Hey there and welcome back to Lead of the Team.

So how do great leaders turn a challenge into a catalyst for transformation and growth?

Well, Joe Perkins, chief operating officer at Carolina Handling, embodies that answer.

So, starting as a sales rep, he rose through the ranks to help lead one of the Southeast's premier material handling companies.

Not by chasing titles, but by building teams, evolving strategy, and embracing innovation.

Under Joe's leadership, Carolina Handling has shifted from being known just for forklifts to becoming a full scale intra logistics powerhouse integrating automation, robotics and data driven solutions.

He's helped the company not only win awards like the Raymond Dealer of distinction for 35 straight years, but also redefine what partnership means in an industry that's rapidly changing.

If you're interested in leadership that drives lasting impact, well, you've come the right place today, Joe.

Welcome to lead the team, sir.

Oh, man.

So excited to be here, Ben.

So what was one of the most pivotal moments in your career and how has it shaped your leadership?

Oh, goodness.

You know, I think back to my roots.

I started in eastern North Carolina and started in tobacco fields and really understood where the work happens and how things come together and all that.

But when I fast forward coming out of professional baseball after being released, I went.

I was the pitching coach at my alma mater at Mount Olive College, and I was still a guy that could play, still believed I could do it better than some of the guys that were out there.

And my coaching philosophy at that time was not what it is today.

I didn't realize I had to get it out of the nine guys that were on the field, I was telling them what to do instead of helping them embrace their skill sets and their abilities to be able to win baseball games and to perform at the highest level.

And, man, that has really stuck with me throughout the years relative to leading teams, whether it's sports teams or.

Or here in the office.

Wow.

So what was it like in the professional base like playing professional baseball and then making that transition to coach?

Yeah.

You know, as I think every kid out there believes they're going to be the next Kobe Bryant or Ohtani or whoever, and they aspire to be this professional athlete.

And quite frankly, college baseball was far more fun than professional baseball was.

But why is that?

Do what?

Why was it more fun?

Because it seems like, hey, you're getting paid to play baseball versus going to class.

It would seem more fun to get paid, but maybe not.

You know what I mean?

In college, there were 25 or 30 guys that all had this dream of winning a National title together.

And when you got to professional baseball, it really became an individual sport, even though it was still a team sport.

It was individuals competing to get to the next level.

And so the camaraderie, the family, the support wasn't there.

But I will tell you, coming out of playing and going into coaching, even with my kids, I had to realize that I had to take on being a coach and not a player, and I missed the game, and I wanted to be a part of it and still believed I could play.

But that mindset shift from player to coach, from individual contributor to coach has.

It was tough.

So.

So tell us about that moment where, like, you kind of believe, hey, I can get back in the game.

I can.

I could pitch.

I can do it better than these guys can.

And then all of a sudden, too, what was the moment when you're like, wait a minute, I need to take a step back, get some perspective here.

Ben, I'll tell you, man, I'm 48, and there's still days where I think I go out there and play.

My body says different, and a lot of the metrics say different.

But I think where it really shifted for me was conversations that I started having where I would go out and ask a guy why it wasn't happening, and they would just look at me with this dumbfounded look.

And it dawned on me that I wasn't sharing with them how to use what they were given.

And no different than today in our business.

There's instances where you go out and you ask someone to do something, and maybe they're fearful of telling you.

They don't know how or they don't understand that they have this unique talent.

So telling just doesn't work.

Telling doesn't work.

Yeah, because they're not.

I love that.

Like, it's so easy.

Because it's interesting, you know, for the listener to think about it like, as.

As it has.

This translates as a leader who you.

Maybe you understand your business, but the effectiveness of a leader is not about telling people how to do what exactly.

Exactly how you would do it.

It's to being able to reach them in a way where they go on a mission to figure out how they can do it and how they can work through the.

Through the challenge.

Is there a time where you weren't getting through to somebody and then you kind of changed your approach and something clicked?

Yeah.

And, you know, I spend a lot of time reflecting on previous conversations in preparation for the next one on one with an associate, and I have learned a lot that you know, asking more questions, really getting through to the why they make the decisions that they do and understanding their passions and what drives them.

