980: ROOTED growth through a balance of TECH and HUMAN-CENTRIC leadership w/ Hunter Surles

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and I'll tell you what.

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When it comes to today's guest, I'm so excited because this is someone that, from all the research I've done about his business and the way that he operates, he's so intentional and, yes, rooted.

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We're going to say that word a lot in today's interview and you'll quickly find out why, but there's so much intentionality and strategy behind today's guest that he really powers the way that businesses move and helps them move forward successfully in pursuit of their goals.

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We're all gonna learn a lot from today's guest.

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His name is Hunter Searles.

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Hunter is the founder and principal of Rooted Advisory Group, an organizational strategy and transformation consulting and advisory firm.

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His passion lies within helping companies and, more importantly, the employees working within them, operate with a stronger sense of purpose, empathy and intentionality, brought to life by his transformation philosophy and leadership style.

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As a proven organizational strategist and transformational change practitioner, hunter has a demonstrated record of leading complex and innovative engagements for companies ranging from Fortune 250 companies to newly founded startups.

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This guy has such an incredible background.

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I love the way he merges his different passions, his interests and, of course, his knowledge.

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He's got a bachelor's degree in management information systems.

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He's got his master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Liberty University, where he graduated with high distinction.

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He's got his master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Liberty University, where he graduated with high distinction.

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He's got a degree or a green belt in the Lean Six Sigma approach.

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He's a certified Scrum Master.

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So, when it comes to all things, processes and marrying different aspects of our businesses, we're going to learn a lot today, so I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Hunter Searles.

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All right, hunter, I'm so excited that you're here with us.

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First things first, welcome to the show, thank you so much.

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I'm so happy to be here.

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Heck, yes, so I could brag all day.

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Honestly, the more that I went through your website and all the great things that your business puts into the world, it's so clear to me that you actually love this stuff, hunter, which obviously makes you one of us.

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You're a fellow entrepreneur, so take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Hunter?

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How'd you start doing all these cool things?

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Yeah, so it's a crazy story.

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Very lucky is the best way I can say it.

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I've been very blessed, extremely lucky.

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I've had a unique opportunity and experience in the past of kind of just being in the right place at the right time.

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But I'm a believer that if you kind of do the right things in the right fundamental ways, then you'll be put in good circumstances to take advantage of, and I was lucky to be in those.

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But some of those circumstances were also pretty terrible up front.

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So the one that I'll immediately go to, and most relevant, is the reason that our company was founded came after me being laid off and my entire organization being laid off after a big transformation failure of a really large company.

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And so going through that and having seen the repercussions of what that looks like quite a few times and then feeling it personally, it just made more sense to me to lean in this direction of taking our own approach, that's, more people driven, more empathetic, more focused on fundamental process and things like change management that are so necessary that companies often take for granted and are often the things that are kind of cut.

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Companies often take for granted and are often the things that are kind of cut out or neglected from a strategy right off the bat, and that just didn't make sense to me.

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So we started this company to try it a different way, to see what it was going to look like, and we've been pretty successful thus far.

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Yeah, hunter, I love that overview, especially because I think there's two things you immediately revealed to us, which is, first things first, when you talk about your own journey, you talk about, hey, when you just happen to do good things, good things will probably happen to you, and so that attitude is on full display.

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But then, secondly, when you talk about the foundations of your own entrepreneurial journey, of being laid off from a company, you use words like empathy and a lot of companies.

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Maybe.

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If we ask that company that had to lay off so many employees, if we asked them what happened, they would talk about profits, they would talk about the financial constraints that they faced, whereas you're talking about empathy.

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And it makes me think right off the bat here well, if they were more empathetic, if they invested more in the people, they probably would have had a better business and would have had a better financial situation.

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Talk to us about that chicken and the egg, because a lot of people they obviously tune into business podcasts wanting to talk about money and learn about money, but it seems like you approach it from that other side.

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Yeah.

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So one of my favorite things to say, especially in meetings with executives, is we're going to have a backwards conversation or an upside down conversation, because generally it's found in what can we do right now?

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How can we adjust the bottom line right now?

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How can we make the board happy in our meeting that's in two months?

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The problem with that methodology and only going after that low hanging fruit and immediate gratification of results whether it's bottom line ROI efficiency, whatever it may be is you're not doing the due diligence to actually install a new methodology of process or a proper change.

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That's going to take hold.

