00:00:00 Thanks for joining us on Episode 5 50 six of the inspired stewardship podcast I'm Ryan, England with Core Matters and the blue collar culture podcast, I challenge you to invest in yourself, investing 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 grow much yourself and your business is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott made her.
00:00:32 I think that's one of the biggest mistakes is letting ego get in the way, and I see that show up in a bunch of different ways for me and with the people like coaches. Well, the biggest one is not being vulnerable with your team and your team. If you're just getting started, that could be your spouse, you know, for me, my wife has been my biggest cheerleader the whole time in business. Sometimes I tell her she's a little too supportive. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
00:01:08 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 Searchie podcast who learned to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the way. In today's interview with Ryan, England. Ryan and I talk about investing in yourself. Ryan shares with you how he's invested in himself to get where he's at. Today. Ryan share some of his top mistakes that he's seen other business owners and himself make.
00:01:48 And Ryan and Ice also talked with you about the key things business owners need to do to grow their business and lots more. One reason I like to bring you great interviews like the one you're gonna here today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast has brought to you by audible Go to inspired stewardship dot com slash audible to sign up,
00:02:21 and you can get a 30 day free trial There's over 100 and 80,000 titles to choose from, and instead of reading, you can listen your way toe. Learn from some of the greatest minds out there that's inspired. Stewardship dot com slash audible To get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. Ryan has the perfect background to be doing what he is doing and, more importantly, the results that he has really show it. Ryan has worked in corporate America for well over a decade.
00:02:58 He learned how they attract top talent, and then he repeatedly built top performing teams. And then they oftentimes got messed up and crushed by the corporate reshuffles that happened. I have been there to Ryan, set out to build his own Dream Team and start a digital marketing company, and his client started seeing great returns on that investment as they worked with him in the marketing efforts that he was doing. But then it's Their businesses were growing, and so was Ryan's. He started getting those phone calls, clients would call,
00:03:31 and they would explain that they needed to back out of the marketing of their business because they didn't actually have enough people or the team that they needed to do the work. And Ryan became determined to help these clients continue growing and set out on a journey to build a system that could help any company attract, hire and retain as much front line top talent as they needed. And now he's worked out a proven process that gets these results for companies all the time. Welcome to the show, Ryan. Thanks,
00:04:06 Scott, for having me. Absolutely. I'm so anxious to have you on and have you share a little bit and let's start here. We just talked about it. You've had a long career yourself. You've been in corporate, you've done your own business. And you ve also helped a lot of other businesses grow and succeed. Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of your journey? But more specifically, how have you managed to invest in yourself over the years so that now you can turn around and help others succeed in business?
00:04:38 Yeah, of course. It's a long journey, so I'm gonna really compress it. But if I look back on it of its been over 20 years that I've been working on myself just to get where I'm at. Uh, but I graduated college in 2001 decided I was gonna take the summer off, and I'm gonna go get a job in September of 2000 won, Um, the terrorist attacks. That'll change my plans a little bit. It became really difficult to find a job at that time. Uh,
00:05:10 so I mean, that's that's almost 20 years ago that that happened. And, uh, I got into the mortgage business, which jumped me right into sales. And I realized that being able to have a sales conversation really meant that I needed to personally grow so that I could increase my confidence increase the way I speak with people and help them solve their problems. And his business owners. As much as I don't like it, my primary role is to sell. Uh, and if I can't sell, there's no way the business grows.
00:05:42 And so it was. It was a good decade of me just reading books, going to events. Back then, podcasts were in his big a thing. So, uh, you know, when Tony Robbins came to town, I had to go watch him and uh, you know, I could listen to Dave Ramsey a little bit on the radio and get some of that just working out the system between my years And as I started to do that, I found that things got a little easier for me.
00:06:09 It was easier for me to think differently about my corporate career. It was easier for me to get that promotion because I started thinking about others a little bit more and realizing that for me to get anywhere in the world, it was gonna have to be getting people that I could influence people that wanted to follow me, people that want to support because there's only so much that I can D'oh, uh, I look back over the last 20 years and, uh, sometimes I I look to God and I say,
00:06:40 Well, played, because now I'm like Coach and I I teach a lot of the things that I've learned over the last 20 years to my clients. Ah, and whether that's giving them the book to read or giving them a podcast, a list into a lot of what I've learned in that personal development, I actually passed on to clients now. So that's really helped me to succeed in my business. So you mentioned books. I mean, so for you is reading your main resource or podcasts now, Or how do you do that?