Even going back to when you think about sports teams, I mean, it's really about putting the right person in the right seat to maximize what they can do and what they want to do.

And I believe those are things that, that drive people.

I love that.

Yeah.

Getting them in the right seats.

Yeah.

I don't want to date your episode too much, but the Lakers just got bounced out of the, out of the NBA playoffs and they've got the two best offensive weapons in the NBA, but turns out you got to have some defenders on the floor.

You do got to have some other people in those seats.

Yeah.

So, so powerful.

Well, thinking about, you know what one thing that came up for me and looking at you and your industry and the innovations you brought so far, I would say you're into.

And you might not describe it this way, but I consider your entry to be a little bit more of the old school perspective in terms of, you know, you've got.

Was it.

You guys have won this dealer award for 34 straight years, yet you're bringing innovation.

And what does it take to bring innovation to an industry that's not known for it?

In fact, it might even be entrenched in a lot of ways in doing things the old way.

Yeah.

And, and then I'll tell you, we've not only had to overcome that with the industry and with our customers, but also our associates internally.

Because, I mean, for 58 years we've been in business.

We started as a Fort lift company.

We still are a forklift company.

I mean, we work on Fort lifts, we sell Fort lifts, we rent Fort lifts.

But you know, I tell people often you sit next to someone on a plane and they ask you what you do and you tell them you sell Fort lifts.

They put their AirPods in pretty quickly.

So we had to reinvent ourselves to serve our customers.

And that's really what drives our business, is understanding what's coming and what's next.

And the industry, the customer, the consumer has changed so much, especially post Covid in the demand at the consumer level.

So we're constantly looking out, trying to figure out what is next.

But it's been a real mindset shift because our associates still looked at us as a four lift company.

We're talking about it daily around reinventing ourselves and changing in a way that serves our customers at the highest level.

And so what's.

So you're listening to the customer you're making your shifts based on what they need.

What are you doing to engage your team and engage your employees in adjusting to that and making that change, even when change is difficult.

So lots of training.

We spend a lot of time giving three to five year vision to our associates where we believe the customers and the industry is heading.

But I would say even bigger than that, we're engaging them to think about what can they do, what did they see as innovative strategies that we can bring to market.

And just in the last couple years, we, we've had some ideas that quite frankly, I don't know that the executive team would have ever thought of that we've brought to our customers that have been embraced in ways that we never fathomed.

And when our associates see that they have that ability to bring those ideas forth that will act on them, it encourages others to do the same.

Wow.

Very, very good.

And so along those lines, what's the one trait you wish you could instill in every employee and why do you think it's so important?

One trait?

I'm going to ask you to give me two, because I talk to our people a lot about courage and ambition.

And I'll start with ambition because we claim and we believe and we lead this way that we are an associate led organization.

We want every associate to grab their piece of this business and make it their own enterprise and to run it like it's theirs.

Whether that's them serving someone upstream, downstream, the customer, themselves, whatever it is.

And we want them to embrace that strategy.

I said courage because I think we live in a world today where associates fear making a mistake and we encourage that mistake.

Obviously we don't want mistakes that impact the customers in a negative way.

But I want our associates to feel comfortable in being able to test the boundaries and to do new things and to bring those ideas forward.

And you know what, if we find out that it's a failure, we'll scrap it and we'll move on.

Or if we need to tweak something, will do that.

But too many, I see too many associates in different businesses that operate with this fear of failure and just come in and do what they're told instead of going back to what we were talking about earlier, which is maximizing their talents.

Yeah, definitely a big difference when you think about that for yourself.

But when you amplify that lesson across the entire organization, you can get a cumulative impact and start getting results in a new way.

Is there a favorite innovation or something along those lines or change where someone took a Risk.

And it paid off inside the organization, maybe in an unexpected way.

Yeah.

I mean, I think of one story where, you know, a guy went out and he made a mistake in a sale to a customer and realized that he had priced the equipment incorrectly.

And everyone was frustrated because we had lost money and things like that.

And it was a few days later that the customer called back and added much of their fleet on service, and it had opened a door that otherwise wouldn't have been opened.

And so, yeah, I mean, it created additional business.