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You're doing a disservice to your business ultimately and that's what is so misunderstood, I think, between short-term results and long-term results is you have to prioritize both.

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But unless you know what your long-term results are and you operate in a fashion that is going to get you closer to that, you're never going to see the short-term that you really want to see, nor can you set proper expectations for your board, shareholders, employees, co-workers, etc.

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And so if you only look at that short-term approach and you don't take the long-term and look at how you can set up the foundation to continue to build over time, you're not setting yourself up for any sort of success.

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When you're building a house, no one starts by immediately dropping shingles onto the dirt.

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Right.

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There's a foundation laid, there's boards holding the house up, there's a roof, there's plywood, there's already tar laid, and then you start laying shingles.

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You don't do the shingles first, though that might be the prettiest aspect of the roof, and so building a house is such a good example for a foundational structure of a business.

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I'll probably overuse the metaphor.

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Yeah, no, hey, I'm here for it.

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I was just going to say my word of the year for 2024 is building, and I mean it both as a noun and as a verb.

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So the fact that you're going there already makes me all sorts of happy.

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I feel like it's changed the lens through which I view life, business, all the things, because you're right, when we look at a building, if we're in a downtown of a city, it's easy to look at the end product, but I did an episode not too long ago about the fact that the foundation is the most important part of the building and we can't see it and we'll never see it because it's underneath the ground.

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So I do think it's a really powerful analogy, especially when I think about the context of the work that you do.

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You've already said the word change a few times, and it's funny to think about planning for change because, as entrepreneurs, you and I both know there's things we've never planned for.

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Yet at the same time, we have to be ready for change.

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How do you help people navigate those waters?

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Yeah, that is a tough one and it's probably the most complex and intricate, where you go company to company, person to person, etc.

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And this is the answer no one likes to hear is there's not a one size fits all for change.

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As companies are going through large scale change, whether it's a new team that's coming on board, whether it's a new organization you're forming, software that's coming in to hopefully help your organization become more efficient, you have to make sure that you ride the line between continuing to keep the lights on and your day-to-day business and the things that you need to do to ultimately sustain your ability to be open as a practice, then combined with that change that's happening.

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And so, when you talk about planning for change, it is kind of weird, but we know that there are variables we can control, and so some of those things we can control is communication.

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We can control strategy of implementation.

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We can control quality of training and rollout of materials.

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We can control the way that we're going to ultimately lead those sessions in the end and communicate to employees the expectation of what that change is going to be.

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And, most of all, we can make sure that employees feel like their voice is heard through whatever change it is, when employees don't feel like they know what's happening or they feel like they're kind of being mandated change from the ivory tower, so to speak mandated change from the ivory tower, so to speak.

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It's not the same and there's not a good receiving of that change strategy, because often it's very much like you were saying earlier about the company that's focused on profit and marginability immediately in the short term.

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You're not actually focused on sustainability and stickiness of the change, which is a word you'll hear in transformation a lot, and so riding that line is very, very important, but if you don't plan up front, you ultimately end up neglecting the amount of capacity it's going to really take to both keep the lights on and successfully change whatever it is that you're trying to change or transform.

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Yeah, hunter, I'll tell you what.

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Hearing you talk about these things, you talk about that stickiness and obviously we've used the foundation analogy already.

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Well, a lot of listeners can't see you and I right now.

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You and I are obviously on video here together, but I'm just staring at that beautiful logo of yours.

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I love the brand that you've built.

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Obviously your company is called Rooted Advisory Group and so seeing the tree, seeing your logo and thinking about the roots that come underneath it, it just seems obviously it's a very intentional analogy and guideline for your brand.

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But talk to us about that rooted approach, because obviously it's so prevalent and present in your approach that it's the very name of your business.

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Why rooted?

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I can already hear how it factors into all of these ways that you think, but talk to us about that specific word.

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Yeah.

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And so the reason that we chose the word rooted is both literally and metaphorically.

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Literally, the root system of the tree is the most foundational, fundamental part of the tree for its long-term nurturing, growth and health.

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Right, it also connects the tree to the rest of the ecosystem that's beneath the surface.

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And so you have these to use a business term kind of upstream and downstream impacts on the tree that are beneath the surface that the root system is actually touching and being impacted by.

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And so if you're not careful about how you create, the root system is actually touching and being impacted by.

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And so if you're not careful about how you create your root system, if you think I'm a big wine guy, I love wine.

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So if you think about a wine and how the vine of the grapes are actually grafted in, there's often different structure beneath the soil than the actual grapes and plant.

