#182 - Why Most Leaders Misunderstand Human Performance | Curtis Sprouse

0:00 When most people are struggling with something, nine times out of 10, I would tell you it's because they've defined the problem incorrectly. They're solving for the wrong problem. Hey you all, welcome back to another, uh I've been using this word awesome a lot. Let's wait until the end to see if it's awesome, but I think that the previous conversation I had here with Curtis, I'll give the introduction, is going to be extremely valuable for all of us.

0:42 This is probably one I'll be able to sit back, we'll see if I can keep from interrupting. This is probably one that I can sit back and ask two or three questions and it'll be as if we're reading one of the best books of 2026. So let me introduce Curtis and then we'll unlock this and get rolling. But Curtis Sprouse. A lot of times, I make sure I said the name right, but I think I got that one correct. President and CEO of Eureka Connect, where he works with leaders and organizations to unlock high performance through validated behavioral methods and real world decision frameworks. That's a lot, but I'm pumped about going deep into it. With more than two decades of experience advising Fortune 500 companies, scaling programs that drive leadership and team outcomes, and supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems through initiatives.

1:27 like the Institute for Biomedical Entrepreneurship. I'm pumped because we now have the thing I love, entrepreneurship that I've been playing with for a couple of decades with medicine, with biomedical. Curtis brings both operator experience and strategic insight into how people decide, lead and grow. And if that's not entrepreneurial, I don't know what is. We'll talk about leadership, performance decisions and the lessons he's learned working with hundreds of teams and founders. Curtis, welcome to the necessary entrepreneur. She's smart. for having me. Appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and your audience. Absolutely, we were talking about the Northeast so we're a little chilly so maybe someone's down on the beach in Florida or in the Caribbean or somewhere in Hawaii and they're just sitting in the lap of luxury while we're cold but what a what a good day and a good opportunity going to 2026 to have you on It's funny what in 2026 what do we know about?

2:22 human performance That maybe when you started in the 80s that we didn't know And if you want to redirect it, can say, no, we know the same things. But I'm interested in, do we know something now about human performance that we didn't know then that significantly stands out in your work? Oh, I think it's a great question. I think we're learning so much about the brain or understanding environment better, the impact environment has. We're understanding genetics as a precursor to um having certain or providing certain predictors of how we'll act or react. uh You know, I've I made a pivot, my career, you know, I'm an accountant and finance guy by training, but I made a pivot to the behavioral side in 2029.

3:06 sort of officially, I'd always dabbled in it and had done a lot of work with teams using behavioral tools. in 2009, we found a Eureka Connect and the knowledge that we've gained in working with people using objective measures of behavior, both from a genetic and learning perspective, I think we're constantly learning more more and more about the elasticity of the brain, what can influence. you know, the development of the brain or the denigration of the brain. You know, we're seeing this from the CTE data that's coming back on traumatic brain injury, you know, with the athletes in particular, there's a lot of work being done there.

3:48 But, uh you know, we're going to constantly learn more and more about things that we can do to uh improve and strengthen leadership. I think one of the things that we're seeing now, and you and I dabbled into this a little bit before we started to go live here on tape. I was listening to some of your other podcasts and people were saying, how hard life is now and how much more difficult and more dangerous it's become. And I think I just gave you a little shout out to John Steinbeck and said, when was the last time these people read The Grapes of Wrath? Back in the 1930s, life was really hard.

4:28 A majority of the United States people were trying to just make sure they had enough food to eat every day. Not whether they're going to get a cell phone or be able to watch Netflix or, you know, buy a new car or go on vacation. Um, you know, what, look right now, what number one growth area for, uh, drugs right now is GLP ones for obesity. Even the most poor people in this country are suffering from obesity. That means they're eating too much. So think about that dynamic in less than a hundred years. We went from people that were starving to death to people now that are dying from heart disease because they're overeating. So why does our human brain and our default go to things are hard? Without having the connection to the perspective of, because I do find myself very often, I think I've done a pretty good job of realizing how good we have it.

5:17 And I just feel fortunate and I just have massive gratitude. Now, I don't lose track of the things I do every day to earn the outcomes I want in my life. I'm really focused on that because if I just sit around and wait for it to happen, I'm not going to earn a top tier outcome in my life. That's very rare that happens. It's hard enough if we go all in to also be in the top one or two percent, not income, top one or two percent of performers. But very often with the people I'm engaging with, I say, hey guys, it's just very simple. I just try to be more optimistic than pessimistic. And that does something to my brain thinking, hey, there's still a better opportunity today and we're living better today than I was when I was a kid. Imagine I say it so often.

