Episode 1632: Interview with Kurt Uhlir About Balancing Presence at Work and Home as a High Performer

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,632 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Kurt Uhlir: Hi, I'm Kurt Uhlir and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to be a servant leader wherever you are is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

And he kind of froze and he's like, I don't know. And he came back to me literally like a week later and then several times later and he was like, I've never thought about my decisions impacting my happiness, which was his goal, how like that would affect now versus later. Like he was devoutly committed to his wife, but like he had never thought about like, I was just trying to be the most happy as possible.[00:01:00]

Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling in the Inspired Stewardship Podcast who will learn to invest in yourself.

Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's podcast episode, I interview Kurt Uhlir. Ask Kurt about what servant leadership really is. Kurt also shares what it means to balance being present at home and work as a high performer. And I also ask Kurt to share with you what is one shift you need to make to become a better leader. I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living.

Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your [00:02:00] time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there. I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world.

Kurt Uhlir is known as the king of scaling companies and for good reason. He is a globally recognized C-M-O-G-T-M architect and growth operator who's helped lead over 60 acquisitions and exits, supported an 880 million IPO and scaled multiple companies through hyper growth. He's built go-to market systems and marketing engines that have driven massive revenue growth and operational scale across B2B.

SaaS consumer platforms, real estate, MarTech and beyond. But Kurt doesn't just talk about marketing. He builds companies. He served in leadership roles at organizations ranging [00:03:00] from early growth to over 1.4 billion in revenue with experience across six continents. Kurt is also widely known for champion servant leadership.

He teaches that great leaders don't control. They serve by removing obstacles. Coaching high performers and building environments where people can thrive. His leadership philosophy, organizations can't grow beyond the capacity of their people, so leaders must build the people first. He is been featured by outlets like USA today TechCrunch, NBC, wired and Thrive Global, and he is taken the stage for over a hundred keynote talks, including at many, many famous stages.

Whether he is scaling, go to market for a mid-market company, building a high performing team, or helping founders and c-suites navigate inflection points. Kurt brings a practical, repeatable, and proven approach to sustainable growth. Welcome to the show, Kurt.

Kurt Uhlir: Hey, thank you for having [00:04:00] me.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I look forward to our conversation.

So I shared, you know, a little bit in the intro I, a lot of different things that you've done over the years. A lot of different work that you've done, you know, very oppressive accolades. I always think of intros as kinda like Instagram photos. You know, we, we, we frame things, you know, to make sure that we show.

And yet I always know that the, the journey that got us to those places tends to be a little bit, a little bit bumpier, a little bit messier, a little bit less, you know, we connect the dots in reverse. We don't connect them looking forward. So take us back in time and talk a little bit about your journey and what's brought you to the point where this is the, the message and this is the work that you're.

Called to do?

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah. The, yeah, the, the, the actual journey in the story is, uh, usually much different than that kind of PR polished version. The, um, I think people that have followed my journey known me personally, or that have worked for me, especially the, I mean, I've worked in so many different industries.

I kept, I like to look at the whole journey [00:05:00] as like. Going back in time, I, I used to lead through kinda absolute authority. And so sometimes that was true hierarchical, like, Hey, you report to me, do what I say. But other times it was also just trying to prove that I was the smartest person in the room. And so like one of the stories that I give back, and this point is 20 years ago was like.

I believed at that time, growing this really big company that like if I walked into a room and, and you all worked for me and you were crying, that meant you were a bad employee. If everybody was crying, it meant that I dialed it up to 11 and I needed to dial it back just a little bit more. At that time period, and like that's the authority that I lived through.

We were, we were able to do some incredible things. I mean, I, I, I was an entrepreneur earlier in my life, but like. That company specifically, we took from like 85 million year revenue to 1.44 billion part of the small team for an $880 million IPO like, and, you know, multi-billion dollar acquisitions. But like, it, like, it was great.