Now, granted, we were able to celebrate the fact that that mistake led to success, but still, just one of those examples.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really good.

It's not always about correcting the mistake.

It's about, like, making that mistake.

Right.

And maybe profitable.

Help it fit into the overall, you know, helping it work out for everyone.

And I love it.

Well, one of the things we keep trying to tell our associates is as long as you're acting in the best interest of the customer or your fellow associate, then we believe you're making the right decision.

So feel free to go and do what needs to be done.

And if we've got to come back and talk about it later, then we'll do that.

Yeah.

Wow.

Love the creativity behind that and the customer.

Focus on the flip side.

Without including names, what's your most colorful story of when someone quit or was fired along the way?

Man, this one will live in infamy.

I am deemed the guy that will not fire anyone.

And I have this strong belief that I can work with people and I can get them where they need to be.

But I had one guy that I had done everything I could possibly do, and it just.

It wasn't working.

And so I called the guy, and I scheduled time for him to come into the office.

He was supposed to come in at 9am he walks in.

I'm getting ready to tell him, you're no longer employed.

And he looks at me and says, hey, I just want to tell you, I've taken another job.

And there was some relief for me that I didn't have to fire him.

But in the back of my mind, I have a friend that used to work here, still keep in touch.

But at that time, we were peers.

And before the guy could leave my office, he was texting me saying, I told you, you couldn't fire anybody.

Yeah.

So what is it like having that reputation?

I can see pros and cons to the reputation of, hey, there's the executive.

He's not gonna.

He's up.

Fire people.

Yeah.

No, for sure.

And you know, I've embraced it.

I, I do work hard and I, I think that people believing that I'm going to do everything I can possibly do to make them successful before we ever have to get to that conversation, I think it helps them let their guard down.

I think it invites me into their space so that I can help them.

And then I think it also it tells our associates that if we're at this point, Joe has done everything he could possibly do and some of this might be on me at that point.

You're like, I've never fired anybody until now.

You don't want to be the one.

And it's interesting and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if that's your rep and you plan on going with that, you may double, triple, quadruple down on the hiring process to get the right person to begin with.

You absolutely.

And you know, we have a, we have a very quality hiring process to begin with.

But I will say when I add someone to my team, I have to believe that they're going to embody the identity that we've created in the teams that I have and that they're going to, they're going to support their associates in the same way that I support them.

Do you tell them that when you come in?

Oh, absolutely.

You're like, I don't.

What you say, I don't, I don't fire people.

That's my reputation.

So I'm day.

You're not the first when you come.

No, we've not had that conversation.

But they certainly know that the expectation is, is serving and caring for the people in their employee when they get here.

Yeah.

Is it interesting you're thinking about the seven habits, like beginning with the end in mind and if in a job interview you're like I was telling you right now, I don't fire people.

Right.

And the reason I don't is because I get the right people in and I.

And I want to give you that bandwidth to come in here, take some risk, recover, learn, grow and succeed.

It's.

It.

I think it puts people in a different mindset, you know, starting from day one.

Powerful.

So when's the time you had an unexpected twist or failure in your career and had to lead to your success or growth on down the road.

You're on a roll.

So prior company led a fairly large food service distribution company and had to work from the ground up.

Literally started there driving a truck and got to a point where I was leading operations and for the Years leading up to it, I knew when I got that role, the things that I was going to do, and the first one was to increase the levels of productivity in our warehouse.

And I walked out week one and took the number and increased it by 25, 30 cases an hour.

The guys responded, productivity came up and I said, well, man, if we can do that.

Month later I went and turned that dial a little bit more.

They responded once again.

And so a few months later, I decided, well, man, if I can do it twice, no reason we can't do it a third time.

And so I posted the new productivity metrics, went back to my office, and shift started.

And I didn't hear fort lifts, I didn't hear people talking, nothing was moving.

And I walked out and the warehouse was barren.

Walked outside, no one was at the smoking area.

Finally went to the break room and the entire crew was sitting in there.

And they said, they said, we're not working today.

They said, if you don't have the respect to include us in these discussions and you don't respect us enough to at least talk to us in person, then we're not going to go out there and work.