5:59 these zero degree temperatures that you're doing with and we're doing with here in Cincinnati. And I texted someone the other night and I said, how fortunate are we to have warm houses, warm office buildings, cars that we can auto start from an app on my phone, uh regardless even if we're still living paycheck to paycheck, our lives are so much better. Have you learned, are you going deep? Do you know why humans default to feeling like things are hard? Well, it's good business, right? Look at the news every night. You're depressed. You're fat. you know, think, look at all the companies selling anti-anxiety drugs or, you know, weight loss programs or so it's become good business.

6:41 And, the internet has accentuated the ability for companies to communicate what they, you know, look, you have a problem. have a solution. Right? So it's just become more pronounced, you know, back in, you know, go back to my reference of Stein back in the 1930s. Um, you didn't have the internet, you didn't have cell phones, you didn't have instant communication or ways to influence what people see and do, you know, constantly 24 seven. So I think it's the, the channels of communication have become more tied to us and the consistency with which companies can communicate is unbroken. to some extent because of these different mechanisms of communication, different channels of communication.

7:27 So when you're told you're something all the time, you begin to believe you're that thing, right? It's just, you said this really well. If you believe and look at the world in a positive manner, it's gonna give you a different perspective on how you're gonna engage with everything you do. know, am I, if I have, You know, I deal with CEOs a lot, right? I coach a lot of CEOs and work with their teams. Every day is going to present a problem for you, whether it's the snow in the steps, um a bill you got to pay, one of your kids is sick, your wife is mad at you, whatever it is, right?

8:11 There's a myriad of problems that will be presented to you. And if my wife is upset at me for some reason, And my attitude was, I'm going to double down and just ignore her or yell at her. Then the chances of resolving whatever that is, probably reduced significantly. But if I look at it and say, hey, hun, what's wrong? Is there something I'm doing or I could do to put you in a better place? Right. Then the chances of resolving that are improved, right? And that's all attitude. It's just how you look at it. I think that what's happened in our society now is that there are far more negative influences because people always want to sell you solution.

8:57 So if I tell you that things are worse all the time, then I've got a solution. um Here's what they're not combining with that though. They're not combining with we have to take action with the solution. No, a lot of times, well, our business is, let's define what the problem really is and where it resides. So, you know, if I put Mark through an assessment, what are your genetic characteristics? If we look at motivational theory, energy, dominance, discipline, competing, what are the drivers? Are you driven by discipline, work ethic, you know, doing things at the highest degree of quality and being on time? um You know, are you competitive?

9:40 You and I talked about this earlier, aggressive, direct, strategic or internal. Where do you direct your competitive nature? Are you dominant? Do have a big ego? Do you like yourself? You know, how ego driven are you? And then energy, how fast do you move through life? you, you know, are you a high energy person? You get out of bed and you're ready to hit the road running or are you sort of laid back and take my time and lower, lower voice? lower presence. These things are sort of hardwired and they're, indicators many times of when you start laying stress and environment on what will be the natural proclivity of that person if there are extremes in that genetic profile.

10:25 So we look at those kinds of things and say, look, I don't want to guess what Mark's situation is. Let's find out to the best of our ability using these instruments where he is right now on this genetic spectrum and learning spectrum. And let's help him focus his development with a greater level of awareness. and a more relevant focus on what he can do to be a better version of himself. So we look at this, you know, trait versus state. We look at self-awareness as a precursor to self-regulation, self-management, right? And then we look at to what extent do stressors, physical stressors, emotional stressors, environmental stressors, um how do you navigate it given sort of that better understanding of self?

11:11 Why is it important for us to know this? Well, it doesn't hurt, right? The more we know about ourselves, the better we are at um understanding how to improve ourselves, if in fact that's what you're interested in doing. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. Are we interested in high performance in any category of our life? I wouldn't even see it has to to achieve high performance. Why not just to find joy and satisfaction in our lives? There are a lot of people that walk around just, you said it earlier, we're very privileged, you and I in particular.