I mean, that. I was able to be at a place for [00:06:00] over 10 years where it felt like a management consulting company but wasn't because we were at the hub of all of these major industries that were growing. And so I literally, like, we, we were in calls with um, Elon Musk starting Tesla 'cause he was running even put navigation systems and I'm gonna start a car company and nobody believed that was possible when like BMW was my meeting after that.

But it's like, then as part of all that growth, I had three major life impacts that happened, like mid 2000. That completely changed how I looked at the world, how I re examined, like how I was leading. And what it really caused me was to start to look at both the people that were higher up in my organizations or those that were leading other companies.

It caused me to really look at my, their personal lives because mine was atrocious at that time and I didn't really realize it, but I was. I didn't, especially, didn't realize the term, but I was crafting a framework and a business case for servant leadership and how the, that's really the best way to grow companies with the least resources, what [00:07:00] most people financially care about and the least risk.

Right. And so since then I've been able to take what I learned operating at those enterprise fortune level environments and build, I mean, at this point, almost a hundred scalable companies that are growth stage, mid-market companies, and bring in that discipline structure that, um, you see much larger organizations, but people don't tend to figure it out early.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm. So when you think about you know, you mentioned servant leadership, but that's kind of in a lot of circles that's treated as kind of a buzzword. Right. You know, oh, we believe in servant leadership here, and yet they'll say that, but then what are they actually doing? You know, what, what, what does that mean in the real world?

So when you think about that, what, from your point of view, how would you define servant leadership? Or what does it look like in the real world?

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah. For me, I think people overcomplicate leadership, uh, especially like term savior, servant leadership. I think's a lot of people that call themselves servant leaders.

And to your point. They're, they're just really a nice boss, [00:08:00] but they're really a, they really lead through authority. And so for me, all leadership really just comes down to two core things. It's either one, I'm leading by authority, which at the end of the day is I've hired you. You do what I say, how I say it using the timeframe that I said it, or you're fired.

And that threat is always there no matter how nice somebody is or what I think is servant leadership is to say. Look, I'm not actually hiring, especially in a job environment. I'm not hiring you to do what I said. I've hired you to help me reach a business outcome. At which point then, yes, I strongly believe there's certain things you should be doing to accomplish that, but as a servant leader, I'm hiring you for that outcome, which shifts me from leading from authority instead to saying.

After that, I want you to help me reach that business outcome. So I need to think about how I can serve you to better reach my business outcome or the business outcome the company wants. That may mean coaching, you may mean difficult decisions, uh, difficult discussions. It may mean a lot of other, it may mean turning my team loose and giving that to other people, the company, [00:09:00] but it's me showing up to serve you to reach the business outcomes that I want.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, I've, I've often you know, talked about leaders. Sometimes, as you know, our, our job isn't to be in the way. It's to get things out of the way. Yeah. And yet, and yet all too often. We kind of put ourselves in the way, if that makes sense. You know, how have you seen that play out?

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I, I think a, a huge bit of that when I, I'm approaching things as a servant leader is to your point, I, I, I need to be removing obstacles from the people in my team.

In some cases that may mean myself or it may mean other leaders. But the, the bigger thing I think is. From a, what you said is I think what too many people forget, especially authoritative leaders, even the nice people, is that everybody that's working for you or for you're applying this in your personal lives.

We're all whole people, and so like I don't have an employee on my team to only produce for me this week or this month. In most cases, I'm looking for the maximum [00:10:00] efficiency I can get out of them to hit those outcomes. Over six months, a year, three years that they're working for me, which means that I'm acknowledging, and I think we're too, there's too many stumbling blocks in people, is that hey, they're going to have things that come up in their life.

They're gonna have a birth that happens. They're gonna have a, a spouse that goes into, uh, you know, a health crisis. They may be thrust into elder care, like they may get cancer themselves. All of those things may drastically shift. Like it's personal, but they may drastically fish, uh, shift how efficient they are at work.