And, man, it was shocking because we service 400 restaurants every single night.

And I was thinking, how am I going to pull these groceries?

So, man, it is.

And I'm reading a book right now, or I've read a book on compassionate leadership, and a big piece of that book talks about doing hard things in a human way and the fact that you've got to have those conversations, you've got to have the courage to be in front of your people.

But that one, that one has stuck with me, certainly, and much more inclusive in decisions that affect people, especially their lives and their livelihood.

But, yeah, that one definitely sticks with.

And so how does that story end?

Are you just out there in the warehouse all day by yourself?

Yeah, I mean, there were a few of them that decided they were going home that night.

They needed to think about it.

And I did have the respect of enough of them that I told him we would, we would talk about this.

That, that was not going into effect that night.

But I was in a T shirt pulling groceries until 3 o'clock in the morning.

So, yeah, definitely.

Lesson learned, man.

What an amazing lesson.

And because you shared that with thousands of people right now, hopefully many other people will avoid that mistake.

And it's.

So it was about.

So did you recover from it by getting everybody, like talking through their goals and their productivity measures or how did you.

Yeah, you know the wild thing about it is that after that, we actually pulled together a team that wrote a document.

We called it Champions of Change.

And it talked about the identity of that facility and who we were going to be, how we were going to serve our customers, how we were going to serve each other, what we could expect.

And there were members of that team that were actually part of helping us put it together.

And out of.

Out of that event, we actually came out stronger, and we actually wound up blowing the top end out of the productivity numbers that I had originally thought were reasonable.

So, yeah, it ends well.

That night was certainly a turning point.

Yeah, sometimes.

And also, just to play it back, that could.

That could lead a lot of leaders in a panic.

But it sounds like you're like, you know what?

I'm gonna pitch in, we're gonna get through this, and then we're gonna figure this out as a group.

And, man, when you start including people in it, it just engages them in an entirely different way.

And what a cool ending that you guys ended up putting a plan together to go even higher than you thought was even.

Even possible.

Certainly when you.

How is that now you're, you know, in a.

Leading, like a much larger entity in terms of the people you're.

You're.

You're working with here.

How did that lesson, like, how does it show up today at Carolina?

Handling?

Well, I mean, it's funny.

We just got through going through goal planning and budgeting and.

And everything moving forward, and we're talking about Vision 2030 and where we're going with that.

And while we certainly have numbers and metrics that we want to achieve and we talk about what those are, we spend a lot of time talking with our associates around how we're going to get there.

And so from the lessons I've learned throughout my career, the key thing for me is staying involved and making sure that they don't feel like this is just a burden that we've placed upon them, that it is a realistic goal, and I'm not giving it to you and leaving.

I'm here as a resource.

I want to plan with you.

I want to help you understand what it is.

It also gives me coaching opportunities in each one of those discussions to see where they may be missing a piece of their vision within their department that leads to the overall goal.

That's.

That's so good.

I.

I remember back to a sales organization that I was in, and what I found was, initially, it's like, okay, every year or every six months, really, we kind of replant our goals and it would just be an like a, like a percentage increase on what we did the last quarter or over the last six months.

And then what I found was the more experienced reps would essentially not want to overperform too much against their goals because they're like, you know, I don't want to do too much because I'm going to be up against that goal.

Or if they really blew it out one quarter or one six month period, they would immediately start looking for another job or in the company because they're like, I don't want to go against myself.

And then another rep would come into that area and then completely fail because they couldn't.

They're up against that huge increase.

And I always felt like there was a huge disconnect.

And it sounds like you're in it deep to try to prevent that kind of thing.

Yeah.

How do you think about goal setting from that standpoint?

I listen to what you just said and think about the number of sales that weren't made because someone was worried about what it would do to their goal the following year.

And I think in today's world, so, so many organizations look at this incremental improvement year over year that is the same whether it's 5%, 10%, 20% that we're just going to apply and that's going to be our target.

We, we really strive to make sure we talk about potential because there's sometimes that the market shifts in a way, whether it's economical pressures or, you know, we serve a lot of different verticals and there may be a certain vertical that's struggling, but what is the potential?