11:54 The fact that we're videoing a conversation so that we can provide it to others as opposed to just having a conversation speaks to that we're sort of. lucky enough to be able to afford the equipment and have the time and know how to do this stuff, right? um So it puts us in a different category. um But I work with lots of people that financially have more money and means and resources that they'll ever need in their lives, but yet they have no joy in their life. They're not happy. They're stressed every day. They're in jobs that don't provide gratification. um They don't feel a sense of accomplishment. This week alone, I've probably talked to a half dozen people that said, do my job because I'm overpaid to do it.

12:37 And it's too much hassle to get a new one. And I'm going to point my life where I'll just sort of keep grinding on for a few more years and then I'll retire and that'll be it. What's your role in that conversation? Just to listen or are you trying to depend on why you're there? Do you help them work through to just let them be? It depends on what they want. Do they want help? know, do they want, do they want, I had a good friend yesterday who she just wanted to talk. You know, I didn't assess her. I assessed her years ago. I haven't assessed her recently, but we were just talking sort of like the state of her life, the state of my life. And she just wanted to know what my thoughts were. You know, that was just a friend to a friend, right?

13:18 But you know, then. You know, I had another conversation earlier this week with a guy that I've worked with previously. The company's gone through a lot of changes. A lot of really quality leaders have laughed. There's sort of a uh dynamic of mediocrity that's settled in with this company, but they're in a sector where they control the sector. So the company intends to do, continues to do well, even though the leadership team probably is not as strong as it used to be and the culture is not as strong. And so he and I talked about, I can't solve things upstream for him. I can't help him at the ELT level and the CEO level, but I can't help him at his level and everything around him and down. And so I said, you you can improve your day and your life and your performance by improving the people around you, regardless of what the leaders do.

14:06 And he's like, geez, that makes a lot of sense. I said, so you don't have to be beholden to your leadership team and accepting that that's just the way it's always got to be. I said, you can control that. That's a more deliberate, more, you know, you know, where we'll probably hopefully engage in a project where we'll address his specific needs. But I think the underpinning of what you asked me is this. Whenever I talk to somebody, I have two goals and I've shared this on every podcast I've ever been on. number one, can I improve my relationship with Mark? You and I virtually had no relationship until what? Less than a half hour ago.

14:47 Right. But can I develop a connection with you? You know, we're both from the Midwest. You're from, you know, the Ohio area. I'm from Western Pennsylvania. That was immediate connection. Geographically, we sort of grew up in the same environment. there's a certain thing where there's so many things I don't have to tell you based on just telling you I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. So many things you know about me. The fact that, you know, I'm a Steelers fan and you're probably a, you know, uh a very sad Bengals fan, right? And you're trying to be a comedian. But keep going. Keep going on this. Yes. But so number one is can I build a connection and can I elevate and advance our relationship?

15:29 Can I get to know you, let you get to know me and then the next time you and I chat, can we build on that? So number one is always building and strengthening our relationship, no matter who it's with. With you, with a client, with my wife, with my kids. um Even with an audience that hears you and wants to connect. Yeah, I would hope that the audience connects to what we're talking about. I would hope that it gets them to think. My goal, I tell clients, my job isn't to tell you what to think, it's just to get you to think. And think with greater clarity, and that that thinking is based in facts and reality, not emotion and perception.

16:11 And then the second part of it is, can I always advance the situation? Can I leave you better than you were situationally? Meaning in this broad spectrum of, if we'd look at every podcast Mark's ever done, will you remember me a year from now versus others that you can't even remember what you talk? I only remember 10%. Yeah. If that, I, I mean, I, I do podcasts and I do conversations and you know, if, I have, you know, on average, if I have 12 conversations a day times five days a week, right. It's 60 conversations on average a week.

16:52 Two or three are impactful. Yeah, no, I'm just not gonna remember them all. That's why I take copious notes, because I need to remember details from those conversations. But a lot of it has to do with the strength of that relationship. um Was it an interesting conversation, and did we advance it? Or the other side, I have one this week where I had an email exchange with a CEO, and it just got sideways. And he just got, you know, he asked me to do something for him, and he offered a price, and I thought it was a little bit low, and I offered a counter price, and he went nuts. You know, this is ridiculous. can't believe it. I'm like, well, we have a difference in opinion. You know, it's easy. All you have to say is I'm not interested or I think it's too high. And that's, we move on.

