#193 - Hiring Is Broken: How to Attract Top Talent in 2026 | Ryan Hogan

0:00 There's three things that are really needed inside of any organization or for any, any like entrepreneur or business leader. Number one is a business coach. Number two is a peer group. And then the third thing is some sort of framework. EOS like changed my life. Welcome back to another awesome podcast. And what you know about the necessary entrepreneur is when we're doing virtuals, it's all happening on one day.

0:41 So welcome back to our Thursday, whenever this comes out. But I'm pumped about today's guest. It's Ryan Hogan. Why I appreciate him in the beginning. Number one, we came on and I said, man, your audio is on point. Thank you. But number two, he has an easy name to pronounce. Sometimes names are tough. So Ryan Hogan, thank your parents for giving you an easy name. um He's a serial entrepreneur, a CEO and a former Navy officer who has built scaled and transformed companies in deeply operational environments. Ryan's co-founded Hunt a Killer. What a cool name. A subscription based mystery game company that has become one of the fastest growing consumer product brands in America. After identifying a systemic gap in how leadership and talent are deployed in growth stage organizations, Ryan founded Talent Harbor.

1:29 It's a firm focused on strategic talent solutions for rapidly scaling businesses. And if there's more, there is. What he does is he blends military discipline, founder grit, and people-centered leadership in a way that reveals what it really takes to lead teams, scale culture, and operate with clarity in complex environments. Ryan, welcome to The Necessary Entrepreneur. Can you, can you come on and do all my intros? like I'll just, whatever I'm doing, you'll come in and do them. Thank you for having me. Yeah, man, absolutely. think I use this often, this self-deprecation move that I use. One day I may stop doing it, but know, Toby Keith's not with us anymore.

2:10 I'm not just a country music fan, but you know, the song inside the song, I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was. So if this is acceptable, I don't know if I could reproduce it, but man, I'm pumped about having you on. The great energy that you have, us just getting to know each other, but you have such breadth in what you've done. you know, from this experience of being in the military, but then scaling these businesses and I call it a serial entrepreneur. Sometimes that's not the best connotation, but when you're scaling and building legitimate things, it is. So I'm pumped to let you share with us what you've learned, talk about your current business. But I think we're going to have a well-rounded conversation on what entrepreneurship used to be, what it looks like to scale and sell, but then what it is in this fast evolving, growing technological environment.

2:57 So I'm pumped to have you on, Yeah, no, I think we'll have some, some like great tidbits. Cause like one of things that's not in that intro is the bankruptcy. And that's like, you know, that's really, that was real lessons learned at the lowest point in my life. And so we can cover a variety of topics. Yeah, what do you do with that then? mean, we attribute those when we're going through moments like that, it's massive failure in every way in our brains, right? It's the ego death. It's what people were worried about. What people think about us. It's we fought so long and the dream didn't come to fruition for some reason. How do you look back on that moment now? Yeah. I love what you just said there where it's like the, ego death.

3:38 And when I look at, kind of like who I am just as a human today versus then, like I had this weird thing because I, started off enlisted. flew in the back of MH 53 echo helicopters. And then I went through this commissioning program, eventually became an officer, drove ships for a few years. And now I'm the CEO of the unit out of Spokane, Washington. I'm actually flying out tonight to go do drill weekend. So 25 years of, of active duty experience. My first exposure to an organization was there's enlisted and there are officers and like, those are the two types of people and officers had to be a certain thing, put on a certain face. And then there were enlisted that, that got the work done. Um, and so my first company, like I had this, I would, it was a zombie infested five K obstacle course race company.

4:25 So like the craziest, weirdest company you could imagine. And I would come in every day in a suit and. There was no rhyme or reason. I thought that's like who I had to be. That's, I thought that's how I had to show up. And it really took the, the bankruptcy and like the ultimate failure to be like, dude, you just show up as a human and care about people and invest in their personal and professional life. and like the rewards from that are, it go far beyond the growth and the things that they do for the organization. Um, you know, but for me that it was a very, very low moment. I think when people hear bankruptcy. When it went public, it was like, I'm so sorry for you, Ryan. And the reality is bankruptcy is, actually the easiest part.