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You see, on the trellis itself, it's grafted in very carefully and very intentionally to make sure the right product is produced.

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And so you don't want to just grab grape seeds and go throw them on the ground in any sort of soil.

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You want to make sure those roots are nourished and planted in the right place and given the appropriate amount of time to actually grow into a tree or whatever planet's going to be, the more meaningful to me is just being more rooted in my faith as a human being, more rooted in integrity, being more rooted in disciplined approaches and being able to go back to the question of is the decision that we're making, either for our own firm or on behalf of our clients, getting us or them to a more rooted, strong, foundationally stable place?

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If the answer is no, chances are we shouldn't be going through that venture or taking on that work.

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Are we shouldn't be going through that venture or taking on that work?

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And sometimes that's a hard question to have to ask, because you do have to weigh the profitability sometimes or you know, quote unquote success versus what fits your definition of being rooted and advancing that root structure.

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But that's why we chose that name.

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It's a good way to keep us grounded in not only our own outcome and desires as a firm, but also in any solution that we put forth or any conversation we have with a client as well.

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Yeah, hunter, I'll tell you.

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What I really appreciate hearing the way that your mind thinks about these things because I said it at the top of this episode when I introduced you to our audience is that you have such an intentional approach, and it shows in the words that you choose, but it also shows in the things you look at when you analyze a business, whether we're talking at the fortune two 50 level or those newly founded startups.

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What I really appreciate and I'm super excited to hear even more about here on the air together is it's those unseen things so much.

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It's fun to have this conversation because we are talking literally, but also metaphorically.

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A lot of newer entrepreneurs want to just focus on the things that we can see.

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I hear from a lot of listeners that focus on their brand, their website, their offer, their pitches, their marketing funnels, their ad campaigns all of these things that we can see, whereas it seems to me like you analyze businesses from the inside out first.

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Talk to us about those tangible pieces of the business that you say hey, these are the things that make your foundation.

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These are the things we need to focus on in order to set ourselves up for success.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Oftentimes businesses look to the same KPIs, key performance indicators, metrics etc.

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They're often financial, they're often efficiency based, whether it's an operational productivity metric or something else like throughput, call wait time etc.

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The issue with that is you're not seeing what's in between the lines.

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Or in my world, in our world, we do process engineering and process workflow mapping quite a bit, and if you've ever seen a process map, there are a series of boxes and diamonds and decisions and lines that connect and kind of flow through how decisions are made.

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You don't see what's in that arrow that's connecting those two action points.

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You don't get how the employee is feeling about that action.

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You don't know if they enjoy that step or hate that step.

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You don't know if they know why they do it or if they just do it because that's how they were trained when they started 15 years ago.

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You don't know who else is involved in it.

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You don't know any of those kind of ancillary details that really make the process or make the organization and company flow to the way that you would expect it to.

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And so you can't get the whole picture if you only look at those individual KPIs.

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And so oftentimes we start by going in and a very simple initial discovery and talking with executives first and I say I want to get a sense of what they believe they've told employees, the vision and the objectives are.

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And then I like to go to the frontline employees and start having interviews and ask the same question what do you think is expected of you?

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What is your job?

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Every day, oftentimes, when you ask someone what their job is, you'll hear answers like oh, I input something from this Excel sheet into this system, or I call people and I have to sell this, or it's my job to make sure this document goes here for all of these different reasons, right, it's very rarely said in a more centrally meaningful way of it's my job to ensure that our customers get successful documentation sent to them.

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It's my job to ensure that the throughput time on this process is as low as it can be so our customers can enjoy getting their things quicker.

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You don't ever really hear it spoken from a place of meaning, and I think that is the problem in and of itself.

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In a much deeper level is we have to tell people why what they're doing matters, and we have to also show them how it connects to the bigger picture.

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And so when we do these initial kind of discoveries or organizational mappings, it's our goal to show you why every single part of that matters.

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Now, if a part of the process or thing doesn't matter, then that's non-value added, that's a lean signal where you can potentially increase efficiency and update the process.

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But Ultimately I think that is the key factor when you first go in and look at this kind of backwards approach is look for what's in between.

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The key steps Don't actually look for, you know click time of how long does it take to go from this screen to that screen or from a customer email to actual call time.

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Look at why it's taking that amount of time.

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Look at why it's taking that amount of time.

