How Servant Leadership Can Transform Your Family Business With Ed Hart

Speaker A: Today's episode, I sit down with family business guru Ed Hart, host of the from the Heart podcast, founder of Heart Leadership, and co author Boomer Wisdom. And together, we explore why emotional intelligence might be the most underrated asset on your balance sheet. That discussion about emotional intelligence actually led to a very compelling conversation around the idea that most successful legacy family businesses. We're talking about businesses that have been around for four, five, six generations, um, are really differentiated by their willingness to ask for help. And this is something that Ed knows a great deal about, having interviewed such greats as Ken Blanchard, among many others, having worked with hundreds of family businesses throughout his career. And that idea of asking for help really resonated with me because I've seen both types of businesses. I've been in both types of businesses, businesses that were thriving with humility and outside insights, and then others that were just paralyzed by the idea of legacy, living in their own bubble, dragging their dysfunction across generations. So if you're a family business leader navigating generational dynamics, legacy, or just trying to keep your family and your business on speaking terms, this episode is for you. And if you like this episode, uh, just hit that subscribe button for more fearless conversations about family, business and legacy. Enjoy this episode. Strengthen the love, the legacy and the lifestyle in your family business. This is fearless family business. Well, welcome, Ed. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really, really glad you're here. I've been looking forward to this.

Speaker B: Me too, Adam. It's been a long time coming. I've known you and your family for, gosh. When I started running the center at Cal state fortune in 2011 is when I met your dad, and probably right about that time when I met you as well. So happy that you're doing this and looking forward to this as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I remember those days, uh, back when you were running the center, and it was. It was kind of a golden age for that center, too. I remember there was a lot of growth. Uh, that was when I was starting to get more involved in it, starting to meet cohorts and really starting to learn more about the family business, you know, stuff. And. And that's why I'm really glad to have you here, because a lot of that, you know, the. The beginnings of. Of my journey happened kind of parallel to when you were running that center. And. And. And I was really excited to kind of pick your brain about a lot of the ideas you've had, because you worked with family businesses for quite a while now.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I've worked for Three different family companies over the years, over a total of about 30 years. And I like to always say that I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly because I worked for a couple of family businesses that just had it down, had succession down, they had leadership development down, they promoted the right people, they raised their kids the right way when it came to getting them involved. And, uh, there's no real right or wrong, by the way. I'm not going to have a. I don't have a recipe for this works and this doesn't. And I'm going to share. Here's my 1180 steps to make every family business great, because that doesn't exist, in my opinion. Certainly there are things you can do. But then I worked for the bad. I had a family business I worked for. Obviously, I'm not going to name any names here today, um, for the sake of a lot of reasons, but, um, yeah, I mean, they just. They couldn't manage, they couldn't lead. They promoted for the wrong reasons. They also didn't have a clue in the industry. It just was really. It was just a spiral down the drain that we all kind of watched and participated in until we could jump out. And then one that was just, um, you know, a couple that were. The family was great, but the business struggled. Or the business was great, but the family struggled. So that's when I just decided I really wanted to make a living of helping families. And. And I have a passion for family. My license plate has a heart with fam for fan biz. I have a heart and passion for family business like the Hill Brothers family and. And others. And so, yes, it's been a thrill and the honor of my life to get to work with family companies.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, I can understand why. I mean, because there is a lot of. There's added elements to it. And as you mentioned at the beginning, I think there's. There's an added level of dysfunction that can really disrupt a family, but there's also an added level of love that can really make it elevate. Uh, can you speak to that a little bit? I mean, I know you mentioned there's no, like, there's no framework for how family businesses can work versus not work. But, yeah, maybe there's some common attributes. Do you have any kind of insight into that? Like, what makes it work versus not,

Speaker B: you know, the, the phrase. And it's overused, but I think it's overused for a reason. It's emotional intelligence. I think that I. I'm a really Big proponent of, of eq and there's others as well. My buddy Tam, who, you know, he and I have worked on a, uh, we call it working on a book. Whether it'll become a book or not, I don't know. But we, we took, uh, a group of kids from the Cal State Fortune Family Business Program to Vietnam at the end of 2019 on a field trip, if you will. The ultimate field trip. 20 kids going to Vietnam for two weeks. Sounds like a movie. And it could have been. But, um, Tam and I started really observing the kids in this class as they were going around the country and, and mingling with family business leaders and just community leaders. In Vietnam, most of us didn't speak the language. We relied on Tam and one or two others to interpret his sister Lynn. I know you also know from your, your past peer group time. Um, but what we noticed was how adaptable and how humble and that EQ and how the EQ we call cultural intelligence. And so a lot of what I see in the families that really work well, a lot of that, they just, they know what they know and they know that they do it well. But more importantly, they also recognize what they don't do well and they're humble and teachable and willing to use outside experts. I always like to say that, you know, there's two types of people who go to the gym. You'll appreciate this as an ironman. Um, there's two types of people who go to a gym. Those that want to get healthy and those that want to stay healthy. There's two types of family businesses as well. Those that use advisors, those that use advisors to stay healthy and keep doing well, what they're doing. And I'm not promoting advisors like myself or you or others. I'm just promoting the field of family business advisory. Um, and then there's those that just are doing things wrong or don't know what to do next and they realize. So I think that the first common denominator is get help. Recognize that, uh, you don't know it all. Yeah, you might be the expert on your industry and your company and your 150 year history. And no advisor has that. And I get that. But the beauty of that is you also have people who have worked with so many other families that can help implement some of those ideas. So yeah, I guess the first one step for family business success, if there are 10 steps, step one would be get help.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a great, great point and a great observation. I love the idea of just finding that community, uh, where there's, where there's mentorship or cohort that. I mean that's what we found at Cal State Fullerton. And those are all over the country by the way. I mean you have usually associated with academia, right? Like, I mean they're associated with that kind of thing. Is it?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I don't know how many there are today's count, but when I was running the center at Fullerton, I was part of what we call the Family Business Directors alliance, fbda. And um, it was put together years before I started at Fullerton in 2011 by, you know, Dan Vandervleen, who runs the family business program at Cornell University, Peter Johnson, who ran the program at the University of Pacific up in Stockton, among others. Um, and um, the idea was, yeah, through these universities, primarily the business schools, it's a great out. Family business is a great outreach for a university, for donors and for community members and so forth, going through their alumni and what have you. But um, yeah, last count, I think there's close to 60 family business centers at universities around North America that I know of. I could probably rattle off the first 50. But uh, yeah, if you're, wherever you are, you're listening to this episode, if you run a family business, you can reach out to me or to Adam and we'll point in the direction or just Google, you know, Chappie GPT, closest family business center near me, and I guarantee you're going to find one in five seconds.