5:08 It after bankruptcy, everything goes silent. And what people don't see it's the 12 to 18 months leading up to the bankruptcy where you're trying to sell the company. You're personally guaranteeing everything. You're, constantly raising money. You're doing all of these things because you have such as deep belief in the company. And you know, once it all goes away, it's a pretty hard, it's a pretty hard pill to swallow. Is that because I'm not even saying this is bad. it because em our ego gets tied up in the current thing we're doing all the time? I think if you haven't experienced the like the ultimate failure or a failure of a magnitude like that, yes. So my first company that didn't really scale, but the first one where we really put energy into it, we raised some money, went out and bought $200,000 in t-shirts.

5:59 And I had boxes in my two car garage going up to the ceiling. And I was like, if you build it, they will come. Nobody came and those t-shirts didn't sell. And that's why the zombie event came because I needed a way to move the t-shirts, but with war, where, and then even with run for your lives, like the business was kind of my baby. Meaning like I was attached to the concept. I was attached to the idea and I had a lot of, a lot of emotion invested into like what we were actually doing. The rebirth post bankruptcy. I don't, I don't care what we're doing. And what's interesting is like, and I'm sure we'll talk about hunt to killer a little bit. The most common question I get today is like, how do go from hunt to killer this like sexy consumer brand doing really cool things to talent acquisition?

6:42 And my response is simple. Like my passion has nothing to do with the, product or services that we're in. It has to do with the people that are inside of the organization solving hard problems every day. So, um, yes, I think that is a short answer. Yes. I think it's a very hard thing. Yeah, and I guess it's a reset of what our identity means to us, Yeah. Yeah, like, and that's what I preach nowadays is like your, identity cannot be tied into the brand. Like your identity cannot be the company. You have to understand what it is that you want out of life, what you want to accomplish. The business is just a vehicle. The only thing that business does is help you achieve whatever it is that you're trying to achieve in life.

7:27 And, you know, pre Pre-bankruptcy, that wasn't it. My only goal in life was that brand. My identity were those brands, ah but there was a fundamental shift after. Yeah. So, know, now this subscription model hunt a killer. Like we might jump all over the place. You know, sometime on podcast, goes from A to Z. I'm not an A to Z. We take the conversation right where, where it takes us. So that you start hunt, hunt, hunt a killer. It's not about, yeah, they haven't moved beyond the question yet about how are you this or that? You're like, no, 2AM is a human. I'm going to take this human to whatever I do, whether I show up in the Navy on my weekends. whether I start a company and it scales, right?

8:07 I figured out what I'm doing, what my direction is, what did, then, honey killer, was there a period of 12 to 18 months that you were scaling your personal growth, your own mindset as a leader? What happened in the 12 to 18 months? I just know from my past, those moments were so critical. What did it teach you about the community you were building, about retaining customers, about... building equity inside the company from people feeling like they have ownership and a sense of belonging. That 12 to 18 months I've found in my past, I learned the most in those moments. So it doesn't have to be your moment, but was that similar? Yeah, it was. And what's interesting is that there's probably two different 12 to 18 month periods for me.

8:49 And number one was post bankruptcy. And there was 12 to 18 months of like rebuilding who I was and trying to figure out like, what do I want out of life? Who do I want to be? And that, that happened, and this sounds maybe a bit weird, but that happened through journaling. One of the most amazing things that I discovered is like writing, not necessarily for other people, but just writing for yourself and putting thoughts on paper or in today's environment on an iPad. the therapeutic outcome of that exercise was life-changing for me. And then with the 12 to 18 months, like once it was three years later, we launched a hunt a killer and we had a similar philosophy, which was let's do a live event again, because we had just got done scaling run for your lives.

9:30 That went from zero to about 6 million in 18 to 24 months. And then ultimately just crashed. But that's what we knew. So three years I was like writing and rebuilding and just kind of like figuring out who I am in this, in this world. And then we launched, we launched Hunt a Killer and Hunt a Killer was the same sort of thing of like, our event or our backgrounds are in events. So let's launch this as an event. And so initially it was, it was a live event. We transformed a 200 acre campground into a living crime scene and it was great, except we couldn't scale it. And so like the very first thing was with run for your lives, we could put 15, 20,000 people through an obstacle course race in any given weekend with hunt a killer.

10:13 We had to cap it at 600 people because you can't have a thousand people standing around a fake crime scene, trying to investigate and interrogate suspects. And this was like some of the biggest transformations, which is we weren't attached to the, to the business. And that allowed us to see things completely different. So it wasn't like, Hey, how do we do more events or how do we, how do we like, you know, take the events and scale the events? It's like, Hey, we found product market fit. have something that people want. And what is that? We have armchair detectives. We've got this community of people that love solving crimes. Um, how can we develop a different product for them?

