He said when he was less in the office.

The company would grow more because he was more of the visionary.

He almost disrupt things too much.

And so if we can make the visionary feel comfortable with the day

to day, they can actually do more growth, by not being there.

Because the, the machine will run better with less adjustments.

Welcome to Seek, Go, Create.

This is your host, Tim Winders.

This is where we redefine success in leadership, business, and ministry,

sharing topics, stories, and conversations that just allow us to rethink how we live.

Work and lead great conversation today.

I'm excited to have Josh Fonger.

He's a consultant coach and speaker who's recognized as a leading authority

in business performance architecture, and he helps business owners.

I love these words, simplify, systemize, and generate powerful growth.

He's building thriving businesses, families, and communities.

Josh, welcome to seek, go create.

Hey, glad to be here, Tim.

I'm glad that you're here too.

And, I'm excited that we get to have this conversation.

I'm a systems guy.

I mentioned it right before we hit record.

I'm a, I'm an industrial, my degree is industrial and systems engineering.

And I feel like we're going to have some discussion about some systems

here, but before we dive into all of that, Let's just say we bump into each

other at church or on a plane somewhere.

And I ask you, we don't know each other.

And I ask you what you do.

What do you tell people when they ask you what you do?

Yeah.

I just say I'm a Christian business consultant and they

usually say, what does that mean?

And then I say, help small business owners break free from the day to day chaos by

getting control of their business systems.

All right.

So there's one thing that's really interesting you added

there that I think I saw it in one of the things I read about you.

You put in front of all that you do the Christian, the term Christian.

And I'm curious, do you do that all the time?

This is not like a condemning question either, by the way,

I'm not, this is not judgy.

So let's take that off the table.

Do you do that all the time?

Or is it some of the time?

Do you just Have a nudge or when do you and because I think you've got

it on LinkedIn also, but How and when do you add that term christian?

Yeah, that's a great question.

And, it's been, my wife asked me this question.

She says, you've been doing this business consulting, trying to, emulate, display,

glorify God in everything you do.

But how often do people actually know that's what you're trying to do?

And I realized, and I've been a lot of podcasts, and I try to share

something about my relationship with God during these episodes.

And a lot of times the question doesn't come, they'll ask you about

a checklist or a procedure or how to make something more efficient.

and I just came to the conclusion that if I don't put it right in the

beginning, It might not come up.

And, I guess people like you permission to ask me questions.

And for about half my clients and most people I talked to on podcast,

they aren't that interested.

That's not something they're curious about.

And so they don't ask me about it, but that's been a very recent shift,

in that, I'm going to actually.

not to be ashamed of who I am, who God made me, I need to put it out there and

give people an opportunity to respond.

Yeah, the reason I like it and the reason I asked the question

is i've gone back and forth on that myself I think if I go to my website

now and go to some of the bios and all of them written i've added something

like And I hope this isn't wishy washy.

I sought the lord for this.

I've added something like faith driven executive coach or something.

I added it because one of the things that I desire is I want

people to ask me questions and also want to be able to lead with it.

And I sometimes I'll give you a good example.

A while back, I was trying to decide what to put on some social media channels.

And I'm sure you've gone through similar things.

what is my title?

What do I put there?

family, family, man, father, now I'm a grandfather, all that kind of stuff.

and I, it was when I was trying to identify what my roles were.

And I remember going to Tim Tebow's, I think it was his Instagram page.

And what was fascinating is as his I guess his role there.

He just had athlete but yet We all know where tim tebow stands with his fate

and i've always just i've been intrigued by that and it's not a I don't think

there's right or wrong answers But I do want to say and I and we're going to go

ahead and layer it in here We're going to talk a lot about systems But, see,

I believe that part of what we're doing here is we're creating order out of chaos.

And I think that is the entire biblical story.

And so what we're doing is a practical application of

a bigger biblical narrative.

And so I applaud you for putting Christian there and we're gonna, we probably will

bring it up again before we're done here.

So thanks for answering that.

now one of the thing to kind of a logistics thing, you've just

moved to my old home state.

you're up in the, I think the mountains of North Georgia and, and that sounds

like it's a recent move for you.

Just curious what brought you to Georgia because I don't get around there much.

In fact, I just visited and I needed to get away from the humidity.

I won't go into details there, but I just left there.

Okay.

Yeah, we spent most of our life in, Arizona and Oregon, and

then through a long story that I'll cut short, we end up in Kauai, and we

were in Kauai for a year and realized that, It was time to settle down,

time to settle down with the kids.

We've got four kids and, after praying about it, we ended up in Chattanooga and

in that area and, looking for houses.

We looked in the Chattanooga area.

We liked it there.

And the epicenter of our search became wider and wider.

And then eventually, we had a list of things that we were praying

about in terms of where we wanted to live and this little town called L.

A.

J.

Just, on the Appalachian mountains rate that the south tip of it, kept up, kept

coming up and then a house popped up and we were like, This is the one it,

essentially we saw it and, 30 days later we moved in and it was a confirmation of

a prayer that we had made for a long time, but I verbalize it to my parents who are

not believers about 45 days before I said.

for our 20 year anniversary, I want to, celebrate with my wife in a new house

and don't think that's going to happen.

There's all these reasons why it's not going to happen.

Like logically, no chance really.

That's my prayer.

I tell my parents, I'm like, Oh, that sounds nice.

and then 40 days later, we were there right before anniversary.

So it, anyways, we just know we're supposed to be here.

We don't know why yet.