And what we found is that when we seek potential, folks get much more comfortable in exceeding 10% because the opportunity is there and they know that we're going to be fair in years to come where the opportunity may not be there.

We just had that with one particular group here where we knew the market was going to be down this year.

We didn't ask for the same growth that they had last year because it wouldn't have been possible.

And how demoralizing as a leader to be told you've got to go get something that isn't possible.

So we work with them to set these goals and hopefully they believe in them.

Yeah, it's so good to see the, you know, the top executives getting into the weeds on that because it's, I mean, I've seen it so many times where, like, what's your stretch goal?

Well, like, you know, I gave you my stretch Goal.

Like, no, no, it's.

But it's even further than that.

That's not a real stretch.

And there's a discussion, but the discussion never gets to, to what you said.

Really what's the potential of your territory or your industry or your vertical or your client base and then identifying that and then letting them get creative and engage around that.

And so I think that's a really very logical way to go about it.

But I suspect it's the harder way to go about it.

It's much easier, just a peanut butter spread a percentage and copy the formula down the spreadsheet.

Well, I think it's harder for them too, because it requires them learning their business at a deeper level and understanding that potential so that they can have the, the other side of that conversation where they can push back and say, no, we, we can't do this because.

And bring those factors that are, that are very real.

I want to go back to something you said earlier about not enjoying the firing process and not, and not doing that, having that reputation.

That also means that you are probably focused on growing people from within, developing your people, because you're not going to be as prone necessarily to hire from the outside if you're, if you're slower to fire and your industry and your vertical.

And you're, you've gone way beyond forklifts now.

So you've got a team in a lot of ways that was built to be successful in one industry, but maybe not built to succeed in others.

And so how do you think about developing your team internally when there's so much change?

You guys are expanding into different verticals.

It would seem like the development, internal development thing needs to be on steroids to keep up with that.

But I'm curious how you think about it.

And I will tell you the internal development here is on steroids.

And it is something that we focus on and we believe very strongly in pouring to our associates.

My whole thing is I want everyone going home a better version than what they arrived.

And we've got tons of leadership capital and content that we pour into our associates.

We have a program called Lyft, which is lifting individuals for tomorrow that our learning and development team has put together all focused around Maxwell and a lot of other leadership content.

But you'd be amazed.

We, we hire very few people that come from within the industry.

We seek to hire people who have that ability to grow and to lead and to become a better version of themselves.

And I mean, I don't think it's any different in any Business, you find that individual who can lead people.

You find that individual who can take a task and create a level of support that others cannot.

They can figure out the details of what you're doing, whether it's Fort Lift or computer or pharma or food, they'll figure it out.

So we're all about hiring good people that we can develop, and I think that has really contributed to a lot of the success and the growth that we've had.

So you're also making your hiring process more challenging from that, because it's much easier to go on LinkedIn and look for this.

But what you're saying, you're.

You're hiring more for Mindset.

At least that's my interpretation of it.

Do you have a question or an approach in your job interviews that helps you reveal that and really, really know that this person has that.

That way of thinking or being.

So one, one thing we've done as an organization is that every role at this company has 2, 3, 4 things that describe what good looks like.

So when we talk about a sales rep, we know these are the three things we're looking for in this interview, whether it's work ethic or something else.

And that's for every role in the company.

And so the questions for every interview vary relative to finding those three, four things that we're looking for in that individual.

Now, when you get into specified roles like engineers and technicians and things like that, obviously they have to come with some of that skill set.

But when it comes to the individual, we know or we believe we know what good looks like and what we're looking for.

And our managers are trained to look for those things.

They believe in those things, and ultimately it leads to us finding those things.

What are three success strategies that all employees need to understand?

Oh, getting ready to speak on this once again here, coming up at our summit, and I call it our postcard view or my postcard view, because when I can see a place, I can create my strategy in getting there.

So I believe it starts with that vision.

Where are you trying to go?

And can.

Can you put it into words so that someone else can see it and feel it?

Once you have that place picked out of where you're going and what success looks like, what is the plan that's going to get you there?

And not only the plan, but if there's a roadblock or a challenge along the way, how are you going to overcome the obstacles that may jump there?