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Understand that maybe the person knowing that you have a background in information systems and you work with so many different IT teams and you serve as that bridge to the business world for them, a lot of people probably might look at your background and think, oh, hunter's just going to implement technology as a band-aid to all of these problems, whereas here you are on the air with us today talking so much about the human element behind all of these processes, and it's something that it's fun for me to have this conversation with you, because I talk to entrepreneurs every single day of my life and us as entrepreneurs.

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I'm sure you're also guilty of this.

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I'm for sure guilty of this is that I love tools.

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I love technology, especially in the AI world.

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It's so much fun to find all of these new things.

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Talk to us about your, I guess, more rooted approach to it, because it seems like you're not as quick to say this is going to be the solution.

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When do we lean on technology?

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What are the questions we have to ask ourselves before implementing it?

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I want to hear your thoughts on that.

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Yeah, that's a really, really good one, especially in the crazy buzz world of AI.

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Me and my team we often joke, actually, and say that we are so tired of seeing the amount of AI advertisement out there, especially the stuff that's pitched and you know like download this and it can revolutionize the way that you do business or it can completely eliminate all of this section of your operational workflows.

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And that may be true to an extent, but I spent a pretty good part of my early career in automation automating business processes like accounting and FP&A and revenue and things like that and it's not that easy, right, Like there's a lot of decisions and a lot of things that people do that people need knowledge for, that are going to make a good outcome.

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You are sorely mistaken and you need to put your wallet back up before you waste a ton of money.

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That is ultimately the reason that we are so humanistic in our approach.

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And don't get me wrong, I love tools.

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I love fun technology.

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I've got a degree in IT.

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It's one of my favorite things.

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However, technology is not a silver bullet and it's not going to fix everything.

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There is a humanistic element to every single thing that happens.

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I mean, unless you're a robotic arm on a manufacturing line and even then what you're producing is generally intended for use by humans, is generally intended for use by humans.

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So if we're not thinking about the human element in all of these outcomes, then I think we're kind of setting ourselves up for failure.

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Quite frankly, We've got to think about why it's actually needed and what the problem actually is.

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That's something I learned very early in my automation career is I had a really, really good mentor named Andy.

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So if he listens to this, shout out to Andy.

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He told me that like 90% of the automation requests that we were going to get shouldn't be automations, they should just be process changes, and that kind of blew my mind.

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But that's opportunity for more work and to prove our product and to prove that automation is a good thing and all of this.

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And his response was yeah, but it doesn't ultimately improve the long term outcome of the process lens of.

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Should this be an automation, a technology advancement solution, or should this be something else?

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Maybe it is a process change, Maybe it doesn't even need to happen.

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Oddly enough, Brian, this I mean you'll get a kick.

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I'm sure you've heard this before, but I've come through so many companies and found so many processes of people doing things just because it's something that's been done forever that there is literally no recipient on the outcome of that process.

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It's just like a document dumped into the ether that no one ever looks at.

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But someone took five hours to prepare it because they thought they had to, and so you'll find things like that Right, and you don't need to automate that document.

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You don't need to automate the five hours of time save.

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You just don't need to do it anymore, and so that's the balance that you ultimately need to play.

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You need to look at it problem by problem, not as oh, this is the solution that I want to implement as many places as I can.

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You need to look at what is the proper solution for that individual problem.

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Yeah, gosh, hunter, so many questions that I want to go deeper into.

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But that point that you made about why the heck are we doing this in the first place?

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It's something that I personally see in my own life and businesses, even with my to-do list.

00:22:38.141 --> 00:22:45.527
There's the certain tasks that we've all been putting off for a month, which becomes three months, which becomes six months and then hopefully six months in.

00:22:45.527 --> 00:22:47.898
I'm just like why is this even on my list?

00:22:47.898 --> 00:22:51.392
I've never gotten to it and it hasn't adversely affected anything.

00:22:51.392 --> 00:22:55.381
So I think that's a really powerful point and a real point that we all face.

00:22:55.862 --> 00:22:58.575
It's funny for me hearing you talk about this, hunter.

00:22:58.575 --> 00:23:17.700
I've never asked a process improvement person this question, and I guess it's a little bit philosophical because I've done episodes in the past where I've talked about if you ask someone for criticism, you'll get it, and so, as newer entrepreneurs newer entrepreneurs they don't have that confidence, they don't have that experience yet, so they're always asking people oh how can I make my website better?

