killeen:
The second step is to go out to the far right column that is future perfect and to essentially lay out what you dream and desire as resolutions to what isn't working in current reality. What is it that inspires you in the future that overcomes, where you essentially declare for yourself, we're going to have more business than ever, I'm going to be using this as a foundation to grow my value proposition and with it, my awareness of my clients of what makes us better than the competition. I'm going to feel inspired and passionate. My employees are going to be loyal and motivated and dah, dah, dah. Now you have these two kind of goalposts that are called creative tension. You keep them both in mind at the same time. Here's where I am right now, but here's where I'm going.
Al Killeen:
Normally, we shut one or the other down. The key to not having this be Pollyanna is that you have to stay aware of where you are, like an artist with a blank canvas, and then you have to envision the Mona Lisa of what you want to create. The middle two columns are what you do with that. Once you have this big dream, and let me use as an example, it won't be a business example, it will be a health example. Let's say current reality is I'm overweight, I have high blood pressure, I have diabetes, blah, blah, blah. Over here, I'm healthy, I'm vibrant, I'm living a long and qualitative life and I'm playing with my grandkids. The next step is you have to come back, and in the third column you have to put your 30 day goals in moving toward that future vision. No more. Just 30 days.
Al Killeen:
They need to be the 30 day goals that say, well, what do I need to have accomplished in the next 30 days? Well, I need to, in my health example, I need to join a health club, I need to buy health books, I need to revisit my diet, I need to dah, dah, dah. Then the last column, which is column two, are the actions necessary to achieve the goals. And you will update these middle two columns every 30 days with new goals and new actions all in pursuit of this future perfect vision that you're getting to and your current reality will change as you do so. When it's finished, you're going to have a column with where I'm starting from. The next column is going to be actions I need to immediately take. The third column is going to be goals I'm going to accomplish over the next 30 days.
Al Killeen:
The fourth column is this inspirational Nirvana, this heaven that I'm going to get too out of the darkness that I'm in now. Then you modify the middle two columns as you take progress toward it. That in essence is the echo of empowerment.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. I love it. For those of you listening, before you forget, go, just take a piece of paper and write down those four columns and go through this. It's amazing what you can think of and what can happen when you write things down and envision yourself there. How can you share this with your team? Is this something that you should do and just keep in a drawer by yourself or should you share with your .... you know what I mean? As far as inspiring the people, so I feel like part of the responsibility of the business leaders is to inspire their people. How can you communicate this vision to your team?
Al Killeen:
Well, it's got to be communicated or ultimately it doesn't fulfill the covenant of leadership. You can sit in a room by yourself and inspire yourself, but what impact will it have? The whole point of leadership is to actually move the needle toward the good. To do that, you need people. And to do that, you need those people to essentially adopt the mindset that you have of inspiration, purpose, passion, commitment, resolve. It's being a US Marine infantrymen attacking Iwo Jima. I may die, but I'm not going to ... that isn't going to get in the way of me attacking that hill kind of thing. So yes, you have to absolutely inspire ... First, you have to inspire yourself. That's why managing your mind is the first step. Then you have to go out to the people closest to you, your family, your friends, your colleagues, your workmates, and your clients.
Al Killeen:
Your job and your opportunity in a time like this is to awaken people out of the patterns of dark thinking that are invited by our reptilian brain that automatically go to fear and paralysis. Once you have that inspiration, don't waste it and let it fritter away. Put a management process like the echo of empowerment into service, utilizing the energy you create of this future vision. Back to me, 20 years ago, Jack, I thought my life was over. I literally went home to tell my wife, we've been married 20 years, I'm ashamed. I just got fired from the company I built. You bet on the wrong horse. Maybe you ought to take a second look and give yourself another option. That great woman said to me, "Well, what if your life is a gift from God, and what you do with your gift back, and what if this is the moment where you are called, when the membrane is thinnest, when you're most afraid to break through and find out who you really are?"
Al Killeen:
I think the great gift we're going to look back on in this time as we're going to discover who we were during these moments, and believe me, your employees, your family, your clients and you are going to remember who you showed up as during this time. Did you show up as faith, as courage, as resolve, as creativity, as passion, as commitment, as hope of love? If you did, that is the greatest differentiation you can have. What I've decided is, look, I'm in a business like you. I have a whole bunch of clients, but they could all quit. I wouldn't be human if that didn't scare me, but I have a choice to make in entertaining that thought. One is to really limit how much I entertain that thought cause it can create it. Secondly, I have to realize, well, what is that going to do if my clients all quit?