And then the last piece, I would say, is the accountability.

Last year when we did this at our summit and I asked or ensured that we had accountability, I've got a stack of letters on my desk, emails that I've printed where guys have told me their stories.

And I mean, there are things like one guy wanted to take a 1500 yard shot and he has detailed his story and he uses me as his accountability partner to keep doing the things that he needs to do to train to take that shot.

One guy wanted to tackle classified five rapids.

And I mean, these aren't things.

I don't necessarily care that they're.

These are people in your company.

These are, these are.

They're sharing their personal.

Yeah, because like I told you earlier, it is about making people a better version of themselves.

Because when they show up as the best version of themselves at work, we get the best version for our customers and for those fellow associates.

So, I mean, I, I love talking about it like a postcard, like planning a trip.

But I mean, I'm responsible for planning trips in my family and my accountability is my wife and kids.

They're asking me all the time, where are we going this year for our Christmas vacation?

And I have to make sure I stay on top of those things.

So I want to hear.

I'd love to hear more about your employees sharing these like Class 5 rapids are.

You're asking them to email you their big personal goals.

Is that, or how does that work?

Yeah.

So when we came off of our summit last year, I asked them, just, we gave them a postcard.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

I want to know what your goal is and I want to know how you're going to get there.

And so it stopped at that.

That's all they were responsible for.

But they were so, so excited that the company cared about them going and doing something that wasn't working on a forklift or selling a forklift or doing something in our business.

And so they started sharing these things.

I mean, I've got stories where marriages and households are better because of focus that came from them saying, this is what I want my home life to look like and this is what I need to do to get it there.

So it's been.

The funny thing is that I do these things or we do these things for the impact of our associates, but we're really the recipient of the impact.

When you see the stories of change and success and accomplishment, it drives you even further.

Wow.

I love that.

I think that there is such a powerful thing and allowing people to put forth their personal goals and share them with a top executive in the Company versus what are you going to go do?

What's your stretch goal?

And there's probably, there's obviously that.

But if you can find some linkages between the personal and professional and they can apply the postcard process to their personal life, then clearly they can make that parallel jump to their professional.

Or do you see them taking like the Class 5 Rapid Postcard View and being able to translate that same postcard exercise at work?

Yeah, I mean, there's stories in here around guys that said my postcard view is to move from just being a technician into leadership or from being in this role into something else.

And it's no different.

Okay, that's where you want to be.

What are you going to do to get there?

Are there skills that you lack today?

Are there conversations that need to be had?

When are you going to do it?

And where's the accountability in driving those things?

And so a lot of the stories I've got are personal things because they're excited about it, but they're just as excited about it, how it helps them grow their career and their skill set or learning a new, a new skill at work.

Yeah, really, really good.

The most people never do that.

They never take, they, they never really declare the vision for their personal life, where they want to go or they're professional and the fact that you're tapping into something that excites them first to go through and apply it and do it, then they like, they can apply to work, they can apply throughout their career.

And there's really a lot of magic in there.

So I think that's a cool way too.

And I'm, I suspect because I love to talk about work inspiration and how, you know, what, where's your inspiration come from in tough times?

Has that exercise led to some personal inspiration for you as a leader?

Seeing what, what comes through.

Oh, there, look, I mean, people ask me often, like, why do you do what you do?

And we're over 820 associates now.

And I will tell you, these people that support this organization, each other, our customers and our communities, I mean, there is definitely inspiration that comes out of those types of stories.

The other thing though, I mean, my faith and my family, I mean, obviously they drive me.

It was, I guess, four or five years ago, we would go through business planning each and every year.

And I quickly realized that I had some things out of balance in my life.

And I sat down and started writing my personal business plan.

And I challenged myself to look at my actions versus what I was listening as priorities and a Lot of times they didn't align.

And so every year from that point forward, I have written a personal business plan that aligns with faith, family, Carolina handling and what I need to do.

And you know, it's crazy because most recently I went back to that plan.

I review it quite frequently, but I was in Philly, was leaving on Thursday, needed to be in Atlanta on Friday, and one of the things in my personal business plan is to spend 10 minutes a day with my children.

And when I'm traveling, obviously I can't do that, but I actually wound up rerouting and flying home for the evening so that I could do that and then get back out there.

And within that personal business plan, there are things that I need to do every single day for our associates, every single day for my family, for my faith.

And the review of that continues to inspire and drive and create the stories and opportunities like what I was telling you about earlier.

Yeah, love that.

And that's a really cool example of maybe it's a little harder on yourself to reroute your flight plans, but just spending a few minutes with your family and being fully present matters.

In fact, it reminds me of a Simon Sinek who wrote, he's a well known thought leader out there and we talked about him periodically.

But he shared some research in one of his book that kids who have parents who spend, I think it's 10 to 15 minutes a day fully present with their children are much more like, or much less likely to become like school bullies and have, you know, be stressed at school and just people like, well, 10 minutes is not that much.

I'm like, if you're really present with someone for 10 minutes, there's nothing like.

You know, man, I've got something on my desk at home that says the greatest success is defined by the way your child describes you when talking to a friend.

And that thing lives with me.

And I think about it all the time because you're, you're so right.

I mean the impact and, and, and being present not only with your, your children, but with your associates, with your team, understanding what's happening, where the work is, what's going on inside of your facility, that presence as a leader with children or with an associate, it goes so far.

Yeah.

And I hope that's, I hope that's hitting home with our listeners.

Because leaders, you know, like you, you've got emails coming in all the time, texts coming in all the time, but if, if you can turn that off for 10, it's better to be with someone fully present for 10 minutes than spend an hour with someone and check an email.

You know, getting interrupted all the time.

Absolutely.

I think most people would acknowledge that.

So that's, that's a really good way, good place to wind this up.

Other than.

I've got to ask you about your fastball.

What, how fast?

Now you, you might be like a glavin, right?

Or Maddox.

Maddox, right.

Braves, who didn't throw heat all the time.

But were you a heat thrower or pitcher or were you.

Yeah.

What were you throwing?

Not only am I made fun of about not being able to fire someone, but I was made fun of because I did not have a curveball.

I mean, it was curve.

No, no, no.

I mean, I could, I could spin it a little bit and make it move a little bit sideways, but it was fastball and change up but through in the.

Through in the low 90s.

But I will tell you that at every level that I graduated to, I learned very quickly that that fastball did not beat that new level.

I've got a story.

In high school, my first pitch was against Trot Nixon and he spun it around off of the wall.

First pitch in college was sent about 450ft.

I still don't know if it's landed.

And then first pitch in pro ball was hit so hard back past my face that I smelled burnt wood.

So, yeah, so for those of, those of us.

I mean, I know baseball, but not like as well as you, obviously, but I understand you.

The fastball, it's like an arms race.

Like as soon as you hit a new level, you've only.

You have a short amount of time before all the batters adjust to that level.

Oh, yeah.

And you got to go faster.

Oh, yeah.

Am I right?

Or you better be able to locate it better or you better be able to mix pitches up better.

So yeah, location certainly got better as I grew and, and the, the awareness of who the hitters were and, and what they could do with it got better.

So a great.

Is it true great pitchers are great at doing their homework, great preparers, more than pitcher.

Like, you can be good at pitching, but you got to be better at analytics.

Right.

The only other guy on the field that might prepare as much as that pitcher does is the catcher.

Just because he's calling the game and, and he has to know and, and a lot of times pitchers and catchers are in sync and a pitcher just trusts what the catcher throws out there.

But yeah.

Well, I was going to ask you, what is the relation?

What was your relationship with the catcher because I think about like a team.

And so some people say, well, the catchers are telling the pitchers what to do because I guess they have a better viewpoint maybe, or how, how does that relationship work at higher levels and what can we learn from it?

If you're willing to tackle that question.

So, I mean I, I think you nailed it first.

It is relationship and the catcher that I had in college, we didn't live together, but we might as well had because we were together all the time.

We understood things about each other outside of the game.

But the key thing about the guy that I had in college, he understood what my strengths were, he understood my mannerisms, he knew when he needed to call time out and come to the mound and have a conversation and whether that conversation needed to be hey, you got this or hey, get your head out of your butt, you're better than this.

And so I would say that, you know, when I look at how that plays into today's world, as far as partners in business, really seeking to understand and to, to be able to have those conversations is critical.

Yeah.

Can't be easy.

Is that so?

And then adding a third party because you became the pitching coach and are the pitching coaches at the higher level controlling the pitcher, catcher, communication and dynamic, or does a great pitching coach let that dynamic play out in the game?

Yeah, so the way I did it, coming fresh into the game probably wasn't right to begin with because I think I did try to control that.

But I still have the opportunity to coach my youngest son in youth sports today.

And what I realized then still holds true today.

The pitching coach's job was to get them ready between the last time they pitched and the next time they pitched.

Mechanics, mindset, you know, all of those different things.

And whenever he goes out there to perform, it is absolutely that it is a performance and those two guys are performing together and they have to be in sync.

I do think the pitching coach has the ability to bring data into it and to bring things that he sees and come out and talk to them.

But ultimately being they're the people that are going to execute the work and so they have to believe in what they're getting ready to do.

So I believe that the pitching coach today is there again, it's around preparation, it's around bringing anything that they may not see, but they've got to get it done.

So I've got a, I'll play a lot of tennis, my wife plays a lot of tennis, my 14 year old daughter playing a lot of Tournament, tennis.

I used to coach her a lot.

Now she does not like to be coached by me.

And I'm not saying I'm a good coach.

I'm not saying I'm a bad coach.

I'm just saying I'm a coach.

You have the curse of knowledge as baseball, right?

You.

You've actually physically done it all the way through.

Your son's playing baseball, your coaching.

How are you thinking about parenting and coaching in the game, outside of the game?

You know, threading that, that needle, so to speak.

Think about it often.

And you know, my, my youngest is nine.

We've got twins that are 19, finishing their freshman year, getting ready to come home and disrupt our house for the summer.

You've been through.

Okay, so you've been through baseball players.

You're 19.

Yes, I had boy, girl, twins.

One of them played baseball.

And I went through the exact same thing you did.

There was a point in time where I walked on water, and there was a point in time where they didn't want to hear from me.

And my daughter played volleyball, and it was the exact same thing.

I think, you know, with the nine year old, I've changed even more.

I've gone more to the standpoint of supporting him in the game relative to his abilities and what he can do and helping him improve those abilities, but not pushing the game on him.

And fortunately for him, he's a pretty good player.

But he's still at 9 years old.

He doesn't want to hear from me.

And I believe that it's because a young kid, well, even, even you get into older kids, they want their parents support.

And so when you're having to correct them around something they've done wrong in a sport, they believe that they have disappointed you in some way.

And so I spend a lot of time separating those things to say, Nash, it's not that you disappointed me.

I'm telling you this because I believe it can make you better.

And if you want to use it, then let's work on it.

But I don't want it to disrupt our relationship.

Man.

That's a powerful statement.

What I process is, like, it's so important in interacting with your children and your team that you declare your intent, your positive intent, like, hey, this is, this is not disappointment.

This is, hey, I, I see possibility for you, and I want to share it.

And in the name of making them better, but not as disappointment, I think, I think that's a great thing.

Because if you, for all of us, if we start coaching our kids out there, they're going to filter that as I did something wrong.

Yeah.

And then, look, I'll be on the baseball field tomorrow.

You know, we're talking about leadership.

The number of parents that are screaming, throw strikes, hit the ball.

And it's like, your kid's not out there not wanting to throw strikes or not wanting.

They want to be a hero.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so when they hear that, it's like, I mean, the disappointment just continues to mount and.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, we got a little leadership, we got a little parenting, we got a little coaching.

We got a little everything.

And Joe Perkins interview.

Joe, what's your parting thought for our listeners?

Oh, goodness.

Pour into your people.

And I mean, we, we did.

We talked about coaching, we talked about parenting, we talked about work.

It doesn't matter which vein it's in.

Be present, pour into them.

Help them maximize their talents, their skill sets, their abilities.

It's.

It's what you're intended to do.

And the, the inspiration that comes from it, the gratitude that comes from it.

It's not always instant, but when you get to see it, it'.