Speaker A: Oh, no question. Yeah, there's, um, and I, I would, I guess there's, there's the academia side, there's also, you know, the, the business side. I know, I know there's, there's institutions, banks, things like that that also have family business and you've been part of that as well. Can you maybe expand on that a little bit?

Speaker B: When I was working at Fortune, I got a call from a gentleman who is an executive vice chair for First bank out of St. Louis. I thought at first he was calling to solicit and hey, I want to partner with you because you know, these service providers know that we know a lot of very ultra high net worth families and certainly they want to do business there as well. And that's one of the reasons why they choose to partner with these universities. But the ones that were really doing it well are the ones that were doing it for the right reasons. They're doing it to help these families grow. And uh, yeah, so I ended up eventually helping first bank create their center for family owned businesses. Launched an Institute for Entrepreneurship Agendas bank in Newport Beach. I know Wells Fargo and other banks have advisories. I'm not promoting any of these. It's not a commercial for anyone. But, yeah, find a firm, an accounting firm, a law firm, a bank or what have you that has some sort of a specialty in family business. Because, yeah, it is great business development for them, but they're also the experts you want to talk to. And I'm going back to my first point of getting help. You know, sometimes your help could be your banker, your lawyer, your accountant, your wealth manager. So.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I, I, and I, I, I totally buy into that because in this, in the world of family business especially, I mean, we were, you know, kind of just talking about this idea of that, that, uh, you know, in a regular, everyday kind of business, you know, you have your challenges, your issues, everything like that, but you have this added level of complexity within family structure, especially the farther down in the generations you go, um, you know, it, and it, and it becomes this wild frontier of, of unexpected challenges that you just didn't know you would face. I mean, with succession or anything else. And, and there's real, there's real generational attachment and, and challenge there. Um, Is, is that something you've run into as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, the, the phrase that pops into my head right now is that nih, they're not invented here. You know, so many people are closed to outside advice because they own the skills, they own the recipe, if you will, they own the history and the legacy. But, um, yeah, there's definitely. Family business is a unique animal, that's for sure. Because I always tell people that don't know much about family business. Like at this conference I just attended, and anywhere I go, you know, raise your hand if you have a job. Uh, raise your hand if you're in a family. Shake this hand if there's any conflict at work. Shake this hand if there's any conflict at home. Now both hands are shaking. For those that are watching, you see both of my hands are shaking on screen. And put those together, you know, you got the family shaking, the business shaking, and it's all shaking together, and it's never matching. And, and, um. So, yeah, the beauty of it is, gosh, where there's pain, there's great opportunity for growth, and where there's, there's tragedy, there's great opportunity for triumph. But, um, gosh, it's just, uh, you know, this, I don't know what statistics to believe anymore of how many businesses fail, because I think Non family businesses fail maybe even more rapidly than family businesses do. Just family businesses get that, that you know, that bad rap if you will. Because the conflict in family can create the, the conflict in the business. I don't know if I answered your question or not, but that's just kind of where my mind went as you were asking it.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think, I think that's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good answer. I've actually like, I've, I've thought, been thinking about that statistic too. The idea that, that um, a family businesses. I think the, depending on where you look it's, it's like 70 of family businesses fail to get to the second generation or through the second generation.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: 90% to the third and so on. And yeah, I mean you think about that though that, I mean. Ah. And but there's like a statistic that says that 90% of just businesses fail within their first five years. Yeah. So yeah.

Speaker B: So startups, I think startups fail faster because especially solopreneurs who are doing it by themselves. I mean I'm running you know, hard leadership group right now. You know, my wife is a partner and she certainly helps and she's more of an emotional support than a day to day you know, worker in the business. But it can get lonely. Can get you know and no one person has all the skills necessary to do everything in a company. There's no way anybody has the skills to be the marketer, the accountant, the doer, the business development person, the operations person, the HR person, the payroll person if you have a few employees. So yeah, I think that businesses in general to your point probably fail at least at the same rate, if not faster.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah. And I'm curious to know because you know, in talking about the, the generational statistics there, you know, you have your first generation family business might be a uh, couple siblings working together, might be a mom, mom and pop shop or something like that that uh, you have that dynamic and, and, and they're obviously thinking of, of their legacy in a certain way or they're thinking of how they're running their business or going to leave their business in a certain way. But then you have, and you've worked with companies in a variety of generations. So sure. Thinking about that fifth or sixth generation family business that is, has been successful, you know, when you're looking at like a first or second generation family business, what should they be thinking about? That maybe they're not that, you know, that the sixth generation has thought about does. Uh, hopefully that question makes sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I've thought about that a lot. I've heard it asked that way in different ways as well. But, um, yeah, the first generation, to your point, brother and sister, mom and pop, whatever, start a company. It's to put food on the table. They're starting a company. Either they have a passion for something and they're told they're good at it, or somebody bought the first widget that they made and like, wow, now I can make a bunch of widgets to make a bunch of money and look at what we can do and we can travel and all of that. I think the first generation probably spent more time focused on just the business thriving and succeeding once it gets to the next gen. Certainly there's. You've had a transition, good, bad or indifferent. I always keep a baton on my desk as kind of a representation. Again, sorry to be visual for those that are just listening. But, uh, it's a visual that reminds me constantly that there's always the baton moving. You know, it might be one gen holding onto it. It might be both generations simultaneously holding it and then eventually letting it go.