17:33 Did you have previous relationship with this person? Yes. Yeah. What happened in that dynamic? Because we're talking about building relationships and context. What happened there? Well, in his data, you can see that there's an intensity that can lead to an inability to control impulse. Now, I don't think I was the reason he's upset. There you go. think it's, it's, an entrepreneur, I think he's got challenges with his business. There are multifactorial challenges. It's not one thing. It's not enough capital and problems with his development team and, you know, a myriad of things that, you know, I, I don't even begin to say that I understand or know.

18:15 But I'm quite certain that there are number of things going on with him and my not agreeing with him was, and I'm far enough away from what he needs to worry about that he can take it out on me. And that's what he did. So, um, what's your response in a situation like that where you may not put that thing together? Will you put that together or no, you'll just move on and maybe you'll work together on something else. I'd like to put it together, but um I mean, I responded to the first email where he said he wasn't happy with the, look, you know, I understand your decision and if I can ever help you, my door's always open.

18:58 And then I got this sort of outrageous response to that, right? And I haven't responded because um again, it's not solely my decision. I talked to my VP of ops and she's got great clarity and she's been with me for years and years and years. And she said, I think if you respond, all you're going to do is escalate it. And it gets back to, I'm most likely right in my understanding of what's going on and where the opportunity is to help this young leader, but I'm probably not relevant right now because he's just not in a place to receive it. So sometimes you just have to sort of move on and maybe it comes back and maybe it doesn't. Do you find a lot of these problems when somebody generic, not generic, but reaches out to you with something novel that you hadn't helped them with before?

19:44 Do you find that the problem is almost always optics for the individual and internal? It's not necessary because there's probably, and I asked that because if it's industry specific, there's probably someone else in the industry that's solving it. So is it usually the individual? It's, I love the word you'd uh optics, Mark. And so here's what I say is when most people are struggling with something, nine times out of 10, I would tell you it's because they've defined the problem incorrectly. They're solving for the wrong problem. So it's their optics. And why is that? Well, let's just take a CEO of a, let's say a venture or private equity backed company.

20:30 They are most worried about their investor, right? Now let's take your head of R &D and your head of manufacturing. They're worried about building a product and the quality of that product and the ability to replicate that product with consistency in a way that it can be sold and the service and support of that product is reasonable and the cost can be controlled. So there's a lot of detail, right? The CEO is worried about the investor and things that they can present to the investor that keeps the investor happy. But the frontline guys on R &D and manufacturing are worried about the minutia of did Johnny show up?

21:12 Is Susan going to go on maternity leave? Do we have enough capital to do X, Y, and Z? We've got a vendor that's not delivering. And so when a problem's defined that, hey, our quality of product's not where it needs to be, The CEO is trying to communicate to the board in a different way than the head of manufacturing or R &D. And so there's a big divide between how the CEO frames that problem and how the team. And so here's a way you dissect that. If Mark has a problem, I like to ask a couple of questions. Is the problem the result of people, process, lack of resources, or lack of different priorities.

21:59 And nine times out of 10, the primary driver of the problem will be defined by one of those four characteristics. We've got the wrong person, the person's not capable, there's not a clear process, we don't really know what we're doing, we don't have enough resources to get the job done, know, resources can be time, or it's just not a priority. What's important to me is an important remark. And if you ask the CEO how to frame that same problem, Invariably, they will pick a different order with regard to what is the problem. And that's, that's, that's a big problem because there's, there's, there are characteristics that are affecting that situation and outcome.

22:41 And the ones that you need to solve for the ones you need to solve for. So in these situations a lot, we go back to what our default mechanisms are from our DNA or from our adolescence or whenever that's developed, who we are. I'm sure in your brain, you know, I'm like, does it happen in middle school? Does it happen from being 10 months old to three years old? But in these CEOs, if they're struggling with these vast problems and whether it's a vast problem or not, you might be able to identify it and create a solve in five minutes. but they just might be so far in it, feels enormous and vast to them. Do you see them in these big organizational problems? Do you see them able to evolve, to change themselves so that they can then fix the problem?

23:26 Or do they continue down the path of who they are? Oh, the answer to that one's easy, yes and no. Yeah, I mean, I'm fortunate that I work with a lot of people that are really quality leaders before they ever meet me, and they just become better because I'm able to give them a little bit more of an edge, a little bit more clarity on what they could work on and what they could refine and mechanisms to do that more efficiently than they found previously in their careers. You know, I could point to literally hundreds of people I've worked with where they were already good. You know, if we take the, you mentioned earlier in the conversation, I don't know if we were filming at that time, you know, being in the top 3%, you know, being in the top 2%, being in the top 1 % of performance.