00:07:10 You know today, too? Yeah, it's always listening. It used to be reading, but now with audible and podcasts And of I even subscribe to read it for me, which is nice. Little 12 minute versions of books gives me the highlights. Uh, it allows me to get through a lot of books quickly. And then for the ones that I really latch onto, I go get the audible and I listen.
00:07:31 Uh, it's taken a while. My wife gives me a hard time all the time, but I listen it two and 1/2 or three times speed so I can get through a book in an hour and 1/2.
00:07:39 And she's like, I don't even know what you're listening. Thio gibberish. My daughter. I'll tell me.
00:07:44 She's like, What language are they speaking? Uh, but it's taken some time to get over that bite.
00:07:49 I would say that to three books a month. I'm getting through even to this day, and it just continues to increase because I find them or that I read that just the better I become.
00:08:00 Yeah, I I asked that in part because when I was in corporate, you know, I am Lester's Longtime listeners have heard this,
00:08:06 but the story that I used to kind of have the reputation of is I was, ah, director of director.
00:08:14 So people, they had teams reported to me, and my job was to develop the leadership, you know,
00:08:19 so that the then the the quote team underneath them was developed. But indirectly, I wasn't usually working one on one with the team.
00:08:27 I was working with the leaders of the team, and I got the reputation that they'd walk in my office and they'd be like,
00:08:33 Okay, I've got this problem other than the book, you're gonna recommend that I read, you know,
00:08:38 and that was how they start the sentence because it was always a book. You know, you need to go read this.
00:08:43 You need to go read this so I I resonate with the reading part. But for folks that aren't reading,
00:08:49 you know, again, there's podcasts. There's audible. There's videos out there. There's a YouTube. There's a lot of resource is out there today.
00:08:56 It's a lot different than it was even in 2001. Yeah, you started this journey. Yeah. These summary audio's have just been amazing for me because,
00:09:06 you know, the the bulk of a book is the stories and the implementation. And how do you actually go do the things you're learning?
00:09:12 But if you just want to learn the concepts, these these 12 15 minute summaries are great. YouTube has a ton of them now where people are doing book summaries,
00:09:22 and that's helped me just filter through the good books and bad books because I do read a lot of books that are not We're sharing.
00:09:28 Ah, a lot of looks And I'm like, I need that. Just delete that from my memory.
00:09:32 Uh, so that's the other thing that I have learned how to be a little bit more selective in what I'm what I'm learning,
00:09:38 what I'm consuming. So, Ryan, you've had the opportunity to work not only on your own business over the years and a couple of different businesses yourself.
00:09:48 You now also work with a lot of different small business owners and leaders and of teams and that kind of thing while they're running their own business,
00:09:56 would you share a few of the biggest mistakes that either you've made or that you've seen that others consistently make as they come into their business?
00:10:05 Scott, I have no idea what you're talking about. I do not make mistakes. You put your wife on.
00:10:12 Hey, she was not a mistake. Has been made of yours. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We could just take up the rest of this time just talking about my mistakes,
00:10:25 for sure. Of I will tell you the biggest mistake that I feel I've made in business and I see this all the time is letting ego get in the way.
00:10:35 It's huge. It still happens to me. I just had a conversation with someone yesterday, and, um where he's a strategic partner friend of mine,
00:10:43 and we're working on some stuff together. And we both just looked at each other like, yeah, these egos,
00:10:46 they're getting in the way our day of. And he's a believer. So we have these really great open dialogues about it.
00:10:52 But, you know, this is my business. This is my baby. I built this from the ground up blood,
00:10:58 sweat and tears. And you know, the last thing I wanted someone to tell me It's not a good idea.
00:11:04 The last thing I want is someone. And I'm like, No, this is a person tell you that is even yourself too early.
00:11:11 Absolutely So I think that's one of the biggest mistakes is letting ego get in the way. And I see that show up in a bunch of different ways for me and with the people like Coach as well.
00:11:21 Uh, the biggest one is not being vulnerable with your team and your team. If you're just getting started,
00:11:28 that could be your spouse. You know, for me, my wife has been my biggest cheerleader the whole time in business.
00:11:36 Sometimes I tell her she's a little too supportive, Uh, and, uh, because she'll let me work the long hours and we don't fight about that stuff.
00:11:44 But I tell her, sometimes I'm like, I want you to pull me back in so I spent time with the kids,
00:11:48 but that that ego for me has been a real challenge, and I will tell you that one of the best ways I've found to get through.