Speaker A: But I thought that was a, ah, I thought that was a stick that the first generation beat.

Speaker B: The second generation, speaking on behalf of the, what, fourth or fifth generation who took over Hill Brothers? Yes, the beat down stick, it can be used for that as well. I'm hitting my head with it as we speak. That's a great point. You'll have to remember that, um, you know, the, the reputation is that by the time it gets to the third generation, most third and longer, you're born into wealth. You didn't ever see the company, you know, in its, in its startup phase. A lot of the G2s that I know were old enough to see mom and dad or dad or mom start the company and struggle to put, you know, money in the bank and food on the table. So they've seen the effort. I know for as an example, my family, the Hart family, doesn't own a family business. My parents and the family had. My dad started a family business when my oldest brother was young. My oldest brother's 15 years older than I am. My brother Steve would have seen a lot of the battles and the struggles and he did see that when he was born and raised by my parents. They were just. My dad was just starting in his career. By the time I got to the point where I was aware of my surroundings, you know, 19, right. Whatever age I was, um, dad had made it. He was a senior vp, a three billion dollar company. And I didn't see the battle. You know, money came easier to my generation in the family than even my older brother. So I didn't see the work that dad had to put into to get to that nice home and to drive the nice car and to have the fancy trips. My older siblings went to San Clemente for a weekend on vacation. I went to Europe because by the time I was old enough to go with them, the money was there. So I think in a family business, as you get into the older generations, you're seeing different struggles. And I think that might be a long answer. I apologize. But I think that, um, one of the reasons why family businesses might fail later down the road in fourth or fifth or sixth generation is because it can be, quote, unquote, too easy. They haven't had to see the struggles that it took to get there or it created so much wealth and so much legacy that a lot of people just decide, you know, hey, I've got this money or I've got these resources, kind of want to go do my own thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, whereas, you know, I love when I can see like a second or third or fourth, you know, when I'm at your family business. I think that your dad was fourth generation, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's arguable. It could be either or the, the founder was the first, but he actually hired his father. So there were five generations in the business.

Speaker B: That's right. Five in the business. There was one, one A and then down the B or what have you.

Speaker A: But. Right.

Speaker B: I love seeing those multi generational family businesses. I always use the example of in and out, you know, because I'm living in a burger and Lindsey Snyder, their CEOs. To call her a good friend would be probably a stretch for me, but she's a good acquaintance who's also a friend. Um, it's not like we hang out together, but we, we connect a lot.

Speaker A: But you know, her grandparents go to five guys and. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Her, her grandparents founded in 1948. It went to her uncles and went to her dad. It went back to grandma and now to her. So I guess you could say they're 4th gen. And um, hence she, her, her mentality is. And I love this mentality in family businesses. I don't own it, I steward it. And to me that's a huge word difference. And I think that's one of the reasons. Going back to your first question, of what might make a family business succeed. You don't look at it as you own it as much as your, your job right now is to steward the business, protect the legacy that was before you, but do things that put your stamp on it and prepare for the next generation. So again, long answer. I don't know if I answered your question or if I even remember your

Speaker A: question, but no, I welcome the long answers too by the way, because I

Speaker B: think I need you as a host when I'm on your end and somebody wants to get one answer.

Speaker A: It's great.

Speaker B: More good content. I hope so, right?

Speaker A: No, no, I, I think it's great. And I love these In N Out example because I mean it just kind of brings up another few, few observations about, about what works. I mean In N Out has built this cult following over, you know, a, a, a service model and that, that involves a very simple menu. You know, that, that really hasn't changed in decades, if not ever. M I, I, you know, I wonder how much, how, how much that simplicity and that, that, that layered or that foundational uh, uh, in tradition of what was built is part of what leads to that lasting legacy. Um, you know, putting aside all of the family dynamics that might collapse an entire business. But I'm just curious, within the, at least the business model, do you think that has anything to do with it?

Speaker B: I think it has a lot to do with it. I think that some people just strike it rich and they get lucky. And you know, the guy who, I can't think of an example but you know, somebody invents something and the whole world realizes they need it. And now you got a billion dollar, multi billion dollar industry. But to last and sustain. For me, Adam, it always comes down to people. Everything comes down to how you treat people. The relationship with your employees, your team, your customers. Um, you know, the J. Willard Marriott example of what makes Marriott great. We take care of our people and they take care of the customer. You know, everybody at the executive and management level at Marriott, just like the executive and management level at in and out, it's about taking care of the people. I actually asked Lindsay on a podcast four years ago, um, and I've asked Roger Koch, who worked for Lindsey for 30 plus years, who retired as their CFO a while back, who's the most important customer to In n Out? And they both, in separate conversations without batting, and I said, the store manager. We take care of 400 plus stores now. Each store makes 6 to 10 million dollars a year. Doing the math. Um, yeah, you Know, put up an in and out and you've seen a line, 10:30 in the morning, 2 in the morning, it's the same line.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: In some cases it's the same car a couple of times, I would imagine. I know I've been guilty of that, but, uh, not often, but definitely. But they take care of those that take care of the biggest asset, which is the customer.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But yeah, the companies that are still thriving, that are fifth generation long, I think if you look at their history and talk to people who knew the founder or you hear the case studies of their founder. I love the term servant leadership. Ken Blanchard, my mentor, you know, he didn't invent it, but he certainly has propagated the, the idea of servant leadership. And at the end of the day, if a company isn't taking care of its people, you're probably not going to be around. I mean, there are those out there that are bad managers, that are successful companies, and there are those out there that are world class servant leaders who have a bad company. But if you can find a way to create that servant leadership mentality, create that great culture combined with a product and a service that people need and you really, truly listen to your customer, I mean, it's not, huh. I hate to say it. And if it were easy, everybody'd be doing it. But it isn't rocket science. Have something you're really good at that people need, do it better than anybody else and love your people and you're gonna have a successful company.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a great observation. And I love that. And then, I mean, what I love about that too is it's rooted in the idea of servant leadership. Is rooted in love.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, I mean, and you have these conflicting, uh, these conflicting forces within any business or family business and still is, is fear and love. And I mean, when you're deciding based on fear, it's like pulling you in that opposite direction. You're more focused on, you know, bottom line results right now, short term, all this kind of stuff, but not the long term, like actual reason people are in your business.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, there's uh, a guy named Steve Farber. I don't know if you know Steve. He actually lives out in Colorado now. He's from California. I had him on my show a few years ago and I think I met him through Ken, maybe Gary Ridge. I don't know. In that era where I started to get to know both Ken and Gary Ridge, he wrote a book called Love is Damn Good Business. Love is Just damn good business. And it's. And it's all about that, that philosophy. Look, end of the day, if you need one strategy to drive your company. Love, um.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Love the people that work for you. Love the people you work for. Love the people you serve. Love your department. Love your administrative. Not in a, you know, what's been all over the news lately at the Coldplay concert. Not in that way, but genuine. Genuine. I'm not talking about, you know, things you got to go. Well, can't even go to hr, that one, but. Right, right. Just love the people that you're with. I mean, obviously that started not to get, you know, too spiritual or religious here, but gosh, that's been the concept from the beginning, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Every neighbor, that's. That's how it all starts. And that's not going away.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, yeah, it's interesting as you go back into. Into that time, the time of Jesus. I mean, that was his. His primary message, his primary deliverable was love.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And. And that's the thing that will drive out all, all darkness. Even in family business. And especially in family business.