00:23:17.700 --> 00:23:22.356
Well, you could ask that question 500 times and you'll continue to get 500 answers every time.

00:23:22.356 --> 00:23:27.285
And so, talking to you, I'm wondering do you go looking for problems?

00:23:27.285 --> 00:23:28.854
Do you go seeking growth?

00:23:28.854 --> 00:23:32.402
Because if we look for problems, we can probably always find them.

00:23:32.402 --> 00:23:37.099
So how do you even begin that assessment part of looking at a business?

00:23:37.099 --> 00:23:46.876
And also, I just want to interject this because, selfishly, it's my favorite part of these conversations, hunter, which is you're also a fellow entrepreneur, you're not just working with clients, you're working on your own business.

00:23:46.876 --> 00:23:49.396
So give us some insights on both sides of that coin.

00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:53.700
Yeah, so we'll start with my own business, I guess.

00:23:53.700 --> 00:23:53.980
First.

00:23:53.980 --> 00:23:59.071
I definitely don't go looking for problems in my own business, that's for sure.

00:23:59.071 --> 00:24:04.981
I generally try to apply the to-do list.

00:24:04.981 --> 00:24:05.282
Rule.

00:24:05.343 --> 00:24:09.150
For me is ranking out on like a high, medium, low, priority.

00:24:09.150 --> 00:24:12.661
If I don't, I will get overwhelmed and not get everything done.

00:24:12.661 --> 00:24:17.300
So there's days where I get through all my high, mediums and lows.

00:24:17.300 --> 00:24:23.849
There's some days where I only get through my highs, lows.

00:24:23.849 --> 00:24:25.252
There's some days where I only get through my highs.

00:24:25.272 --> 00:24:37.597
But I think prioritizing those things for yourself as far as our company, on what actually needs to be done that day, right, what actually needs to happen, or else it's going to be a worse outcome.

00:24:37.597 --> 00:24:55.902
There are some things that we create in our own mind to be problems that are not pertinent, that do not need to be dealt with immediately, that could potentially take on a problem of themselves, that create a problem that's not even there, right.

00:24:55.902 --> 00:25:06.471
And so when you're in the client side, for us we're generally engaged either when two circumstances I guess.

00:25:06.471 --> 00:25:26.757
One, clients know that they are going to implement something new and they know kind of what they want to be in the future, but they don't necessarily know the nuances and roadmap steps to get to the future, and so we will help them kind of craft that roadmap and build that strategy and plan to get there.

00:25:27.317 --> 00:25:41.960
The second one, and more applicable to this question specifically, is when a company has a failing process or a failing organization, failing team, low performing for whatever reason, and they don't know why.

00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:53.904
They've run diagnostics internally, they've done interviews internally, they've asked everyone what's going on, but the call wait times are still three hours or whatever it may be.

00:25:53.904 --> 00:26:25.602
And so that's when we get called in to de-grain the process and look really in depth into it and see where those stop time gaps are, where the process fail points are, and so, in that we don't really have to look for problems per se, they usually jump out, they scream off the page at you, and one of the things that we like to say anytime we go into a company or organization and conduct interviews is don't hold anything back from us, right?

00:26:25.602 --> 00:26:35.734
If there's something in this that you hate, that you just can't understand why you've got to do it every day, that you are frustrated over the moon about it, tell us.

00:26:35.734 --> 00:26:37.999
Let us in on that Also.

00:26:37.999 --> 00:26:47.538
Tell us just how you feel Weird to talk about that in the business world, right, but tell us how you actually feel about this process.

00:26:48.019 --> 00:27:00.439
One of the questions we ask on our diagnostics is do you feel this process is important, not only for you doing it, but the overall outcome of the process?

00:27:00.439 --> 00:27:31.654
And if you ask people that they will give you an honest answer, and so you ask enough people, you gross enough information and you do enough research on it, you will get what the problem is, and it's very, very often not what people suspected it to be, whereas the problem that everyone is gossiping about by the water cooler generally is a problem, but it's like a 10% impact compared to what's really going on behind the scenes when you dig in and look for it.

00:27:31.654 --> 00:27:49.202
So, uh, I try not to look for problems, especially in my own business, uh, and even in clients, but I let those come to me through the questions that we ask and through what the solution that we want to ensure we can give them is right.

00:27:50.111 --> 00:27:52.584
Yeah, I'm really appreciative of the fact that you brought that up.

00:27:52.584 --> 00:27:58.371
You talk about feelings and I think you're absolutely spot on there about the fact that we don't often ask those questions.

00:27:58.371 --> 00:28:10.380
Something that works for me personally is I just always ask myself if there is something on my to-do list, or even just somebody that's in my recurring list of weekly actions and tasks, I say, is there anything that sucks?

00:28:10.380 --> 00:28:12.432
Is there anything that I absolutely dread doing?

00:28:12.432 --> 00:28:22.233
Because, you're right, you don't have to look very far that will highlight hey, alarm bells like let's fix this process, let's offload it, let's find some sort of solution or let's stop doing it.

00:28:22.233 --> 00:28:31.898
I think that's a big takeaway from today's episode with you, hunter is that you're just perfectly OK saying not everything needs to be done, and even it sounds like you organize your own to do list.

00:28:31.898 --> 00:28:33.819
That way of this is very important.

00:28:33.819 --> 00:28:36.362
This is not so important and you're just very honest with that.

00:28:36.422 --> 00:28:43.746
So I really appreciate that and it makes me want to ask you just, executive to executive, what's your executive time look like?

00:28:43.746 --> 00:28:51.481
Do you carve out time every single week, just for you, as the business leader, to say, hey, here's the strategic questions that we want to ask you.

00:28:51.481 --> 00:28:52.494
You brought up the future.

00:28:52.494 --> 00:28:54.847
Here's the future things that we're looking for.

00:28:54.847 --> 00:28:56.234
What's that time horizon?

00:28:56.234 --> 00:28:57.339
Look like Hunter.

00:28:57.339 --> 00:29:02.241
I want to get inside the mind of a founder Hunter I want to get inside the mind of a founder.

00:29:02.261 --> 00:29:07.913
Yeah, so I would say I do, but it's not on a scheduled, intensive basis.

00:29:07.913 --> 00:29:16.779
If I did week to week the same, there's no way I could maintain that between client work, travel, personal stuff, whatever it may be.

00:29:16.779 --> 00:29:36.086
And so I don't try to do an hourly allocation per se, but I do try to take at least two separate times in the week and get alone by myself and think through non-client work that is just focused on advancing rooted.

00:29:36.086 --> 00:30:03.246
So, whether that be content that we want to get out on the website or on LinkedIn, whether it be something like a podcast that we are actually in the process of starting and getting our first recordings ready to go for a white paper, a journal that we're writing, whatever it may be, right, I want to take time and intentionally look at that.

00:30:03.266 --> 00:30:11.554
For client work, it's often how much is required, and that is a tough question to balance, depending on who you are, and it's taken me a really long time to figure that out for myself.

00:30:11.554 --> 00:30:21.299
But when we started this firm, we told ourselves that we were never going to be the firm that expects our people to work 80 hours a week.

00:30:21.299 --> 00:30:23.183
Right, it's just, it's not going to happen.

00:30:23.183 --> 00:30:27.780
It's not going to be something that we ever put on the table for any client of ours.

00:30:27.780 --> 00:30:43.865
Now, there are situations where you need to go above and beyond for your client, and that's fair, but as a rule of thumb, I try to make sure that no more than probably 60 to 70% of my time is focused directly on client work.

00:30:43.865 --> 00:30:54.558
That way, the rest of that 25 to 30% of my time can be spent on really advancing Rooted and helping my people get whatever they need done right.

00:30:54.618 --> 00:31:01.617
So I view my job as less of an actual hands-on practitioner now and more of a.

00:31:01.617 --> 00:31:13.415
How can I enable my people and my teams to be successful and how can I mentor and coach and consult my clients to do whatever the discipline is that we're doing now on their behalf?

00:31:13.415 --> 00:31:44.050
How can they be successful doing that after we leave, because we're not going to be there forever, and so my attention needs to be focused on upskilling them, getting them to a place where they can sustain that good foundation long term without us which is something that not a lot of consulting firms talk about openly is working themselves out of a contract, but that's something else that's different about us is we know that the reason you hire a consulting firm is not for staff augmentation Ideally right.

00:31:44.050 --> 00:31:49.651
You hire them to actually be advised, to be consulted, to gain strategy knowledge and mentoring from.

00:31:49.651 --> 00:31:55.503
So that's a very long winded answer and gave you way more than than time allocation.

00:31:56.192 --> 00:32:20.621
No, I absolutely love that, though, honestly, because that's the real life stuff, and actually I feel like Hunter, you're the first guest that has invited me to ask this question, because I've been thinking about adding this question into our mix for a long time, and this is, truth be told, the very first episode that I'm going to ask that, so it's the first time listeners are going to start hearing me ask this question of our guests and, hunter, fortunately or unfortunately, you're the first one on the fly, completely unprepped, that I'm asking this to, and that is.

00:32:21.201 --> 00:32:26.834
It's quite simple and it's very broad, and that is what's been working for you, because it just sounds like you are.

00:32:26.834 --> 00:32:28.761
I've teased it the entire episode.

00:32:28.761 --> 00:32:35.109
You are so intentional, and I'm going to add onto that after having the chance to talk to you today is that you're also very strategic.

00:32:35.109 --> 00:32:48.838
I can see it so much in the way that you think about things, the way that you approach things, the way that you think about things, the way that you approach things, the way that you talk about your team and your clients all of it just seems so cohesive.

00:32:48.838 --> 00:32:51.444
So I just want to ask you that broad question of as business owner to business owner what's been working for you?

00:32:51.805 --> 00:33:15.934
I think for me this may sound counterproductive, but taking time away from working period I have a very, very hard time, as most entrepreneurs and founders and high performers in general do of turning it off right, being able to actually step away.

00:33:15.934 --> 00:33:19.945
Don't check your email after dinner.

00:33:19.945 --> 00:33:26.157
If you can help it, you don't need to make that presentation for the 15th time.

00:33:26.157 --> 00:33:37.320
The 14th rendition looks phenomenal, I promise, and your client is not going to know the difference in your standard of perfection between 14 and 15.

00:33:37.320 --> 00:33:52.297
We are very, very intentionally make sure that when there's not a lot going on, that we step away, that we take time away, and then, when there is a lot going on, that you do it even more.

00:33:53.038 --> 00:33:53.846
Weird, right?

00:33:53.846 --> 00:33:59.426
If you've got a crazy, crazy day, you need to go take a couple of walks throughout the day.

00:33:59.426 --> 00:34:04.566
You need to go for an hour and sit at a coffee shop without your laptop and read a book.

00:34:04.566 --> 00:34:08.797
You need to get away from screens and away from digital and refresh your brain.

00:34:10.264 --> 00:34:26.806
Taking that break allows you to come back in such a fulfilled creative capacity that you didn't have before, and something that my team and I talk often about is it's in those breaks that we make ourselves.

00:34:26.887 --> 00:34:47.259
Take that when we often have the best brain breakthroughs and we often have the most impactful thoughts, and so we'll take ourselves out of those breaks because we get that inspirational thought, but that inspirational thought wouldn't have hit had we had our brain preoccupied on something else that all of our energy wasn't able to go to.

00:34:47.259 --> 00:35:05.547
And so doing the best that you can in whatever situation that you're in, requires you to be as present as you can possibly be and taking breaks and that side away throughout the day, whether it's you know 15 minutes or you're taking a week vacation for this quarter.

00:35:05.547 --> 00:35:24.646
That is the most important thing that I've found to just remain calm, remain as stress free as possible, and also to be able to really pick what the high priority items that I need to deal with are, because those are the ones that don't go away even in the free time.

00:35:25.849 --> 00:35:27.592
Yes, amen to that.

00:35:27.592 --> 00:35:29.335
That's the real stuff, hunter.

00:35:29.335 --> 00:35:36.449
That's why listeners tune into this show is because we're so appreciative of amazing entrepreneurs and guests like you who give us this real stuff.

00:35:36.449 --> 00:35:44.836
We don't talk about this stuff often enough within the world of entrepreneurship, and part of it is because I mean you alluded to it right there we love working on our businesses.

00:35:44.836 --> 00:35:51.186
It is genuinely fun for most of us, and so it is particularly hard when we enjoy it so much to step away.

00:35:51.186 --> 00:35:56.014
But it's incredibly important and you're right, I mean for me, truth be told, my best ideas.

00:35:56.014 --> 00:36:03.324
I know the two places where they come from in the shower and on a bike ride, and I don't care what anyone says about productive time behind a computer.

00:36:03.324 --> 00:36:06.414
Those are the two places where I think so clearly.

00:36:06.414 --> 00:36:08.813
So huge shout out to you and huge kudos.

00:36:08.813 --> 00:36:14.375
I love how transparent you are and how generous you are with these really valuable real life insights.

00:36:14.375 --> 00:36:17.487
So it's a natural segue, hunter, into you dropping those links.

00:36:17.708 --> 00:36:20.802
I'm personally excited for listeners who aren't watching us on video.

00:36:20.802 --> 00:36:26.706
I'm so excited for them to go check out rooted advisory groups, see the brand that you've built, see the way that you show up.

00:36:26.706 --> 00:36:32.586
I always say success leaves clues, and I think that on your website, your values are so present.

00:36:32.586 --> 00:36:38.750
Not just what you do to help your clients and the approach that you have, but also your values are on full display.

00:36:38.750 --> 00:36:41.898
So, with me teasing that Hunter, drop those links on us.

00:36:41.898 --> 00:36:45.596
Where should listeners go from here to find all the amazing work that you're doing?

00:36:46.625 --> 00:36:52.938
Absolutely, so you guys can go to be more rootedcom to find our website.

00:36:52.938 --> 00:37:04.168
We've got all of our links off of there for any sort of publications podcasts coming soon, so be on the lookout for that.

00:37:04.168 --> 00:37:05.329
It would be announced on the website as well.

00:37:05.329 --> 00:37:06.413
You can also find us on LinkedIn.

00:37:06.413 --> 00:37:06.893
Please go.

00:37:06.893 --> 00:37:09.298
Follow our page at Rooted Advisory Group.

00:37:09.298 --> 00:37:18.280
Feel free to go out there, connect with us, reach out to us, schedule a consultation or time with us through the website.

00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:19.307
Check out our blog.

00:37:20.733 --> 00:37:25.226
We're really, really excited to have this opportunity to be able to connect with this audience.

00:37:25.226 --> 00:37:37.115
We'd love to just talk more to anyone who's kind of interested in the things that we've talked about today, even if it's not directly in the vein of new business per se, but, like you said, I love this stuff.

00:37:37.115 --> 00:37:38.456
I believe this is not directly in the vein of new business per se, but, like you said, I love this stuff.

00:37:38.456 --> 00:37:41.500
I believe this is so important in the world of business.

00:37:41.500 --> 00:37:51.815
This is some of the stuff that's the most foundational, yet taken the most for granted, and I think that we're building a firm here that is hopefully going to be on the forefront of changing that.

00:37:52.925 --> 00:38:06.246
Yes, Gosh, I love the way you articulate those things and express those things and, as someone who's had the great honor of interacting with you even before our interview, over emails up until this morning, hunter, I love the fact that you emailed me to connect even before we chatted.

00:38:06.246 --> 00:38:07.769
So huge kudos to you.

00:38:07.769 --> 00:38:12.588
Rooted, honestly it's such an appropriate word in the way that you show up and the way that your business shows up.

00:38:12.588 --> 00:38:16.418
And I think one thing that I do want to call out is the fact that you talked about.

00:38:16.418 --> 00:38:22.032
You're a rare consulting company that says, hey, we want to set you up for success even long after we're gone.

00:38:22.032 --> 00:38:30.036
I hope and I know that your continued work there is going to set new standards for the way that other companies bring in that outside help.

00:38:30.036 --> 00:38:32.673
So huge kudos to you and your entire team for all that you do.

00:38:33.085 --> 00:38:34.289
Listeners, you already know the drill.

00:38:34.289 --> 00:38:38.342
We're making it as easy as possible for you to find Hunter's business and all those links he mentioned.

00:38:38.342 --> 00:38:41.373
His business website is at be more rooted dot com.

00:38:41.373 --> 00:38:45.608
Wherever you're tuning in, you can click right on through down below in the show notes.

00:38:45.608 --> 00:38:51.030
So, hunter, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:38:51.030 --> 00:38:53.056
Thanks so much for having me.

00:38:59.684 --> 00:39:02.077
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:39:02.077 --> 00:39:03.784
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:39:03.784 --> 00:39:13.054
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:39:13.054 --> 00:39:21.813
There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:39:21.925 --> 00:39:23.873
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:39:23.873 --> 00:39:25.471
These are not infomercials.

00:39:25.471 --> 00:39:28.956
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:39:28.956 --> 00:39:39.911
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:39:39.911 --> 00:39:48.413
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just wanna invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:39:48.413 --> 00:39:49.750
We also have live chat.

00:39:49.750 --> 00:39:53.590
If you wanna interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:39:53.590 --> 00:39:55.769
Initiate a live chat.

00:39:55.769 --> 00:40:05.224
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.