Mm-hmm. But it's like, if I'm acknowledging that, then I'm acknowledging they're a whole person. Maybe they just kind of had that halt. They, they're hungry, you know, they're angry, they're tired, type of thing. But I'm acknowledging that I'm wanting to help coach them through and understand what's going on right now so that I can get that maximum efficiency long term.

And as well for them, like they have a personal mission, which means that I'm acknowledging that like that personal mission may mean outgrowing my company. Or it may mean, hey, like [00:11:00] I'm here strictly for the healthcare. Like that's okay. And, but it's acknowledging that there's whole people behind them.

Scott Maderer: So one of the things I like to highlight on the show is, you know, speaking of whole people is the intersection between our faith journey, whatever that is for us and our life journey and how those, those transitions kind of feed back and forth.

And you talked a little bit about your leadership past and, and how that has changed over time, but how has your faith journey intersected with the way you see the world?

Kurt Uhlir: In many different ways. I, you know, a very brief bit of it about my, my, my faith journey is I was raised in a half Christian home. Like my mother was a believer, but she never talked about it.

My father was not a believer. He came to Christ. Uh, actually, well after I had graduated college, we went to church, but we didn't talk about faith. So there's no apologetics or kind of defense of anything. We moved to a, from Chicago to a, a suburb, or sorry, to North Alabama, and we started attending a church where they preached the gospel.

But you didn't see it in people's actions, [00:12:00] let's just say. And so I, I went to like college and stuff, and I knew, God, I had no relationship whatsoever. I had no evidence for, I hadn't looked at the evidence for the Bible or Christ at that time. It is kind of like in my thirties, like, you know, that's the longer story, but that I actually came to came to faith in Christ and, um, I kind of mentioned I these three big life events that happen all at once and, and that, that may have shifted me becoming a nice boss.

Or a nice coworker, but it did not change my leadership style. So, which is where I really view my main journey in being effective at work. While, so while my faith does align with the requirements of servant leadership and leading, I do not think that servant leadership that it's based on a specific religion or a faith.

Mm-hmm. But it, but my faith did open my eyes to starting to look at what's out there and that kind of binary approach of authoritative leadership versus servant leadership. And so. If anything, it, while, while it does support that, it probably does make me much better though on the followership side. I [00:13:00] think so many people talk about leadership wise, but it's like, I have no problem doing the grunt work when need to be done because sometimes somebody needs to bust the table, so to speak.

And so like that is like, that's what you do with with our, our faith. And so like, if anything, it makes me easier at that, which probably does help me. Other people choose to follow me more.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. And I think too, sometimes it can make us, you know, what you were just talking about, about observing the whole person.

Kurt Uhlir: Mm-hmm.

Scott Maderer: It, it can open us to that idea that people are more than just the nine to five, you know, more than just the, the, the time at work. You know, that there, there are other components to their life, whatever those components may be. They may be faith, they may be family, they may be whatever, you know. And I know for me at least whatever, I went through kind of an epiphany and I was in a leadership role.

The other thing it did is it opened me up on, quite frankly, people that I was blind to before. So like, I mean, the, the person that [00:14:00] came in and emptied the trash,

Kurt Uhlir: right.

Scott Maderer: You know, and. Before they were just kind of somebody that came in and emptied the trash and afterwards it's like, oh, I should actually probably get to know this person a little bit, you know?

'cause I'm, I'm up here at nine o'clock at night, they're showing up. You know, maybe I should actually have a conversation and, you know, and, and find out a little bit about 'em because they're doing something that's essential to the running of the company. And, you know, it, it, it's not little anymore. It, you start to see the size of, of even the small things.

Kurt Uhlir: Well, and to your point about like, uh, seeing the whole person, I, because I was, you know, well into adulthood before, um, and well into my career, before I had, had had a faith change, I, so many things became aware to me about the hidden assumptions I had, not just in my faith, but how I looked at world. And so it's like, it's not rare now.

Like we, we built up a company that we sold to Oracle for 300 plus million dollars. I, we, I probably had 110 to 120 people at the time. [00:15:00] I bet I could have sat down at that point and made a list of at least 90, if not a hundred of those people, and said, here's what they believe from a faith perspective, and that they would've looked at it and said, yeah, that's right.

And not because I was trying to sell my faith at any point, but I was curious about who they were. And I, I'm, I'm deeply believing that now and, and was developing it at that time of. To be able to help you align with the company's mission and purpose. You need to know your own purpose and mission, which may mean that you, like, maybe that's a faith thing.

Maybe it's writing checks to starving kids in Africa, or you know, maybe trying to make as much money as possible, but if, if you haven't thought that through, there's no way I can align you with the company's mission. So I would ask questions, being curious, and it's awesome to hear people where it's like I, we sold another company to a public company and I stayed there for a while and I had a COO at the time, and I asked them like.

Why are you doing this? And he said like, I just wanna be happy. And so I asked him a question. I said, well, like temporally, like, do you wanna be happy? Like, like this [00:16:00] week, this month, the like the year, 10 years or like over your life if you look back. And he kind of froze and he's like, I don't know. And he came back to me literally like a week later and then several times later, and he was like.

I've never thought about my decisions impacting my happiness, which was his goal,

Scott Maderer: right?

Kurt Uhlir: How like that would affect now versus later. Like he was devoutly committed to his wife, but like he had never thought about it. He was like, if I was just trying to be the most happiest possible, maybe the decisions that I would make in the short term don't match with that 10 year or 50 year viewpoint.

And I was like, so what are you gonna do with that? He was like, I have no idea. And I was like, I'm hot. Like, can we just grab coffee for like, I'm just, I love the fact that I asked the question trying to know you, and you were like, I don't know, but I want to.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, and I think, you know, let's go back to, to servant leadership and in a company e.

Because you framed things earlier as, you know, making people you know, helping them be the most [00:17:00] effective, the most efficient. You talked about, you know, good for the company, good for the people, all of that. Why do you see servant leadership? Versus authoritarian or authoritative leadership being better.

And I'm putting better in air quotes 'cause you know, better can mean a lot of different things from a company's point of view. What, what is better about a company led that way?

Kurt Uhlir: The, from a outcomes perspective, I mean, everything from a company perspective should be approached, in my opinion, from a, a controlled risk perspective.

There's nothing wrong with, you know, startups that are basically betting on a lottery type of win. But, but at the end of the day, it's, I put in a hundred dollars. Or a hundred thousand dollars or $10 million. And what output are you wanting to get on the other side of that? And so when I look back, we had this massive growth.

I said we grew a company from 85 million a year in revenue to 1.44 billion. And I, I could sit down and write books about how many billions of dollars we lost because. [00:18:00] We thought we were right on things or how, you know, we lost these high performing leaders because they, they, they had a different personal mission.

They wanted to go home with their family, and we didn't see them as a whole person. And so I'm like, so I, I lost truly capable people. I lost resilience in my team. I lost institutional knowledge and I was, you know, from a pure investment perspective. There were many things, like I have a framework now about trying to identify what I'm personally wrong about right now in my business that I think I'm right about both in the company's large and my current team.

Well, I teams that do not lead, uh, with servant leadership, they do not identify those things. So it will take you two years to figure out. That's things that perhaps the people on your team only have a gut feel for right now. Well, I'll get to there in three months or six months because from a servant leadership perspective, I'm gonna come with strong ideas held loosely.

Always being humble enough to say I, I like, I know there's at least three things I'm fundamentally wrong about right now that you'll discover in two years, and I'm gonna [00:19:00] discover in three to six months. So my iterations are gonna be that much faster. So I'm gonna be able to build companies faster with less money and less risk.

Than, than people with a truly authoritative leadership.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm. When you talk about the leader themselves, you know, a lot of leaders put in a lot of time, a lot of effort, you know, a lot of day to day they're working the long hours burning the candle at both ends, and yet. They're whole people too. You know, they've got a home life a lot of times.

A wife or kid or you know, all of the above or other things in their life. How, how does this approach help them balance that for themselves as well?

Kurt Uhlir: I, I, I love the question. 'cause for me, people that are truly high performing. Usually love what they're doing. It may be that they love the outcomes that they're getting, but they love things so much [00:20:00] like, Hey, you don't have to convince me to work versus watch Netflix.

'cause there's nothing going to be on Netflix that I get more dopamine out of than hitting some of those targets at work. And so I think most high performers are that way. And so for me, it, it really comes down to there's three things. And so if, if you want to be that, that, that high growth executive, but still be kind of present at home and at the end of the day, for me, I like the term, I want somebody to look back and go, I feel like I have won at home and at work.

And so as opposed to looking back and go, I, it's great. I got a lot of money. And I've gotten a lot of titles, but like, my wife divorced me or my kids don't know me. So for me, the three things are pre fighting. So that's being intentional about blocking your time. And so the examples that I give is like, there were times with crunch periods and no matter aside the stage of the company, my wife and I will sit down and be like, I need more hours right now.

So like, for a long time we had an agreement. Tuesdays and Thursdays I could work as late as I wanted to. She may put the kids down to bed. She may even wake [00:21:00] up in the morning and I'm still working. And so there was no concern whatsoever about that. But on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays, I would be home well before dinner to help with that.

And so pre fighting kind of, there's a ton of those decisions being intentional. The second thing for me is to be for that, is to be picky about who you work with. I mentioned purpose-driven people. Regardless of their purpose, if you don't know what their purpose is, their li, their decisions are going to impact you and you will not know how to have that pre-fight discussion.

My CEO right now, Preston Guyton, he has a son in high school who's an all star, star golfer. I, I assume will be pro at some point, but will be going to college. There's almost nothing that could happen at a work perspective where I would call Preston in the late afternoon because he's being a caddy for his son.

So I'm choosing to work with somebody that who knows their purpose, knows what they're trying to do. In that case does have a shared faith, but it's like we know each other where, where we're available and where we're [00:22:00] not. And then the third thing, and, and I think this is probably the hardest thing for anybody that's a high achieving, uh, person.

Is to get a group around them of close people that, um, they, they might be friends, but they're probably not gonna be friends. And for me, they're, I always have like a faith-based group around of guys. But, um, and like, are we friends? Well, we're friendly. And I think the one key of, of friendship there is like, I should always be willing to tell you something that you need to hear that would jeopardize our relationship because I care so much about you.

Like that's the most important thing. And so having a group of people around you that hopefully are at some kind of similar stage in their career as you, not necessarily in the same industry. But, um, same life, life stages, so that when you say, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, both at work and at home, they're able to ask questions and you can be completely transparent at them and not worry about like, friendship or anything else.

Because if you don't do that, [00:23:00] like then you end up whether husband or wife, trying to rely on your spouse for that. And in my experience, your spouse is never the best person to hold you accountable or ask those really hard questions that you need to be asked if you're truly a, a high growth executive.

Mm-hmm.

Scott Maderer: So when somebody's hearing this and, and maybe they're thinking to themselves, okay I, I'm, I'm, I'm getting it. I, I understand the idea here, but. You know, at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. You know, and I've gotta get it done. And, and I've been telling people how to do it and, you know, everybody is that, that's, that's the way it is at, at our workplace.

You know, maybe that's the culture or maybe it's at home. You know, that that's the culture, that's the history. This is the way it's done. What are some of the things that they can look at to help them start shifting? You know, maybe they aren't even in a positional leadership position. Maybe they're, you know, quote in the cubicle, you know, and yet they're a leader because people [00:24:00] look to 'em.

They, they've been there 20 years and so they're their institutional knowledge bank. What are some of the things that they can do from a mindset spec perspective or from a be behavior perspective to start putting shifts in place that. You know, beyond just quitting and leaving and going somewhere else.

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah, great question. I, I mean, there's a long list I think you and I could both give of things they could do for, for me, the biggest thing comes down to. It's a mindset shift. And so I mentioned like, what could I be wrong about? And so I have like three ways that I'm always doing that in my life. And so that I'm literally going through and that I, for people, I mentor, that I coach, that I train them to do.