10:54 And so that's, we pivoted in the subscription box, literally one day after the first event, first event we spent a year putting together, I think we made like 10,000 bucks. I had a partner in it and so it'd be like 5,000 bucks for a year's worth of work. Like, like we're not going to be able to quit our day jobs. And we pivoted, like no questions asked, no emotional ties to like, this needs to be an event company. And we got into subscription box and that was, that was history. Cause like after that, it was zero to 55 million at six years. But it wasn't like, wasn't like subscription box only, it was this constant evolution and evaluation of like, where can we take this and what do we want to achieve? Yeah. So what, um, what do you do now with this entrepreneurial brain that's learned all the hard lessons?

11:41 What, what do you do? Do you create one idea at a time, stay focused on that, scale it, turn it over to other people, maybe have an exit and do it again. Do you do that? Or do you have multiple systems operating at the same time? Mark, you're, you're asking a question right now that I am addressing in real time. Um, because for me, like I think where I bring the most value in organizations is zero to one. Um, I can get it probably from one to three at that point. And obviously hunt to killer got very big. had an incredible leadership team around me that, that really helped kind of open up doors that I wouldn't have been able to on my own. Um, but really like me being able to find product market fit as fast as humanly possible.

12:23 And then getting out of the way is. kind of what I've been processing over the last probably three years. Um, but a lot of this is happening in real time, meaning that like the company, um, that I co-founded called talent Harbor, like we are scaling very fast right now. And every month, like I'm thinking to myself, like, when, when do I need to step aside? Because I, my personality is great for pre-product market fit. It may be a little bit past that past that it becomes destructive because I need problems to solve. And if there's no problems, then I wound up creating problems or like pushing the organization past its, it's tipping point. um, you know, my hypothesis right now is, is I do a podcast and I've got all these other things and I'm trying to figure out how to pour my energy into those things and then have that energy kind of go across different organizations.

13:15 So you're talking about knowing oneself. Yeah, it's only taken 41 years, but we're still working on it every day. I was in Atlanta last week. I went to a conference with a friend of mine and for his organization and went to lunch before I was flying out. And some of the guys that summer, his close networking group friends, Hey, we go to lunch with us. I was like, guys, yeah, let me push you. We're back and all this stuff. And they were walking out there like, Hey, are you going to join his thing? And I went, what do you mean? Join this thing. And they're well, you're going to join the thing. I said, guys, I don't know how to say this, but I've had this revelation recently. I break things. And people that are around me, I'm positive.

13:56 I'm very optimistic. bring massive energy to the thing. I believe we can do things far beyond what we've probably dreamt and envisioned. But I don't stop. Right. And so as you said that I went, I think this is what he's talking about. And I even felt bad about myself. had a moment. It's like, man, I, I don't, I build things, but I did. saw his organization he's building and I will see the smallest micro improvements that can be made and I will challenge those. And the system isn't ready for that level of massive impact every day. You got to let it breathe.

14:36 I've done, ah I went to war college about three years ago and did all the personality assessments and everything as a part of one of their programs. ah But just this week I re did a disc assessment and I got debriefed on it. ah And what was interesting. So I'm very high in the DI very, very low on the SC. And I don't know. I don't know what all of these things mean, but the, feedback that I got was. High D and high I are incredible for organizations only for a certain period of time. And otherwise they become destructive. uh And so you're absolutely right. Like we made mistakes last year with, with talent Harbor.

15:17 So, you know, our, our core issue right now is that we've got this unique model where it's subscription based. took subscription from, uh, from, uh, hunt a killer. And we said, Hey, let's move that, move that into business service world. Hunter killer spent like a million bucks on recruiting. I was like, what a stupid industry. Sorry if there's any recovering recruit or current recruiters out there. Um, but like there's ways to do things differently in an industry that has not historically changed over the last 50 or 60 years. Um, but our biggest issue, which isn't like no, no, uh, no surprise is that like our clients don't stay with us for the longterm. Once we find them a role, then they put their account on pause. So we have this constant churn.

15:57 And we were trying to solve for this last year and we, we layered in staffing and I was like, listen, we're just going to use the same machine we have right now. And we're just going to layer in staffing and like, you know, the amazing recruiting that we do, we can just translate that into, into some sort of staffing model. And like, almost broke the organization last year because the organization was not ready for that. and like, do we get into that or do we like solve the churn issue and all those things? We will eventually, but like we need to get the systems and people and all these different things in place. um you know, before a knucklehead like me brings in a hundred good ideas. Yeah, right. I heard somebody, I don't know if it was Jeff Bezos or somebody spoke to this and he said, man, I'll have a hundred great ideas all the time.