24:14 Um, I look at it, it's, it's an 80 20 world. 80 % of the people are average to poor at what they do and 20 % are typically pretty good. So when Mark goes to the doctor. the next time. What are the chances your doctors in the top 20 % of all doctors? I asked the doctor that I changed doctors to two years ago, I looked at her and I said, Hey, you're going to get to know me really quick, but are you great? And she turned around and she said, I'm the best. And I went, tell me what that means. said, cause I'm only interested in working with people in every area that they're the top performance level of the thing they do, because I'm going to put a lot of trust in you and I'm going to listen to you and know that.

24:58 every day you're trying to be the best in your category. that's the only when I work with people, that's all I'm interested in. Okay, so I would say that's a great premise. But I think the reality of it is 80 % of the people you're gonna engage in during the day are gonna be average to port what they do. I agree with you. And if you're leading a company, you're going to have those people that work for you. And the question is, can Kurt and Mark elevate those people? Because really talented people will always get better. They're lifelong learners. take care of themselves intellectually. work on themselves physically. They work on themselves and they are deliberate in their actions and efforts to do so.

25:40 And so when a guy like me comes along, I only facilitate that getting done more efficiently and them doing it better, which is great. You know, it's great. Let's be condescending for a minute here. So I'm going to take the 80 % and I've really been working on something over the last year or two. I've been talking about this middle 60. That that's the place I can really make the biggest difference. feel. totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. Because in that middle 60 are people that have the potential to be very good, if not great performers, but their path is harder. There are more obstacles. And to the extent that we can reveal those through our process of doing the assessment and help them have greater clarity on what they can work on, they can be amazing contributors.

26:30 Now, doesn't mean, you know, look at, em if you've ever studied John Wooden, right? And when they asked John Wooden, who were the greatest players he ever coached, it wasn't cream of Doljabar. And it wasn't all the people that you would have built Walton. It were all the guys that were not well known. And he said, he said in an interview, if you look at the last Ted talk he ever did, it's amazing. He said it was the guys that he didn't think would make the team. That significantly contributed to national championships. Because they learned their role, they played their role, and they contributed at a moment in time that they were needed and that they made all the difference between failure and success.

27:10 And so I believe every organization has to think that way. And they don't, they don't. They look at the middle tier or the lower tier as, you know, uh replaceable. They don't think about investing in those individuals and elevating them. And if they did, they'd find they'd be much more impactful and successful. So what have you learned about human beings? Whether it's our mindset, our operating system, I make this reference with people that are really close to me at times. I'm like, you all got to drop the windows 2000 and get on board with a new operating system because we're working at a new age and we have to process things differently with who we are in our brains.

28:01 Was it written in stone that Mark and Curtis were going to be sitting here talking in a leadership role in 2026? You mean, was it predestined that you and I would end up here now? not predestined, was it they already have the DNA that if they do the work, they're going to end up there versus an argument would be some other people are going to have this DNA, this operating system that they do the work, they're going to end up somewhere different. uh I think it's a great question to ask from the standpoint that it opens the door to discussions in multiple directions.

28:46 So number one, uh is it that there's a dynamic that exists within each of us naturally that allows us to achieve certain things? I would say yes. But I would say that that's accentuated by the environment and the experiences that we have. Um, if you go back to it again, because it's, it's first, it's in my mind now because I'm reading it. Um, but if you go back to sort of the concept of Easton Eden, right, it's, it's the story of Cain and Abel, right? And, it's initially told through, you know, uh, the brothers, uh, you know, was it, Adam and, uh, Thomas, right.

29:31 But then, then when, um, When Adam has his sons, then his twins, it's told again through those two boys. And because their environment was better, more stable through the influence of Lee, right? They developed as more sound human beings, right? They didn't have, they had better relationships. So I think that's just one small microcosm of an example of where oh an environment does affect sort of that genetic composition of who one is. um And, you my daughter, my daughter, Maya, who's 27, um she's getting a graduate degree right now at Tepper Carnegie Mellon.

30:18 um She was in her undergraduate degree at UMass Amherst during COVID. And that's when they were restricting, you couldn't go on campus and she was a biology major and she couldn't get on to do her labs and... And so she just sort of went on campus and went into the lab and did what she needed to do. And she's like, dad, when did we become so soft? She's like, when did we decide that we were just gonna barricade ourselves in a home and stop living because of something that's basically on the same level as a really bad cold? And at that time she was in her early 20s.