And so the first is to your, to your point about yourself. Like literally when I brush my teeth every morning, I ask myself. Like I take about 30 seconds. I ask myself, what could I be wrong about? Not what I am I wrong about what, but what could I be wrong about in my business right now that I think I'm right [00:25:00] about?

And it just, it starts that kind of like humbleness of there is something out there, I just don't know what it is. And then I take another 30 seconds and I ask. What could I be wrong about in my family life? That could be with my wife some days it could be with my kids. I've got a 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, like how I'm interacting with them.

And so I start that and that's kind of the internal work, and you don't have to like, take a really long time with, like I said, just take like 30 seconds for each one of those. Then, then the next two things I is especially at work. So on the one-on-ones you have, whether you're in the cubicle and you're meeting with the boss or when, uh, if you're the leader.

And then when you're working with people that you're, uh, that are underneath you. I, I add time at the end of it to, to let them, uh, answer that for me. What could I be missing in my role right now? What could I be missing in my job? And the key for that is you do not push, give feedback. The only thing you can respond to that is inquisitive questions that are truly trying to understand.

And then thank them for their response. [00:26:00] And so that does a bunch for you starting to identify what you may be wrong about. But especially if you're leading people that starts to put it in their mind that you truly are open to this and they'll start bringing you things that you never realize, but they start showing up differently too because now you're the different boss.

You're not the authoritative boss. And and very similar to that is I ask you and I, this is where I fail at the most. Both doing it consistently and not asking questions. But I, you should ask your spouse and kids that. I literally ask my 6-year-old at times like, Hey, what, what, what, what, what? What's daddy doing wrong right now?

And so sometimes I hear like you're a little too harsh. Like I may ask questions to understand that, but I'm not pushing back for it. It doesn't mean he's right, but, but it means, especially with your spouse, you're open to hearing those things and like just doing those three different ways of trying to identify what could you be wrong?

It's a mind shift change that fundamentally will change everything else that would be on your list.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. And, and, well, and some of it too, like [00:27:00] you said is e even, it's not even, are they right about it? If nothing else? I'm, I am hearing their perception about it. Right. You know, and perception to some extent is reality.

You know, if, if they perceive that you're close-minded and, and arrogant. Well, from their point of view, you're close-minded in area. Right. Period. You know, no matter what you think of yourself or, or believe of yourself.

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, I'm a big believer in, in, in having the company culture written not as much for, especially not for the billboard that a lot of people companies have it, that it doesn't match it all the internals.

But I try telling people, I'm like, this is so you can hold me and other people accountable for it. And so one of those things is like strong opinions held loosely well, like. Yeah, I, I've been very successful. I've also failed. A lot of times those failures teach me a lot, and so I'm gonna come with really strong opinions a lot of time.

But am am I to your point, perception, is Kurt [00:28:00] actually open to new opinions? Or if you disagree, am I actually taking the time to explain to you why I have this belief to either bring you on board or to be proven wrong on something? Mm-hmm. Like those are things Yeah. Their perceptions do matter there.

Scott Maderer: Uh, absolutely.

So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask you those, is there anything else about what we've been talking about with servant leadership that you'd like to share with the listener?

Kurt Uhlir: Yeah, I think both for approaching servant leadership, but also just trying to be effective as yourself for, for me, the.

What we just touched on a little bit is I spend a huge bit of time with my wife, where we're stewarding mine and hers, our time and our skills, the way that everybody should be. But most people don't steward their, their budget and their resources. So it's like we're literally sitting down saying, Hey.

Based on our, our, our skills and our time. Like where, where should we invest [00:29:00] our time and, and skills, both in the shorter term in like the two to five year timeframe and the five years out. And I, I tried taking that approach at work. So I think from a leadership side, you should do that. And when you approach it like.