16:39 And someone in the organization, someone on his board said, yeah, that's the problem. We need to, we need to work out the ideas you already had that were great. I think that's what we're sitting here talking about. Yep. I don't know if you use a strategy for that. Like one thing that we've been doing, um, not necessarily since then, but, but, we've been doing for a while is parking lot. And so like, if there's something and we're like, Hey, that's got some links. So we put it the parking lot. And for, for my brain, at least like, it helps to know that it's in the parking lot. Like I won't continue to think about it because I know it's captured somewhere and I know eventually we'll come back. But if, historically, if I haven't captured it somewhere, then I'm just constantly like, we should do this. We should try this. We should tweak this.

17:19 We should. you know, whatever the case is. So when you hired em your, you don't want to call it recruiting, when you hired, when you built talent Harbor up, when you launched it is the fundamental problem. I'll throw it out here since you said, Hey, if there's any recovering recruiters out here, em but are you trying to solve the problem? What I've seen from afar? I have never used a recruiting company one time for my companies because I stood back and I identified and saw a problem. I said, Hey, wait a minute, hold on. You're bringing candidates based upon resumes. This company is saying we need them be able to do this. This is what we expect their education to be. This is what the past you're hiring based on a resume.

18:00 And what I found in my businesses, those resumes now in 2026, they don't translate. And, and so what I've consistently saw was, okay, let's say somebody makes $220,000 a year as whatever position that recruiting company is incentivized to place someone. they're not, they're not incentivized. for what the performance looks like over five or 10 years. I've never even talked about this because I'm not insulting people in their business, but they make huge commissions. These recruiters are making 75 or 100 % of the first year salary in these situations from what I saw. And I went, hold on, companies, all of us, if you find someone that's gonna be integral in my company, that is gonna perform the functions.

18:47 but that's also going to be this cultural fit and help us lift up the company and grow and be here for a decade. I'll give you a two year salary if you could guarantee me those outcomes. And what I, what I found though, I talked to some recruiters. I want to hand it back to you. Here's the thing that was really nasty and dirty that really irritated me that I found out about the business. They keep that person that they placed in the job. They keep them in their pipeline for other positions too. And I went, that is. unacceptable. So the cultural thing about like, is this the right human to come work at this company? So.

19:28 Yeah. uh You just listen like number one, uh love you as the hype man. And then number two, if I could just bring you in on all my sales pitches, like that would be great too. At this point, you just, that's it. Like the recruiting industry is broken. When, when you start to think about contingent based recruiting, regardless of the percentage, but let's just look at contingent based business model recruiting where the recruiter does not get paid unless they place. Incentives are not aligned or interests are not aligned at that point because When a recruiter comes in, just because you sold or you signed a contract, that doesn't mean they've closed you. What they're, they are salespeople and what they're trying to do is close one of their three.

20:10 Usually it's three. What'll happen is they'll go to market very quickly, collect three resumes, give you three, and then they start selling you on why one of those three is the best candidate that you've ever seen because they don't get paid until you actually hire. And the other problem here is only about 50 % of the searches they do, do they actually make a placement? And so what you're doing with that huge retainer is you're subsidizing all the free work that they did for all their other clients or all the other people that at least signed contracts. um The recruiting industry is broken. There's a fact, you talked a little bit about getting hiring right and getting hiring wrong. The reason I focused so much on the model is because all the recruiters say the same thing.

20:50 It doesn't mean that they're all the same level, but let's just assume that they were. And that recruiting is a commodity. It's not, but it's very hard to go into an organization with like, we're better. Why? Because this is our process. Well, that's what the last shop said. Okay. Well then we've got a different model that actually aligns interests. So believe us there. And then if you like us, we know, obviously know you'll come back to us. But when I've gotten hiring wrong in the past, it's, it's not because I couldn't read a resume. It's because I brought in the wrong human. They were not aligned with the core values or core behaviors of the organization. And that's 50 % of the battle. So when. When recruiters are going out there, if they're not asking you like, what are your core values and what are some of the actions and decisions that actually exhibit that core value?