00:11:55 It is just prayer, being in constant conversation with God and just saying, Hey, humble main. It was years ago that it finally hit me,
00:12:04 that there's a difference between humility and humiliation. And I had this belief for the longest time that if I humble myself and I'm vulnerable with people,
00:12:15 that's the same as humiliating myself. And so I would avoid the tough conversations. I didn't want to be open and honest.
00:12:23 It didn't want to be vulnerable people, and sometimes that was my wife. I didn't wanna be vulnerable with her.
00:12:27 And so my ego really got in the way. And the way that that shows up in business that pretty much if you have a problem in business.
00:12:35 What I found is go look in the mirror first, and once you've solved that problem, then you can look and see if there's another problem.
00:12:43 But that's a big one. The other thing I found for me and I've worked really hard of last year's that is this owner is not wanting to get out of the day to day,
00:12:55 so they have this idea. A lot of e myth is a great book for this. By the way,
00:13:00 if you haven't read the email by Michael Gerber, that book was transformative for me and help me understand this.
00:13:06 But a lot of business owners myself included what I do now. I did for corporate, and I thought I could do it better than these yahoos.
00:13:14 I'm gonna go start moving business, but I'm gonna do nothing like corporate does. I'm not gonna have the rules I'm not gonna have.
00:13:21 The process is I'm not gonna have the systems. I'm just gonna go do it and we do it better.
00:13:26 And what ends up happening is the owners get so suck into the business doing the day to day that they aren't able to take a step back and actually grow a business that's not running down.
00:13:41 And so a lot of the coaching we do around hiring the right people is how do you get the biz?
00:13:45 How do you get to start running the business? It's 11. The business run you and that's again.
00:13:52 I think ego plays a lot into that. My people aren't gonna care as much as I do. Or don't do it as well as I can know what you can do it as well as I get.
00:14:02 Absolutely. And so instead of putting systems and processes in place, that says, Here's how I want you to do it Here's how I would do it.
00:14:11 Here's how you know if you're doing it like me and then taking a step back and giving people the autonomy to make those decisions.
00:14:18 Business owners get caught in that grind. So if you find yourself work in 60 70 80 hour weeks,
00:14:24 trust me when I tell you you're there you were in that space for you're not letting go. Uh,
00:14:31 you know, the, uh, there's a great book called Traction by Gino Wickman, and he has a story at the beginning of the book called Letting Go of the Vine.
00:14:40 And I love this story just a quick summary that the business owner trips falls over a cliff and he's holding onto a vine,
00:14:48 and he says, Hey, is there anybody up there that can help me? And all of a sudden he hears a voice.
00:14:52 I think he hears the voice from God, and God says, Let go of the vine. The business owner looks around.
00:14:57 Is there anybody else up there because they just don't want to let go of their baby in their passion.
00:15:05 And we all started our business for a reason, and I think a lot of us get caught up.
00:15:09 If I let go of some of that, I let go of some of the reason why I started my business well,
00:15:15 and that's absolutely not true. I think, to a lot of times because I have seen this to where you'll try and then something goes wrong and it's actually because you didn't do the other part of the job,
00:15:28 which is, actually, this is I saw that even in corporate, where the leadership people would be like,
00:15:34 Well, when I delegate things, you know everything goes wrong and it's like, Well, yeah, that's actually not because you're delegating things.
00:15:39 It's because you're not delegating things correctly, you know, you're the problem. Is that the delegations, the problems,
00:15:47 how you're doing it? So let's learn to delegate. Let's learn how to actually put those processes in place.
00:15:52 And you know, as much as we all complain about corporate and processes and rules and all of that,
00:15:58 more often than not, they got put in place for a reason. It's how they became corporate. That's really what it comes down to.
00:16:05 Absolutely So. And I think that's another good point that I coach a lot of clients on looking at your team or or anybody,
00:16:13 even a vendor, and saying, Hey, go do this and leaving it at that is not delegation.
00:16:21 Yeah, you're just dumping on them. That's not delegation. Delegation is really like, Here's what I want you to do.
00:16:26 Here's how we know it's done. Here's the outcome I'm looking for, you know, Here's how you figure out if it doesn't work and you just let them own it and,
00:16:36 uh and I think that's a lot of challenges. I still struggle with that today for me. So Hee don't think it'll ever go away.
00:16:42 Just get better at it and recognizing it sooner well, in the pushback I've always gotten is is well,
00:16:48 if I do all of that work, I might as well just do it myself. And it's like,
00:16:52 Wait a minute, yes, because first off, a lot of times, if you're delegating something, yeah,
00:16:59 the first time you delegate it. It's a lot of work, something that you have to do once a week or once a month,
00:17:07 all year long. Put that time in once and then all of a sudden it kind of gets done the rest of the year.