Speaker B: Yeah. When it comes right down to it, you know, my, My dad always said, uh, you know, when you're stuck, serve. And if you're stuck in a relationship with someone, or you're stuck in a situation at work, or you're stuck in a mental dilemma on something, put the pen down, walk away, go serve somebody, and then come back. You, um, know, that's to your point. Jesus, that's, you know, he have any examples of when he was stuck other than probably frustrated, but, you know, just go serve somebody.

Speaker A: Right, right. That's a good segue into like, into the discussion of conflict in family business because, I mean, it's going to happen. It's bound to happen. There's disagreements and especially as kind of go grow through the generations. If you're talking about second cousins, third cousins, sometimes. How, uh. How, uh. I mean, the idea of, you know, serving on that front is. Is, you know, I think, uh, maybe part of the solution here. But how navigating conflict within the family dynamic and within the business do we. How do we keep those separate? Or how do we. How do we. How do we navigate that conflict effectively and productively within family business?

Speaker B: That's aggress. Not where I thought you were going with the question. That's a really great question. I'll answer first where I thought you were going to go. One of my favorite things about conflict is that it does, number one, it shows that you care, you know, I mean, if there's not conflict, I would watch out because there's not conflict. It's probably two people. Like I look at a marriage, if you're just not talking and there's no conflict, you're probably heading for some pretty big disaster because one, if not both of you are holding on to something and eventually it's going to come up and when it comes up, it's going to blow up. So, uh, conflict, I think is good when it can be addressed in a way that's again, going back to the eq, going back to love. If you're addressing it out of love, you're addressing it out, uh, of, hey, I want to grow, I want to listen to you and understand you. What I love when there's. And I've done a lot of conflict resolution training with inside and outside of the family business space. And the first thing I always do, if I sit down, let's say I'm sitting with you and another person in your business.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And we have two hours. I'll probably spend an hour and a half. Let's talk about all the things we agree on. Let's really build that foundation. Okay. We both agree we want this company to get to 10 million in the next two years. We both agree that you're in the right job and I'm in the right job. We both agree we have the right people on board. We both agree that we should be selling in this marketplace. Okay, great. So we agree on, you know, 70% of the things that we need to agree on. So when it comes addressing the other 30%, we can always go back to the thing we've proven that we can agree. I mean, I think if, you know, if you've, if you've done math and you're struggling on this test, go back to remember the times that you did it well. So, okay, I've done everything I needed to do to get to here, so I do have some smarts when it comes to math. Probably figure this out too. So we've figured out together that we can resolve some conflict because we've done it. Or maybe we don't have maybe, you know, we genuinely have always agreed on the 70% as these other 30% we need to look at. So I like when there's conflict because it's a, it's certainly, I mean, you're an ironman. You know, you didn't just wake up and go run 26 miles and bike 120 miles. You ached and pained and hurt your Way to the point where you could do that. Same with resolving conflict. You're gonna deal with some stuff. So I think in situations where there is family conflict and there always is. No, no two people always agree on everything. If they do, then one person is not necessary. You know, you want that conflict because it's a way of seeing other people, sides of things. Um, I've seen it in a lot of families. I've got a family business that I know now that I know. Um, being careful what I share. There's a real. I won't even say what the relationship is because I don't want to give it away. There's a relationship. They're not brothers, but they are related and been a pretty significant conflict to the point where it's broken them up, not only professionally, but personally. They don't talk. And, uh, it's. It's sad for me because I'm very close to both of them, you know, and, um. But the, the. The message that I would give to them would be, go back. Where do we agree? Let's. Let's keep the family relationship. And I asked, I asked businesses, I asked a family that I was working with recently, I'm still working with now. Are you a family business, meaning family first no matter what, or are you a business, family, business first? A lot of people have the attitude, hey, this is my business. This is what feeds the family. This is what keeps the cars in the garage and keeps us on these trips and keep the payroll going and businesses first all the time. And, you know, if the family's having problems where they're just gonna have to get over it. And, um, I'm not saying it's wrong. It's not my mentality, but I'm not saying it's wrong. But then the flip side is, look, we're family first, and if anything happens in this business, it's going to break up the family. We can go start another company or we can go each do different job. Sure. And again, there's no right or wrong. Each of us has our own perceptions there. You can kind of see where I am on that.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know, I only get one crack at family if I do it right. And, um, you know, I've started and stopped a lot of different jobs in a few companies. So I would just ask yourself, you know, back to your difficult question. What's the most important thing? You know, there's a. There's a quote that it's attributed to a. I used to be Mormon, and I'm not now, but There's a quote by an old Mormon prophet, uh, I don't remember who, but I, the quote has stuck with me. And he said, no success in the world can compensate for failure in the home. And I love that. No success in business can compensate for failure in the family. And so I would, I would put that if I was starting a family business right now, that would be above my door. That would be on every wall and that would be our. One of our mottos is like, look, if we can succeed as a family, we'll figure out this business thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's really powerful. Um, and you know, kind of self reflecting on kind of how I felt about that. You know, just feeling like in, in, in the business I was in, in the family business I was in.