21:33 And they're not diving deep into that. All they're doing is just going to indeed LinkedIn, grabbing a few resumes and then trying to collect a quick 50 grand, um you know, for sending them or forwarding them to you. Do you like the best dating app for recruiting? Basically, basically it's so funny you say that because I'm not a recruiter. Like I, I know, I know what's wrong with the industry, but I am by no stretch of recruiter. Um, I partnered with an amazing recruiter. So I'm like the, visionary, the business, the strategy. And she's like, we built an entire proven process around 25 years. She says what you just said all the time. She was like, recruiting is basically like a dating service. Um, and that's, that's the reality is like, you're trying to find the right fit for the organization.

22:16 seems like maybe professional managers obfuscated their responsibility of developing the organizations and they outsourced it to recruiters and paid them big money versus maybe taking your SaaS model and letting you give them the best information, the best candidates to utilize to do the hiring the way that they should be doing it, which should be integral with what the culture is of their company. 100%. Like looking at resumes is cheap. Anybody can look at a resume and say like, Oh, like, do they have this many years experience in this industry, whether it's the Jason or the actual industry? Great. Okay. This person is qualified, qualified, or qualifying candidates, 10, 15 % of the battle.

23:00 Like what questions are you asking? Do they have the core traits, the core behaviors? What did they actually accomplish? Like we focus on sales roles. And so like, we want to know like, What did they accomplish at their last organization? What tools did they use? What strategies did they use? Are they a hunter? Are they a farmer? Are they used to leads coming to them? What was the value proposition? What was their pitch? Like that is good recruiting. And the other thing that we haven't talked about is real recruiting is not posting uh on job boards. Like that was true both 10 years ago and it's even more true today because what's happening is that there are like three top platforms for candidates, AI platforms. They go in, they put their resume, the AI platform looks at the resume, cleans it up, and then searches all the job boards that are open, that it thinks align, and it'll go out and apply you to a thousand different jobs.

23:49 Then you've got companies, same thing, which they've got AI in there, and the AI is reviewing all these resumes. Job boards is not where you find talent. Where you find talent is databases, and then going after, it's called active outreach to passive candidates. But once you know what you want, You go hunt, you go find that person. Cause that person that, that diamond in the rough is probably not logged into LinkedIn out of the millions of job descriptions that are out there. They already have a job and they're doing that job very well for someone else. That's a hot take and every time I say that online I get like just eviscerated but it's the reality. the best hires have come from there.

24:29 uh Two years ago, I'm sitting at a Cincinnati Bengals game, some attorneys we do business with, you know, he's like, hey man, I got an extra ticket. You want to come? I was like, sure, I'll come. And there was a girl that was dating his son that was at the game. I had never met her before. After the game, I'm with him for three hours. After the game, I text him and I said, tell me she's not as talented as I believe she is as a human. And he went, dude, if I had a role inside my company right now at hire, and I said, will you put me in contact with her? I didn't have a role designed for her when I met her. I'm just looking for quality people all the time. That's your job. That's my job. That's your job. Art, it's so interesting how we think about recruiting because it's like have a need, need to go find somebody.

25:11 The reality of your nice job is every time we go to a networking event, every time we're just out in public, we're evaluating people of like, would they be good for the team? That's great recruiting. That's it. so, you know, I'm starting to realize I was in a room about a month ago with one of the gurus of marketing and all this went to dinner with them, me and eight or nine people, the guy that was shooting content that night, somebody else had contacted and they brought him in from Florida. I saw him, a 27 year old guy, just quality and on fire. I went, man, that guy's quality. He just happened to come up to me afterwards and he's like, Hey man, can you tell me a little more about you? Like you were one the most impactful people in the room. Like tell me about what you have going on. And we sit in there and we're talking just so happens.

25:51 I'm going to Atlanta for an event. A week or no, a month later. And I reached out to him. like, Hey man, can you come do this? My team's busy. You want to, he's like, absolutely. I'm flying to Miami tonight and I'm flying back tomorrow night looking at this huge led screen. I think I'm going to buy for my auditorium and him and his team of AI folks and what they're building. They're driving down from lunch from Palm beach. Right. What, what do I identify in the room was this guy is talented, but here's what talent is. It's the way he thinks it's his mindset. It's the problem solving. It's the attitude. It's all the stuff. And so here's a question I have. We used to think intelligence was an MBA from Wharton. We used to think that if you went to an Ivy League school, you're just smarter, you're better, you're more prepared.