It changes how you impact from a leadership perspective about stewarding things. When you say no, no, let's be really clear. When I say about like a two to five year time period or five years out, imagine that where you're investing your skills or time today, you see zero return. Until that timeframe, you, you were investing in your kids, you were investing in growth.

You're in a nonprofit or your company and there's no return. You may get leading indicators, but no returns for five years in one day. And so that's a huge bit, I think, of approaching things from a, from a true leadership perspective, is thinking about stewarding those other pieces. And it's, it's not just about money.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, absolutely. So speaking of stewardship, my brand is inspired stewardship, and I run things through that lens of stewardship. So when you hear the word stewardship, what does [00:30:00] that word mean to you?

Kurt Uhlir: For me, it means that I'm a manager of in the case that I gave both, both the dollars, the dollars I've been entrusted with, the dollars that I've earned, or that God's let me earn in the skills that I have in my time.

And so as a good manager for that, my job is to provide as much return as possible for the person that that actually belongs to. And so. It, it, and it, it does mean that there's often conflicting things. So if it's not just the money perspective, it means I have to struggle as the steward to say, look, my time is one thing, but is my time best spent digging ditches to help a nonprofit and do a Habitat for Humanity?

Or is like, well that's in contradictory to applying my skills. And donating perhaps time with skills in a different way. So like you really have to struggle with that to say like, what is the right decision a lot of times. And so for me it's both, it's being a manager, but struggling with usually competing priorities.

At least if you're looking at the, uh, those [00:31:00] three categories, the way I define things.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everyone. Uh, imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine, and with this machine, I was able to take you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years.

And with the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left. What impact do you hope you've had in the world?

Kurt Uhlir: I hope I'd, I hope I'd see two things. One, that there, there, there's some record of seeing me continuing to improve.

I mean, I fail at so many things today that I was still living, working at five years ago. So I hope, like if you could just look at Kurt's actual legacy there. You'd see Kurt was continuing to improve week after week, month after month. But more than that. Especially over that timeframe. I hope that I could see that I, that I've multiplied myself and that those people have continued to multiply [00:32:00] themselves.

And so like I don't have to work anymore. One of the reasons that I'm working is because like, yeah, it's great being on stage, uh, giving a keynote, it wonderful being an executive coach for the one or two people I do that with, but I know that like. That may be a small step for somebody changing how they approach things.

The real life impact comes from somebody by me working as a peer working for them or them working under me. Or it's like those eight to 10 people you're in close relationship with and like that's how multiplication happens. They see you make decisions day in and day out.

Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you continue on your journey?

Kurt Uhlir: I will continue to be an operating executive for high growth companies. I just say that of, um, I do get called for speaking opportunities. I got called and I was like, I literally asked, I said, why did you call me? They named off two or three people that like servant leadership, like they're the books on Amazon and they're like, well, one, they're super expensive, but two, [00:33:00] like they haven't led teams.

They haven't been in the trenches. For 30 or 40 years with people. And so I will continue to lead companies. 'cause I mentioned, I, I think that's the best way. First of all, I love building companies. Uh, I love people looking back just from a, a dopamine hit perspective. And they're like, I can't believe you all were able to do that or change in industry with such a small team.

But I, I like, I do believe that's the best way to multiply myself. Um. Second from that, like, you're gonna continue to find me on, uh, some, some big stages periodically, um, but sometimes at the hyper-local level. But I, you know, I, I both will take time doing that and then mention following you. You'll find me, especially for the next five years or so.

My son is six. We're in trail life. USA, um, since Boy Scouts has gone one direction, uh, trail Life's come up and it's like, you'll find me not leading the troop. I'm in there as a grunt helping along the side doing communication and helping serve them.[00:34:00]

Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about Kurt over@kurtuhlir.com. Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well, so you can find it there. Kurt, anything else you'd share with the listener?

Kurt Uhlir: I'd say if you have any questions on anything, I write a ton on my website and leave a question because seriously, I, I will either contact you or I will write an article just going into depth for it.

So I, I love feedback from people. Absolutely.

Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode. Please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

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