We've only been here a few months, but, we love it.

It's great.

kids love it.

And we're just happy to see what God has for us next.

congratulations.

That's a beautiful part of the world.

My wife and I've been traveling now for almost 10 years and one of the

most beautiful spots in the world.

There's a lot of them, by the way, but the world is a beautiful place.

But the, the portion in North Georgia there, when especially the time of year,

we're recording this in late August, the last day of August, probably, people can

start checking this out in September.

This episode, but that fall time of year, you're about to see some beautiful things.

If you were in Chattanooga area, you saw some of it.

and the cool thing is, I think this kind of leads into the type work you

do and all that you, you mentioned you homeschooled your children, which is cool.

We did that with our children.

They're grown now, but your work is also not geographic specific.

So tell me more about the type work you do.

And I think that's going to lead into some of our.

Systems conversations and some of the deeper things that a lot of

people might be tuning into here

yeah, definitely.

you've got the book, I'll put it up here real quick.

The book work, the system, which I didn't write.

Sam Carpenter wrote it, is really the type of.

Consulting and coaching.

I do a method consulting and, the book is all about how to organize chaos.

And it's written from a very personal, story, Sam Carpenter's story from

working a hundred hour work weeks down to two hour work weeks and

growing his income up 20 times.

And how did he do that?

And he mechanically details how he set structure in his

business and made it happen.

And so for me, as people read the book, hear about the book, listen to a podcast.

They're intrigued and, they contact us through some method.

And then I do a coaching or consulting, or I fly out there and help them

and help organize their business.

And I know this is a kind of a faith based show.

So sometimes it is churches or church choirs, or, Christian organizations that,

that want to build this structure in.

And that's what I do.

I help them make that a reality.

and I read in the back of the book There's actually a section where you

give a number of examples case studies.

I guess I think it's titled And one of the things I was wanting to do

Was get a feel for the type client or person that you work with and let

me just say I didn't really see a specific industry or anything like that.

This stuff crosses Systems type Implementation crosses all industries

and organizations, correct?

it does.

And unfortunately that makes my life way more complicated because it'd

be nice if it was like, Hey, this is just for restaurants or this is just

for, hair salons, whatever it is.

but we've had them all over 300 industries or a thousand clients.

It, it touches.

I guess probably the best way to explain it is, we work with leaders or business

owners or organizational leaders, who they have, they maxed out on their time.

They've maxed on the resources that max out on their money.

and they realize they just can't, they can't grow.

They can't go beyond where they are because, everything's in their

head and the stress has reached, a critical point and they know.

If they're going to expand, another location or expand the organization or

pass it down, they've got to get what's in their head and in their team's head

into some kind of format, some kind of structure so that they can grow

from there, they can scale from there.

And so we, we get clients when they've.

They've hit that trigger point.

Maybe they're key operations manager, Lee left.

Maybe they're one of their key employees.

it's pregnant and is going to be leaving the company.

They're like, now what do we do?

Or sometimes it's rougher situations where it's a family business and

there's a divorce or there's a death in the family or something like that.

And they say, you know what?

We can't just pretend like the organization is going to keep going in

this trajectory when we haven't actually written down how we do what we do.

And, that's when we work with companies and, it's usually smaller companies,

but, sometimes the larger companies.

They had the same problem that they just wanted.

It's less about getting the initial structure.

It's more about fine tuning the structure, measuring the structure and managing with

the structure that they're looking for.

I'm curious with large organizations.

I've found a sweet spot that I like to work with.

And the way I define it a little bit similar.

I've gotten to where I will only work with the leader or

the head of the organization.

I'm not going to jump down and work with teams or departments or things like

that because often there's just too much resistance from other places and you

don't have the control type situation.

That's me.

and I also like it when there's some degree of a leadership team in place.

Doesn't have to be well defined, doesn't have to be super mature or advanced, but

there needs to be something else there.

And sometimes it would be a couple or something like that.

But, and then I found that there's a size and I haven't really pinpointed it that

I don't really want to get beyond that.

Because there are too many things that are entrenched and making

change is going to, it's going to be met with just a lot of resistance.

maybe we might be dancing or working around with similar type people.

Does that sound correct too?

Yeah, it does.

But I, for me, if somebody wants to help, I don't say, I don't say no.

So I've got boundaries in how I'm going to help them, but I'm not

going to, if someone comes to me and they're like, I've had some, pre

revenue startups and I want to work with you, Get our systems in order.

have you ever made a sale?

No.

Okay.

we're going to, the way I'm going to implement this is going to be different

because we're going to be taking more iterations, more experimentations,

the system we build and we bury, on the back of a napkin as we build out

this business and other companies.

Complete opposite boards of directors and committees, and it's super complicated

and it's difficult to get traction.

but if they're bought into this philosophy and they're asking for help,

I'm going to be there to help them in whatever that capacity is going to be.

And yeah, I prefer to work with the owners and the CEOs if possible, but

sometimes they say, you know what, I'm too busy work with the operations manager.

And a lot of what I do is.

Operational improvement.

So I've had a lot of success with sometimes not always working with the

visionary, but sometimes working with the person who's actually going to

implement the structure and, hold the teams accountable to that structure.

So that brings up a great question.

I'm glad you brought that, you can have the visionary, you

could have the implementer.

The implementer in all likelihood is the person that is going to

get extremely excited about.

Systems my wife is wired For systems in fact, not too long before I clicked

record here before I jumped on the call I was going through the book and

I saw some of the items that would be the Processes procedures strategies

that are included and in the back of the book in the appendix and I said,

you know My comment was sweetheart.