26:36 You have the DNA. What do you think intelligence and smarts really is? Because I've been talking to people like, are they smart? I what are you asking me? What is smart? Because I have my definition of smart and it doesn't align with the way that we used to give people the smart term. That's, I mean, when you think about, actually, let me start with this. Some of the best hires I've ever made had zero college education. They were just hustlers. They were just problem solvers. Like to me, to me, it's about care and effort. Those are two uh intangible traits that you cannot train for. You know, if there's some background experience and maybe they have some process, like maybe that means as an organization, you have to train them a little bit less.

27:18 But if they've got care and effort, like whether you have to spend a week, a month. maybe a few months, like training them and bringing them up the speed. I would take that all day long over some sort of college degree. The, the thing with, with degrees is like, one thing it does show is, is like they've put in the effort. They've, they've went through the steps, but I never look at like where they went to school as like their level of intelligence. It's just like, you know, they put in the effort and they're up there and, and that is what it is. But I've never seen that the deciding factor between like a successful hire or an unsuccessful hire. Yes. mean, wouldn't you like somebody in an organization that's been there for five years and they've consistently improved and received promotions, gone to new levels, built teams like that's an exact, we're a world practical application of that's what they're going to do in your business.

28:07 What a great point because we were just talking about resumes, right? And like you're looking for industry experience and you're like, okay, like, do they have the industry experience? That's something that most business owners won't look at in the resumes, which is like, where did they start and where did they finish? Because that is a very telling thing. If they were in an organization, let's say they were an account manager. Um, if they were in an organization for six years and the only title that they carry for that six years was account manager, like that's going to be one of the first questions I ask is like, you spent a lot of time in this role. what? What happened? What did you do? Things like that. there's so many like micro signals on resumes that you can look for that go far beyond that. This was my college. This was the job. And these were like the years of those 10 years.

28:49 Yeah. How does this conversation about intelligence, education, experience, how's this line up with your experience of 25 years in the Navy? Yeah. Um, I, I don't know this is going to be the answer that you're looking for. I do think there needs to be a healthy, a healthy dose of both. And meaning like, if you look at my military career, I started off enlisted. I flew in the back of helicopters for the first eight years, got into a commissioning program. As a part of that commissioning program, I went, um, to the university of Maryland, went to the business school there, um, and then got my commissioning. After that, after that I went to, uh, Naval War College.

29:31 And I spent 10 months in Naval War College getting my masters. And like, if you were to look, if I ever had a resume, like what you would see in my resume is like, started as E1. I was E1 twice, by the way. That's a story over beers, not necessarily for this podcast. But I was an E1 twice. And now I'm an 04. And so like, there's this career progression. What did I accomplish? Where did I start? Where did I go? And then speckled all throughout there between the lines is like, the pursuit of professional development. Because I think that that is incredibly important when you're looking at a resume or a candidate or something like that. Not just like, did they get it? Did they want it? And did they excel at their last job? But it's like, are they thirsty for more knowledge?

30:12 And are they continuing to develop themselves on a professional level? That can come through like mastermind groups, Vistage groups. It can come through any real type of continuing education. But I do think that there's an importance for having some of those bullet points on a resume. So as a part of Talent Harbor, you really base this system on EOS, which is an entrepreneurial operating system. Go deep into it. I mean, there are people that have opinions on EOS all over the place, right? I'm not somebody who is, we don't operate with any of that framework, but as a part of EOS, right? You'll find a lot of the things inside my company, but I haven't embraced the structure in those areas.

30:55 A lot of people who've been on the podcast has. Give us a high level, I'm exposure to EOS. What's your experience? What you've seen the benefits and then why is Talent Harbor? Why is it based upon EOS like an US centric organization? So a lot of this stuff comes out of, comes out of the bankruptcy conversation, which is there were three kind of, and this is all retrospect. So I wasn't living in that company saying, these are the three ingredients that I was missing. Like this has all been, you know, 10, 12, 15 years of, of a personal and professional journey to, to come to realize this. There's three things that are really needed inside of any organization or for any, any like entrepreneur or business leader.

31:37 Number one is a business coach. Um, it's critical to have someone that can, that can talk to you, tell you like speak the truth and say things that your team won't tell you. Number two is a peer group. So a group of people that have been there, done that, that can help you like find the minds before you actually step on it. Um, game changer. And I had both of them through Vistage. I'm still in Vistage. I'm also an EO, but, um, been in Vistage for nine years now. And then the third thing is some sort of framework. So it doesn't matter if it's EOS, like it sounds like you've got your own framework. It's just that EOS like changed my life. ah And we had a professional EOS implementer that came through our group about eight years ago with Vistage, that's how I found out about it.