31:03 um But I think that a lot of that comes from, she grew up on a farm. She grew up with death early on, know, chickens dying and watching the dog rip. I mean, I remember one morning she couldn't find one of her chickens the night before Christmas morning and she let the dogs out and she watched, you know, one of the dogs rip the chicken apart right before she opened her gifts for, you know, and people were like, oh, that's gross. And, know, and she just sort of like, that's what happens. You know, I shouldn't, you know, I should probably. tried to look for the chicken one last time before I let the dogs out in the morning, because that's what dogs do, right? But since she grew up with sort of the harsh understanding of life and death at a young age, you know, just that's what happens, you know?

31:49 So. To not dip our feet too much in worldly happenings, to stay away from politics and to stay away from all that because you're never right. Dip your toe in there in a big, you are never right. but she, her generation being 27 going through it then, she formed a very unpopular opinion and still took action to get the outcome that she wanted in her life. Is there anything in this conversation and your level of expertise about performance and biomedicine and entrepreneurship. um That can be really, really hard to go upstream against the current in society now.

32:34 Does that weave itself into what you're doing every day on trying to make the proper and right decisions for ourselves and for our organizations? I think, Mark, unfortunately, it has a profound effect. And I think in not such a healthier, positive way. um Let's go down the politics side. um And let's just take Trump. People hate him or like him. There's not a lot in between with him. Right? um And he does things really well, and he does things very poorly. He's a human being. And I think we've gotten into this place where we have to put a label on someone.

33:18 We have to put a label. You're either a great president or a poor president based on these examples. you know, years ago I used to take a list of presidential accomplishments and I'd put them in one column and then I'd the president in the other column and I'd ask people to match the president with the accomplishment. They're never right. They always pick the ones that they perceive to be great accomplishments and they align it with their president that they like, whether it be Democrat or Republican, and they were invariably wrong. And so I think that we have gotten to this place, unfortunately, where things that Obama did were praised and Trump's prosecuted or persecuted for them.

34:08 And I think vice versa. There are things that, you know, other presidents have done throughout history, Thomas Jefferson's infidelity and Clinton's infidelity. Infidelity is infidelity. Jefferson goes down as one of the greatest presidents in history and Clinton's impeached for it. um And I'm not making a judgment either way. I'm Catholic. That's what's good. No, I mean, I think this is great. We could say the same thing about JFK, right? I mean, look at how he was looked at in the 60s and even 70s, 80s and 90s. And now if we look at truly how he performed in his personal life, man, if he would have been judged then the way that they're judged now, there would have been a massively different opinion about that guy.

34:53 And history remembers things differently. know, I'm a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. And if you look at during Lincoln's administration, um and um when he was assassinated, over half the country hated him. Viscerally hated him. In the South, they hated him for destroying the economy, abolishing slavery, you know, all of that. But today, he's revered. by both the North and the South. He's seen as one of the greatest uh leaders, not just presidents, leaders of all time. So history will remember things differently than our optics of today.

35:33 And I think that if you look at our lives, yours and my life, one of the questions I always ask people when they come into one of our training programs, the first question I always ask, write down how you want to be remembered when you die. How will people talk about Mark when you die? Why is that important? Because you use that to direct behavior? It's the ultimate end. It's the ultimate objective. What is your objective with your life? How do you want people to, and some people will be flippant and say, I don't care, I'll be dead. That's not true. That's not true. You do care. And what people typically cite as what's important to them, I want to be remembered as a good father, a good husband, a good mother, a good daughter, a good friend, someone that contributed to society, someone that cured disease.

36:21 It's always focused on other people. Something that where people saw you as being a positive in their life and or contributing to their life. Always, those are always the factors. It's never, I want to be rich. I want to have buildings named, well, I never asked Trump, so maybe it is, want to have things named after me. But my point being is that we, in large part, goes back to Maslow, hierarchy of need. Right? It's, it's, it's at the very highest level. It's that self fulfillment, self accomplishment, right? Once we get back, you know, going back to Steinbeck, once we get back the, you know, we have food and shelter.