Speaker B: How conflict?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely conflict. And I feel. And it's hard to avoid in a, in a fourth generation family family business. And, and, and you know, I felt at the time that, you know, I, I decided to kind of move on from mine. It was just like it. Well, I wanted to, I wanted the family to be a family again. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: And not a, I didn't want that relationship to be based on a transaction.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Um, and, and, and that's not to say that that family and business don't, don't align together, but I just think that for every individual, there's just a season for that. And I think that that's really wise to go.

Speaker B: Yeah. In a lot of cases.

Speaker A: Beautiful.

Speaker B: I mean, I look at so many families. I know that, you know, you've had Jenny and Katie on your show from McKenzie Corporation and collaborative. What a shining example. I mean, I can't even talk about the two of them without getting emotional. Number one, they're two of my favorite people on the planet and closest friends. Right. But I love how they do it. They, they each know their lane, they know what they're good at. They stay in their lane. They help each other. Jenny's really great at helping Katie, Katie's really great at helping Jenny. But ultimately their path is their path because of their skill set. So I think, and it didn't just happen. They worked with Joanne Norton, they worked with their peer groups, they've talked with me and they've talked with others. And so they have gone back to step one in this conversation. Get help, talk to advisors, talk to people who can help you out. Um, you know, we're a family and there's so many families. I mean, I look at the Porto's family, I look at in n out with Lindsay, I look at so many different companies that are just doing it really well and they've got these, yeah, you know, salt of the earth families who also happen to have a great business. Were they unlucky? Sure. But there's probably other families that were unluckier than they are that didn't make it work. And it really comes down to you have to want it to work, you have to be willing to, you know, be. Be wrong. You know, that's such a key. Be. Be okay being wrong. You know, and I think, I think that I was telling this one family I'm working with right now, startup business, um, daughters starting, mom's working, family members are involved. That the, the number one reason why relationships work, professional, whatever break down is expectations aren't being met. If someone set the expectation too high or someone isn't meeting it or they said it too low too, I mean, that can be, you know, this. Unmet expectations are really what eventually break up everything. I think I expected too much of you. You didn't deliver. I expected different and you delivered that. I don't know, talking my window, a circle here. But that's, that's, you know, those unmet expectations I think are, Are so critical.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's, uh, that's so true. I mean, and it gets to the point like, you know, you talk about these examples of In N Out Porto's, you know, other family businesses that have survived into generations. And I, I wonder how, you know, intentional should we should be at. Well, we were at, we were at a similar event or uh, we were at the same event recently the, at the Family Business hall of Fame Awards in Orange County. And something struck me that the keynote speaker there, Cindy Bigelow, um, said, and I think another, there were a couple other speakers that kind of echoed this, this theme of we will never sell our family business. And I had to really think about that because I, you know, I. In looking at it, you know, you look at the statistics and you look at really good business models that, that, that really align around risk mitigation. But you see the statistics of like well into the fourth and fifth generation, there's very few companies that make it that far into the, into, into that as a family business and the type of obligation maybe that's put on people's, um, people's plates to say, hey, you have to keep, you have to keep this thing going come hell or high water. Um, you know, I wonder. Yeah. Is that the right approach? I mean, should we, should we rethink how we think About a family legacy in terms of. Of this business entity existing in the family name or, you know, should we open up our. Open up the opportunities to maybe, you know, um, something different.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not a big fan of the word never. Just m. Like, I'm not a big fan of the word always. Will you always say this or you always do that? No, I don't always. I'm just saying it now. Or we're never going to sell. If you ask Lindsay, we're never going to sell. Okay. But 50 years from now, when one of her kids is running it, they may look at it a little bit differently, you know, at one point. And not that everything has a price tag. I don't mean it that way, But I just think it might get to the point in any family business where, you know, when I was running the center of Fullerton, one of the. Made a lot of mistakes, and one of the big mistakes I made was assuming that every family business wants to pass the business to the next gen. To the next gen. To the next gen. Everybody's the same. Everybody that's G1 wants to be the Hill brothers, G5. Everybody that's G3 wants to be G4 and most probably do. Um, but we're also focused with our blinders of running the day to day right now. I mean. Gavinha Coffee. Not to keep name dropping family businesses, but that's a fourth generation family business here in southern California. I drink their coffee daily. I love the family. I'm close friends with a lot of the family members there. They're doing some really great things. Um, right now it's probably. And I don't even. I haven't even talked to them about it. Probably not in the cards to sell, but I'll bet they get offers. I'll bet they get people knocking on the door constantly.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: I know another family business who they got knocked all the time and finally decided to sell. You know, founded in the early 60s, you didn't think they would sell. You thought it would continue on, but they finally got that offer that was too good to pass up. So I think that, um, I. I don't think that. I mean, I. Again, somebody says we're never going to sell or yeah, we're definitely going to sell it. That's what you think today. Um, but the pressure, uh, you felt it. You felt pressure to keep the business going. I mean, your last name is hill and the company's Hill brothers. You know, I mean, talk about pressure, you know, right. There's the blessing of being born with the right last name. And there's certainly the curse.

Speaker A: Uh, oh, yeah.

Speaker B: If you're born with Ford in your name or you're born with Hill in your name, or you're born with, you know, Gavinia in your name, there's pressure to maintain and keep that business going because of the name. So. And I don't understand it because I haven't lived it. I see it. But, you know, I've. I have enough pressure just maintaining my same heart, just the, you know, protecting the legacy of my family because my dad and grandpa and parents and so forth were pretty amazing human beings. But, um, so there's a lot expected, I think, when you're, when you're running a business. But yeah, there's certainly pressure. I think a lot of family business owners feel it because they want to maintain and honor that legacy. Um, I'd like what Jenny and Katie said recently that I've heard them talk about that. You know, yeah, we have a second generation business, but we don't feel a commitment to, nor does dad put pressure on us to maintain the companies just simply because dad started it. You know, it's our company now. We will do it that as we see fit. And when we retire, if it's still in the business and our kids are running it, it'll be their decision. I think that's a healthy approach.

Speaker A: I think so. I love that idea too. Just, you know, you are. When you're letting go of the business, you have to let it go fully to the, to the next generation. And I will likewise.

Speaker B: You know, I mean, I left the center for family business at Cal State Fullerton and the very capable hands of Tim Schultz. He's running it. M. He may do a lot of things the way I did. I know he does a lot of things differently. I do. And I'm proud of both.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Proud that my legacy is still there. And I'm also really, I think it's really cool to see the new really amazing things. I never would have thought to do a program on eos. Never even occurred to me. He brought you in and you did it. And it was well received. And I know the people that were there said, wow, where has this been all our lives? Well, Ed never thought of that and I think it's cool. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, Yeah, I mean it. I think that's, that's the beauty of it is just every generation can bring something new and Right. And I'd be curious to know too, in the terms of like, of the family business. That brings up an interesting question about, you know, the, the sunsetting generation that, that is running the business that is approaching retirement. Obviously sometimes that's difficult to, to let go of that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, what, what kind of advice would you have given what you've seen, given the companies that you've worked with to, to individuals that are, that are running their company, approaching that age, ready to let it go, but maybe not ready emotionally or personally or some level of holding on to it.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's like you and I scripted this conversation because that's where my mind has been so much in the last few years. Um, I love to answer questions with stories. I'll tell you a quick story about a new friend of mine, Howard Behar, who was the president of Starbucks. I've been very lucky that I met him. I, I used to run that family business hall of Fame that you alluded to earlier with Cindy Bigelow. And we founded that back in 2015. And the day after we had the event, I would spend that whole next day calling next year's potential speakers. I figure I'm on high. I have the experience from last night. It's like, best time to close a sale is right after you close a sale, you know?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So the best time to get a new speaker. So I remember after one of my events, our hall of fame events, the next day, I just started dialing for speakers and I just came across Starbucks. Not that they're family owned, but I figure there. And I was kind of thinking, maybe this year we'll, we'll get someone that's just a powerhouse speaker and a powerhouse, well known company. Led me to Howard. Um, and he was gracious enough then to talk, and he's been gracious enough to, to be on my podcast and be a friend and so forth. But Howard, when he retired from Starbucks, he went into a deep, deep retirement depression. And what triggered it was day one, day one of retirement. I'm sharing Howard's story that he has shared publicly. So I'm not speaking out of school here at all. Welcome. Monday morning, started doing his stuff around the house, in his office up, getting the computer set up. You know, just what are we going to do now? I'm not quite sure, but I'll figure it out. Um, and went out into the house a few times, talked to his wife and, you know, gave some unsolicited advice on a couple of things because now he's home, you know, and seeing things that he didn't see when he's off at Work and travel and they were getting ready to go to lunch, hopped in her car. He looked in the drink holder and saw the safety deposit box key for their bank account or their bank in her car. He says, honey, do you really think it's a good idea to keep the key to the safety deposit box in our car? And she goes, howard, you've been home for four hours and I think you've questioned me on about five things. Is this what retirement's going to look like? Oh, so for him, that I wouldn't say that moment sent him. And he doesn't say that sent him into a spiral, but he was already spiraling. I mean, Friday before, 10,000 people would answer an email if he sent it. A hundred people would say, yes, Howard, if he walked out of his office door. Now that wasn't happening. So, um, second story. There was a woman that worked at the center for the. She was the management department admin at Cal State Fullerton. Can't remember her name. I, uh, apologize for that if you're listening. Um, it was her last day before she retired. Uh, she was making the rounds, saying goodbye to people. Popped into my office. We had worked together for my first five or six years there. So I knew her pretty well. So well that I don't remember her name now 10 years later. But, um, and I said, so what are you going to do now? And she goes, you know, I'm, I'm just. The only thing that's going to change is I'm not going to come here. And that hit me to the core and that I wrote a blog entry about it. I've talked about that story multiple times. M. Moral of the story is find things you love doing and start doing them now. If you're 55 and you think you're going to retire in 15 years, I'm m not going to say go get a hobby or go learn how to play golf or go start fishing, but find something that lights you up so much that you can't wait to do it on your weekends. Or maybe you integrate it into your business. Maybe it's nonprofit. Maybe you just love a certain non profit for whatever reason. Figure out what breaks your heart and put your time, talent, energy, touch, treasure there now so that when you do retire, you're so fired up that you get, get to go do more of that travel with your spouse now if that's something you want to do. Um, what makes me the most sad? Well, there's a, uh, lot. But one of the things in answer to your question is when you, you go to bed Friday night fired up about what you got to do all week, but then you wake up on Monday, you don't, don't get to do it anymore. Whether it's because you retired or, you know, I know people who get that diagnosis, they don't get to go do what they did because they're sick or they're. I met a guy just two days ago, had both of his legs amputated, and he shared a story at this national speaker association. He woke up one morning and got to run and won a golden or, uh, won a medal in the Olympics and then woke up the next day and found out he's never going to get to do that again. So most of us, it's not going to be tragic like that majority of us, but all of us know there will come a time when I don't get to play baseball anymore. There will come a time when I don't get. Play golf for a living anymore. I don't get to. But for all those people, there's gonna come a time when you don't get to run your company anymore. So prepare for it now find. I get emotional. I'm getting emotional thinking about it. I'm 61 years old. I know that I'm not gonna get to, uh, podcast and write and speak and consult the rest of my life, but I have enough things I love doing that don't involve any of those things. But if this all was taken away from me today, yeah, it would suck. But I have so many things I love doing that would just free me up to go do those things. So. Yeah. Advice to those that just were listening for my answer to that question. Find stuff you want to do the rest of your life and get started right now if you're not doing it already. Less of a shocking system.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, I really, I really love that. Uh, because that's. Yeah, I, I, you just see that too much where people are just working their butts off, their tails off until, until they're done and then they think

Speaker B: right to the finish. And then what?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, and, um, and it's just it. And especially as you're leading up to that, within the first few years before you do that, you can start passing on things so that you can start doing those things and it's okay to

Speaker B: sprint to the finish. In fact, I'd highly encourage it, you know, run faster to the finish because you notice on the other end of the tape is pretty cool.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. That's a great Perspective. That's a great perspective. And I think, um, you know, that kind of sheds a light because you are. You're full of this wisdom, and you call it Boomer wisdom.

Speaker B: Casting on the Boomer. There you go. Right? Thanks for a nice segue like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. No, but I. I did want to highlight the book that you wrote, though, called, you know, Boomer Wisdom. And, um, and I wanted you to kind of share a little bit about that and. And what. What. What prompted you to write that? Uh, and. And bring it into the world.

Speaker B: Uh, so Ken Blanchard, who I've alluded to on this conversation already, I. I feel sort of like a name dropper, because I am very blessed to know a lot of really amazing people. Um, Ken spoke at one of our family business hall of fame events at Fullerton a decade ago. Met him through my buddy Dan Cornell, who I alluded to earlier. Um, Ken and I just became. We became friends. I can honestly say, with him, we are. We are. We're good friends. He's a mentor. We talk, we text, we email. It's a regular occurrence. I mean, I don't know if you ever read the book Tuesdays with Maury. Um, you know, I won't get into that, but, you know, Ken's kind of my Maury. He's that guy that I can go visit with in his home in Rancho Bernardo or call him if I'm in a dilemma or just to say hi. So he asked me before my 50th birthday. I'm now 61. Or his kids would say I'm 61 and a half. You know, throw the half in there when they're almost 16 or 19 or what have you. But, um, what do you want for your birthday? Ken said. I said Ken jokingly, I want to write a book with you. Okay, let's do it. Okay, sure, whatever. You're Ken Blanchard. Whatever. No, no, seriously, let's. Let's think this through. Let's think about what it would be. So lots of conversations and con, you know, conversations with loved ones, my wife and friends, and Ken again, and others. And, um, you know, I was born in 1964, which is the last year, officially, of the baby boomer generation. So I'm a boomer. Um, and I don't remember the. I've got a few books on my shelf and on my desk that are anthologies of several people. You know, Tim Ferriss wrote, you know, tools, uh, of Tie of the Titans, and, uh, Servant Leadership by ken Blanchard is 35 different servant leaders telling their stories. So I asked Ken, I said, what are your thoughts about doing something like that? And he loved the idea. So, long story short, my initial plan, and eventually it happened, was to find 60 people, 59 plus me, each of us, to answer one question. Just write an essay. One question. What advice would you give to the next generation? And Ken solicited Marshall Goldsmith and Gary Ridge, who he brought to the table, and a couple others. I reached out to a lot of others that I know. A couple of it are not quite boomers yet. Ali Taylor wrote a chapter, Tam Lin wrote a chapter, a couple others that wrote about boomers in their lives rather than from the perspective of boomers, which I thought was kind of cool to have that mix. So. Really?

Speaker A: Yeah, just.

Speaker B: And I've always, you know, I love writing. Um, who doesn't want to have a book with their name? I wrote a fictional baseball book 20 years ago, and it's so fun to look at it on my shelf and see the title and see my name on there. And. Yeah, maybe it's an ego thing. Saw a quote the other day, Zig Ziglar, and I put it on LinkedIn this morning. I think, um, ego meat is a. Is a curious disease. It makes everybody else sick except the one that has it. So I'm hoping I'm not writing these books for my ego. Although it does feel kind of good to see your name on a book. Yeah. But no. And I think that there's so much wisdom out there. There's so many. And we. We've struggled with calling it boomer wisdom, because I don't know if your generation and the younger generations really care what boomers think, but I cared what the older generations think. I cared what my dad and Ken Blanchard and that generation think. So my hope is that, you know, we can see through the humor of the title. You know, a great boomer. Okay, Boomer, what you got? You know, we almost called it that. And the idea behind it is just, you know, we. We hope these are life lessons. I don't think any of these are lessons that we invented. These are lessons we got from others. And they just, you know, we've thought about wisdom for the generations because this is stuff, you know, the. Where is it online M. The Dale Carnegie book, the Art of Public speaking, written in 1915.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: One hundred and ten years ago, you know, and there's new stuff in there that nobody knows. And I read through some of it this morning, something I never even thought about, so.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: My hope is that the wisdom that we've all learned from before can pass through us on the next generation.

Speaker A: Yeah, well that's, I think it's, I think it's great that you wrote that because you know, regardless of what it

Speaker B: together I wrote one chapter in the forward 58, 59 of the people wrote it too. Great.

Speaker A: Good point. I mean I'm glad you compiled that.

Speaker B: There you go. Thank you.

Speaker A: Because, yeah, I mean because I think that perspective really matters regardless of what certain people or generations think. It shouldn't be able to silence those who have a voice and you know, who, who should be able to pass on what, what their learnings were for an entire generation. You know, I mean uh, every generation is going to be different and everybody, every generation has to take those lessons from the previous generations and apply what they've learned in some way to that to the modern day and evolve appropriately. So um, when my dad, my dad

Speaker B: died at 94 when he was in his 70s at his church, he joined what they called a six pack. So it had my attention right away because of the name. But um, you know it was one person, one, it was a men's group. One, one, one man, my dad from his 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s and 20s. And it was a peer group commit monthly. They went to breakfast once a month. They would, the plan was 7 to 9. They'd always end up staying till noon because they just get going. Um, but what was so great about that was yeah, my, my dad learned how to text message from a 20 year old in that group and the 50 year old learned how to plan for retirement from uh, the 60 year old. And my dad who was in his 70s and there's every generation, every decade. I don't know if a generation's a decade or not. Don't think that's accurate. But um, every decade, every generation can learn from the previous and from the, and from the younger. You know I, if I have a technology question, I call my 13 year old grandson. You know, he knows better than I do because he's been doing it, I've been doing technology longer than he's been alive but he's been percentage wise. It's all he's ever done.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: He has so much more wisdom than I do because he's lived, he's had an iPhone, uh, there's never been a time in his life when an iPhone didn't exist. You know, 10 year old device that I'm still trying to figure out what

Speaker A: to do with it. So it's the digital native. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no that's, it's, that's, that's, um, that's really a great point. And, um, and, and I, I appreciate you being here, Ed, because it's been way too long since we've talked.

Speaker B: It has been. I apologize for the false start last time. But, you know, we're, we're here now and I, and I, the next conversation we have, we're going to switch screens and you're going to be a guest on my podcast.

Speaker A: I love that. And I'm really looking forward to that. So, yeah, just, uh, um, um. And yeah, I'm really grateful you're here because I've been, like I said, I've been really looking forward to this. I know you have a ton of experience, knowledge and wisdom to share, um, Boomer or otherwise. And I think.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: And I really appreciate your perspective, as I always have. I appreciate you being, you know, a mentor to me when I was coming up in the, um, you know, know, at, at, in, in Hill Brothers. And um, and yeah, really grateful for you being here to just share a little bit of that with the world.

Speaker B: Well, your family gave me a lot of opportunity as well. I, I, I got to practice my public speaking a handful of times of coming and speaking to your family at different retreats. And you know, Ron has been a, a, a, uh, very dear. I'm somewhere in between. I, I don't. How old's your dad?

Speaker A: He's, uh, he's 75 now.

Speaker B: Okay. And I'm 61. And how old are you right now?

Speaker A: I'm, uh, I'm 46, so about that same, basically. Yeah.

Speaker B: Roughly 15 years younger than him and roughly 15 years older than you, so I'm stuck in the middle again, as the song says, you know. But no, I have that opportunity to. And I, and I, I see you as a mentor. I don't see me as your mentor or him as mine. I see that we've mentored and helped each other. And, uh, I think that's, I think that's the beauty of a mentor mentee relationship is it's two way.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, um, I appreciate that. And, and, and, um, and yeah, your, your podcast, uh, from the Heart, which is a great name and, and widely listened to, has some great guests, as you mentioned, a few here. Uh, I would encourage anybody that's listening to this right now, uh, after the show ends, is to go over and subscribe to from the Heart and start some episodes on that and get some of that wisdom too, because that's a, it's a great show.

Speaker B: It's fun, as you know. Okay. I mean, where else do you get to spend an hour, one on one, with someone you really look up to or someone you've done it? Because I know and I've interviewed a lot of people that the only hour I've ever had with them was on the show. We didn't speak before. We had an email or two, maybe through their publicist or what have you, or maybe through them. Um, and we didn't talk after, but we had that hour. And, um, it's. It's an honor and it's a privilege and a responsibility that we have, I think, to, to share the wisdom of the people that we get to talk with. So it's a lot of fun, as you know.

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. And it's, it's. It's a great learning experience and it's a. It's a huge life hack, too. Talk to the biggest, the greatest experts in the world on a variety of topics and learn from them for an hour for free.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, and I, uh, mean aside from the cost of production and equipment, all that kind of stuff, but it's.

Speaker B: You're a result.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: All right,

Speaker A: well, thank you for being here. And, and if people want to reach out to you or find you, um, how can they. How can they get a hold of you on LinkedIn or.

Speaker B: Yeah, so at Hart just H A, uh, is my name. I'm Ed Hart. You know, I think you can find me. At the conference I was at, we were finding each other on LinkedIn, everybody and type in the name and it's there. Hart Leadership is my website. H A R T Leadership, where all my podcasts are and all the events that I'm doing, speaking opportunities, a little bit about, you know, Boomer Wisdom Book and other books that I had nothing to do with that. I just love podcasts that I love like yours. So it's, it's sort of a resource page, if you will. Uh, but yeah, LinkedIn is always great. Um, my email, my phone, everything's on the heartleadership.com website. And yeah, shamelessly plug not my podcast, but you who are listening today, if you'd like to come on and share your story. Uh, my hashtag is everyone has a story. And you know, don't. Don't let the name of people you've heard intimidate or fool you. I want to talk to you. I want to talk to everybody, because everyone does have a great story. I Seductor 1 of the conference yesterday and we got to talking for a half hour. She shared with me that she's a high wire act performer. And then she fell and she had this nearly fatal fall and it's like, wow. I want to interview you, I want to hear your story. You know, what's your name? Her name, last name is Wallenda. She's part of the friggin Flying of Wallenda's, the most famous sidewire act in the world. She's, she's, um, Liliana. I don't remember her first name, Melinda. So I knew that she had a great story before I knew her family name, you know, and so, you know, but everybody does have a story and it's intriguing. And you know, the quote that I shared with you, Adam, before we recorded that I heard the other day is, you know, an apple doesn't eat its own or a tree doesn't eat its own fruit. You know, everything we're here, everything we do is here for other people. So including the podcast. So if you want to share your story, talk to me. Let's, let's share your fruit with other people.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate that offer. We'll get that in the show notes. And if you want to share this episode, if you're listening to this and you think it can benefit a friend, a family member, a family business that you know of, uh, that, that you've heard a nugget in here, please share it. And uh, and, and don't forget to subscribe and like it. Appreciate that it gets the word out, uh, to family businesses everywhere that they have support and uh, through shows like Eds and shows like mine. So thank you very much for listening today. Thank you, Ed, for joining me. And, uh, we will see you next time.

Speaker B: Yeah, and listen, Adam, this guy knows what he's talking about. Thanks, Adam. Thank you, Ed.