467 | Hugh Hunt - Are You Making These Million-Dollar Leadership Mistakes?

Speaker A: How you see the world is how you live it and then at the end of the day, that's your experience in life. So why would you choose to look at the world and see a bunch of misery and see a bunch of sadness and despair? Like choose to go and see the good in the world.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Leaders of Tomorrow podcast. My name is Chris Thompson, your host of the show and the head coach of the Student Works Management program. This is a show dedicated to young and ambitious entrepreneurs and ultimately the leaders of Tomorrow. Each week we will bring you an inspiring interview or message to help you create the future you know you deserve. Let's get started. Hey leaders. Super excited to be bringing a multi year operator today. And we've got Hugh Hunt. Hugh spent a year as a painter, a year as a production manager, both years with Jackson Butler, one of our amazing alum out in St. John's Newfoundland. And the last four years he's been running, running just great businesses, learning more and more and more, you know, stepping into his leadership, you know, playing a really great role with us. We didn't talk about it, but he was also a successful mini coach with us, contributed in many ways to the business and we talked about a lot of things, you know, how mindset impacts the business, you know, specific skills that he gained and confidence that he's leading into after completing what he hopes to complete. And I expect him to complete a million dollars for the business with StudentWorks over the last four years. So I know you can enjoy this podcast. Why are we doing this? To attract another amazing people like Jackson, like Hugh, and so that we find other amazing people want to be entrepreneurs, want to be leaders and help them have big futures. So if you know anybody, please share this podcast, send them to studentworks.com have them shoot me an email at c thompsonudentworks.com have a super fantastic day.

Speaker C: Thank you,

Speaker B: Hugh. So happy to have you and welcome you on the Leaders of Tomorrow podcast.

Speaker A: Thanks. Thanks Chris. Super excited to be here and thanks for having me on.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's great. Well, I know we were talking about, you know, just your sixth year in the program, so that's fantastic. But why don't we talk about who Hugh was before he joined the program, before you became a painter back in Jackson Butler's business six years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's honestly tough to think back that far ago as well. Gotten 2 degrees since then and, and I'm married at the end of the summer as well. But it's funny when I think back to who I was at university, I was the kind of kid who had a really big engine. So I was really willing to put in a lot of work and a lot of effort into areas that I saw a lot of return for myself personally. And so when I started out in university, that area was music for me. And I really loved playing the saxophone. And so the more time I put in the saxophone, just the more I got out of it. So I decided to study music at the start back in 2018, and then in 2020, the global pandemic obviously shut that down. So I was in Ontario, do a music school out in Newfoundland on, um, Zoom. So it didn't really work that well. And I was quickly losing my love for music. At the same time, they just opened up a conjoint degree program where I could study both music and business at the same time. And my father growing up, I mean, he grew up on a farm, flipped houses until he had enough to purchase his first business, and then has been a businessman his whole life. So that's the environment that I grew up in. I knew that's eventually where I wanted to get to and just didn't really know how to get there. So when that conjoined degree opened up where I could study both at the same time, little light bulb clicked in my head. And that allowed me to continue going forward with both that, uh, music and that business, getting the passion for both. I had really big engine, but I didn't know where I was going and I didn't really have any direction. I was coming up to almost near the end of my degree, before I even found this program and before I started as a painter.

Speaker B: Okay, okay. And so, so you got recruited by Jackson, and so what did you learn that first summer as a painter in Jackson's business?

Speaker A: I learned the value of hard work. That's the number one thing I learned. And I think the other part is when you put that work in, in the right place with the people that are able to give you that growth opportunity, the reward that you're going to get for it is absolutely massive. And so I think that's the luckiest thing I did was when I showed up to the job site on the first day, I looked at him because I'd never met him before. We just had a phone interview and then he said, show up to the job site. We'll see if you survive. And so when I showed up, I realized he was the same age as me. I looked at him and I was like, okay, wait, that's where I should be. So the first question I ever asked him was, how do I get to where you are?

Speaker B: Okay, great.