37:05 We're not fearing for our life. We're not fearing that a lion's going to come out of the woods and eat us. Once we get past those physical needs, right? Then it's all psychological. And I think the psychological pressure has become greater because of society and those channels of communication and what they communicate to us. Why do we need to feel like um politics, because politics seems to be the new religion, but why do both of these things, why do we need to be a part of something and why do we need to be right? Why do we need our thing to be right? Is that a part of the psychological aspect of humans that will even help us figuring out being great leaders, having the outcome we want in our life?

37:45 I'm really fascinated. I don't, and I ask that question from this perspective. I don't need anyone anymore to agree with me. I want to try to set the culture for our company and have us all buy into this system that we're going to have an impact in our industry. We're going to improve our lives. Like I do want this thing. I just say, you all, chose this industry, whichever one of my businesses that I'm discussing with them. We chose this and I'm trying to design this to be the best vehicle for anybody that touches it for us to get us where we want in our lives. That's it. I don't, there's going to be times I don't like my job. There's going to be times I love it. There's going to be times that great people inside the company leave. There's going to be great times. feel like, wow, we made a difference in their life and they're one of the leaders.

38:26 There's wins and losses every day. And I do want to positively impact folks, but I don't need them to agree with how I'm living my life. And I don't need to agree with how they're living their life other than the metric of, I do want to be more positive towards people than negative. Wow, what you just covered is really extraordinary in so many ways, but let's go back to the very start of what you said. um Politics has become the new religion. I think, unfortunately, that's one of the failures of society that we've lost our religion. We've lost our faith. We've lost our understanding that there's something bigger than us, right?

39:09 So as a Catholic, um religion is about search for truth. What is truth? Right. And I think that politics should be a search for truth, not a search for being right at the expense of not being in reality. Right. So I think that number one, societally, this country was founded by people that believed in a uh greater being. And they believed that whatever you believe that greater being to be you had the freedom to exercise that belief and pursue that belief. They didn't restrict what being you had to believe in.

39:51 There were clear ideas on what it should be, but there was no mandate that it had to be. That was one of the beauties of the formation of this country. And I think that we as a society have gotten so far away from that desire to really understand truth. And it's another thing that you sort of alluded to is this idea that it's not about being right. It's that we're willing to defend what we know to be wrong because of the shame or embarrassment or psychological dynamic that once we've made a commitment to something, an idea, we'll stay with it even when we know it to be false or untrue or incorrect. And that that's become, people have become more comfortable with it because of the first thing.

40:33 They're not pursuing truth and they don't believe in a higher being where there are repercussions for doing the wrong thing or thinking or saying the wrong thing. I'm very comfortable acknowledging when I'm wrong because I know that there are many people in the areas that I have the privilege to work in that are much more adept and knowledgeable in those areas, scientifically, business-wise, um and that I would be foolish and it would be disingenuous for me not to rely on them when I know what they're telling me is far better conceived and developed based on their experience and path than mine is at that time.

41:22 But that's a maturity, I think, of self. It's the good fortune of being around people that are very good at what they do and the comfort level with realizing that if you're not the smartest guy in the room, that's probably a good thing. Well, I don't, here's, here's what I love. I don't know if it's a good thing. depends on your role, but what I've come to believe and know and try to act on every day, I try to walk in a room and find the places where I'm wrong. I really do. I am searching for who in this room knows something. Now I'm going to come in passionate about my area and my expertise and I'm going to present it to say, this is what I found the best way forward.

42:02 But I want someone to raise their hand and say, I've found something different and here's why, and here's why it's better. That is what, so I, I don't know. I don't know if we should be in a room. I think there's different rooms and I don't want to be contradicting. I there's different rooms where we do need to be the smartest person, depending on our role. But maybe in that same moment, we're open-minded looking for someone else that is more right. I don't know what you do with that, but as I process through it, ah but I am looking for areas every day. Cause I know the only unlock, whether I figure it out, whether it's through a book, a podcast, another individual I'm around, if I'm not open-minded as somebody else doing something better, I can't grow. I can't improve. I'm not going to, you, you, you see what my life's going to be today.

42:45 This is what this is the best my life's going to be if I'm not willing to grow or learn. So I don't know what you do with that or what that does, but. There are times that whether we were the smartest or not, we do need to get people on board with something to take action to go in a certain direction. I don't. So what you just described is, I think, a common element of where people say, you know, people could say that based on my statement in your response that you and I disagree. I would say based on listening to you and understanding what I think you're trying to convey to me, I don't think there's a big difference or any difference in what we both believe. I don't think there is, I don't believe so either.

43:25 It's expanding on a little bit more saying, is there more depth to this thing? You know, how do you match humility, the good parts of ego, strengths of leadership, but at the same time, looking for these spaces where I just don't have it right. Yeah, I think, you know, my wife is a linguist and she always says, a lot of times the difference in her thinking, my thinking is semantics. She just doesn't like the way I said it. She would have used different words. She thinks that maybe I, you know, maybe over embellished on something or, know, but at the end of the day, philosophically, we both believe very much in the same thing. There's very little difference between her thinking and my thinking. But she can get very angry with an example I use, even though it's making the very point that she wanted to make herself.

44:10 I've just made it in a way that she doesn't like the graphics or the people I chose to make the example with. so that's sometimes it's my failing to recognize that maybe I shouldn't have used that example. the communication in some way to make sure that you're taking time to enunciate it and trying to connect with the other person. So I'd love to talk for another hour. This is winding down. Maybe we do another podcast in the future, but what do you hope to do with these two places you spend the vast majority of your time? You said you spend 70 % in one area and 30 % on the other. What do you hope to do? Cause I was in a room three weeks ago in New York city with some people who have tremendous brands.

44:52 And there was about 12 or 13 of us in there having dinner, talking over. It was, it was a good room. It was a good room where people left their egos and a lot of people grew together and we learned a lot. someone said something that's accomplished a lot of things in business that said, I believe we can only do one great thing at a time. Not saying I agree with it. It was a very profound definitive statement that looking at this successful person, you have to listen and try to understand. So you're doing two big things. What are you hoping to accomplish with these two big things over the next year, two years, three works with both Eureka Connect and the Institute for Biomedical Entrepreneurship? Because you're a capable guy, but what do you do with those if you're 70 and 30?

45:35 Yeah, I think that your colleague or the person you're referring to was right. I think that the question is, how do you define those one thing? And I think it's in a moment. Meaning when I'm working on behavior, if I'm growing up feedback with Mark, in that hour, that's all I care about. The quality of what I do with Mark in that moment will dictate what he learns from that and how he's able to elevate people around him. So there's an exponential impact that Kurt has. So continuing to advance Eureka to be able to get to more people. Can we elevate more people who in turn elevate those around them? That's a pretty powerful objective.

46:16 And in doing that, integrating those people with the IBE deal flow, the 250 plus companies that have gone through the IBE, you elevate the activities around those assets and we'll get more products to market. And so doing those in concert, think is necessary to achieve my overall objective, which is curing more disease and getting more people that are capable of doing that and advancing those interests and ideas, technically from a business perspective, from a financial perspective. And so I've got to train more people to do what I do to scale the activity between the behavioral side and the entrepreneurial side. And fortunately, know, the IB has a network of 1200 people.

46:57 It's not just Kurt. You know, the next call I have right now is with the technology out of California, where I've got some good friends that are just putting sweat equity into getting the regulatory strategy right, getting the therapeutics platform outlined. There's a diagnostic that goes with this project and in getting that all mapped out so that when we execute that we'll spend every penny wisely and that we'll have success and we'll get this solution to the market, which will cure a horrific disease. I'm going to play a relatively small role, but a relative an extremely important role, I believe, in that path. So that's what I choose to do and hope to continue to do. Mmm, so good. Curtis Sprouse, thank you for the 47 minutes.

47:39 Maybe we can get another hour and 47 down the road. Love to do it, Mark. was great questions, great. I just love the way you conduct yourself and the way you ask questions and feel privileged that you and I were able to meet and do this today. Absolutely. So it's the best place for them to hitch up on LinkedIn or is there a different website? What's the best? um My assistant is um shana at eureka connect.com, s-h-a-n-a at eureka connect.com, and she can get you on my schedule if people want to talk to me about the behavioral program or IBE. um eureka connect.com is our website. You can contact us through the website there. And ibeinc.org is for the Institute for Biomedical Entrepreneurship.

48:20 Again, you can reach us through that website as well. multiple ways, LinkedIn, through Shana Reid. um Kwok, I'm sorry, she just got married. So it's K-W-A-A-K Kwok, Shawna Kwok. So skwok at ureconnect.com also works. again, Mark, thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great rest of your afternoon. I look forward to catching up more. Okay, sir.