32:17 We self-implemented, transformational for the company, which was great. ah And that was probably around like the five to 7 million mark. Once we got to 15, we were like, we can afford to go get another, or. We can afford to actually bring a, an implementer inside of the organization. So we went from self implementing, to bringing in an expert. And, I, I'll never forget this day one. She was like, you know, we were cocky and we were like, we know what we're doing. We've been self implementing. She was like, what the hell are you guys doing? When she looked at our VTO and everything else. And we went through a completely different, incredible transformation as an organization. Because like what EOS does is in very simple terms, when I was studying business.

32:58 We would learn about vision and mission and values and like all these like fundamentals, but there was nothing that ever actually like tied all of these things together. And the thing that business operating systems like EOS do is they take all of these things that are very normal, um, like very natural concepts that have been taught for generations. And it brings them into like a systematic framework so that the organization can set the right goals, get the right people working on the right things. Um, and make sure that everybody in the organization understands why you exist, the core behaviors that drive that. Um, and then why that's so important for us today and what we do is like, if we go and we recruit for an organization that's running on EOS, we already know so many things to be true.

33:44 We know they have a VTO, a vision traction organizer, and they've got documented a vision, a documented niche, a documented core values. And that's, we were talking about this earlier, but that's half the battle. So if we walk into an organization and they don't know their core values and they're just kind of all over the place, it's impossible for us to do good work. Another recruiting shop would take that all day long and they'll go get three resumes based upon the experience. They'll try and sell you on it. Not us. Like we'll say, we can't help you because we understand that over half the battle is finding the right human. And if you don't understand like why your organization ticks or the core behaviors that are driving those, those factors, then like, it doesn't matter who you use. It's not going to be a successful placement.

34:27 Yeah, I agree. When I went to this event to support, you know, somebody who's become a friend and he's building his organization and his brand and it's doing this for folks and somebody asks you to say, Hey, are you going to become a member of this and do this? said, Hey, listen, I'm not going to, but I will support him and what he's building all day because the three days that I sat through and engaged and saw from the outside, it's positive and it's good. So what I will say is. Everyone needs to find something like this. They need systematic structure, whether it's one organization can do those or a group of people. Cause what I told them is I said, y'all, it's very hard for us to find the system we need in our hometown. It's very hard. And usually the networks that we built, they're not big and strong enough yet that we have our own board of directors and resources in our personal network.

35:14 So you got to go find a system to do it. And if you find a system that's positively influencing you that has those three tiers, go all in because there's many of them. I said, guys, this doesn't be my thing, right? It doesn't have to be, but, this is a good thing. So I'm a hundred percent on board with what you're saying. Um, take me through how you evaluate personally, which, goes all it also into, um, your recruiting platform. How do you evaluate a hire for a culture fit? And, and, and a part of that is what are the red flags? Do you think we ignore us? Founders ignore. when we're trying to do that. Yeah. Usually what we ignore is, our, is our, well, maybe we pay too much attention to it.

35:59 When I've gotten hiring wrong in the past, like my gut told me to hire that person. And it's because like, felt some sort of like chemistry or connection or like something, something was there and I avoided anything else, like any part of the evaluation or any part of the questionings. so I think one of the reasons recruiters are good is because they're kind of that first filter and they have no emotional. uh ties to this, like, didn't meet the criteria, yes or no. And so the founder or the hiring manager will never even see those people. um Yeah. What, what was the, what was. The first one is like, do we evaluate a hire for a culture fit?

36:41 Yeah. Without, because we ignore the red flags when we're trying to go through this, but like, what's the real approach to do that for a cultural fit? So if it shouldn't be like, I like them. And cause that's, that's when we get hiring wrong, like, they're like me. I could, I could go right. That's bad. And that's usually who we hire. Yes. Yeah. And I think like what we do here at Talent Harbor is we, we create a whole list of questions specifically around those core behaviors. The reality is like, there is a lot of, there's a lot of like nuance to hiring. So there's some things that are very binary, very black and white. Do they have this experience? Do, did they answer this question? Right. Did I get some red flags off of this one?

37:21 The reality is like culture fit is really hard because what you're evaluating is like. the things that they're saying versus the things that like, you believe them? So I'll give you some examples of this, which is number one, we don't give away the core values right out of the gate because we're trying to get a sense of who that human is. We might say like, what are some values that you hold very high when you're operating on a team or amongst your other teammates? And what we're doing is we've got a list of call it three to seven for that organization. So we know what we're generally looking for. And we're just trying to see if like, there's some spirit or essence between what they're saying and what we already know. And then after that, we go deep.