00:17:13 That saved. You gotta look for the right things to delegate to, because it's, you know, it's being strategic instead of tactical.
00:17:20 That's what you were talking about with working in the business instead of on the business on the business is step back and be strategic.
00:17:27 Yeah, that's how you grow become business owner. That's how you increase profits. That's how you get that freedom that a lot of us started business for.
00:17:35 Ah, and not have to be caught up in that 80 hour week. So for sure. So we talked in the intro a little bit about,
00:17:43 you know, business is having the other problem, which is they hire you. They started growing back when you were running the marketing business.
00:17:51 They're growing, they're growing like crazy. And then all of a sudden it's like I've grown too big.
00:17:55 I don't have the team in place. I can't continue to serve clients the right way or or, you know,
00:18:02 hat, make it work would you talk a little bit about? What are some of the key things that business owners need toe to do or to change him to,
00:18:12 to really allow the business to continue to grow? And we talked a little bit about him, I think just now.
00:18:18 But but can you go a little more into that? Absolutely. So this reminds me of a great story.
00:18:24 Whether or not this is true, I don't know, but a lot of coaches use this story. But there's a story about Henry Ford being in court,
00:18:32 and, uh, one of the attorneys is up there just grilling him, asking him all these technical questions about the factory and how to build a car and what happens,
00:18:42 You know, what's this little one little thing that is so obscure? And he's like, I don't know the answer to these questions and he looked at them.
00:18:48 They're like, See, he has no idea what he's doing in his business. He's like, No,
00:18:52 no, you see that phone over there? If I need to have a question about tires, I press one.
00:18:58 John picks up the phone, and John knows everything there is to know about tires. And if I got a question about the engine,
00:19:02 I pressed to you just go through this thing it The idea is that his business owners, we can't be afraid to hire people better than us smarter than us,
00:19:14 with more experience than we have. And I think that is something that I see a lot is that business owners are afraid that if they hire someone better,
00:19:25 they're going to go start their own business or steal other clients. And it's it's never been the case in my experience.
00:19:33 And so if they if the business owner or even the leader can start hiring people that are really great at specific tasks,
00:19:42 completely delegate to them, get off their plate completely, they can start investing in themselves so that they become a better leader.
00:19:50 His business owners. We don't need to be better doers. We need to be better in leaders, and I think that's where a lot of them gets stopped.
00:20:00 Ah, I will tell you all of my clients right now business starts getting crazy, busy seasonality and the owners get sucked in,
00:20:10 and now they're doing the work, and I'm like, Whoa, you're supposed to be leading running the business.
00:20:15 You're not supposed to be doing the work, but a lot of us back to the E. M s story.
00:20:20 A lot of us, we start our business because we're good at doing something. I work with a lot of companies in the trades and a lot of time.
00:20:27 The guy's a great electrician's. So he goes to becomes electrical contractor and hires Electrician's. But he's out in the field doing electrical work with them all the time,
00:20:37 and it's the same thing I see with a lot of them. So the more they could invest in themselves that better they could lead.
00:20:43 And the easier it will be for them to find people that are really great at one thing or a doing.
00:20:49 Some of the work and they won't feel is intimidated because they know they're that great of a leader. The yeah,
00:20:54 and it's funny, too, because I've also had, you know, first off some people if you want your business to just be a solo business and never grow a team,
00:21:04 and that's your focus and that's your decision, and that's how you want to do it Wonderful. There's nothing you know that.
00:21:10 Yeah, that's not a bad thing. I mean, you know, again, I I run a solar printer business,
00:21:17 but there's still things I outsource things like I pay other people to do. It's just more on a contract basis than an employee.
00:21:24 Yeah, but beyond that, if if the way you do when a scale is by growing a team,
00:21:30 you know, I think there's a lot of of push back around. How do I find the time to develop my ability of the lead?
00:21:40 A team to find the right people to hire the right people to train the right people to do all of this stuff while right now,
00:21:47 I'm you know, I'm working 70 hours a week doing the business. So now you're asking me to add another 70 hour a week out of the leader and hire people?
00:21:56 And do you know all of that? How do I find 140 hours in the week to do this?
00:21:59 I gotta sleep and eat, you know? Yeah. What would you say to the business owner? That's kind of giving you that push back.
00:22:05 Yeah, I would say, Let's let's pause for a minute. Let's move away from the business, take a break and look at your business from an outside perspective and really prioritize what it is that you're doing.