Speaker A: Very stereotypical first question. And he actually laughed and said, well, just go paint this deck and we'll see if you survive today.

Speaker B: So, by the way, this is not the normal recruiting process. So Jackson, uh, we'll talk later. I'm joking. So, you know, and again, by the sounds of it, a midsummer on his way, trying to get work done, trying to problem solve. And there is something as well too, in the middle of the season. One thing that we do find helpful is, you know, painters and window cleaners, people do polymeric sanding. It's, you know, what they answer in an interview really doesn't have a lot to do with whether they can do the work. Right. So in many ways, when it's like, try this person out, can they work with their hands? Can they work hard? And then, then we interview them, then we'll have conversations. So sometimes just in the middle of the summer, it can be a great way to do a short, you know, a little test. Okay, good, let's talk. So, and then obviously it must have worked well because you got invited back and performed as a, ah, pm. So why don't you talk about that experience and what you learned that being a, uh, PM in Jackson's business.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was actually another indispensable, valuable experience that I got from this program. And so that was a time where the trainings were still online, uh, because of COVID I think. Yes. So I, I was able to join, you know, the large January training, and I was able to join all of these student works trainings, which really made me feel like I was really big part of this community. So I was able to sell and produce over $120,000 as production manager for Jackson while finishing up my final year of university, doing my final recital. You have 30 minutes of memorized music alone on stage. So I remember that very distinctly. And that summer was all about time management. That was about making sure not only I was crushing it on the business side and I had enough time to go marketing and hit all of the doors in the evening, but also that I was putting in the time when I had it during the school hours because I did not have any time to waste there. And so if I wanted to get everything that I wanted out of it, I had to make sure I was scheduling really well scheduling two, three weeks in advance, even during the preseason, you know, being aware of where all my assignments are going to be, where all of my playing, uh, tests are going to be and all my timelines so that I can be prepared and not be stressed. And hands down, that's the only reason I was able to do that and continue to scale the business afterwards as well. So the biggest thing that I learned that year was how to manage my time and how to schedule it and the importance of scheduling two weeks out. Being optimistic about that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: One of the things, um, you know, Hughes from St. John's Newfoundland and St. John's is really, you know, it's always hard to compare markets. Comparison can be the thief of joy. However, St. John's is an incredible market for us historically. You know, we just recruit from referrals and so they're just people referred in from the business into the business. And we have just an incredible success rate of, you know, top people. And so you got the opportunity to step in one of those spots that next year and you earned your right to have that spot. And so tell me about the experience of that first summer.

Speaker A: It was a whirlwind. I thought I knew everything going into it, having been a production manager and I didn't know half of it. The one thing I will say is the only saving grace I had is that it shifted my perspective of what hard was. So for me, when I started, hard was waking up at 7am to go do a shift. You know, hard was putting in 11 hour days right now. That was easy work. So the hard work was dealing with my employees, making sure they're enrolled into the business, making sure that my clients are all getting the proper expectations set from day one. Right. Seeing the impacts of those expectations maybe being improperly set or not set early enough. And so I think in my first year it was the ownership of all of it. And that all fell on me, that high level of pressure. That was really the biggest difference between the first two years.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like you said, hard is not the effort. And sometimes it's like, wow, I'm not that organized. And looking back on it and seeing, oh, that's why it was so hard because I've got all this in my head instead on a piece of paper. Sorry. In a computer, in a system, in a structure to manage it. By the way, that comes up thinking about my first summer, there were no computers or hardly any anyhow. But you know, it's like, oh yeah, like how is this repeatable? How is this, how can I just continue to go do this? And you know, we just had our advanced production training. Q and one thing we love to train is just the concept of it. Just doesn't need to be so impactful. It doesn't need to really mean so much. Meaning we will have some jobs that go sideways because it's impossible to paint or window clean in polymeric sand. Tens of thousands of jobs with, uh, out problems. And when they happen, we'll fix them. And of course, we don't want them to happen. We're totally committed. Not them happen and sometime will happen and then, hey, we can take the emotion out of it. You know, it's just, let's go fix it. I'm sure for you now at this point, you know, challenges hit so much easier now it's like, oh, I got it. We'll fix that, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know, uh, how much you want me to share of this story, but I do distinctly remember my first ever job that I produced under my business, under my name. And it ended up being a job that I, you know, I think another operator had quoted. And then I had taken it over because they just couldn't get it produced in that timeframe. So it was like me and my best friend, we went out there, we knew what we were doing, and it was quoted for, I think, 10 gallons of stain. We ended up using 30 gallons of stain.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So that was a really fast learning lesson. You know, first job, sitting out there thinking, is this what I got myself into? And luckily I had an amazing coach at the time, Luke Fenn. You know, I think if there was a hall of fame of coaches, he's, he's, he's the first one for sure. But I remember calling him and, you know, in my car, and he was just able to walk me through this whole process, just take the emotions out of it. What type of conversations do you need to go have with the client to go make sure that it's all good? And from that experience, it went from, what am I getting myself into? To oh my gosh, thank God, you know, so thankful I've got my coach with me. I've got all of these supports behind me as well.

Speaker B: So what did you learn that you didn't expect that first season?

Speaker A: I think the part that I didn't expect is how quickly people will just start to respect you the more and more you put into the business. I think that was one thing that I always missed was when I looked at Jackson Butler, I did see a business owner. I saw somebody that knew what he was doing, where he was going, how he was going to get there. And then when I jumped into that role, I was like, oh, there's nobody telling me how to. Where to go or what to do. So setting that direction. And it shocked me when I set the direction, how much people took that on. And I think it was a bit of a fear of, like, why would people listen to me? And it's just a summer job, right? Like, and that's the other thing. Like, it's just for three months, right? So why are they going to care about the values of the business or anything like that? And that. So that was the biggest challenge in my first years. I really wanted to instill some values into the business. I wanted to take some time and do a little bit of extra work. I got a little bit swept up in the production side of things. Still had an amazing year, you know, still over doubled the size of the business from the year before. Still was able to get everything done. And when I do reflect on that first year, I think if I were able to set the direction and get that opportunity to have people grow more within my business, I would be able to retain more painters year over year. Um, I would be able to have just better systems year over year as well. So.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, you know, and again, so it's kind of what I think you're really describing is this idea of imposter syndrome. You know, it's like, oh, I'm not good enough, or mitigating our role rather than. No, actually there are very few, if, you know, if any painting businesses who do more business than we do in Canada. So why shouldn't we? And most people, by the way, only paint during the summer in Canada because it's bloody well cold everywhere else. So, you know, it's kind of the stories we make up about it, and they're not true. You know, we have every right to be proud of what we do and our values matter, but these are the things that we learned to overcome. And I know, as you know, mindset matters. Right. So as we walk into our second year, what sort of distinguished your second year from your first year?

Speaker A: And, uh, just. Just to touch on a super quick, funny point, Chris, out here in Newfoundland, and unfortunately, we are not able to get outside staining because it's snowing. It's snowing out today.

Speaker B: Exactly. So it's really. There's really three months that we really ate in Newfoundland. June, July and August, and then we're back at school. So. Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah. So then it's. Sorry. And just to get back to your question, so in my second year, a lot of that was delegation, so I felt like I had Learned the sales side of it. I felt like I had learned the production side of it and I could do it myself. So let's learn how to teach people. So I hired two separate production managers which were supposed to both run, you know, half of the business each. And then by the end of the summer I just had one production. Sure. We ended up consolidating and the other guy found another role within the business that served him as the production manager role did. And he went off to do really fantastic things as well. But that was the year of delegation. And that was really the moment where I started asking myself, am I delegating this or am I just passing this off to somebody? Right. Am I just passing off the responsibility? And learning that distinction of delegation is empowering them not only with the systems but also with any other type of purchasing power, any type of feedback system and feedback loops and getting on with weekly meetings and this whole thing to delegate. It's not just say, here's a piece of paper, this is how you do it.

Speaker B: Yeah. And again, I think the term of delegation, I think a lot of times is delegating tasks. Okay, bring this bucket over there. Right where? No, that's not what we're doing here at Studentworks. We're here, let's go and you know, sell this complete successful clients and then you know, later on let's go take that client from a happy, you know, sold client into fully satisfied and they send you a check and give you a five star review and leave your team with tips. Tips, you know, that's. So there's a complete process that ah, of everything that we're doing, it's really, again we use the term delegate but it's much broader. And because again, the game we're playing in every role in our business is we're training leaders. So it's just like, and I know that's what you've continued to do. So it's like, okay, how do I train my leaders? How do I have my leaders step into this, you know, at a higher and higher level? And I know every year you've done that at a higher and higher level. You can see it through the numbers in your business that every year you do more and then you can see it and also the way that you're doing it. We talked about that in this, your final year in the season. So what about your third year? What progress were you able to make in your third year?

Speaker A: So, uh, my third year, you know, and again I think that this goes back to that sort of Delegation thing that we were talking about, building the leaders of tomorrow. The third year was learning to not put people in places that they shouldn't be and then stop trying to make that work. So I had really fantastic production manager that was crushing the production side of things. And in the off season we decided to try to have him start sales a little bit. So start knocking on some doors, start doing some eight ah, point calls. And that actually went extremely well for the preseason. And you know, he had sold a decent bit. So we were hoping that he would then become an operator within the program. And we sat down, we had a conversation because he was getting really, I think, just misaligned with where he wanted to go and what he wanted to get out of this program. He didn't really see himself later on in life as being a full business manager. He really saw himself as being a small manager for a small team. He's a computer scientist.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And so when we broke down, where does he want to go and what skills does he need? It's more of a way higher level production manager of hiring and managing employees, fully onboarding, fully training them up. Right. And then fully managing them throughout the entire summer. Creating presentations, creating PowerPoints and systems for your painters.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So last summer was kind of the growing pains of learning that and learning that, hey, sometimes when you have a square peg, you can't put it into a circular hole no matter how hard you try to fit it in.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: It might go in a little bit, but let's use your pieces, you know, let's use your chess pieces as most effectively as you can.

Speaker B: Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with this. It's like, oh, do you want to try this? But one of the things we talk about here is empowerment is, you know, here's what we see for you. Are you interested? It's kind of your hand goes out and then does someone want to pick that up off your hand to say, yes, I want to try that. And we're not trying to force or manipulate or, you know, have someone do something. No, they want to, they want to pick it up. Because any action like that just won't work and it's out of integrity. So, you know, the most important thing is it does not lead to their bigger future. There's all sorts of ways to have a great life. And we just want people to have great lives who come participate in our program and then after they leave the program. So that's a great distinction. It's like, oh, this role doesn't fit, but this one does. And that's what we want. And so it's really great when we can, you know, just be honest is a big part of it, just being honest. And I think also, as well, something that, you know, there's nothing better about doing one role than another.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: You know, again, it's like we are about something. We are about a philosophy, a way of, of operating in the world. It's not better. It's just what we are. And again, people could come and say, oh, wow, I really love what you guys are doing. And they could say, well, hey, I'd rather be doing music. And, oh, great. Like, you know, okay, you know, that's great. Like, there's nothing. Again. This is what we're about. Do you want to be part of this? Fantastic. Come, um, do this. Or do you want to contribute in that way? That's awesome. That's a great lesson. I'm sure that's something that you've learned over the years.

Speaker A: Yeah. And just to expand on that a little bit further, one of the big values you have, I, uh, brought into my own business is earning your right to work here. Right. And what does that look like for your role? Right. That doesn't necessarily mean that you, as a painter, need to show up, like, the same way as an owner would. Right? Yeah. It's how you earn your right to work here. So that's what the conversation was framed around with that particular. His name was also Jackson. Not to add too much confusion to it, but with Jackson, it was, you know, how can you earn your right to work here? How do you want to earn your right to work here? And then, you know, we're still best friends. We live together, you know, awesome. Uh, we've been together for two years after that. So it is just finding out, uh, where your key players are going to fit in your business and then helping them grow into that role as much as possible. There's still so much growth potential for him within that role and for what he wants to get out of this.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. And so I know this is your final season. What are you hoping to accomplish? You know, right now I know you're doing very well. What are you hoping to sort of create this year?

Speaker A: Q. Yeah. So looking at, uh, over doubling the business size once again, should be in the Million Dollar Club at the end of this year as well, which is super exciting. And then coming out of this year, so we've got the most returning painters we've ever had. We've got five values within the business that we really are hitting home every single day. We've got a whole bunch of brand new production systems. So not only do I want to have the smoothest summer possible, I also want to have the biggest summer we've ever had. And I want to be selling during the entire summer. That's what I want to do. And so the way that I've set up the business this year is I've been able to empower a lot of my crew leaders to go ahead and take on a lot more responsibility. So that Jackson, my production manager, is more of a high level manager of managers. Then he is going onto the job site, getting contracts signed at the end of the job, making sure the clients are happy, everything right. So building out those systems in the off season, that took a lot of time. Pretty much full three months of just working on the workflows and the emails and everything like that. And then the only reason I've been able to do that is part of the Simon upgrade that's happened this year on your side of things. So the software that StudentWorks is using now is absolutely phenomenal when it comes to time tracking material, tracking on job sites. It's reducing the amount of time that we need to check in and call our painters because we can just log in and see in real time what they're working on and how long they've been working on it. So really does free up a lot of our time and allows us to go out and find other systems, find better ways of doing things.

Speaker B: So if you pause just for our leaders who aren't aware, what are some of the things that you're finding really, really helpful? Like here are the specific things and maybe even, hey, how much time do you feel like Simon is going to save you versus last year's? You know, that's kind of interesting.

Speaker A: Yes, it's why you mentioned it. We've only been producing interiors for I think three or four weeks now, so still pretty early stage production. It saved us already. We've tracked it. It saved us at least five hours of our production manager driving back and forth and solving problems. And so what it enables mainly for us is the upsell opportunity. It's a really easy system to do estimates through. So for our guys to go in and do quotes while they're there, it's really, really awesome to give them a price. Other part is around contracts just like access and just like access to information from the worker side of things. They have so much more access to information. It also just makes us as owners look way more Professional, like it makes us look like way more professional to all of our workers that we have this really awesome software management. We have this awesome training system and everything. So a lot of the impacts are around communication, right? A lot of it is instead of Jackson having to call the workers and where are you guys at FaceTime? Me? You know, services is a thing out here as well. We don't always have service, so it's tough to get on the FaceTime. So super low rate website that doesn't take a lot of data that loads very fast is extremely effective for us. And again, most of it's around the communication on a day to day basis. And then for us as owners, it's more like the hour tracking the material management because that's all done on site in real time as opposed to, you know, going back through and finding the texts in the group chat or whatever. That's what I was doing, you know, five years ago.

Speaker C: Hey leaders. I hope you are enjoying this podcast. As we approach and surpass 300 episodes, well over 95% of the leaders that we have interviewed have been alumni of the Student Works Management program. It has been an honor to participate in their development over the years. Starting now and only for the fall months, we will be on campus at universities and colleges in Ontario, Quebec and the east coast interviewing students who think they have what it takes to start their first business and get started down the path of entrepreneurship. If you are interested in being a leader in our program or know someone who does, please go to the show notes and hit Student Works and get sent to a landing page to apply. There is a bold student Works that you can hit to go to a landing page to apply. Thanks so much.

Speaker B: Back to the show. First of all, for people with high integrity like you, they would do that and then they would understand what their profitability is. But a lot of times operators would fail to do that work and kind of be guessing. And now every job closes out and there's a percentage profit that the operator there can see. This is how much money I made and I can see that it literally is the amount of hours I spent, the materials that are gone through my system and you know, the fees I paid to Student works. You know, I know one of the great things as well is one big focus in the middle of the summer is if you can imagine you're working on a street, there's a concept called Keeping up with the Joneses. It's just natural. Humans have this, oh well, what are they doing? And so the best opportunity to get business is literally to talk to people down the street and just go, oh hey, we're just over here, come take a look. And what are you planning on painting this year? And now with our Simon, people just turn on their marketing and it shows that they're walking around the neighborhood or it shows that they're not walking around the neighborhood. And so just that that little piece I think will make all the difference in terms of sales during the summer for our operators and much easier to ensure this is going to happen so that again the painters have work or the window cleaners etc have work all season long. So it's. We're really, really excited. I'm glad you brought that up. It's been an enormous investment for us. It has been bumpy. Like most, you know, big progress programs like this is two year program to get it completely built and we're not done. And once you're there, then you see more there. There's so. But we're very excited with all that it's delivering, to say the least.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is a massive upgrade for sure. And just to touch on that, every stat is a lot more trackable in your business. Not just the marketing side, but also the calling. You have a caller in your business, the estimates, like everything is kept up. And also organization, that's the other big thing. It's just a massive organization time saver as well. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so how do you bleed the skills that you've learned, you know, at studentworks are going to help with your career? Hugh?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. People always ask me, what are you going to do after this? What are you going to do after this? I still have come to you, Chris, and I've had conversations with a bunch of different people on a bunch of different paths. I was just a teacher there for a day on Friday. I might go be a teacher. I honestly have no idea. But what this given me is the full confidence that uh, no matter where I go, if I put my mind to it, I can absolutely go ahead and crush it. So there's two really big things. I think the freedom of the last few years has forced me to work harder than I would if I was just working a nine to five. Because again, uh, like I say, I'd rather work a hundred hours for myself every week than 40 hours for somebody else.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And so that adaptability and learning, you know, how to put on so many different hats at so many different times, you know, get a call from the wife in the middle of a quote, have to switch Your whole tone. Right. But being able to do that and then going into a really tough conversation with a painter or with a client or whatever, leaving that out, uh, there, coming home, enjoying your nice family time at home, that's been a huge skill that I've been able to gain here. And I think that's the biggest one is. Yeah. Having worn so many hats for so many years, it makes putting them on a lot easier and switching between them a lot easier. And that really has allowed me to align more with myself, like who I was before student works, this very passionate music student with who I am now, which is a very passionate businessman. Right. How am I able to mend those two things together? And that's another thing is just being authentically myself and being able to genuinely connect with people about things that I'm actually passionate about has been fantastic. So I can build rapport with anybody in the world. I know that to be true. And I know no matter where I go, even just all the door knocking skills, all the communication skills. I think we were speaking about this a little bit beforehand as well. Yeah, just full confidence.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, for sure. What habits would someone want to steal from you?

Speaker A: If it takes less than two minutes, do it right now. That's the number one trap that I fell into when I started this is I would put it on a to do list or I'd put it on a calendar or call you back later. If it takes less than two minutes, do it right now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Always use a to do list and don't overcomplicate it. I think one thing I got into is trying to make the perfect to do system, the perfect follow up. Right. The automatic everything.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So just write it down on a piece of paper, have a sticky note somewhere, use your phone notes app, just do something easy. And then for me, one of the things that I learned pretty early on is that when something pops up and I'm a little bit nervous about it, I tend to avoid it. And I can sense that I'm avoiding it and I just continue to avoid it. So in my second year, I made the switch. I remember we had a conversation very specifically at, uh, January training. I made a switch where that's now a trigger for me to go and do that. If there's a slight bit of anxiety of like, oh, I didn't talk to Mr. Jones about the progress payment, let me go do that right now. Because I know that it's going to fester in time. So that goes back to the like. If it takes less than two Minutes. Do it in the moment. If it causes you anxiety, do it in the moment. Or come up with a plan to go and deal with it in the moment and then go and execute.

Speaker B: Yeah, and if I can pause there, like, it really is important. We know when we're not doing something. We know when we're breaching our own integrity. And so the longer we allow that to happen, in the less a sense we have of ourselves. So it's like, okay, you're right, Chris, I gotta go do this. And again, it doesn't necessarily mean. Just because some people might be resisting what you're saying. Well, hold on.

Speaker A: Just doing this.

Speaker B: Or, you know, so it's like, okay, I'm going to write that down. And again, next available moment, I'm going

Speaker A: to go do this.

Speaker B: And, you know, it's like, attack the thing that's bothering you first thing in the morning. Maybe you're sleeping at night and something bothers you. First of all, write that down. You know, it'll be there in the morning when you wake up. And then attack it. Go deal with them first thing. Because again, otherwise, it's just a huge weight on your shoulder all day long. And it's never as bad as you think it is. No, let's just go talk about it. Let's go resolve it. You know, so these things are so important, you know, just for the impact, the hidden impact that you're not really telling yourself is true.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love the writing it down part, too. For me, that's biggest key. That's what allows me to actually release it for the night and actually not think about it. Because I think we can so easily get stuck into that pattern of overthinking and not being able to get out of that headspace. Especially when you're living with, you know, your fiance, you're living with people. That impacts everything in your life. Right. You have to be able to switch out of that. So for me, I've got this. It's a little blackboard right in front of my keyboard on my desk, and I just. I can write down things on it quickly. And if it pops up in my head later in the day, I just look at is it on my blackboard. If it's there, it's okay. I'm going to deal with it later.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And so I know one of the things you mentioned to me and, you know, us talking about doing the podcast was just the importance of mindset. You know, I know we coach that a lot in the business. What sort of stands out for you, Hugh.

Speaker A: I mean, it's everything. I mean, mindset is everything. You can do anything, but you'll never enjoy it. So you really have the total key to being happy, and you can just choose to be happy. And I know it's a really difficult topic for people to understand, but one thing that has massively helped me figure this out is gratitude journal. You were hammering me, I think, for like three years to do a gratitude journal. And finally I started it up, like, at, uh, January training this year. And I've been consistent with it. I've been consistent with it. I can show you if you want. I can pull it off. But it's easy now. And one thing you said was actually feeling the gratitude.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Is a huge difference. I would just write things I was happy with before.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Now it's taking a bit of a moment to meditate.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So, you know, I'm, um, going to bring this up a little bit later on as well. But how you see the world is how you live it. And then at the end of the day, that's your experience in life. So why would you choose to look at the world and see a bunch of misery and see a bunch of. Of sadness and despair, like choose to go and see the good in the world when you do? That's the biggest mindset shift that I kind of had. Yeah.

Speaker B: And what we appreciate appreciates. And of course there is a lot of misery and of course. But isn't there more in most people's lives? We're talking to people here largely, you know, in first world countries who listen to our podcasts. It's, hey, don't we have a whole lot of things to be grateful for? And in fact, I think, you know, the happiness charts aren't that much happier or less happy in a lot of the first world countries. People are a lot of times way better at just, again, appreciating the things they can be appreciative of. You know, I know gratitude practice. If you have a gratitude practice, you're likely to be 25% happier. So, yes, Hugh feels that. I talk about that a lot, because I do, and individually and then, uh, in front of the group because it's just so impactful of, you know, a great life. And then I also think as a leader, we're grateful. If we're appreciating people, then people want to work with us. People will work harder. People feel, again, good about the work they're doing. And then customers will feel good because we're appreciative. Of their work, and then they're appreciative of us.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: You know, the opposite also works. Right.

Speaker C: Who?

Speaker B: You show up in the world as the world shines back for you. You know, if you go out and you giving Hugh your best efforts and you're thinking the best of Hugh, Hugh's going to naturally think the best of you. And it works. If I think the worst of Hugh, then he's going to think worse of me. Like, this is what's true in the world. So it really is powerful. We create the world, but with our thoughts, with our mindset.

Speaker A: Yeah. And Chris, just super quickly, you mentioned the World Happiness Study. I was listening to another podcast recently. It's down for the first time in five years since COVID It's the lowest it's ever been, which is super interesting to me because obviously Covid, at least for me, was a very, very depressing years.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Just like a lot of stuff outside of your control. Right. Whereas now it feels like we should have more within our control. So if I can give the listener something and I'm pleased. I read a book recently in the last three months that's made me a little bit more hopeful. So it's called Humankind by Rutger Bergman. Yeah. And it's basically just an argument that the reason that humans have evolved the way we have is because we're nice, not because we're inherently evil. So just worth a read, really. Did kind of give me a little bit of a perspective shift. Made me a little bit more optimistic. So if you are feeling a little bit pessimistic right now, I'd really recommend going, picking that book up and just giving it a read.

Speaker B: And it's important even to recognize, like, you know, if you think about there's this massive transition happening, you know, AI's on the way. And I really do believe that, you know, well, we know that Chinese population, overwhelmingly people are positive about the future of AI. Now, again, who knows how much what they know of it. In North America and Europe, overwhelmingly, people are against it. I believe a huge part of that is China and others. People are spending money to share all the bad things and not all the good things. And so often, and it's inaccurate. And so again, people are fearful, people are feeding in the fear. You know, the social media, AI, all these things are getting people agitated when again, there's like just so much good happening in the world. And so again, uh, what we focus on just makes all the difference.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So anything else that you'd like to Share in our podcast here.

Speaker A: If I could share one thing with everybody here, it would be always, always be looking out, uh, for opportunities. You never know where they're going to come from. There's no way that I expected the last years of my life to be shaped by this amazing program when I applied to a random job on Indeed. Yeah, right. So if I wasn't open minded and if I wasn't willing to evaluate things for what they are as opposed to what I hear them to be, then I might have never even joined this program and I don't know where my life would be. But, uh, I know I wouldn't be enjoying it as much as I am right now. So keep an open mind, do your own research, go speak to people within the program, see what it's like before you make your judgment on it because it absolutely will change the perspective and change the trajectory of where you're going.

Speaker B: And certainly again, this is, as we talked about earlier, not for everyone and it's for people how it's for. And I think we're doing a better and better job of just, you know, sharing who we are through our Instagram and LinkedIn and different sites and you know, our podcast, etc to share. We're trying to attract the right people who would love to do something like this. So final question. When you think of a leader tomorrow, what do you think of you?

Speaker A: It all goes back to mindset Chris. Seeing threats as opportunities and seeing fear and running towards it. Those are the two things that are going to define the leaders of our next generation. Especially with the rise of systems like AI. There's two ways to look at this and you highlighted it very well. It's the end of every white collar job you've ever seen or it's the start of, uh, something amazing and we're right at the ground floor of it. And so how you see the world is going to determine, you know, who is willing to get around you and who is willing to support you and how big of a dream you can have. So the people that are able to see threats as opportunities, the people that are able to go in there and then make their goals big enough so that everybody else's goal can fit within theirs. That's what I have to say.

Speaker B: I love that. And I think again, I feel like people in our program have massive futures heading for them. And again, why? Because we train them in exactly that thinking. They're just going to be thinking about, hey, how can create something with this and what's possible with this? And so Certainly our community is super excited about everything that's coming with AI on the whole again, I think there's no question that positivity around it would be much higher in our community. And I think because they've learned the skills that you've learned. They learned how to create a relationship, they've learned how to build rapport, they learn how to satisfy customers, they learn how to make profit. So I think the world of entrepreneurialism is going to be really assisted by AI and it is already. So, Hugh, thanks so much. You know, let's keep crushing it. I'm excited to be, you know, presenting the million dollar in sales or career production in August later on. So let's get there.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks so much, Chris.

Speaker C: Hey leaders. I hope you enjoyed this episode. By now, um, you are aware that we work with ambitious students every single year to not only help them run their first successful business, but to further their development as a leader and give them an unfair advantage in the future over their counterparts. It's why starting now and only for the next few weeks, will be on campuses across Ontario, Quebec and the east coast interviewing students who think they have what it takes to start their first business and get started down their path of entrepreneurship. If you think you have what it takes or know someone who might be interested, visit leaderspodcast CA Apply and start

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