You would love this checklist and everything like that She's got

her she's a scrum leader and she's an Agile, project manager person.

And she, she really loves lists, checklists, systematizing things.

And, and so the implementer would love this.

However, this is what I want to, this is a, that was a long winded

way to get into the question.

Oftentimes visionaries who it's usually a different person.

Sometimes it could be the same person, oftentimes a different person.

The visionary loves.

Let's just say they've got that entrepreneur feel.

They love the energy of new stuff.

they love the lack of, boundaries and structure and things like that.

And I, I all often joke that entrepreneurs.

are people that really Have attention deficit disorder and they're just really

always looking for the next thing to go after so Talk about the tension and this

is going to lead into the mindset of systems So i'm not asking that yet, but

talk about the tension, I guess between someone who Really loves the checklist

and all like my wife and then someone who even though i'm a systems person I love

a little bit of the art the flow the new stuff Maybe even a little bit of messy.

So how challenging is that when we're looking at this kind of stuff?

It's extremely challenging.

And, once I started working with the client, I try to.

Read who they are, right?

So oftentimes the smaller companies that they are more of the technician

that they actually like doing the work and their issue is I'll let

them know is there is no visionary.

There is nobody who's actually expanded business.

There's no one who's actually.

Looking out two to five years.

And so I need to get them out of the day to day by systemizing

and delegating what they do.

So they can't be more of a visionary, right?

In the case of companies that are larger than they have a visionary.

I'm less inclined to push them into the day to day structure.

I'm more inclined to say.

I do need you as a visionary to set the vision clearly in writing,

but beyond that, I need you to just agree with this vision and

you can stay out of the day to day.

the more you're gone and Sam Carpenter righteous in his book.

And he and I talk all the time.

He said when he was less in the office.

The company would grow more because he was more of the visionary.

He almost disrupt things too much.

And so if we can make the visionary feel comfortable with the day

to day, they can actually do more growth, by not being there.

Because the, the machine will run better with less adjustments.

And so I do try to let people know that.

And then ultimately, the way we push this methodology is we let them know that

innovation needs to always be happening.

But once you have a structure or you have a recipe for how each

thing is done, you can actually.

Add those innovations to the recipe and run tests, run a B tests,

just run a parallel system just to see which one works better.

And, instead of just following your gut, which maybe works okay with a

very small company, you actually have some real data and you'll be able

to look back and see how you did it.

And then make adjustments from there.

So is it, this is something I ask myself and there may not be an

answer for this, but I'm asked your thoughts or opinions or your, the

data that you've gotten just from all the people that you've worked with,

is it easier to get a visionary?

To begin moving towards a system thinking type systems mindset, is it

easier to take someone who is more that technician practical, they've

got a lot of the systems thinking to get them to think big picture.

You mentioned it in that response.

You talked about some that you work with.

Have you noticed one or the other that is a little bit easier

and easier path to go down.

Yes.

yeah.

I would say just from my experience that the ones who are very much the day to

day and the day to day how things work structure, once they are free from the

stress of having to carry all those tasks on their shoulder, those burdens, they

tend to open up and have more visions than they realized and more possibilities.

They just never given themselves a chance to dream and think because they're

so worried about the next client, the next phone call, the next delivery.

That once they, they have that stress removed, they become more

visionary than they ever have been.

And so that, that is a much easier route to go with the ones who are already,

they're ingrained in being visionaries.

I just want them to agree with the philosophy.

I want them to support and lead the philosophy.

I want them to be a cheerleader.

And encourage the philosophy, but I'm not asking them to now really work on

the structure because I know that, it hasn't worked very well in the past.

And so if I can just get them to not screw up the structure that's being

built, and stay out of the way, that tends to be the best with implementations.

So listen, here's what we really need you to do.

We need you to just get out of the way, and telling a leader or a

founder or someone in an organization that probably needs to be done much

more delicately than I just did it.

I think you did it in a better way there.

but in reality though, that is, The case and in and they probably know that but

actually doing it I mean, that's one of the things I work with is just changing

the thinking and the thought process of a lot of leadership and leadership teams,

which leads me into This term that's in the book and I think it's something

that's very important to what you do and it's systems mindset or systems

thinking i'm I think it's correct me if i've got the term wrong, but talk a

little bit about that why it's a bit of a challenge why some people do it well

and some people are Moving into it and why it's important for all of us that are

leading running, operating organizations

Yeah.

And so Sam Carpenter coined the term and he's written a book, the system's mindset,

which goes into it even further, the book work, the system is really the business

application of the system's mindset.

And, so Sam really describes it as, an average person is just going to

walk in the street and they're going to respond to the site sounds events,

things that are actually happening.

They respond to them.

The system's mindset would say, elevate yourself above what's happening and

look down and see the, how things translate through time and then examine

and take apart the systems that produce the results that you're getting.

And so if you're getting certain results in your health relationships,

your business, instead of focusing on.

And reacting to those results, instead, examine the separate systems and

isolate them that produce those results.

And so it's about, seeing That, there was a logical progression of

steps that led you to where you are.

And if you instead worked on those systems, you would

be at a different result.

And so a lot of what we do is help isolate those separate systems,

work on them, and then let the results take care of themselves.

And so one of the things when I was reading through the book and reading

the early sections of it, I kept thinking about, I kept looking at myself personally

when I was looking at it truthfully.

I wasn't really thinking organizational, I was thinking personal and I was thinking

about how I am at times maniacal about habit creation, about forming habits.

And then I can be a little bit overly habit forming, but very similar to what

you're saying, we have systems that are all around us where we're part of them.

And I guess maybe my question related to this is how do we recognize,

and maybe this is big picture, not just organizationally right now.

So however you want to respond is fine.

How do we recognize the systems?

that are working well for us and the ones that might be inhibiting, success.

And then my follow up question is going to be some related

to success and defining that.

we'll go down that path in just a second, but how do we know what's working

for us and what's working against us?

Yeah.

Broad question.

And I think that maybe this is your second question, but I think

without knowing what the bullseye is.

You don't know, you don't know whether it's working for you or not, right?

You could step on the scale in the morning and say, I don't know, 190 pounds.

I don't know.

Is that working for you or not?

Is that the goal?

Or is that not the goal?

if you're five foot two, maybe that's not the goal, right?

If you're six foot six, maybe that is the goal.

And I think that you do need to actually set a standard and that is a big part

of the initial structure that we do want the visionary involved with is actually

saying, Hey, what does success look like?

What is the path of success?

What does it look like?

We help owners with a one page document called a strategic objective.

And so if you have that, then at least, are your systems getting you there

or are they not getting you there?

And this can be for your personal life and you can divide up your personal

life in terms of your, your, maybe your health or your finances or your family.

And then you would say, gosh, is that we're educating our kids

or the way we're eating or the way we're, whatever we're doing.

Is it taking us to this goal?

And I think without that, then it's very.

Frustrating to work on your systems because you don't even

know are they helping us get there or not because it's undefined.

I think that having some definitions, that can be working definitions, right?

you can adjust them, but at least starting with the definition, it's going

to ultimately improve your systems.

That's good.

So one of our foundational, I guess our tagline here is

the term redefining success.

And a lot of what we've done here at Seek Go Create is we've interacted with

people that have gone through catalytic events that have caused change, or

they've made some kind of decision to identify what success means to them and

then go down that path or that process.

And so I'm curious when people come to you.

and say, we need to do something differently, would you say it is

from a place of pain, often, or is it a continuous improvement to use an

engineering term, or, and it could be a spectrum I'm sure it's a lot of it.

The reason why is that I've come to.

To these theories of, in all these interviews and all this

that I've done, that there are two ways that people make change.

One is, they make a decision, they go through the process, they bring

people in like you, they put systems in place, and they make changes.

Or, They go through some catalytic event, some health challenge, something happens

to a family member or a head of their team or something like that, that basically

hits them in the head, and they say, you know what, I need to make a change.

You don't have to mention any names or anything, but how do people

come to you in that spectrum?

Does that make sense?

Did I ask that well?

Yeah, usually it's the catalytic event.

and

theory is holding up.

not always.

I would say when it's business owners, they, it's almost

always a catalytic event.

When it's CEOs, then it's more like we developed in our plan that

this would be part of it to have a culture of continuous improvement.

And therefore, it's Q3 and we're going to do it so that's that wing, but most of

the time it's an event, And it's pain and probably three or four clients I've worked

with, someone died in their business.

And then what do you know?

I get called a week later.

They might've been on our email list for seven years, wait, now we

need to work with you, they always knew they needed to work on this and

they always wanted to work on this.

But then it became very real because.

Hey, no one knows how, what that person did.

they're grieving the person who passed away, but we have no

idea how they did what they did.

And we're having some major issues immediately.

We can't keep running a business like that.

Yeah.

and I hate that because I'm well aware of some, I'll call them proactive

adjustments, changes that I needed to make in some companies, businesses we had.

But yet it was a catalytic event that really forced a great deal of change.

the lifestyle we lead now, being travelers, we probably

never would have done it.

We love it.

We enjoy it.

It's very nourishing to our soul and we believe it's the

path God has us on right now.

And we're not exactly sure why, like you mentioned, you're not sure why God

has you in the place you're at, but we think we're being prepared for something.

but we don't believe we would have done that had we not been through

that catalytic type situation.

I'm just curious, Josh, I want us to get into some very specifics for the

leader that's listening in and may want to begin the process or start.

Thinking about systems and systems mindset.

And maybe you've got some tips or some ways they can get started and then how

they can connect with you, of course.

But I'm curious how you got into being a systems expert.

And, I love the term architect.

Cause I think I saw, was your undergrad, were you an architect?

Person.

So tell me a little bit about your journey and be prepared.

I'm going to ask you about a situation where you've had to

redefine some success in your life.

So how did you end up being the business systems architect?

Yeah.

God's providence.

Yeah.

No, I definitely, was not by choice.

So I got a degree in architecture, then a master's in business.

And I thought I was going to be in real estate.

but then 2006 and seven happened and I could not find work anywhere.

And, basically during my MBA program, I wrote a paper about why you should

not hire business consultants.

So I didn't think there was a lot of value in being a business consultant.

I thought they were, a waste of money and kind of preyed on, clients.

And my due to some family businesses that I heard growing up.

They were anti business consultant, I'll put it that way.

And, but that was the only job I could get was a business consultant.

eventually that's what I had to do.

And, during that time period, I think it's kind of God's humor

to put me in that position.

And, I just really enjoyed the work, had a lot of success with the work,

and, was flying around the country, helping small business owners.

In this case, they were flooring stores.

Carpet Ones and Flooring Americas, Different state all the time, helping

them with their inside sales and outside sales and their forecasting

and their culture and their budget and helping them through bankruptcy and

you name it, just working with these companies inside sales, outside sales.

And then, I would, I realized that six months or a year later when I

was talking to them, following up the same problems that I thought

I solved were coming back again.

And I thought, I thought we already fixed that and it kept happening to me and I

was in Bend, Oregon, we lived there and I met somebody long story short, they

passed the book, work the system to me.

Maybe this will help you.

And I read the book, met with Sam Carpenter.

And then I came to realize that the piece that I was missing in all of

my work is that I wasn't documenting the systems and the structure

that I was changing the companies.

It was more training is more working with the management is

more working leader, but then.

things dissolve over time, dilute, they don't stick.

And I realized that I actually wanted my change to stick and then be built upon.

It had to actually be documented into the systems.

And so that was a piece I started using my consulting and then, Sam

Carpenter and I became good friends.

And then I just started working with him as a consultant and then.

Here I am today.

Bend, Oregon, cool spot.

That was one of the places we spent about three months or so, in our

travels and Oregon's a neat place.

so a few things with that.

I don't know why, but when you mentioned that you proclaimed to the world, your

distaste for consultants and probably coaches or anybody else that kind

of, takes money from organizations.

I thought about the story of Joseph and the Bible and him

just boldly proclaiming to.

To his brothers.

I had a dream and y'all all bowed to me.

A little bit different story, but it's often that sometimes those

bold statements we make, they will come back to, humble us.

I don't know.

Is that the right term?

Yeah, definitely.

that was the most humbling period of my life, at least financially

and professionally because you get your MBA, you're making good

money supporting your family.

And we were in Phoenix time.

And then to lose it all to have the most that you ever had, lose your

house, lose your car, lose everything.

And, be living in your In inlaws condo.

And you're like, huh, it didn't exactly work out the way I thought

it would after I got my MBA, like you just, it's we're gonna start over.

And, at that point you, you realize that your identity, really, if you're a

Christian is in Christ and that, that.

Is the foundation of which you want to build everything off of anyways.

And so regardless of what happens to you professionally, it really matters.

You can't lose.

And I think that, was the necessary shift I needed before

making the new career change.

the way I've said it before for me is that I am very confident

that God did not bring the downturn or the whatever they call it now

from 2008 just to get my attention.

But when it occurred, he took full advantage of it to get my attention.

It sounds like that period was a real redefining of success, what

it means to you had some things that were mapped out for you.

What'd you learn about yourself then?

Give us a.

Yeah.

thing or two that, cause I'm sure you have reflected on it.

I can guarantee you've reflected on it.

I have countless others have to, what did you learn about yourself during that time?

I haven't reflected on that much, at least not recently,

or it's a 2023, but what I reflected on was that the things that

matter, it can't be taken from you.

So that kind of gave me some resilience there.

And also that, God can use all things that he's sovereign.

So I got to learn more about God's sovereignty and, his provision,

money came from places that were not expected, And, support came

from places that weren't expected.

And it gave me more confidence in the fact that God will provide and

that, I don't have to be afraid of the material, cause he knows what we

need before we even know we need it.

And.

Also, just that, that starting the day with prayer is going to be

more important than working hard.

there's plenty of people who are in my position in the real estate industry who

just thought they could work themselves back into a job that wasn't there.

And the job I ended up getting was based on a connection that I made

the week after I got laid off.

It just took about nine months to materialize.

So really if I could have made that one phone call.

And, no effort towards finding a job and it was waiting nine months that

would have been the same result, right?

So all of that toil, all of that stress, all of that, need to find a job, need

to, provide for my family, was stressed that I was putting on myself because of

my lack of understanding of the future.

And, so I was just thankful that I had friends around me who,

prayed for me, encouraged me.

To not, be stressed and not think that I'm going to, take charge of control

my future because really, I could have spent that one phone call and waited nine

months and been in the exact same spot.

The, fascinating thing for me was how I kept.

Projecting these timing things.

I had a bill to pay house port house payment or something.

And so I would tell God, I've got to have blank by whatever.

And that date would come and go.

And my realization was maybe.

His timeframes are different than mine, and I'm not in any way saying,

don't pay your bills or anything.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm actually saying that I think that his timeframes are different than ours.

and so I, that was something that was just so interesting to me.

But the thing that you said earlier, see, this is what jumped at me.

During that, when you were talking about that, you did say that you were living

in, I think, in laws or relatives condo.

and I think we initially make statements like that as if they were a negative.

And I'm wondering if God considers that a positive.

You were actually living in homes that you're not paying for, you're

being taken care of, there's an extra home there that someone has, I

guess a condo or something like that.

And I wonder if we have some type of, at times, I know I did.

Pride or something like that makes those things not as appealing the reason I

bring it up you may not be aware of this But when we first moved into our what we

call nomad stage, which some people would call it homeless, but we called it nomad

because it just sounded better more like sarah and abraham or something like that.

I don't know But it sounds more biblical, doesn't it?

Is that, Josh, is what the fascinating thing was, we started house sitting,

so we were living in houses that we did not pay for, we did not have mortgage

payments on, they were stocked with food, and I enjoyed a glass of wine every

once in a while, and some wine cellar, and sometimes they would hand us keys

to the car when we were in Australia, New Zealand, it was just like, Maybe

I need to rethink what success means.

So that kind of helped me redefine it.

Now, my guess is there was a humility that, that probably if it didn't creep

in, it barged in to Josh, to your soul, and it probably helps you with what

you do now, would that be accurate?

Yeah, definitely.

I think that's essential and that humility is more.

I guess more relevant now, after going through and being a consultant during

COVID is just the realization, no matter what strategy advice plan that you're

coming up with, you don't know the future.

And, and then maybe really realized that when I'm working with clients,

they're giving me 1%, like a small sliver of what's really going on in

the organization during our sessions.

And so in order for me to actually accurately assess the situation

guidance and help them along their way.

I'm gonna need to have wisdom beyond myself.

I'm gonna need to have, the ability to, encourage them when

they need it, tell them to go get away when they need to hear it.

And So I think that just through COVID and through that, realizing that if

I'm going to really be useful and successful, it can't be on my own

strength and knowledge and wisdom is going to need to come from somewhere else.

And so that's really what, It's prompted me to pray more and read less books,

pray more and listen to less podcasts, even if there's a great ones is that

I, my early, my career when I was in my twenties, I thought if I just read enough

books, listen to podcasts, study enough, I would be able to help these companies.

And to some degree that, that knowledge is, it's helpful, right?

But, ultimately.

The kind of the key to my success ultimately is not

going to be in those books.

It's going to be in, in my community with God, in my praying for my clients

and am I giving them the question or the answer, the direction that they actually

need to hear today in this moment.

And that's something that I knew that was beyond me.

And so I think that.

That really helped, that really helped, to have some of those things happen to

realize, I used to, one more aside, I used to do a lot of projection, a lot of

forecasts, people would want me to analyze their finances and project forward and.

They were always so confident in the numbers I was producing.

I said, your chance of hitting any of these numbers is basically zero.

we just took, we took the last couple of years and we put a few algorithms in

this net, all of these are conjecture.

And so we can't just pretend like this is going to happen.

Like we have some goals now, but, I've done enough of these to know

that it never happens like that.

and so I don't know, I think that's helped me be more real in the day to day

with the clients I work with as opposed to, think that, that I know the future.

I know I'm, I think I'm getting to an age, a place, I don't know

if that's the right term to piggyback on what you just said, where I'm

getting less confident in the future.

And I used to be very, I used to be very confident when I would say things

about, especially the near future, do this, this happens, this happens by, and

I do think there's some degree of that.

And I'm not discounting that at all, but I'm getting more confident in eternity.

And I think I used to be more confident in the near future than I actually

was in eternity and I was saved.

I'm Christian.

I'm not saying anything, but I think my control, my, the way I was wired,

I really wanted to be able to know what was going to be happening in the

very near or not too distant future.

And what you just said really affirmed that.

so that was good.

What are some of the.

Let's shift a little bit here in the time we've got, because we've got

people listening in and I'd love for us to give maybe some practical things

and I know getting the book is helpful because there's a lot of good stuff in

here, but let's just say that someone has Been somewhat convinced that they

need more systems in their family, in their church, in their company or in

their life, whatever, what are just some maybe big picture tips to get started?

And we know that people can work with you, but just give us some things

that people need to begin if they've made, if they're leaning that way.

I think if I wanted to actually work, I would say start with

the simplest system you can think of and one that is happening every day.

And one example I like to share is with the church I was working with that, and

they had over a thousand volunteers at this particular church they could use.

And at the time I was working with the head of the marketing

department and, we were talking about the systems in his department.

He was putting grommets in a vinyl sign, one of these, events that was

coming up and grommets are those little metal circles that you put in vinyl

signs to make sure they don't tear.

And, you look very busy.

And I said, are you the only one at this church who can do that?

And he's like, well, you know, I do it a certain way and there's, I'm

not sure if anyone will do it right.

And, the event's tomorrow and you got to get it done.

And I said, don't you guys have a thousand volunteers?

He was like, yeah.

I said, so we pull out his phone, hit record.

I said, now teach.

Everyone, how to put a drama in a vinyl sign, cause I'm sure that

my, my 14 year old son can do this.

And so then he talked and narrated how he did it and I said,

okay, now never do that again.

Give that to someone who doesn't cost the church any money.

And so the whole point is that if you just start with the

work you're currently doing.

You can document in this case, it was over the video, audio, screen capture,

type of a checklist, handwritten note.

There are ways to document what you're doing now.

And when you do that, you're going to realize that you now have a standard

or what good looks like, and you have the ability to transfer the knowledge

to someone else for them to do it for you, and for them to innovate and do

what you do even better and faster.

And Try not to set some big lofty strategy.

Like you're going to, change your organization and document foreigner

procedures the next month, because I've seen those fail enough

times to not even recommend that.

I'd rather have them start with something that they are already doing

and realize, is there a better way?

And oftentimes for leaders, that better way is.

Them not doing it at all, right?

Because they have to be freed up to expand their organization.

And so I always try to first start with leaders, or this case, parents, if you

talk about family things, but what are things you're doing every day or every

week that actually someone else could do if they just knew how to do it.

And let's see if we can get those systems in place and then work towards giving the

leaders more time to grow and giving the people beneath them more ability to help.

One of the things, and my family, if any of them were here,

they would either laugh or nod or grimace if they heard me say this.

One of the things I would always say was if there's something that we do

more than once, we need to consider systematizing it, offloading it,

delegating it, or something like that.

This was within our family, too, by the way, which we had our own

businesses and things like that.

But the question I was going to ask is why?

Do people this gets back a little bit back to the mindset but in the

practical thing too It keeps people from making that leap why was We'll call

him joe leader Doing those grommets.

I mean listen, I don't know a lot about putting grommets in things But

I do not think it requires an advanced grommets And why do people do that?

Why is it, especially with a thousand volunteers and we know the way

church world works or even employee world is that, people have a desire

to be a part of what's going on.

So what's the psychology behind why Joe Leader wouldn't let

someone else do that until the consultant told him he needed to.

yeah, there's a couple triggers that happen.

One is, they are used to doing it.

They're comfortable doing it.

They've done it a lot of times before.

And so I think that part of it is just a comfort level of

I've always done it before.

And so change would be something different.

And that's hard.

That's just the human nature.

The next thing is, perfectionism as in they know the perfect way.

And if they learn that if they give it to someone else, they're

going to do it imperfectly.

Because they haven't taught them, train them or systemize it.

They just handed it off and the results haven't been very good.

next reason is that there's a tyranny of the urgent where, because leaders

are not thinking weeks and months ahead, they're thinking what needs to be done

tomorrow for this event, they haven't utilized the resources that they have.

and therefore.

Of course they've got to do it.

there's no volunteers here.

I got to do it.

It's tomorrow.

And so I think that, that, consistent culture of just reacting to today

doesn't allow them to utilize the resources that they have.

And so they're not thinking broad enough about it.

And and then also, leadership has told them to do the work.

And so they do it.

As opposed to leadership saying we want you to develop a system to get this work

done more effectively doesn't mean you have to do it, but we do need the results.

And so they haven't really thought about it differently.

So they do need a systems mindset and they do need a leader that will,

encourage them along that path.

So there's a lot of variables, but, I do see that my.

My straight A students, the valedictorians usually have the hardest

time with the delegation because they just, they'd like to see the work

perfect and have their name on it.

And so those are the ones that tend to have a hard time with delegation.

I love the thought of that perfectionism.

I see that also, I see it more in others and I also think when you have a spiritual

either a leader who has a spiritual foundation or in a spiritual organization,

we'll call it, some type of that.

There's also this sacrificial component that comes in people.

People believe and I'm going to exaggerate a little bit with this statement.

I'm doing this for God.

God's going to love me more because I am hate to pick on the grommet guy.

I'm putting these grommets in.

And so this is.

Positioning me for the afterlife better.

again, a lot of highly exaggerative statements there, sometimes the

spiritual can help and then sometimes it can, and can be damaging there.

Let's keep going though.

did you wanna respond to that at

I, yeah, so yeah, the nonprofits I work with and the churches

I worked with, that is a very real thing.

And burnout's a very real thing and they overwork way beyond what they need to.

And, but yet they, complain about it and the results are not great because

they are overworked and they don't.

Understand that, that they're bearing too much of the burden themselves.

So that, that's extremely common.

And, I haven't, maybe you've thought about it more than I have, but

that's just for profit businesses.

it's five o'clock.

They're gone.

they're not like, I'll stay late to serve the kingdom.

No, they're clicking, they're checking out.

So it's very different.

or, Alright, so I'll call it, Joe leader that was doing the grommets.

He comes to the realization that this needs to be done, and maybe in the time

we've got another, time for a tip or two.

so they are beginning moving in that direction, and they're starting

with those simple, small, something to get some systems in place.

What are some of the next steps?

What are some of the hurdles or something?

just give us something practical here as we begin to wrap up that might be helpful

for someone listening in and they've been listening to our conversation.

So instead of going big picture, I always

ask people to get granular.

What are all the things that you do throughout the entire day?

this can be from the second you wake up to the second you

go to bed and isolate those.

And it's very tedious and not fun, but time track them.

And you're going to realize that your day is made up of these discreet separate

packets of stuff that you're doing, hopefully productive, hopefully useful.

And the goal is to number one.

Eliminate the ones that are not useful, not serving you, not

taking you where you want to go.

Usually that frees up some time.

And the next goal is going to be taking the separate system in this

case, putting comments in a sign and realizing, Hey, if I document the

system, someone else could do it.

I'm going to work on that system to make it so I can hand that off to someone else.

And so if they work on those two things.

That's going to give them a lot of time back.

And then lastly, it's the systems that you're already doing every

single day, that you have to do.

And it's, can you do it better?

Can you do it faster?

I was working with this series of hearing aid centers and they do this.

hearing assessment that they have all their new patients come in and do a

hearing assessment takes 90 minutes.

I just challenged them.

I said, can it be done faster?

Can it be done better?

Can it be done at a higher quality?

Can it be done at a higher close rate?

Can it be done at a higher average transaction?

And lo and behold, that can actually be done in 45 minutes,

not an hour and a half.

If they just took the time and they're doing these things every single day in

nine locations to analyze the system and document it and script it out, they

can actually get better and faster.

But they were just so used to doing it the same way.

Cause they've been doing it that way for 10 years.

And so I think that first thing is make a list of all the things you do during

the day, as tedious as that might be.

And you're going to realize that once you look at the separate pieces that make up

your life, there's better ways to do them.

There's faster ways to do them.

There's shorter ways, lower cost ways to use technology automation.

And that's the fun stuff for me is being able to look at what people do

and say, I know it's a better way.

I know it was a faster way.

I know it's a more impactful way.

And.

Oftentimes, they don't believe me at first because they say, I've been doing this a

long time, but they're almost always is

one question I was going to ask, do you do time studies at all?

One of the things I used to do this more often now I don't do it as much as I'll

ask executive leader, someone to, block out and determine what they're doing every

15 or 30 minutes or something like that.

One of our challenges now though, is that we have these things.

That are consuming so much and people think they've got no time and all of

that, but do you do some time studies at all just to see, because sometimes people

fool themselves in what they think they're doing and what they're really doing.

people definitely do that.

Yeah.

so we do track time and we do analyze that.

one thing that my wife turned me on to and then a client as

well as, having a light phone.

So hence.

I don't think I've checked the news in over two years, or social media.

you mentioned something that might be on my LinkedIn profile.

I wouldn't know.

I haven't been there.

and it's been part of my concerted effort to get back as much of my

mental space as possible so that I can truly be effective and efficient.

In the roles that I have as, a business consultant and as a father and as a

husband and just do that well before I dilute myself because I spent enough

years diluting myself into so many other paths, just really trying to

stay focused on those and then with.

with a stronger core, dapple in other areas as it makes strategic

sense, like this right here.

and so I, I do think that, when people are being honest with me, which most people

are not 100% honest, there's a lot of waste of time and a lot of frenetic time,

a lot of checking this, watching that, consuming this, reading this, and it's

all of those packets of information that you could have used for rest or reflection

or, community building, relationship building, management time that instead

was consumed with, candy, right?

Digital candy, and it's not making you healthy.

It's not making you think better.

And, in the information age that we're in, maybe 20 years

ago, it might not be the case.

But now the issues that the leaders I work with.

Is not, they don't have the information.

They have way too much information.

It is, it's just, they're not implementing the right information right now.

And one person said, Josh, why did it cost so much?

And I said, it's not because.

Of, you're not going to get me to expound the last 500 books I've read

or podcast or all I'm going to be doing during our sessions is really just

hopefully telling you exactly what you need to hear the one idea or the one

question that you need to hear right now to help you fix your business.

In this case, she has a nonprofit, to expand and that's where the value

is me being able to discern what it is that you need to hear and what

systems you have to work on that.

That's the value.

Not in volume of ideas, but on the idea and the way to implement

the one idea that's going to take you the next step further.

And so I think that there's, there's a, there's the lie of, knowledge

is power, but, What does it say?

I was his knowledge puffs up, but, love builds up.

And ultimately we need people to apply, exactly what they

need in their circumstances and nothing more and nothing less.

And, I really try to help people move towards that direction.

And I think there's so much that you do that probably

helps people gain clarity and.

Create.

I heard someone, it was on one of the interviews I did, they said

that most, all of us really in today's world need more white space.

We need less stuff consuming us.

And I believe, and I think you would agree, it's so we

can hear the voice of God.

we need to be still, quiet, Sabbath, Shalom, rest, whatever.

Term.

we could use practical terms or spiritual terms.

We need to be still and quiet, and I believe part of the value of systems and

structure is it allows us to then be still and quiet so that we can hear from God.

Now, the thing I love about what you're doing, I think I get to do a little bit of

it too, is I think we're maybe one extra.

Opportunity for people to hear that when we're in the room or sitting at

the table or on the call with people and I can tell just from your heart,

your mindset, your approach that you bring that piece that shalom into

the room when you come there and I think that's, I think that's valuable.

with all of this, where would you want someone if they

wanted to connect with you?

It sounds like they're not going to jump on social media necessarily and find you.

But I know you've got to have some ways that people can get

in touch with you, find you.

and, we've got the book that we both have mentioned that I

think is a valuable resource.

What else do you want people to do if they need to connect with you?

Yeah.

I just tell them go to WTSenterprises.Com.

So WTS stands for work the system, which is what, everything I do is based on.

And of course you can get the summary of this book work the system.

if you're a reader, get the book, if you want something faster, you can get the

summary at my website, WTSenterprises.Com.

And then for those who want to help, then that's what I do.

the coaching and consulting.

And just to clarify, Sam wrote the book and, but he does

not do any of the consulting coaching and you are the sole, I don't know

if the right term is licensee or sole representative for this process.

Is that correct?

Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

yeah, definitely.

So over the last 10 years, initially as an employee of Sam's and then,

we branched out over the years to him, being the figurehead of

me doing more of the consulting.

And now I do all the consulting.

he's enjoying, Owning his business, but only having to work a couple

hours a month owning his business.

So he's in his mid seventies.

And we still do events together.

We still talk every week.

he's been a great mentor to me and a business advisor, but,

yeah, I do all the consulting.

Excellent.

thank you.

We'll make sure we include where to find you and get the

book and all down in the notes.

Josh, we are seek, go create those three words.

I'm gonna let you pick one of those words over the other two as my last question.

And just why'd you pick the word seek, go or create?

I, yeah, the one that, that rings the bell to me would be create.

And that's because I guess that's what I do, Help people create

systems or create order out of chaos.

And I think that instead of.

People living in maybe the chaotic or we'll just call it the frustrating

world that we live in because it's a broken world, that they should take

part in creating something better.

And the best way is to analyze those separate systems and make them better.

Excellent.

Josh, thank you so much for this conversation.

I've enjoyed it.

And there were some directions we went in that I was not sure we would.

I'm thankful that we did.

I appreciate, all that you had to share.

And I know that people will understand and hopefully, follow up on the value of

systems, get the book, reach out to you.

I'll also ask.

If someone's listening in, share this episode.

I think there's been some value to just understanding the importance

of structure, creating order out of chaos and, and making it fit in this

odd and chaotic world that we're in.

So thanks again, Josh.

We have new episodes every Monday until next time, continue being

all that you were created to be.