00:22:18 So when we do priority exercises, we have a few different models that we use. But one of them that's super easy is urgent and important.
00:22:26 See, not everything that is important is urgent, and not everything that's urgent is important. As business owners,
00:22:34 I feel like we confuse those two things. Everything's urgent, everything is important. And I'm sure if most of your listeners would take a step back and say,
00:22:45 Let me look at my 70 hours had that three hours I spent on LinkedIn researching prospective clients, I probably could have given that to someone else to D'oh!
00:22:56 And it turns out that after the three hours I don't have any good clients. Maybe I shouldn't do that one again,
00:23:01 you know, And so just really taking stock of what does success look like in the work you're doing and make sure that the work you're doing is moving the business forward and is creating the success that you want for me in my business,
00:23:15 this is a lifestyle business for me. My business is here to create a lifestyle for me and my family and eventually to create life styles for other team members and their families.
00:23:26 And if I ever get to a point where business is taking me away from going to one of my kid's recitals or going on a field trip with them or seeing them after school,
00:23:36 I'm not making the right decisions in my business because it's going against the reason I started my business. Ah,
00:23:44 you know, don't let your reason why be your reason why not is what I say a lot. So if your reason for being in business is because you want to have more time,
00:23:56 don't let that be the reason why you're not doing things like make the time to make that the priority and you'll see that the rest of stuff falls into place.
00:24:05 Ah, I would say that when we sit down and we do these privatization exercise, half the time that they're spending in their business isn't productive.
00:24:14 It's not profitable, it's not making money, and the last thing we want to see business owners do is create a job for themselves.
00:24:22 That's the worst thing you could do because there are a lot easier Ah, lot less stressful, a lot less expensive ways to go make a living working for someone else.
00:24:32 Yeah, I'm all you got to do is make a job for yourself. It's like, Go get a job,
00:24:35 Let let that company have the headache of all the other stuff. If someone told me that there were truly 17 hats that I had to wear being a business owner,
00:24:46 I might not have done this, but because I can go get a job and where one hat all day and be done at five o'clock is a business owner.
00:24:54 I get to wear my one hat all day, and then I get to put the other 16 hats on in the off hours and on the weekends.
00:25:01 That's just not fair. So, Ryan, most people I found or not really intentional in this idea of growing themselves,
00:25:15 what do you do today to continue to grow so that then you can continue to pour into your clients,
00:25:22 your family and you know all of those people around you. I am a huge fan of mentors, being a mentor,
00:25:34 but having a mentor. There is someone that has been on this path before me that can help me navigate this and shorten the amount of or decrease the amount of lessons that I need to learn the hard way.
00:25:49 Uh, because they can. They can pour into me, and I find that when I have a mentor who is considerably more successful than me Ah,
00:25:58 maybe they have that lifestyle that I want, where they get to do there, you have all the time freedom they want And they meant for me.
00:26:06 I find that I'm challenged to go grow more because I want what they have. Uh, I've had mentors that it was all about money,
00:26:16 and it didn't work for me. I wasn't motivated to do more, because it's not what drives me as much as the time with the family and the free the free time.
00:26:23 So when I find the right men towards, that really motivates me, because I don't want to disappoint them like they're volunteering their time,
00:26:31 their energy, they're pouring into me. Last thing I want to do is show up and say, Yeah,
00:26:34 I didn't do anything. You said E didn't read the book she said. Because basically, then I'm saying I don't value them and that's not the truth,
00:26:42 so that's been really good. But then the other side is I feel like I learned more when I teach your coach somebody else.
00:26:50 Then when someone's coaching me, so being a mentor, not just being a coach for my clients, because they're paying me to do that.
00:26:58 But being a mentor for somebody and giving my time to somebody has really helped me want to continue to grow so that I can be better in that process.
00:27:06 And I get it. You already working 70 hours so you can find time to mentor somebody. But you can mentor your spouse.
00:27:13 You can mentor your kids, you can mentor of a team member and it not take more time. It's just pour into somebody else,
00:27:24 and that's where I find that I stay. Motivated on being intentional and growing, you can follow Ryan over on linked in He's Ryan,
00:27:36 England spelt e N G l i n. On Facebook. He's the core matters. Of course, he could find his website and more about his business over at the core matters dot com.
00:27:49 If you wanna find the podcast or the book is that's coming out that's found over a blue collar culture dot com.
00:27:56 And of course, I'll have links to all of this over in the show notes as well. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship Podcast.
00:28:09 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 toe Live your calling.
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00:28:51 your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact world