The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is a long-form conversational podcast that dives deep into the journeys of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers in Northern Colorado. Hosted by Curt Bear, Founder of LoCo Think Tank, the show brings real, raw, and unfiltered conversations—where guests share their successes, struggles, and lessons learned along the way.
LoCo Think Tank is Colorado’s premier business peer advisory organization, founded in Fort Collins to help business owners gain perspective, accountability, and encouragement to grow both personally and professionally. LoCo chapters bring together business owners at all stages of the journey into professionally facilitated peer advisory chapters, led by experienced business veterans. These groups provide a trusted space to share challenges, seek advice, learn togethter, and support each other’s success.
The LoCo Experience Podcast extends this mission beyond the chapter meetings— bringing the wisdom, insights, and stories of local business leaders to a wider audience.
Our triad mission with this podcast is simple:
Inspire through real stories of resilience and success.
Educate by sharing valuable business insights.
Entertain with engaging, unfiltered conversations.
If you love “How I Built This” and the free-flowing style of Joe Rogan - but with a Northern Colorado focus - you’ll enjoy The LoCo Experience! Our closing segment, "The LoCo Experience," asks guests to share their craziest stories — and we get some doozies!
It’s a passion project with purpose, and we invite you to listen, follow, and share, and maybe consider sponsoring. Know someone with a great story? Nominate your favorite business leader for an episode!
The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 220 | Excellence, Ethics, and Endurance - Triple Crown Leadership and more with Gregg Vanourek, Entrepreneur, Teacher, Author, and TEDx Speaker
In this episode of the LoCo Experience, I welcomed accomplished author, speaker, and teacher Gregg Vanourek into the studio. We discuss his recent book 'Triple Crown Leadership,' which he co-wrote with his father. The book uses the metaphor of the Triple Crown in horse racing to describe the triple crown of leadership: excellence, ethics, and endurance. We discussed the extensive research and interviews involved in developing their book and leadership model - which aims to help leaders achieve exceptional results with integrity and sustainability.
Gregg shares insights into his diverse professional journey, including his experience with think tanks and founding a startup foundation focused on education reform, which ultimately led him to move their family to Sweden. There, he taught entrepreneurship and leadership at the Royal Institute of Technology - Sweden’s equivalent to MIT.
The conversation delves into the significance of understanding oneself and discovering one's passions and strengths, especially for young adults. Greg offers advice on trusting oneself, paying attention to one's interests, and taking action to experiment and learn. He underscores the value of being in community with others to gain insights and support in navigating life's transitions. Gregg also reflects on his family life, including the challenges and rewards of moving from Sweden back to the U.S. with his wife and daughters. He highlights the importance of finding balance and joy in both professional and personal endeavors.
The episode concludes with a light-hearted discussion about memorable life moments, such as Gregg's adventurous trip to the Netherlands without a passport, and the role of music in his life. He’ll be our keynote speaker and workshop leader at the LoCo member event this fall - Aim to Thrive - and I know you’ll enjoy getting to know my new friend, Gregg Vanourek.
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
In this episode of The Loco Experience, I welcome, accomplished author, speaker, and teacher Greg VanEck into the studio. We discussed his recent book, triple Crown Leadership, which he co-wrote with his father. The book uses the metaphor of the triple crown and horse racing to describe the triple crown of leadership, excellence, ethics, and endurance. We discussed the extensive research and interviews involved in developing their book and leadership model, which aims to help leaders achieve exceptional results with integrity and sustainability. Greg shared his insights in his diverse professional journey, including his experience with think tanks and founding a startup foundation focused on education reform, which ultimately led him to move their family to Sweden. There he taught entrepreneurship and leadership at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden's, equivalent to MIT. The conversation delves into the significance of understanding oneself and discovering one's passions and strengths, especially for young adults. Greg offers advice on trusting oneself, paying attention to one's interest, and taking action to experiment and learn. He underscores the value of being in community with others to gain insights and support and navigating life's transitions. Greg also reflects on his family life, including the challenges and rewards of moving from Sweden back to the US with his wife and daughters. He highlights the importance of finding balance and joy in both professional and personal endeavors. The episode concludes with a lighthearted discussion about memorable life moments such as Greg's adventurous trip to the Netherlands without a passport and the role of music in his life. Ile, our keynote speaker and workshop leader at the local member event this fall, aim to thrive, and I know you'll enjoy getting to know my new friend Greg Vanek. Welcome back to the Loco Experience. I'm here today with Greg VanEck and Greg is an author, a speaker, a. A teacher. Yes. Many above. Um, let's talk maybe about your book that you brought us. Mm. Today, triple Crown Leadership. Great. So it's good to be with you, Kurt. Thank thanks for having me. Of course. So this book, triple Crown Leadership, uh, I wrote with my father. Yeah. So it was really wonderful having a father son collaboration on a multi-year project. We had done some teaching together. Mm-hmm. And then also a bunch of research for this book. So the book uses the metaphor of the Triple Crown. Of course, we just had the Kentucky Derby right. And, uh, so we use that as a metaphor for three things to aim for in leadership. So the first one is, what kind of leadership does it take to be excellent to have an excellent organization? So that's the derby. Then you gotta go to the Preakness, right? Okay. And so the second leg is ethical. It's not just getting great results, but doing it with integrity. Yeah. So doing the right thing, even when it's costly or hard. So the excellent is more about the actual results. It's about the results, yeah. It's the growth that. The growth in margins and whatever market share we actually say it's about ex achieving exceptional results and positive impacts, right? So excellent and then ethical. And then if you win the Preakness, you gotta go up to the Belmont Stakes for the test of the champion, right? And then if you win all three, you win the triple crown, which is the most elusive championship in all of sports. Uh, only about a dozen have won it since 1875. Okay? And the third leg in leadership is enduring. So it's, uh, standing the test of time and operating sustainably. So can you be excellent and, and ethical, not just this year or this quarter, but over time? And, uh, so it's excellent, ethical, enduring. It's a very high standard. It's exceedingly rare. And for the book we drew on our own experience. Yeah. So we had a very different experience, but we also did a bunch of research on the world's most admired companies, world's most ethical, sustainable, uh, innovative. And then we interviewed leaders in 61 organizations in 11 countries. Oh, wow. From the Mayo Clinic to Google, Cisco, Spotify, China, net Cloud, it was a range of large enterprises, global. Mm-hmm. Um, startups, social enterprises, non-profits, government, military education, you know, turnarounds included. Mm-hmm. And did you feel like these were companies that represented those? Triple crowns, or at least some of those factors. So th that wasn't actually the point of the research. Okay. And so, you know, we had looked at the Jim Collins work. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about Good To Great. Exactly. Good to Great. It's a great book. Incredible research team. He called'em the Chimps up there, all the people who did all the incredible research, but we wanted it to be about not a list of great organizations. We wanted it to be focused on the practices that can help you be excellent, ethical, enduring. Right? Yeah. And I think one of the problems with the list approach is things change. And so if you look at like, the Good to Great list, right? Um, you know, a bunch of like Walgreens celebrated really high, you know, circuit City, you know, and, you know, and it's, you know, yep. And, and so there's a little danger about focusing too much on the institutions, the organizations. And so we focused on what, what are the advanced leadership practices that help you be excellent, ethical, and enduring? And for that you can draw on a lot of organizations, including turnarounds, et cetera. But the first point is be clear. What are you aiming for? You know, Covey said, begin with the end in mind. Sure. Yeah. Right. And so what is your leadership quest? Are you clear on that? And are you aiming high enough? And I think a lot of people that get right into the operations and the management, et cetera, without really, and this course points to one of the practices is about shared purpose, values, and vision. Mm-hmm. But what is your leadership quest? Yeah. Yeah. And defining that for your team is Yeah. Part of even being excellent. Excellent. At what exactly. Yeah. I was just thinking about how that triple crowd, I wonder how many horses won the first two and then didn't. Uh, win The third is, is that something you happen to research when find your way? I don't know. Um, I, I do notice that it tends to dwindle, you know, so the derby is bigger, and then by the time you get to the Belmont, a lot of people are out because they don't, they're not in contention anymore. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but, and I think the races have different, but you start with, you know, around like 18 of the world's best. Yeah. And then, and then sometimes you'll have a, a much smaller group, but one of the stories, so we had fun with this metaphor. So we started with the three, you know, excellent, ethical, enduring, and we said we need a kind of a metaphor, something fun. And so we thought Hatrick Troika. Right. And a colleague of ours said, triple Crown. Right. And like instantly we said, boom, that's, it's gotta be that right. And, uh, so we had fun, not only, um, doing the research on businesses, social ventures, governments, you know, education, military, but also we interviewed some people in horse racing, you know? Hmm. And we interviewed, uh, the jockey who ran Ariat. Oh, wow. Which is one of the features stories. So 1973 Secretary of Big Red Ron Turcott. And we said, Ron, what did it feel like to be on top of Big Red? Okay. When? And, and then, and so, I don't know if you know the story, but a little bit. It was incredible. So won the Derby by a couple lengths. Won the Preakness by a couple lengths, and that's the length of a horse. Sure. So typically you win by a half a length or a head or a couple lengths. And so it was a really big rivalry between Sham and Secretariat that year. Okay. But by the time the Belmont Stakes came around, Ron Turcott said, I can go out fast with the leaders. Right from the start where Secretariat had never done that before. Secretariat always liked to go from the back. Mm-hmm. To avoid being in the Scrum and getting bumped. Yeah. Yeah.'cause he had been bumped hard in his first race. Okay. So Secretariat goes right out with Sham at the very beginning. Now the Belmont Stakes is the longest dirt track and thoroughbred horse racing. That's why I thought there were different lengths. Yeah. So you gotta be much more paced. You gotta be more strategic and, and patient. And so people said this is a disaster. They're going out way too fast. Right. They're gonna blow the chance for the Triple crown. But Secretariat and Sham just took a big lead on the, they were up two lengths, up, five lengths on the group, seven lengths. And it was like a match race in the back stretch, you know, they were just way ahead then 10 lengths and then sec, and then Sham starts to fade. Its secretary just keeps going and opened up and eventually the announcer called it 25 lengths ahead of Sham. Ahead of No sham faded the rest of the group. Oh. Caught past sham and passed. Sham. Sham. It was just way too fast for Sham, right? Yeah. Yep. And so the announcer's up in the booth Now I've been up in one of those booths and it's hilarious just being with I away they go. We got on the rail green and everything, and of course they're drinking and everything off you. And so, but he's just eyeballing it from, you know, there's 180,000 people you know, there in the, in the field and, and live. They went back and measured, it wasn't 25, it was 31 lengths. Oh dang. He won by 80 meters. He blew away the track record. Nobody's come close since. And so really it was just this incredible, one of the most incredible athletic performances across sports. You so go watch, you know, 1973, I'm on stake. YouTube watch it. You'll get goosebumps. I tell you, there was a, uh, was it, there was a horse racing movie out just a few years ago. That was the story of. Something. It was not just a few years ago. It was probably 20 years ago. Was it that? Well, they've done Sea Biscuits. Sea Biscuit is a great movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking about. Yeah. And then they've got a Secretariat film as well. Okay. And so we had fun and you know, we, we talked about Man of War and some of the other stories, uh, in the book of horse racing. Um, but, you know, and it's really, it's not just the, the horse is this incredible animal, but it's the, it's the jockey. Ron Turcot knew. That Secretariat had it in, had the juice, right? Yeah. But it's the owner, the, the, the stable was, was in crisis. And because the, the, the owner, uh, I think passed away. And so the daughter who was not in the industry took over Meadow Farms and did a turnaround and brought in the right people. Oh, did. And everything. And, and so it was this incredible story of a team effort. You know, you need the veterinarian Yeah. Outsider coming in it sounds like. Yeah. And at the end of, if you, if you watch the video, as soon as uh, secretariat wins, the camera just pauses there as he crosses the finish line. One, 1002, one, and then it pans back to find the other horses way back. Right. And then the other horses. And then a couple seconds later they go up to the stands and you see Penny Chenery the owner who did the turnaround, and she's just celebrating and it's just this incredible moment. That's really cool. Yeah. Leadership. What was it like writing a book? Uh, does your dad live here locally as well? So you would get together actually in person and push out. Yeah. Ideas and outlines? Or did you Yeah. You're chapter two. I'm chapter three, so yeah, my mom and dad are high school sweet sweethearts who live in, uh, Genesee in Jefferson County. Okay. Right up the hill a bit. And, uh, yeah. And, um, so part of it we wrote together and were able to kind of work, but, but then for part of it, I took the book to Sweden when, uh, my wife and I moved with our young daughters to Sweden. We lived there for 10 years. Yeah. So part of it was remote as well. Oh, I see. We were kind of, so maybe, I don't know, half half, you know, here and half there. Before remote work was sexy. Yeah, exactly. Or normal. Yeah. But my dad and I had done some teaching together. Okay. Before, and some speaking, but writing a book together is very intense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it can, you know, you really start to care about, you know, what you say or the, it can get a little, you know, your ego's involved, all these red pen edits coming back and forth. But my dad was incredible. You know, he was a multi-time CEO and he's obviously my dad. But he said, Greg, if we're gonna write a book together. We are equals. Hmm. We are absolutely co-equal. Nobody's got, uh, well, he, he got first billing. Is it alphabetical? It's alphabetical. No, I gave him, but now he is retired, so he says, put your name first on stuff. So, uh, fair enough. But it was incredible, you know, doing a project like that with my dad. Yeah. He's, he's a remarkable dad and just human being and just having something like this, it's one of the best experiences of both of our lives. Was he a CEO even when you were a little guy? Or did he kind of work his way up and then did the, the CEO stuff? Yeah, so, uh, so growing up, my brother, my older brother and I, we followed, you know, our family followed his business career around. And so I remember him being kind of a group VP at Avery Label, and then he became the president of Monarch Marking in Dayton, Ohio. Okay. After, uh, Avery was in California and that was a subsidiary, Pitney Bowes. And then he got. Brought up to the mothership in Connecticut to be a group VP for Pitney Bowes, which is a much larger enterprise. Monarch was incredible. And then he, and then he did a turnaround in Dallas, Texas with a partner. They took over a company, did kind of a financial and ethical turnaround. Hmm. And then he did another turnaround of a billion dollar company called Sensor MAD in Florida, um, that was doing, so yeah, you saw that kind of a, but he was really pretty big corporate, right? Yeah, it was. These were subsidiaries of larger organizations and things Yeah. Or the mothership. Yeah. And, and, uh, but so he had initially done some private equity, some entrepreneurial stuff, and he served in the Army briefly, but then he rapidly got into corporate. Yeah, yeah. He basically, he was disillusioned with what the way private equity, what it was doing with these, these companies. The way it was kind of just brutal. Well, it's much nicer now. Yeah. Right. So much better. They've gotten so much better at screwing people most of the time. Yeah. But this, but this comes back to the quest. And so like for him, he said early on in his career, he is like, am I gonna spend my whole career being so brutal to people? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he said, isn't there a better way? To operate in business and is there a better way to lead? And he, he basically went on a lifelong personal quest, searching for a better way to lead. And that brought him to servant leadership initially with Robert Greenleaf. Mm-hmm. And this whole other model. And then we developed our own leadership model and, you know, he was trying out different things to his career. Really cool. Yeah. Um, you're a fairly prolific author. Is this, this was your second or third? This is the third book. Okay. And you've got another one you're, you're working on now, a new one in it's written, or is it written now and it's got editing to do? Or is it It's, uh, it's got a draft. Okay. But I've got a lot of work to do because I've subsequently gone out and I've interviewed, I think 43 people in 20 plus countries now. Oh, wow. And kind of taking that data set and integrating it, and so that book is on the common traps of living. Hmm. And so it's more of a personal development or leading self-focused book. Okay. And so what are the things that inhibit our happiness, our quality of life, and our fulfillments? Hmm. How do you choose which 41 people you should interview for a book like that? Yeah. So, um, so for this one, um, this. Interview set was quite different from the other, so all the other books included interviews. Okay. And some included some surveys as well. Okay. In those cases, it was much more of people were honored to be asked because we're writing a book on excellent leadership and you know, we want to hear your story. Yeah. Yeah. Um, a previous book was on Be the Entrepreneur of Your Life. It's called Life Entrepreneurs Live with Purpose and Passion and so and so we found people. This new book is much harder because it's about the traps of living. Yeah. And we're talking about things that are very deep and vulnerable in some cases. And so for the new book, it's, it's, uh, anonymous. I decided that Oh, unless somebody insists that they be named, yeah. I'm gonna make it anonymous so that people can just know that they can speak totally free freely and they won't have to worry about it. You know, getting back that somebody's gonna read about their, you know, their tough story. So with that, you know, I have, uh, I lived in Europe for 10 years and did a lot of teaching and so I was able to go out into my network. Some people came to me and kind of offered, but often I would go out and, and um, and, and, um, ask people who I thought would be thoughtful and willing to talk about the deeper stuff. Yeah. Um, and, you know, people know people et cetera. And are you looking for like. People that have become successful but navigated some of these traps so they have some of that experience. Or is it people that have been trapped by something already, like as it's an interesting day pool to choose? That's part of my, my curiosity. It's, yeah, it is. And I mean, the, the book isn't, it's not an academic research book where I'm trying to kind of just draw it off the interviews.'cause I'm also drawing it off of, I've got an online tool where I've had, uh, more than a thousand people around the world fill out my Traps test. Okay. And then I've done a bunch of research of books and academic articles and journals, et cetera, on gotcha's phenomenon. But, um, but I think, uh, the other thing that I wanted was, I wanted a geographic diversity. Hmm. You know, I'm really looking at human experience. Mm-hmm. And I didn't want it to be localized to Yeah. To, um, north America or the United States. Yeah. Although it's, it's oversampled with, you know, very. Privileged people. If you look at the world today, I mean, we're incredibly privileged. Right, right. And so, you know, it's, it's not meant to be representative of the entire global. Do you, uh, do you have any teasers? Are there like a, a top three most common traps of living that you've, uh, identified? Yeah, so one of the big surprises so far is how many of the traps are in our heads and they're kind of self-imposed, self-inflicted wounds. And so, you know, some of the big ones are negative self-talk. Sure. Self-doubt and the limiting beliefs that are related to that. And then a kind of a bucket of things around overthinking. Hmm. So that would include worrying about the future Yep. And ruminating on things too much where you can't stop thinking about something that happened or something you've said. And then also just monkey mind. Right. Where your mind is just bouncing around and you just can't have presence and focused love the, the letting the past be the past, I think I am do better with. It's a tricky one. Yeah. But staying focused on one thing when that's the most important thing is isn't quite as easy for me. Yeah. Well a lot of people, you're not alone. So that's one of the big learnings is the psychological piece. And then there's some other ones that are pretty common, like drifting through your life, settling for just, okay. The term that's been used on Twitter a lot lately is the NPC, the non-player characters. Are you familiar with that? A little bit, but say more about that. Well, it's kind of that, that drifting through your life. Mm-hmm. You know, you're not actually. Really making any decisions. You're just on the boat, you're on the hook to the side character. Yeah. You're not really engaging. You're not really impacting anybody's life. Yeah. To significant positive or negative Yeah. Your organization Yeah. Gets just enough out of you to tolerate you. Yeah. I love that. NPCI should probably mention that in the drifting chapters perhaps. Yeah. And, and then, you know, conforming to what other people want. Mm-hmm. Or expect. Mm-hmm. Comparing yourself to others mm-hmm. Is another big one. So, and what I've done with this new book I'm working on is there was one page in my second book, which is Life Entrepreneurs, and that's the book about, you know, being the entrepreneur of your life and living with purpose and passion. Yeah. And so we talk about all these things that you should do to integrate your life and work and live boldly and, and, uh, and, but there was one page on the pitfalls that get you into trouble. Okay. And so what I've done is kind of a zoom in pivot Yeah. And turning that one page in that life entrepreneur's book into my next book. Cool. So, yeah, is that, uh, like I, I want to, I've, I've kind of wanted to have a, do a book. At times, you know, I've got a lot of different ideas and I, but it's a chore. Yeah, right. Like how many, how, how do you go about writing? Do you, do you, are you like Hemingway, where you just write 500 words every day and, uh, you know, then kind of don't worry about it until later. Yeah. So, uh, I, I write every day. Okay. But I also define writing broadly because to me it's the writing process. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, so I am literally writing new stuff every day, but I'm also reading a lot, researching, architecting, outlining, and then of course editing and re-architecting. And so all of that would be, you know, yeah. And so I literally have a calendar in my home office where I'm kind of checking off, did I do my writing today? Yeah. Um, and then, yeah. So, and then, and then what? Like how is a book a thousand hours. Yeah, I, I haven't counted the hours for, for me, typically a book is like a, you know, two and a half to three year, uh, process. Okay. Uh, but I really, in an hour or two a day, probably, uh, well, probably more than that actually. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I. You know, so my, my dad, my dad and I are very different. And my dad, you know, you know, did turnarounds and he had this very yeah, get after it. Intense, get after finish the project. That was part of what made him great at doing what, you know, those turnarounds and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So when I, when I asked him to write a book, he's like, great, you know, like six months, you know, let go, go, go. Right. And I, and I said, dad, if we're gonna write a book, you know, given your career,'cause he had an incredible career. Um, and given your knowledge and like, I just really wanna, you know, really do this. Right. So I, I view it more as I, I, I try not to be timeline driven with my books. Obviously, once you have a publisher than you get on the, the, you know, the, the assembly line. Right? Right. But, uh, you know, I really say this book is going to need what it takes Yeah. To be the book. It needs to be it be dumb when it's done, and I'm committed to that. Yeah. Yeah. And then you just have to work, work around it and make it, make it happen. All right. Well, maybe when I get quite not quite so fascinated with podcasting, I'll dedicate a little time to starting that book. Let's talk. I love it. I love it. Um, so how do you, as aside from book writing, you, you mentioned that you're a teacher and a speaker. What, what else are you doing? Yeah. Right now I know we're, we're talking about having you out, uh, in the fall for, uh, uh. Aim to thrive event. A thinker fest type of, yeah. I'm really looking forward to engaging with your community. Yeah. So I have a portfolio of work that includes writing, which is the books. And then, uh, I'm publishing a detailed blog every week. Okay. You know, it's kind of the much, more than more like an article, I guess I'm not on your mailing list yet. I gotta get you on there. Apparently, Kurt, what do you, that goes automatically just bam or something? Maybe I'm just filtering you out. Yeah, so I've got writing, teaching, speaking, and coaching. Okay. And, and so I, I think I've called myself a pracademic, right? Because I'm a practitioner. I've had a career in a think tank in a startup. Education Reform Foundation and in an online education startup that became a scale up market leader. Okay. But I've also done a lot of research and teaching, including, uh, 10 years in Sweden teaching at the Royal Institute of Technology Entrepreneurship and teaching executive MBA leadership at Stockholm Business School. Some teaching at University of Denver here in Colorado as well. Yeah. And a bunch of guest teaching. And then I have online courses that I offer as well, that are part of my teaching. Oh, really? Portfolio. Yeah. So, so that's, so I, I enjoy having this portfolio, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been in, uh, education related things my entire career. Yeah. But in very different, you know, think Tank startup tech. Yeah. Directly teaching, et cetera. Tell me about Think tank. Yeah. Like, I mean, we are local, think tank here. Right? Right. And so, uh, and it's a bit of a play on words. You know, we're a local think tank. We don't, we're not, we're just as smart as you guys in Washington DC or whatever. Yeah. Uh, but what's, what's a real thing I would say, don't assume that, uh, but I would say it's funny because, you know, out of, uh, college I studied politics, philosophy, economics. Okay. Undergraduate. And then I did a one year master's at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Okay. And, and then I said, you know, I went home to Texas where we had just moved and I did some, you know, odd jobs for a while. I said, I want to go work for a think tank. Hmm. And my parents said, son. We love you and you know, we believe in you who heck could hire you, but like you can't work at a think tank. You gotta have like five PhDs and like there's, you know, you can't just Right, right. You gotta already have your reputation and then you can go work there. Said, yeah. I said I want to go work for a think tank. And of course the think tanks have entry level jobs too. So I, I ended up like applying to a bunch and I got, yeah. I was very fortunate to get hired by as a research assistant Okay. Initially at a DC think tank. Yep. That was just a public policy think tank focusing on, you know, most of the major policy issues. And I was on the education reform team. Okay. And on the civil society team, like looking for what are some innovative community solutions Yep. To big problems like home, homelessness, addiction, poverty. Sure. Truancy that the, the government is not doing, but people in nonprofits or civic or combinations, partnerships. Yeah. And we, and we got a grant to go around the country and, and interesting study ones and write about it. So I was on education and civil society. But my friends would always ask me like, Greg, you're working for a think tank. Like, what do you, what do you do? Do you just like literally sit in your office and just think and kind of cogitate and no, you're researching, you're interviewing people, you're doing field visits, you're doing surveys, you're, you know, you're pub. And then we ended up, uh, publishing books and research reports. And then out of the think tank we had the opportunity to launch a startup foundation too. Oh. So there was a, um, small. The education reform thing. Education reform. Yeah. Exactly. Can you mention the think tank or is that secret? Yeah. No, not at all. It's, it's called the Hudson Institute. Okay. And they are kind of, uh, center rights. Okay. But, but their kind of niche was being contrarian. Okay. And so Herman Kahan was the founder and he was a game theorist on thermonuclear war Oh. Ing back in kind of the fifties and sixties. And so he said, let's, let's go out and kind of find things that go against the conventional wisdom. Yeah. Kind of be, that was their kind of niche. And they were based in, you know, New York originally, then Indianapolis, and then we, I was in the DC Okay. Kind of arm. Well, it's funny not to interrupt, but my, uh, my blog, which I don't know if I've sent you, do I send you my newsletters as well? I do, yes. Yeah. So my blog is called The Loco Perspective. Yeah. And it's kind of like the crazy perspective a little bit. Yeah. Or the underdeveloped perspective. Yeah. And sometimes I just write about other things or whatever, but yeah, definitely very much so. I've tried to. Pick up the untouchable topics that nobody's talking about, but somebody should. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. And we like to focus not so much on left or right, right. But kinda what's missing from the equation. Right. Who's not talking about this that's important? Not doing it right, or what's not working and why. I try to get a little bit, so sorry to interrupt again, but the, like, when I think about education and civil society, like things haven't been going in a good direction for the last 20 years, so I guess your Hudson Institute, they should have done more of the things that you said that they should do. Or what's, what are we doing wrong? Yeah. Um, what have we done wrong? Yeah. It feels like an overreliance on testing, you know, teaching to the tests for like high schools and things like that has been a Yeah. A challenge. Yeah. Um. Yeah, you're right. I mean, we have enormous education challenges and I think we're, you know, for a country this wealthy and this successful, we are doing a, a poor job compared to what we should be doing. Yeah. In K to 12 education, I would say in higher education actually, where the envy of the world, there's a lot of problems there, including the cost and all sorts of stuff. Right. But still, I mean, in terms of the amount of options and some of the quality of the research and yeah. Et cetera, it, it's much better off. You know, I think that, um, one of the things is. You know, we've got this school system where we've really standardized so much of it, it's a kind of a factory model. Mm-hmm. You know, in including we're, and kids are all different. And kids are all different. Yeah. And, and so, and that, we'll come back to that later if we want to talk about the online education startup. We're trying to solve that issue. Okay. But I think this kind of assembly line where you, for efficiency reasons and kind of management and bureaucracy, we're gonna make things with the school district. And the school district's gonna have a standard curriculum and it's gonna have standard policies and the schools are gonna do this. And if you're a gifted and talented kid, then you can take these specific classes, but Yeah. Yeah. And then we're also, we're still, we're still on the agrarian calendar in our schools. Yeah. You think about it. Yeah. And so, uh, and then in terms of, you know, not using technology very well. Uh, and not really reaching students and, you know, finding a way in, in the way we train teachers and whatnot. Teacher pay, we, you know, compare, you know, Finland, if you're a teacher in Finland, they pay them. You know, Kurt, you mentioned the other day. Yeah. You know, you've got an exchange student from Finland have two more days. Yeah, yeah. Then they've got, they're famous for, it's very prestigious and they pay them real money and over here it's, you know, almost hard to make a living wage for a lot of teachers. Yeah. At least entry level. Yeah, exactly. Um, so, um, so real issues. Well, and like the really good teachers, it's really hard to separate them from the mediocre teachers. It seems like they just kind of Yeah. You know, you, you get paid more for being there longer, but there is very little merit related to it, except for how much Yeah. The principal likes you. That's right. Yeah. And, and the career path is bizarre. It's, you know, if you're a really good teacher, they wanna pull you into administration. Right. And for some people they wanna do that, and it's a big raise and response. Sure. But for a lot of people's, no, I, I, I, I want to teach. Right? And I can be a master teaching. And, and so it's this very odd system. And so within the think tank. The foundation startup that came out of it. We ended up looking a lot at Gooder school choice. Mm-hmm. As one mechanism to kind of disrupt and bring some innovation and experimentation in there. And so we got a big grant from the Pew Charitable Trust to study charter schools, and it was the largest study of public charter schools at the time. Oh wow. And so we went around and we surveyed thousands of students, teachers, parents of charter schools, and we went around and we did a hundred site visits around the country and we interviewed the principals and teachers and the founders of charter schools. And we did the largest study of charter schools at the time. And, and that was my first book that I co-authored is Charter Schools in Action Renewing Public Education. Oh, interesting. Uh, that came out in the year 2000. So that was probably a significant mover of that, um, industry, if not like a big one. You know, I sure it's this and that, but charter schools have what probably. Three times, four times as many students as they had 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. If not way more than that. They've grown. Yeah. Grown tremendously. And back then it was a little bit more of an unknown. Right. More of the wild west. And so there wasn't a lot of visibility. And so we did this big national study. Hmm. And we're able to look at, um, things like student outcomes and governance and teacher quality and, and finances and the buildings. Sure. And, you know, shed some early light on it, including some of the issues that, you know, they're still struggling with. How do you handle all that data? Like, how do you get your arms around it if you're, if you're serving a thousand charter schools and 10,000 people that work at charter schools? Yeah. Well, you know, we had a team, there were four of us initially on the study, and then three of us co-authored the book. We got some help from some researchers at another think tank to kind of, uh, comb through some of the early data Yeah. And using technology as well. Mm-hmm. But it was, it was a big, it was a massive, massive, mostly it was just a lot of work. It was a lot of work and, and it was basically a bunch of individual reports over years and then the book. So we kind of gradually, it wasn't kind of like a year and we gotta get the book out. Oh, interesting. Yeah. We were able to kind of follow this over multi-year, can see a trend there. Yeah. Project. Yeah. So it's fascinating. But out of the think tank, there's this opportunity that someone passed away in a small foundation in Dayton, Ohio. Okay. Which, which coincidentally, I went to junior high school near there. Okay. And so I, I was in DC but I had this kinda random connection. And, and so all of a sudden$40 million of assets transferred into this foundation. Oh. And they basically said, we want to do it towards K to 12 education. And other than that, and then my boss at the think tank Yeah. Um, you know, nominated you for that. Basically said, Hey Greg, do you want to help me build this foundation from scratch? Oh, wow. So it was a startup foundation. Yeah. So we had a couple million, well we had 40 million though. Yeah. So that was nice. Yeah. So an annual budget of a couple million dollars. Yep, yep, yep. And so we had to staff it up and what are we gonna do? Yeah. Write the budget, build a website, hire people, you know, and, and build it up. And, and so we said, let's do one half think tank, one half action tank. So we can actually take some of the stuff we've been researching. Yeah. And we could implement some of the stuff. Study. Yeah. That's a little bit like the, uh. Kind of commercialization of technology that universities are increasingly focused on when they come up with some cool stuff, like why not make some money on it? Yeah, exactly. Really interesting. Yeah. So, um, and then you do coaching as well. Your clients, are they the CEOs of organizations or director levels and things like that? Depends. Yeah, no, actually, so, so in my work, I, I cross personal development and leadership. And so for my, for my coaching, I like to focus on people in transitions in their life. Okay. And I, so I do, I do what's called integrated coaching. Okay. And, and so I like to connect. So a lot of people come, come to me and they'll say, Hey, I'm thinking about changing jobs and I need some help or whatnot. And I say, okay, well there's people out there who do that, but if you're gonna work with me, we're gonna back up and we're gonna get to know you as a human being and your values and your strengths and your passions and where you come from and whatnot. And we're gonna think about, you know, what you've done and what you liked, and what went well, and what didn't go well, and whatnot. And we're gonna put that. Deep dive perspective and then we're gonna kind of use some of the principles of design thinking and kinda lean startup innovation methods. Yeah. To play around with some possible futures. So connect the personal and the professional basically. That sounds a little bit like that life entrepreneur book that you were talking about. Yeah, very much. Um, kind of designing. The life that you want and, and doing it like a business plan. Yeah. You know, here's my personal business plan. Yeah. Or my personal plan. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and so that book very much followed kind of, almost like a, the flow of it was almost like a strategic plan of your life. Mm-hmm. Although in retrospect, I've come to, you know, I've, I've been involved in a scale up tech company and, you know, I've, I've learned a lot about business modeling and I taught business modeling, uh, in Sweden. And so I really come to think of it more of kind of like, I, I like the more like the business model canvas and the lean canvas. Yeah. Now, now that it's much more known as a metaphor as opposed to a business plan. Right. Because I agree with Steve Blank. He said that his business plans for when there's enough uncertainty and complexity, they can kinda lock you in. Yeah. Prematurely. Yeah. Yeah. So you want that flexibility of a tool, like a one page canvas. Yeah, yeah. A loose tool. Yeah. Update it every month or every three months if you want to as Yeah. Yeah. And it's. New doors might open. Yeah. And then you're in the build measure, learn feedback loop. You're experimenting and then you're learning what's working, what's not. Yeah. Yeah. And you revise. Yeah, I dig it. Yeah. Um, how about the civil society part? Yeah. Like we're an interesting, you know, you mentioned the center Right Think tank and we're in MAGA country now for the second time, which is, you know, it's kind of funny when you think back to like how much disdain Trump had from Republican party leadership when he came into the field in 2015 or whatever. Yeah. And, uh, I wrote one of my blogs that Bill Clinton kind of talked him into it'cause he thought he would be a bold in the China shop kind of deal. And uh, and then, you know, he kind of beat him. Mm-hmm. And then the Democratic Party kind of got so. Crazy, uh, trying to beat him, that they kind of torn themselves apart almost, it feels like. Yeah. Well there's disdain across. Yeah. Both. So much disdain, almost disgusted. Yeah, there is, yeah. And, and to me, you know, I gotta say, just as an American who's also lived abroad, I'm really concerned about that, that kind of the social fabric and the, the yeah. The breakdown in trust and, and I think for me, you know, personally, um, living. Abroad for 10 years, including the time when Trump, you know, came to power initially first and whatnot time. Yeah, yeah. And, and looking back at, at my country and seeing and, and actually, so, so we lived in Sweden. My wife is Swedish. Okay. And our daughters were born here in Colorado. And they were three in one when we moved over there. Okay. And then we were there for 10 years and then we came back. Yeah. Yeah. Five, six years ago. Oh, that's a neat time for them to be able to experience. Yeah. It was really wonderful. All sorts of experiences with the family there and a farm and the countryside and very, very healthy. But Sweden, I would say generally is a very high trust society. Yeah. Where now, of course it's much smaller and you got 10, 11 million people. Yeah. So it's much, you know, it's like one and a half states on average. Right. In the United States. Well, like Finland and Colorado are about the same. Yeah, almost the same size and about the same population, exactly 5 million or so in Sweden spice. So it's much more manageable in that sense versus what, 333 million here, this kind of thing. And, and also it, it's, well, he, hell, in Sweden, if you've got blonde hair, blue eyes raise your hand. And like 80% of people are like, it's more homogenous that way. But they've, they've had big wave of refugees True. That they've taken in. Yeah. So Sweden and Germany were the big, you know, uh, accepters of acceptors of refugees, Syrians, Syrias, especially Afghans and Syrians and a lot of Kurds, just a lot of people all over Lebanon, you know, Iraq, Iran. So, and, and so that's, that's changed the society. It's much more diverse and it's put strains on the social fabric. Sure. But still, it's, it's a high trust society. Yeah. And, and so here, you know, the division and the disdain, I think, you know, it's really, to me it's really poisoning the well. And, uh, it, it's really hard to get that back. And so, you know, I appreciate people who are open to different points of points of view. Yeah. And my views have changed a lot o over time. And um, you know, I think I just, we need to come back because at the end of the day, we have so many shared values and so many common things, but it's like we're on opposite teams and we're just, you know, we're just, well, and trust is the lubricant of society besides Yeah, that's right. You know, everything is just easier if you trust the person that you're doing business with. Yeah. That's right. Or the doctor that's giving you a prescription or whatever. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's right. Investing in that I think would be useful for sure. Yeah. Um, so let's talk to your experience in Sweden. Mm-hmm. Um, you were, what did you say, the inno innovative something something something. What was your kind of first role there? Yeah. So when we moved to Sweden, yeah. Uh, I ended up teaching entrepreneurship for, so I was based at the Royal Institute of Technology. Oh, there I heard it. Yeah. Which is like the MIT of Sweden, basically. Okay. Okay, cool. And, but it was the Royal Institute, Kurt. So my boss's boss's, boss's boss's boss was the king of Sweden, basically. Oh really? Uh, I say that joke. He was never on campus or anything like that, but you know, it is And is the king of Sweden, um, got power in Sweden. It. It's more ceremonial. More ceremonial. Yeah. Figure figurehead. There's a royal family there and it's more, I more similar, the tabloids UK, whatever. Yeah. Stuff. Yeah. I mean they're, they, they do a lot of charitable stuff. Sure. A lot of civil society stuff. Yep. Is basically mostly what they do. It's mostly a formality, but, so I was based there at the technical university, but within the Department of Economics and Management or Industrial Economics and Management. But I was working for a consortium of five different universities. Hmm. So I was teaching applied entrepreneurship to students from our technical school. Yep. The business school, the medical university. Oh, interesting. Which is very prestigious. The Stockholm University, the city university. Okay. And then the design school. Oh, interesting. And so it was really cool. And then I was teaching in English because my Swedish isn't goodness. So I'd have a lot of exchange students Oh wow. From all over the world. Yeah. Yeah. And so I had, I had large classes, so literally all over the world. Tons from Asia, Africa, you know, you name it, not as many from North and South America, but you know, all over Europe obviously. But so to bring people together, so we had lawyers and architects Sure. And designers and you know, people of fashion. Yeah. Yeah. And, but they're there. And I was teaching applied entrepreneurship. So one of the classes was ideation. So coming up with innovative new venture ideas. So of course they have to do a group project and they have to together come up with something Yeah. And then do an elevator pitch and write a, not a business plan, but a kind of, a kind of case, least a case about it. Yeah. And I was teaching business model innovation and, and then I was also teaching, uh, leadership over there to Swedish executive MBA students. Hmm. So most of what I was doing over there, you know, finishing the Triple Crown leadership book and, and then teaching, and then I did some side speaking in Europe and Asia and kind of some side projects. Yeah. One of the phrases I like, uh, and I don't even remember the, the Source, some old newsletter I used to read, but kind of the foundation of all economics is, comes down to two words, add value. Mm. And. I think that's true. But when you think about applied entrepreneurship, you know it's adding value, but it's adding value in a way that you've got some competitive advantage. Yeah. Right. Like, it, it's not just add value.'cause then you're a, you can dig ditches and add value, but Right. May or may not get hired. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so I would encourage my students, and this was hard'cause I mean, innovation is hard, but, uh, so we looked at what are the key aspects of entrepreneurship? Well, one of the things, I mean, the very word entrepreneur means one who undertakes like a project. Oh, interesting. One who takes action. That's what the French word means. Right. So it, it's like the acting person is a good way to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. So you can't be one of those people who's like, thinking around too much. Yeah. You're just a big ideas guy on and make stuff happen. You gotta put stuff out there, you gotta ship product, you know? Right. Mm-hmm. So that's one thing. Um, you've gotta generate value to your point, but you also have to find a way to capture value, right. So that it's sustainable business model. And ideally you want to innovate too. You want to do things differently that are adding value, right? And so that, that tends to be part of, you know, the entrepreneurship equation as opposed to just so, and that's, you know, difficult to do and it's, it's a high standard, one of the, and then you gotta be resourceful, you gotta marshal resources creatively, et cetera. One of the things that's been interesting is the number of, um, different businesses that have, I guess, sprung forth from the shared economy kind of element. You know, I guess it was Uber first, right? Or maybe it was VRBO even kind of first, right? And then Airbnb came along and Uber and ride share services. But there's also now, you know, heavy construction equipment leasing on a shared model and just all kinds of different things. Yeah. So like applying that. Innovation to a number of different industries has been a spark that created a, a, at least a somewhat sustainable company a few times now. Yeah. Is there other things, you know, AI put AI on it and turn it into a business. Is that, is that, is that part of the model these days? I think it is these days. I mean, it's incredible. It's like in the pace better than c, b, D, you know, five years ago, put CCB D on it. I love it. Yeah. Cure all your ills. It's completely changing. I think the, the game for entrepreneurs, but also for entrepreneurship education where you have chat GBT and questions. Sure. You're supposed to come up with ideas, but, and then, but, but really what you want do is come up with five good ideas for me. Exactly. Yeah. And then so. Part of my teaching was that applied entrepreneurship. Another part I, we'd also get students in an entrepreneurship and innovation maggea program, which is a one year master's. And a bunch of them were interested in corporate innovation. Hmm. And so they didn't want to go out and start their own companies entrepreneurship more, they wanted to be the intrapreneurs, the inside entrepreneurs. And so we tried to teach in ways that was relevant to both the kind of Sure. Early stage startup or the corporate. And, and, and a lot of the principles do apply. Yeah. Um, and, and you don't, and a bunch of them are gonna actually end up going to work for a management consulting or a bank, but maybe they can be part of a skunk works. Sure. Or Mavericks. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really hard too, to innovate within the bureaucracy and the complexity. Well, that's what I was just thinking about. If you look at like big trends over time, you know, startups happen. Some of them grow slow, some of them grow fast and become middle market, and then typically get acquired by some other bigger company and then. Then their pace of job crea, job creation kind of slows and eventually goes down. Yeah. You know, big companies aren't Yeah. Really big job creators. It's little companies. Right. Um, and so if you could bring that sense of entrepreneurship to. Uh, big companies, you know, maybe they can continue to create new jobs'cause they create new things to do. That's right. I mean, we would look at the work of Clayton Christensen on disruptive innovation. Mm-hmm. And how many companies that were the market leader ended up getting surprised and out competed. Yeah. By somebody, you know, Kodak invented the digital cameras, you know, and all sorts of blockbuster, you go down the list. Netflix was originally the disruptor and then got disrupted, right. And started to disrupt again. So you go through this disruptive innovation graveyard. So you gotta really keep innovating and keep looking, you know, at the horizon. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, really difficult. But I was kind of on the front end, I mean, of this, you know, the Stockholm has a really great. Startup ecosystem. Okay. They've had some, you know, it's, it's a small country, but they punch way above their weight. They've got Spotify, they've got Klarna. Yeah. Yeah. They've got all sorts of, uh, interesting things. Skype was a Danish Swedish thing, you know, a, a bunch of really exciting ventures. And so I would get the students who would take the first entrepreneurship class and then like continue on to the late I and I would teach the early ones. And then many of them would go on to like the incubators or the accelerators or other classes. Yeah. Or they'd go on to start. So it was kind of fun to get them early. Yeah. People were kind of entrepreneurship, curious. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And kind of get them excited about it, but also with our life entrepreneurs model.'cause this is not just something that you can think about with your professional career, but it's a whole kind of a mindset or a way of life too. Well, and when you think about like, I mean, I'm sure you've met, you know, dozens of business people over the years and things, and a lot of the most successful people. A, they have a multi-tiered career. You know, do a little of this and different things and stuff. But also they have a multi-tiered asset foundation. Yeah. You know, it, it was like when I was growing up and I guess not that different in age from you, I'm probably a little older, but there was a lot of, you know, the stock market was kicking butt and so it was just kind of like, you know, get the 401k match, match it fully and then when you retire you'll be good. Yeah. Um, but really a lot more people are invested in real estate or different kind of alternative investments, even equity. Mm-hmm. And startups and small companies. And I think that seems more fun. Yeah. You know, than just relying on BlackRock to manage my, or Vanguard to manage my 401k Good. Yeah, exactly. And the stock market to continue to go up forever. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The fun side, the adventure side. And you know, for me. Teaching, uh, entrepreneurship was also cool because I had this background doing a scale up Yeah. Where I was brought in by an entrepreneur, um, who, um, was connected with a large education, col conglomerate private equity that was investing in education ventures from pre-K all the way to adult education. And I had this background in K to 12 education and ed reform and think, think tank and startup foundation and charter schools, which are a form of entrepreneurial innovation within public education. Yep. So I got hired out of my second master's degree, I did an MBA as well. And right out of that I got hired. Beginning stage, like, you know, we were like, buy tables and you know, there were like five of us, right? Right. But there was a founder. Okay. And I was part of the senior management team. All right. And he said, let's disrupt online education, because back then it was a bunch of mom and pops doing online schools. Mm. And he said, let's go raise a boatload of money. Mm. He's had these connections with this, uh, private equity and Goldman and McKinsey and all these big, big money people. And we're gonna scale up a world class online education venture and do it at scale in the United States. Hmm. Through. Different business lines, but one of which was virtual charter schools. Oh, interesting. So instead of doing a brick and mortar charter school where the kid, instead of going to their neighborhood, public or private school Sure. They go to a neighborhood physical charter school. We say, let's do a virtual Yeah. Charter school. And you're, you're more deregulated Sure. To be innovative school of choice. Yeah. And so instead of it being locally based, we'd get a statewide charter to do. Our first one was the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School, and then we, our second one was the Colorado Virtual Academy. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And then we went, you know, trying to get 50 states and that was my business line that I led for the company. Okay. That brought me in to run. And then we had a homeschooling line and a supplemental education line. Oh wow. And is that still. There? Or did they Yeah. So did they have an exit or something? So the company, uh, is still going, uh, it's rebranded now. It used to be, well, when I first started we were called Premier School. Then very quickly we changed to K12 Incorporated. Okay. K12 Inc. Yep. And that was a great URL we were k12.com. Right. So it was perfect. Yeah. In the education space. Yeah. But now, uh, they've changed their name and, uh, they, so I was with them for the first four years. Okay. Uh, pre IPO. And that was kind of where you got your chops to get this job in Stockholm, kind of, yeah. A little bit. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, and then, uh, subsequently they. iPod. Yep. And then they're a billion dollar plus, uh, publicly traded company now. Okay. And then they're serving families, I think in more than 80 countries, I believe. Um, and now they're called Stride is their new name. Oh. And I've Oh, I've heard of that. Okay. Yeah, and I, it's long. It's been a long time, so, yeah. No affiliations. But it was, it was, it was fun. It was I'm sure incredible coming outta business school for me to go. And we became the market leader very quickly. Yeah. We went from zero to like.$65 million in sales in like four years, I think. Awesome. We had hun hundreds of employees in four years. Wow. And we almost ran outta cash, you know, like three times. Yeah, exactly. This is like drinking out of a fire hose. Yeah. Bet. It was like, crisis opportunity. Fly here, do a deal. What are we doing? How are we working? Hire more people. Can't hire them fast enough. Where was the founder from? Like what was his background? Yeah, so he was, uh, this, uh, previous, uh, management consultant. Okay. In investment banking. And he was wired in with some big money. Yeah. Uh, like billionaire money. Yeah. Yeah. So, and real brilliant. He was just looking for that home run ball. Visionary kinda, yeah. Visionary. Looking for like a big, bold bet. Yeah. Yeah. And it was helpful'cause we had big money behind us initially. And then of course, you know, as we, as we grew, we had to bring in other funders and this kind of thing. Sure. Yeah. I wasn't, I wasn't on the, I mean, I contributed to our decks and stuff, but I was like. Go out and scale the virtual charter thing as quickly as possible. Okay. So I was like, and did that include like building the program and stuff too then? So like the content that you were training these kids, or where did that come from? No. No. So we, we hired, uh, they did a great job of, uh, hiring, you know, really good people. So we had World, world-class curriculum. Folks. Developers. Yeah. Teachers, instructional designers, assessment experts, interesting. User experience people, and then of course the business people, you know Sure. And whatnot. And then I was this charter school guy, think tank guy who knew about that whole thing, which seemed like it might be a good opportunity for us. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I wasn't involved in the development of the lessons or the assessments, but, but they brought in really primo it people's all work. Yeah. And it, the, the quality of it was, was awesome. It was, it was great. Have you seen, uh, are you familiar with Jordan Peterson? I'm sure you've at least heard of him. Mm-hmm. He's got that Peterson University. Have you learned about that at all? No, I don't. So he's got, it's all videos, you know, but courses from, you know, Harvard professors and different things that he's assembled, but it's, I think they just dropped the price to 3 99 a year. Mm-hmm. To have all of it. Yeah. And, uh, they've got like 50,000 people signed up. Yeah. It's incredible. And it's like incredible. A classic liberal arts education with it's incredible premier professors and stuff and talk about disruption, higher education. I'm sure. Like Harvard's like, like stop that shit, dude. Yeah, exactly. And that's been happening for a while with Coursera and all these free courses where you can take MIT Harvard. Totally. You know, Oxford, you know, you go around the world. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So it's an interesting, uh, yeah, they just, I think they just said they dropped the price from 5 9 9 to 3 9 9'cause they got so much volume that they don't need to charge that much anymore. Yeah, yeah. But but this venture, so this was back in 2000 when we started this. Yeah. And um, so the idea, our founder said he had kids and one of his kids was struggling with math and back then you go online and you say math help, whatever. Yeah. And you'd get a bunch of stuff, but it was just wild west. Sure. Some of it was good, some of it was just terrible. Right. And he's like, well, how do you curate this? How do you know what's good? And he said, well, huh. What if we could do world class education and basically, um, take away the problem in this country of your quality of education depends on your zip code. Right? If you live in a nice school district Yep. Good education, good teachers. Yep. But in a lot of, if you're in Baltimore, smaller towns, not so much inner city, you know, lack of access to, you know, a job pool of quality educators to teach calculus or to teach foreign languages or whatnot. And so we could bring world class regardless of where you are. So that was, it was kind of a social mission. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But also a big bet scale and you know. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it was a lot of fun. And it was, yeah. You know, opened the door to Sweden. Yeah. Was that like a dream of yours with your wife before to, to go live in Sweden for a season? You said she was from there. And how did you find her? Yeah. My wife and I, uh, so Christina and I met in upstate New York. Okay. We were both working, uh, as camp counselors at A-Y-M-C-A conference center. I like it. And so here in Colorado we have the YMCA of the Adirondacks. Yeah. Or sorry. Oh, the Rockies. The Rockies, yeah. Up there they have the YMC of the Adirondacks. Sure. Up in the Finger Lakes of York. Oh. Upstate New York. I've, that's amazing. I've never been, but it's beautiful. It's really incredible. Yeah. And so, you know, I was working with the, uh, the monster teenagers, you know, going camping on the weekends and, you know, playing kickball and doing all this stuff. Capture the flag. I like it. And she had the little babies, uh, and that was, it was her job. And, uh, so we met, uh, we dated over the summer and uh, and then she went back to Sweden and we're dating long distance. Oh, wow. And some back and forth. Broke up and you were, and got back together. And 19 years old or something like this? Early twenties. At that point I was early twenties. Yeah. And I had, uh, let's see, finished the London Master's degree. And then, uh, yeah, I came back and was just doing a summer job with my best friends. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, yeah. And then so my Swedish wife and I eventually we got engaged and started a family and we said, well, you know, I'm American and she's Swedish, and if we're gonna and raise a family, we wanna honor both our Swedish and our American Sure. And raise them bilingually and give them experiences of both. And are you, uh. Good in Swedish. Now, I can't say I'm good. I can say that I better than I was. I can understand, uh, most of it and follow most things and read newspapers and, you know, whatever, but, but I, uh, I was teaching in English over there Yeah. And writing the book and busy raising. And so I, you know, and then my wife is just good with languages. Christina, she's just got the ear for it. She lived in Germany and she can do Spanish and German. Wow. A lot of Europeans are, yep. We, Americans don't prioritize that as much. We don't need to. Right. We've got this huge country and I just, I don't, I'm not particularly gifted in that, so I'm, I'm, I'm okay. I can, I can awkwardly, you know, you know, I'm conversational, but certainly not fluent. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, I was thinking about the, the, I'm sorry to scroll chase on you a little bit, but the, the ethics part of that, you know, excellent, ethical and enduring. I don't know if you come from a, like a faith background, but what, what is ethical is such an interesting question. I'm in the Rotary Club and we have the four-way test. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but the, so the other, the things, so tell me the four of the things we think, say and do. Mm-hmm. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships and will it be beneficial to all concerned? Mm. And that's kind of like, because it's a non-political, non-religious organization by charter. Yeah. But they want it to be an ethical organization. Yeah. Like that's kind of the test that they adopted. Yeah. Um. But how did, like, depending on your view, even of, of God and the 10 Commandments or of like, I'm kind of a libertarian, so just'cause the government tells me to do something doesn't mean I should. Yeah. Uh, but for some people they're like, well, but that's the law. Yeah. I'm like, well, but it's not even an ethical law because the speed limit is too low for that road. Like they shouldn't be harvesting tickets there. That's unethical. Yeah. Um, what would you say to that? Yeah, so I would say that I'm a person of faith too. I'm a Christian as well as is my father. Although my growing up was very, um, secular. My, my, uh, parents are refugees from the Catholic church and Okay. Came back to it. And so it wasn't part of my growing up. Um, I can't say that the. Our, my Christian faith and our Christian faith specifically informed the ethical piece of the book. Yeah. You know, and back then we're at a different stage in our journey and it, but it was much more so we define ethical as, as very simply. We like to kind of break things down very simply for practitioners, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so in the book we, we said doing the right thing, even when it's costly or hard. Hmm. And then of course, then there's debates about what's the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, I do a lot of teaching of leadership, so we get into different ethical theories and frameworks and we get into, well, it's almost a proof of God, right? Yeah. Like the fact that most people have a pretty strong Yeah. Understanding of what the right thing is. Right. Regardless of their, yeah. Ethnic background or cultural background or whatever. Yeah. Mostly the right thing is pretty well agreed to. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And so just to, just to get more specific, you know, so the kinds of things we're talking about in that chapter or in that section are things like being honest, telling the truth. Yeah. You know, demonstrating character through behaviors of extending trust and being trustworthy, doing what you said you would do, you know, uh, so, uh, you know, following up on things, you know, and so you're earning credibility, which is a function of character and competence. And so, and you know, I've subsequently seen Jacuzzis and Posner have the leadership challenge. Yeah, yeah. They do the survey of people around the world for decades, you know? Yeah, yeah. You've got a huge data set and they say, what do you want in a manager? What do you look for? Yeah. In terms of who you would willingly follow. Yeah. The number one finding. Uh, uh, you know, over time, decades is honesty is the most important thing by far. It's like 80% and then it drops down to the sixties, and then it goes down from there. Wow. So people most want, and, and if you're not honest with people, then you're gonna very quickly destroy trust and credibility, and it's gonna. And, and things changed dramatically. So that, I think that's a powerful finding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, makes sense. Yeah. Um, where did we leave off? We were in Sweden. We were in Sweden. And, uh, yeah, so, and so, I, I don't think I really answered your question. Was kind of like the, tell me about the Swedish chapter of your life, I think is essentially nutshell, well, you kind of answered it like you wanted to have that opportunity for your kids to have a, a shared experience culturally wise. Yeah. And were they or your, or Christina resistant to come back to the States when it was time, or, or were you Yeah. It was hard, I think, uh, in many ways. So taking a 13-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl Yeah. And saying, okay, you've grown up here in Sweden. You've gone to Swedish schools. Yeah. You must leave all your friends Swedish with your Swedish friends. And now that you're a teenager or a pre, you know, you know, uh. You know, we're gonna move across an ocean to a place that you've only visited, you know, once a year for Christmas. Yeah. Or summers or whatnot where, you know, grandma and grandpa and you know, the, you know, aunts and uncles. But it was brutally hard, um, I think for, for all of us, uh, but especially, you know, for the girls. Yeah. Um, yeah, I remember when I was 13 it was not easy being, you know that. Right. And, uh, so I subsequently learned that our, our oldest daughter, um, she didn't say this to me and I'm not sure when she said it to, to Christina, but she just couldn't imagine. Surviving the move. Gosh, my, my gosh. She was just like, just, uh, like, how is this possibly I'm gonna die. Yeah. Like, I just, yeah. Like panic, fear, just no clarity or whatnot. Mm-hmm. Super hard. Yeah. Wow. And, and then, and it, it is really hard. I mean, I moved around a ton and I think I underestimated how hard it would be to move to another country and also that phase of life. It's one thing to study in London for grad school for a year. Right. It's another thing to go live for 10 years and build a new life for a family and have to make all new friends and work connections. So really, really hard. But the fact that they survived it and ended up doing well in school. Yeah. Um, huge character development thing. Huge confidence booster. Yeah. Uh, even though it's still hard in many ways, I think. And, and then of course, did you guys do back at all? Yeah, we pretty regularly. Yeah. So I still teach. I go over there, they fly me out to teach for a week. Okay. At the business school. Yeah. And then we go back every summer as well for the social stuff. Cool. Um, and, uh. Um, so, and, but we also moved back and then the pandemic hit, and so it's like, go make friends as a 13. You know, it's hard enough in the world for everybody, but if you just moved somewhere from a foreign country and it's like, okay, now we're gonna do school. Well, in Sweden was terrible because they didn't like shut down like they were supposed to Enough. Very different. Yeah, very different. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the girls weren't paying attention to that. Right. But that was, it was really hard move for everybody. But, uh, but it, I think it's really good, you know, you, you know, you have this exchange student Yeah. And, you know, you're, you're bringing people into your, your family and your life. And that's, it's wonderful, but it's not easy. Like there's cultural disconnections and just having, you know, and just like bumping up against different worldviews and different languages, like, and people, sometimes you can't translate something, there's no, there's no way to think about it or say it in that context of a culture. So it's really interesting. That's, uh, one of the things that Lenny told me a few weeks back, which was pretty interesting, is like, in Finland, he's like. Very charismatic and he is always got the right, clever thing to say. Yeah. And you know, has a more friends than he knows what to do with. Yeah. Here, like even though he's got pretty good English, it isn't deep English. Yeah. You know, it's superficial and so he just doesn't have that same confidence of being like Yeah. A charismatic, you know, draw a bunch of friends kind of guy. Exactly. And like what that can do. You know? I think it's probably better for him because he's kind of had life too easy for too long and so having a little bit of test of resilience is probably good. Yeah. But I never really thought about how, how, I guess maybe almost, not quite emasculating, but kind of, you know, I've been always a. Awesome at this, and now I'm not. Yeah. Really challenging, you know? Yeah. Really, it, it gave me a new appreciation for people who are multilingual or people who are operating in a new culture country. Sure. Um, so for example, you know, our daughters came over here. Now we have a bilingual home and always have, so I've generally spoken English to the girls and my wife generally speaks swish. That's right. That's the way we just kind of, we understand and we go, we bounce back and forth. It's ska or glish as they call it, you know? Yeah, yeah. But, uh, when they came here. Their heads were in Swedish. I mean, they had grown up, they hadn't had an English dream in forever. Forever. I mean, they were three in one when we left. They were for 10 years. Oh, dang. So, so they would hear the teacher speak in English, they would translate it to Swedish in their head. In Swedish. They would think about their response. Right. And then in their head they would translate that back to, and by that time it's like the conversation's moved on. Right, right. It's like, it's just kind of that 2% delay or whatever. It happens very quickly, but it's like layers of. You know, it makes it much more difficult to just spontaneously jump in. Yeah. Or to make friends, or to be your personality Yeah. And these kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah. And boy, I can relate to that. Just trying to communicate, you know, because I love to communicate and write and yeah. Brilliant. Trust me, it's really important in English. I'm amazing. I mean, as a writer, I, it's important to me to say something the way I wanna say it, like clearly and concisely so that we're not misunderstanding, you know, but to try to fumble through that in Swedish, you know, if it's not a gift for you, it's, that's interesting. It's frustrating. Yeah. Would you like to play the, uh, book giveaway game? Absolutely. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah. So this is, uh, the gift for today is the Triple Crown leadership book from Bob and Greg Van Vanek Vanek. Yes. And, uh, so we have this amazing bowl full of p pong balls. Alright. And so you're gonna grab three of those out of there. Okay. And you can grab all three if you want. And we'll go through one. We go, alright, we got 12. This is my lucky number. That was my soccer number growing up. Right? I like it. 1229 and 26. Oh, oh, let's see what those are, Kurt. All right. 12 right here. That's a fun one. And we'll choose our, my, our favorite answer of these. And then when somebody writes'em, we'll give'em the book. Alright. Great. So 12. Uh, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? About business? Hmm. About business? Yeah. I'd have to say that it comes from my father, not surprisingly, perhaps not surprised. I had this front row seat to watching my dad's business career Yeah. And leadership and all this. And going to the office, meeting colleagues, going to the company picnic. And, you know, I was initially, um, skeptical about business, uh, and, uh, thought I, I thought I wanted to be in public policy and government and po I had a whole mm-hmm. Uh, part of my career in that. Um, but, but he, he told me, he said, Greg business is a set of relationships. Like what, what matters most is people that you work with. And so what he meant by that was be a good colleague. Support people, get to know them. And he really made an effort to get to know people even though he was a hard driven Type A Yeah. High achiever, Harvard Business School competitive dude. Right. Sure. He had really had to mellow out and, you know, I really have to say that it was cool over the years,'cause I'd made a bunch of his colleagues at the picnic or at the office or the cafeteria, we'd have lunch and then over the years people would stay in touch with him. Mm-hmm. And I would talk to some of them and they would say. It was incredible to be part of a team where we cared about each other. We worked so hard. We, we, we, you know, it was like a family. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like a highlight of their career and it was a highlight of their life. Yeah. And they were just so grateful to have a leader like that and, and a team like that. And so business is a set of relationships, and so I think, wow. It's just, well, I think what's interesting is that it's kind of a contrast to the way academia works sometimes too. Mm-hmm. Like because they're like, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like they're a bunch of back stabbers a lot of times and they're trying to get their own credibility and their own research paper and Yes. You know, if they burn up this grad student grading papers and suffering through for my benefit, well it's'cause I'm awesome and you should do that. Yes, that's right. Yeah. The politics there. Also the arrogance sometimes, right? Because you're so brilliant in one thing that you just assume you know, whatever, and, uh, and that sometimes you're a little too cerebral for your own good. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a big, I worked at a think tank and here we are at Loca. I'm a big believer in like the power of head and heart. But it's like, but you also have to have that relationship and don't forget about connecting with students to Yeah, yeah. To invite them into the subject so that they care about it, they, they see the relevance of it. Yeah. Don't just be lost in the academic paper and what, in the publishing. And that you're losing the connection with industry in the real world and the students. I like that. Yeah. Um, 26 and 29, is that right? Should we go in order of number or you tell me. Tell me. You take us, you take us where you want to go. Um. Describe your first kiss. Okay, so let's see. Oakwood, Ohio, the lumberjacks. I was in junior high school. Okay. And was the new kid in town. Had moved from ca from Southern California. I grew up. Okay. And, uh, you know, I talked, we talked earlier about the awkwardness of being a teenager and whatnot. Sure. My hair was just moppy and the braces and everything. I, I mean, I did get a little bit of cache about being the new kid from California. So that was positive. You were kind of. And some little bit cool is positive and negative. There was some brutal stuff going on with people, you know, not being nice to Sure. But I, I ended up meeting some good friends. But anyway, there was a cheerleader, uh, and I, I was a soccer player. I got in a band, I played the guitar. Alright. And, and so I had my first kiss with the cheerleader. Okay. And, you know, she was cute and it was all exciting. I was all nervous and, uh, I was terrible at it. And it was just, you know, it was like so awkward and it was like, we, we shall never talk of this again kind of thing. Didn't date or anything like that. We didn't date or anything like, huh. I'm not sure I did that so well. I've got some stuff to learn here. So. Well, luckily Christina came along not too much later to teach the proper Christina came and it's probably, I'm probably not the only one who had that experience, so I don't know. So, um, and then what's your go-to way to unwind after a stressful day? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm a big believer that we need to unwind more and better. And so I like to read a lot. Okay. I like to, I'll go out on the deck and just be outside. Um, go for a walk. We have a couple dogs and three cats, so sometimes my wife and I will go for a walk and just talk about our day and talk about stuff. Maybe we need to vent a little bit, um, uh, reading and, uh, just kind of chilling. I like to do a little snuggle on the couch. Our younger daughter's more snuggle prone now than our older daughter, but just getting some good family time. Yeah, some good connectivity time. And then I, I like when I go to bed for a while now, I've been doing the kind of three things that I'm grateful for about the day, just as I'm lying in bed before I go to sleep. Nice. And it's just, it's been really nice. Yeah. And, and often like. Many more things come to me. Right. But at least three, it's gotta be three. Yeah. Even if you had a tough day, there's, there's still three in there. You got, you gotta do it. I think so. You know, but it's, it's cool. It's just puts you in a good spirit before you. One of my favorite, uh, quotes from my dad and when you mentioned sitting out on the deck or whatever, uh, I kind of imagine a guy in a rocking chair at an old farmhouse or whatever, but, uh, sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. And I don't know why that lie just really makes me smile. But, you know, just sitting Yeah. Sometimes. Exactly. And like taking a hike is kind of a way of just sitting. Yeah. You know, you're not thinking about this person's work performance or that email you got forgot to respond to for a week in a row now. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm a big fan of The Eagles and Don Henley. There's a song Learn to Be Still that just really hits me and I think, you know, if you and I operate in the world of entrepreneurs and leaders and ambitious people, and you've done a lot of exciting things and there's value in hard work, I love hard work and whatnot. Yeah. But we also need to learn to be still Yeah. Be able to get still and just be peaceful, serene. Yeah. In Swedish, you say Lu, just be calm and just calm and collective. Say just, you know, just be still. What's the, uh, the Swedish word for like adventure? You mentioned that a lot in your life. Entrepreneur thing. I think it's Avenir if I'm not mistaken. So it's pretty similar. Almost sounds the same. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I dig it. Well, the winner of the question, I think even though they're all fun, I think the, uh, business is a set of relationships. Yeah. From the, the, the vaunted. Bob VanEck, uh, is the right, uh, quote there. So, uh, text us DMS we'll get you a copy of this book. Excellent. And I'm gonna call it Break Potty Break. Yeah. And then we'll come back in for the rest of it. Let's do it. And we're back. So I wanted to zoom in on, uh. Your family a little bit more. Mm-hmm. You mentioned, uh, Christina, you know, met pretty early. Has she had her own career as well or has she been focused on raising the girls mostly? Yeah. She's had a career. Okay. So, um, and she's gone through some career changes too, like me. Sure. So she was, early on, she was doing, uh, graphics assisting for McKinsey and Company mm-hmm. Helping consultants with their decks. And she did some executive assistant work. She studied public relations here in the us. Okay. Uh, but then she, she grew up on a farm. She competed, uh, in equestrian growing up. Okay. Uh, competitively with a dressage and show jumping. Okay. And she loves horses and animals and she just has a knack for it. And so at one point she said, I'm thinking about going back to school to become a veterinary technician. Hmm. And, uh, and you're like, vet techs don't make nearly as much as you, they don't, they don't make nearly as much. Are you sure that, and she, you know, she was just all into it. Yeah. So she went back to school. Yeah. Here in Colorado with Be Ray became a certified tech and, you know, really intense schooling, big transition to kind of take that time off. Yeah. Early career and do that. Um, and, you know, all the learning, all the science and all that. Sure. And boy, his, she, she just thrives. She's great at what she does. Yeah. She's so good. Both with the animals, like reading the nervous dogs or the aggressive dogs Sure. Or the cats, but also the humans. Yeah. And going through all the stuff they do with surgeries and dentals and Yeah. Yeah. When putting the animals down and guiding the families through that. Yeah. Yeah. She's just amazing at it. Neat. And we also have dogs and she trains them and competes with them. Oh, wow. And so it's been in incred and then, you know, I didn't grow up with any pets. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, you know, allergic to dogs and cats, but, oh, is that right? I've overcome that. Oh. And, and love in just love. It's added so much to our family. Our girls love it. How do you overcome that? I just outgrew that. Oh, okay. And, uh, I was gonna say, you just rub yourself with dogs until you get over it. And, and then partly I think my diet has helped too, like, uh mm-hmm. And I didn't do this purposefully for that reason, but it's just, I think for whatever reasons, uh, that's manageable. But yeah, you just, you. Acclimate yourself. Sometimes I was able to, you know, my, my body was able to do that somehow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a test when we first got pets. Like, I don't know if this is gonna work. You know, our first pet is like, I need to breathe. So let's see. Really is very, is more important to me than this dog. Yeah. But it's been so fun. Oh, cool. So we love it. And we foster, we've fostered, I don't know, more than 60 or 70 cats. Oh my gosh. Some kittens over the years. Oh, wow. Just for like a month at a time. Oh, cool. You know, for, for a group. Yeah. That's pretty neat. It's super fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what kind of dogs? We have two hunting Labradors. Okay. So we've got Morrison and or Moog as we call'em. And we've got messy named after the soccer player. Nice. Nice. And so we've got a black hunting lab and then a white hunting lab. And they're, Christina has done an amazing job and so does she hunt with them then? So, yeah, she goes out on hunts. Yeah. And so she's not the one shooting, she's the one when the shot, it's, it's, mm-hmm. Often they do it with a dummy, but sometimes it's with live fo. Yeah. Yeah. They'll go out and, and she does this mostly in Sweden, but sometimes here too.'cause you know, we bring'em over in the, in the summer. Yeah. Summertime. Yep. But, you know, through the water, you know, very long distances directing, calling him back, different signals. It's, it's, uh, very impressive. So I guess guns are a little more allowed in Sweden. I, I meant, actually, I took Lenny shooting yesterday. He shot his first gun, so he shot a, a, oops. Greenheart Exchange says you're not supposed to do that, but hopefully they won't listen to this. But we shot a 22 and, uh, like a 2 23 rifle and then a shotgun. Okay. Which was the one that surprised him the most. But it's punch. Yeah. But it, but in Finland, like even though there's a one year mandatory military service Yeah. After high school, then they take your gun back and nobody's got guns. Okay. Uh, Sweden's a little bit more open, I guess, or, yeah. So I don't know about England's the kings. The king's people can shoot. Yeah. I wanna talk to the king. Everybody's my boss'. Boss boss, yeah. So, yeah. So, um, with hunting, um, it is allowed and it's just very, they, they do have very strict regulations about it, about getting access to it and how you store it and all these kinds of things, but Sure, yeah. They do have, you know. Okay. Yeah. I was curious because most of Europe is largely un gunned Yeah. At this point in time. And not that a double barrel shotgun's gonna do much to fend off your invasion or whatever. Right. So tell me about that young love, like why, even though she was across the pond mm-hmm. Uh, right after you got to know each other, kind of, why did you continue to pursue that long distance? Was it just that obvious that she was the girl for you or vice versa? Yeah, I would say that, um, I. You know, we had a, a great summer together. We were both, you know, counseling the kiddos and we had fun. We played music together. I played the guitar and she sang and we performed live a little bit. Mm, that's fun. Just had fun, you know, with our friends and going out and being part of that. I. Summer, but we would also go up hiking in the, the Adirondacks are incredible and the, the lakes, there's something almost spiritual about them. It's just this kind of incredible, and we'd just go up on the hikes and look over the beautiful scenery. We'd have these long talks and we just, we just really connected on a deeper level and just very quickly just. Got a sensely, we shared values and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and then we were just very open. It wasn't kind of, okay, we're definitely gonna, you know, but we were just, let's keep dating. Yeah. But this is really hard. And back then it was much harder. Right. Skype, we were literally writing letters and mailing them. Right.'cause phone calls were still, fricking phone calls were still$20 to have a short one. Skype. Skype wasn't, you know, blasting yet. Yep, yep. And, and, uh, and then we just kept fighting for it. And we'd have three months on a temporary visa and, you know, six months on in a school program and blah, blah, blah. And just back in visits and whatnot. And just kept, and, and we dated a little bit in, in interim, you know, period. Other people you mean, or whatever. Yeah. People, yeah. It wasn't totally exclusive the whole time. You're cool, but you're not nearly as Yeah, we just kind of cool as Christina. Yeah. And then it was like, no, no, this is definitely something. Yeah. And then we said, okay, we're gonna get really serious about it. And then she was able to get a transfer back then she was still with McKenzie. Mm-hmm. Not as a consultant, but she was the first. Uh, I think was it non consultant to get an international transfer like that. Oh, interesting. So she was able to be transferred over Yeah. While I was in grad school and we were still, you know, like 40 minutes away from each other. Yeah, yeah. But at least we're in the same country. Yeah, yeah. And live in the same state, so we're able to date properly. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, yeah. And then neat, here we are. Nice. I appreciate that tenacity. Yeah. In that pursuit. Yeah. Um, by both of you, it seems. Yeah. One of the, one of the fun things we do on this show is have a one word description for the children. Mm-hmm. In your case, one word for each of your two girls. Mm-hmm. And how old are they now? So we've got 18 and 16. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, are you willing to attempt that, uh, challenge? Yeah. So, uh, that's a really interesting one word. Well, you can expand beyond that after. Okay. Yeah. Alright, good. Some color on it. Good, good, good. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, um, with Alex. The older one, Alexandra. Thoughtful in a way, like just a really good heart and really kind of considerate. Wants to be nice and kind and think about things Yeah. From your perspective and do the right thing. Um, and then with Anya, fun loving. I'm gonna put, do like a word. Yeah. You have a dash there. Yeah. Just like, you know, larger than life energy sometimes. Growing up she wanted to perform that adventure Inc. Excitement, do, you know, paint and do all this kind of stuff. And just, here I am world and let's, let's be present in the world. Yeah. Yeah. So. And, and of course they, they, they change as they get older and, you know, um, go through different phases, but they still have that. So your 18-year-old, is she graduating then? Yeah, right now. So she's about to graduate from high school here, and so she's gonna be going to CU Boulder and was really excited. Yeah. She's gonna study, uh, integrative physiology. She's already been taking some sports medicine classes. Mm-hmm. She's already already certified in working as a pt. She's been working at the local rec center gym. Nice. And she's just really thrilled about on that track. Yeah. It's, it's exciting to see her have something already, like I had at this point in my life when, when I was, that was 30 before I really, I wanted to do. Yeah. And she's just really excited and there's all sorts of different options, so. Cool. Yeah. Um, so I think what I wanna do is, um, shift it from there into the advice for that kind of age person. Mm-hmm. Maybe not your daughter, your 18-year-old daughter, but people in that age of new chapters. Mm. Um, with the world changing so fast and AI and entrepreneurship, and I saw a thing the other day that 60% of Gen Z want to have a business someday. Wow. Like, that's how high the level of. I, I would say it's probably the, the level of distrust for corporations and government has grown to is I just wanna work for me.'cause those can't trust those fighters. Um, but like, talk to me about that. Like, it's also hard, right? To get something, some kind of enterprise off the ground. Usually gotta fill your basket with a lot of different skills and experiences for five or 10 years before you even have a shot. Yeah. Um, but yeah, if you were, you know, the, the, I don't wanna say Alex because she's got her path already kind of sorted, but if you're wondering what your path is, how, how do you figure it out? Yeah. You've kind of been working on that kind of project a bit of setting your strategic plan. Yeah. Yeah. Still working on mine and it's a, it's that quest or that journey continues, but, but I would say. Uh, trust yourself. And part of that is also know yourself. Yeah. Learn about yourself. So I've been deeply influenced by the writings of, uh, Parker Palmer. Okay. Who's a Quaker author and educator. Okay. One of his books, it's a beautiful little book. It's called Let Your Life Speak. Hmm. And, uh, he makes the point that sometimes we're so busy and we're so noisy out there. Uh, achieving or striving or just doing, Hmm. That we don't get quiet like we talked about earlier and let our life speak. And so part of that, to me, it means like pay attention to the clues mm-hmm. Of who you are. Mm-hmm. And that's why in the coaching work that I do in my online course, we kind of go back and we really mind, first of all. Who are you? Yeah. Before we go to what, what's next, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, they're not patient enough or they're kind of Yeah. Yeah. They're flippant about it and they're like, oh, you know, doesn't matter who I am, I just wanna know what's next. Yeah. Or I'm good and, you know, but, but there's real, you know, signs from your, your childhood and the, the childhood sparks of what do you read? What do you, what are you interested when Sure. Nobody's around, you know, what's a mystery for you? What do you get lost in? What are you good at? Yeah. What do you, what do you love? You know, all of those are clues. If you listen to pay attention a little bit. Yeah. Pay attention and then take action and start experimenting. And I don't think it's that you end up finding, I don't think we have one passion, typically. Sure. But I think. Angela Duckworth has said that we develop our passions more than we discover them, but there is some initial discovery work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Then you gotta just start playing with things. Yeah. Yeah. And trying it, and then you, then you deepen it and you kinda live into it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but a lot of people, they go with what their parents or what, what's cool. Yeah. Or with their friends or society, and they don't, they don't trust themselves enough. Yeah. Well, and listening I think is part of that too. Yeah. I was just reflecting on, probably when I was in my mid thirties, uh, one of my mentors at the bank, I was working in banking for a long time, and you'd write kind of a story about why this customer is gonna be able to pay back your loan, right? Mm-hmm. Like, here's, here's all the numbers, here's this and that, but here's some explanation. Mm-hmm. And here's some things I've learned. Yeah. And, and one of my mentors said, Kurt, you're such a gifted writer. Like the way that you write the story of this person, and it's just so convincing. And I can, I believe that you've done the work that you need to, to make sure that they're gonna pay this loan back. Yeah. And I was like, oh, like I'm 35. Right. I never really thought of myself as a writer at all. Yeah. Um, you know,'cause I, I'd written a lot, I'd journaled a lot over the years and things like that and, you know, done the essays when they were required and all, but not really. Thought about it more than that. Yeah. So like for me that was like just a, a little moment, but then when I started my business, I was like, well, I'm, I'm writing a blog now, you know? And, and'cause I, it helped me get myself outta my own head. Yes. And here you are doing the podcast and with communication of thoughts, of clarity, of thoughts and what am I gonna ask and correct how or where am I gonna go with this? That's related obviously. Totally. And, and, and I think your point at your story is interesting because a lot of times we might not see it. Yes. Our lived experience, it's so obvious. Yeah. You you're just doing it. You're just doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Just in a moment and somebody says, Kurt, you're really good at that. Like, oh, I am right. I didn't know it. I was just doing it. Yep. Right. And so you, and often that's that self-doubt or you just have no idea. What other people, what value other people could. Right. And it's hard to compare yourself. It's like even like if you read a bunch of other people's writing or whatever, you know? Right. In that case, uh, one of the things I've said about local think tank, this peer advisory that we do is over time you can kind of understand yourself better because of the eyes of others that are informing you. Yes. Um, because they get to really know you and see you. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'm a huge fan of the peer advisory group model and all the different flavors. I think that both in business or whatever kind of work people do and in their life generally, having something like that for the. In part for the reason we're talking about now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also because, you know, there's a loneliness epidemic and a lot of people are so busy and, you know, one of the principles I think of life design that I've learned from some of the thinkers in this, in this space is they call it radical collaboration. Hmm. Stop doing so many things alone. Yeah. Stop being just in your head so much. Put it out there, be vulnerable, get some input, ask people about there, and go back and forth. And, you know, when you're a working parent, it's hard because juggling, you know, but, but there's so much, it's relationships back to what we talked about earlier. And so there's real value in that. Also learning about yourself by being in community with others. Yeah, yeah. While you're helping others and being helped and being, you know, you let people help you. Yeah. Yeah. And you ask for help. Totally. There's so much that comes up in that, huh? Yeah, I've, I've wondered so. One of our members said years ago, I think everybody should be in this. And, and she meant like every business owner kind of, but like part of me thinks everybody should be in it, you know? And, and I said, well, but only business owners will really pay for it. Yeah. Because, you know, we still gotta make money. And, but I, but I kind of think that. And maybe it's not us that provides that, but you're, you're probably right, like everybody could almost benefit by having a peer advisory kind of a group in their life. Yeah. And the abundance of people that would like to run one and help other 10 other people live a better life than they might otherwise. Yeah. Is intriguing as well. So, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I, I think that would be wildly valuable to have. Everybody doing something like that. Right. Would be wonderful. Once a month, I get together for two hours with, you know, eight of my friends and neighbor, you know, they weren't my friends when I started, but I signed up for this group and here they are. Right. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be hard and complicated, you know, there's way you gotta get started, you know, maybe you can rotate facilitation. You guys have great markets. Right? Right. But you know, one of the things that I do with people in transition is sometimes I work with them alone, but I've done these weekend workshops Oh sure. And these group experiences. Yeah. Around crafting your life intentionally and your life and work. And it is so powerful when you sit down together with tools or just topics, you know, like what are your life traps? Yeah. Like we talked about earlier, what are your strengths? What are your passions? What are your values? Tell me your story. When did that value show up in your life? When did you honor it? When did you not honor that value? Mm-hmm. And just connecting around that. So one of the aspects, you know, in life. We all, I think, have a hunger for purpose and meaning at some level. Sure. One of the key ingredients of meaning it turns out according to the researchers is storytelling and coherence. Hmm. Right. So my life isn't coherent enough, or it's not clear that it's coherent enough unless I tell the story mm-hmm. To somebody and I hear myself telling it and they mm-hmm. And then it's like, oh, the red thread starts to appear before me and I see the patterns. Yeah. Yeah. But if I don't take the time to do that in community, yeah, yeah. It's lost and I don't have as much of a sense of coherence, which is one key aspect of me. So I was just thinking about your, your, I guess, predisposition to work with people in transition and in career change and stuff. I'm guessing that they don't pay as much as CEOs might for coaching in the leadership space or things like that. So this seems like more of a passion project that. It probably compensates you enough for your time, but isn't is motivated, but it's more about the purpose of it. It is, yeah. So to me there's different types of compensation. I talk about my monetary income and my psychic income as some people use that term. Yeah. You know, I'm, you know, for me it's really important to have a sense of purpose and passion with what I do. Yeah. I work really hard. I'm a big, you know, we're gonna, they say on average we work about 90,000 hours in a career and in advanced economies. Yeah. If I'm gonna put in 90,000 hours towards something, I want it to be something that engages me, that challenges me, that I feel I can have an impact. You know, that's hard. That's worth doing. And, and so, you know, that, that purpose aspect and then, you know, I think often I. A lot of us purpose is related to pain or our own life story. Mm-hmm. And so I've been through a lot of transitions in my life and it's been really good for me, but it's been hard at the same time. Right. So if I can help people have the courage to go to a transition and less worry, less fear and less worry, but also not chicken out. Mm-hmm. And avoid it because it's unclear or you're afraid, and then end up settling. Right. And, you know Yeah. Drifting and then regretting, you know, later like, oh, I had that dream that I wanted to do. Right, right. That venture that I wanted to try. Yep. Yep. I don't know if it's gonna work, but it might be nice to try it at some point in your life. Yeah. Yeah. I dig it. Yeah. Um, let's talk about your loco experience. Mm. You have a good one. More than one. Well, I've got a fun one that comes to mind. Okay. So, uh, when I was in graduate school in London, it was really cool to, uh, live abroad for the first time. I had traveled a little bit, but living abroad, right. Had kind of early twenties and developed a great friends group of, uh, half Spanish, half Brit, close friend, Dutch friend, couple of Americans. And then we had a very global, um, hall where we were living out in, in London. There was this. Prior to you meeting Christina, or you'd already met her? This was, this was prior. Okay. This was just prior. I was gonna say, you probably might not have been cool enough, uh, to snag that Swedish girl, if not for that international experience. Boom. Exactly. Anyway, keep going. Yeah. So, Miguel, the Spanish, Brit, he's got a car. He, he lives there. And we're gonna go visit our, our, our Dutch friend's, uh, family. So we're gonna take the car down to the ferry, catch the ferry, and go to the Netherlands. Yep. And you spend a weekend or whatever we're gonna do. And so there's, uh, a group of us in his red Ford escort. And so, and I've got my guitar there because we're jamming in Covent Garden and everything. We're kind of playing music and stuff and we're loading up and it's all blah, blah. And I'm studying the European Union economic community or European community at that point it was called and everything.'cause I was studying comparative government. Yeah. I didn't think that was gonna come together, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're on the way to the ferry in the car and we're like, okay, it's getting a little close and. And it's okay. Got everything. You got your toothbrush, you gotta change your clothes, you got your bathing suit.'cause we're gonna go to the beach. Yep. Passport. And I go, oh, I'm not sure if I have my passport. I'm like, oh, I just, you, I was in Europe and I'm studying Europe. Europe. It's like, no borders. It's supposed to, I just forgot to bring my passport. And we're like on the way there and we're like, um, we could try to go back and if we go a hundred miles an hour, you know, we might make the ferry, but we'll probably get, you know, we could die. Or. Ah, we'll just, we'll just go and see. See if it works. See if it works. So, okay, now we're plotting our strategy for when we get to the border control. Now we get to the border control, right? There's five of us packed. We'll put Greg in the trunk, packed in this Ford Escort with the guitar. It's a big acoustic guitar case on top of us, and we're like, okay, we have four passports for five people. Which one are we gonna put on top? We're gonna put the British one, we're gonna put the Americans, we're gonna put the Dutch one. We're like literally trying to strategize the order to just, yeah. Yeah. And so the border agent looks very closely, the first passport, looks in, looks very closely at the second passport. Looks in looks and went all the passports that we gave, but never counted. Yeah. Yeah. We just made it through. And so that was my first experience was smuggling myself abroad. Nice. Illegally across borders. Get, and then we got there. Did you get, okay. And then we got there and then we're like, oh no, I didn't have an idea. Gonna get back. So then we're calling and we had my passport shipped to Oh IDEA International FedEx. There you go. And it arrived literally like minutes before we had to leave to go back, which is another part of the story. I like it. I like it. I like that trust. Yeah. Uh, of just being like, well, yeah, you know, it doesn't work. Go for it. If it doesn't work, you know, then we can take me away. Yeah. Whatever. We can go back and get my passport and take the next barrier or whatever. Yeah. It was part of the spirit of our group at the time, so Yeah. I dig it. Yeah. Um, by the way, any, uh, do you have music still going on in your world? Um, not as much as I'd like. We, uh, more just campfire stuff. Occasionally in the summertime we jam a little bit and uh, and go to some live shows, but we need to bring that back. I kinda miss that aspect. And my wife is a beautiful singer and it's really nice to make music together. Well, I hope you keep making music together for a long time. Thank you. I'm thankful for the time today. Me too. And, uh, yeah, look forward to reconnecting again soon. Likewise. Thank you Kurt. Guys, be Greg. You too.