Al Killeen:
Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Well, it creates a whole bunch of time and space for me to now have time to work on the business, that old cliché, rather than in the business. Get creative, develop new revenue channels. Who says that you going through this moment isn't an invitation for you to expand the context of your business while you have time to? I have a dear client up in Seattle. He runs a swimming pool company, fourth generation largest be pool company up in the Northwest, blah, blah, blah. He was talking to me one day, complaining about the fact that they make all their money in three or four months out of the year. So, he had to gather his dollars and then make it through the winter. I suggested, well, what would happen if you expanded your revenue channels into some new areas you haven't ever considered before? Hadn't dawned on him. So he began doing that. He got into huts and into fireplace inserts and whatnot, and now they have steady revenue all year long.
Al Killeen:
I'd ask your landscape owners and your clientele, generally, Jack, think about where the opportunity is amidst the darkness and have the courage to pursue it, and be bold in articulating to your employees and your clients and yourself why this is an opportunity, an awakening. We may all have to cut back and eat beans and rice, okay, but we are by God not going to succumb to this and we're not going to go down alone. I'm going to help you, you're going to help me, and together we're going to get through this, because when it's over and it will be over, people are going to remember who Jack Jostes was and who everyone of your attendees are here. They're going to remember, did he show the character of Churchill or did he show the timidity and fear of Chamberlain? This is your moment.
Jack Jostes:
I love that. This is the time. There are a handful of my clients who are really thriving right now. One of them that I want to talk about is a guy named Casey Hendrix down in Ennis, Texas. So proud of Casey because one, we started charging for his first appointment, which was amazing because no one in Texas charges for that. We're doing it and people are paying for that appointment even now. An adaption for him, he has a nursery and garden center and the landscape company, and they have started doing home delivery. People are stuck at home noticing how awful their yard is because they haven't spent much time there because they've been going to work during the day. It's springtime and people are buying plants, they're gardening, they're doing vegetable gardening, and he has responded by doing home delivery. It's amazing.
Jack Jostes:
People are enjoying it, they're enjoying nature, they're spending time with their families. That's just an example of somebody who ... I hadn't talked to him really about that being a priority a month ago, but here the circumstance has changed. What does the market want? And here's a whole new opportunity. Well, Al, thank you so much for being on the show. You've shared, as always, a lot of wisdom and actionable things that we can take away. If people want to learn more about you, how can they find you? How can they get in touch with you?
Al Killeen:
Well, thank you, Jack. What a great opportunity to be with you and your audience because they wouldn't be in your audience if they weren't supposed to be hearing this message, they're here to do something with what you and I have talked about, not just listen to a podcast. They can reach me through my website, integrativemasteryprograms.com, they can Google me, Al Killeen. They can buy my books, and for people that want support, and part of where I'm coming from is I don't start with my handout. I start with a premise of service over money. So, anybody that's interested in following up on this dialogue, I take a customized approach to assessing what each individual and organization needs. Then I have a whole spectrum of things that we can do to support you, and if we're not the answer, I'll guide you to where the answer is because I think the highest thing we have to do right now is to show up as a good level four personifications of our values to demonstrate what character is to our children, our wives, our husbands, our clients.
Al Killeen:
Right now is an opportunity when we can do that. I'm here to help people however I can help them, even if it doesn't involve me getting paid. Okay? What matters higher than me getting paid is me performing the work that I've committed to, which is trying to help people remember where their power is rather than let their fear dissipate that power. So, Jack, thanks so much for letting me be a part of this. I really hope this helps whoever has listened to it, change the patterns of the way they're looking at things and see the opportunity.
Jack Jostes:
I believe it will. If they've made it this long into the interview, they better. All right, Al, thank you so much. For those of you listening, you should definitely reach out to Al. Look in the show notes. I'm going to include a link to his website, integrativemasteryprograms.com. I'll warn you, if you meet with Al, it's going to be an awesome conversation that will inspire you and challenge you in the right way. Often, when I go to Al thinking like, oh, I'm going to figure this out in an hour, Al's like, "Well, have you done this?" Then I have 20 hours of work to do that I didn't think about. But it's the important stuff that helps you grow your business. So, definitely take advantage of his offer to meet, and thank you for listening to this show.
Al Killeen:
Thank you, Jack.
Related Show Notes:
Integrative Mastery Programs https://integrativemasteryprograms.com/
Todd Herman (the guy who did the analysis of a bunch of CEOs) https://www.facebook.com/toddherman1