38:02 And so this is where we do start getting into the organization's core values. Number one for us is go-givers, meaning that like, we just have this deep belief that if we continue to put value in the world and create amazing relationships that like the universe, the universe will repay. And we do that without any expectation for reciprocation. And so we might go in there and might be like, you know, Hey, uh what would go giver mean to you? Like what is in your core? What does that mean to you? And as we start going deeper and deeper, like we're getting deeper into that specific core value. So it might be like, okay, great. That sounds amazing. Now give me an example of an action or behavior or a decision, something in your past professionally where you exhibited that core, that core value and This is where it gets nuanced because you have to be able to grade, judge, determine whether what that person telling you is correct or not.

39:02 But I'll give you some indicators. Number one is they will light up. they, you will see their facial expressions light up. You will see them get energy. um And generally like that's a good tell that they're not completely full of crap. The other thing is how detailed is the story? em And if it's not detailed enough, then you can start asking follow-up questions to get them to go deeper. And you're trying to figure out like, is this story true or not? And the more details there are with the story and the more they light up, the more it probably is that like they're being, they're being honest about whatever line of questioning that is. I'm going to try to reduce recruiting and hiring down to one statement and I'll let you expand on it or say it's wrong.

39:43 In hiring, the only thing I'm trying to do is figure out how people make decisions. I like it. Let me, let me ask you this. The way they make decisions, like, can you, can you derive, cause so when I think of decisions and I agree with you here, like, because if I can figure out how someone makes decisions, I can figure out most of it. can figure out their, ethics, their morals. I can figure out their kind of decision-making process in that. one of the things that I care equally about is the effort that they're going to put into it.

40:25 Meaning that like, even if their decision was all jacked up, if I know that they are going to operate very fast and be unafraid to fail, um, and they're going to figure it out, like, I love that. So as long as, as a part of like your hypothesis there of like, I just want to know how they make decisions, as long as however you interview and, and, um, vet, as long as you're getting a sense of like how much hustle and grind and. This sounds weird, but kind of like bravery, ah because there's a lot of people that are afraid to fail and those types of people will hold your organization back. Um, cause you'll never move and they won't make decisions because they, don't want to make the wrong one.

41:08 I would rather have someone make the wrong decision and then course correct, you know, the next day versus take three weeks to make that decision. Okay. I'll continue to, to, to, vibe around this. And the reason why I've arrived there, cause you're not wrong. mean, it's like, what are you going to do after you make the decision? But if I can find out how people make decisions, if I can figure that out, I can realize if the way they make the decisions as it fit culturally into our company, but does it fit this role as well? And then, but also what I've found is we all have these seasons in our life. And those seasons. A lot of times affect how all in you are, how much effort you're giving right now, what your mood or your attitude is.

41:54 mean, there's a lot of tough things that happen in our lives that could affect how they show up. But usually what's not going to change is the level of intelligence or brilliance or decision-making that that person possesses that they're currently, I'm not talking about ability. I'm talking about what their capability is. That's why, that's why I went there on it. love it. And like, I have a very real example of someone that I've been trying to recruit for the last 12 months. I'm sure she uh won't listen to this. uh Hopefully not. Cause then, then I'm in big trouble. But if she does happen to catch it, I'm, still trying. um When I met her, and this is what was so incredible about what you just said is that's a place that they were at in their life.

42:38 But I saw exactly what you just described, like the decision-making process and, and from the Four or five conversations that I've had with them. um I know who they are and I know what their capability is. And it was like the way that they were showing up at that point was just based upon a season in their life. And I got an understanding of like why they were there. I love what you just said there. One question for you, like, what would you do in that case if they weren't in the season where they were willing to give all, but you knew that they were the right person? Like, would you pull the trigger then or what would you do? go deep I think into the season. Like I go very vulnerable when I'm serious about bringing somebody on that's going to be high impact for my companies.

43:21 I set the stage real quick to go into an environment about um the things that do make them tick. Once I establish like A, this person sees around corners. It's like if I have somebody that sees around corners that can project the things that are already going to happen beyond what's happening right now, that's special unique ability and talent that they have. And so I go to figure out and say, because let's go back to the moment when during your bankruptcy, right? Or go, go back to 2008 when my real estate company, was all in on three weeks away from bankruptcy and losing everything. I'm behind on all my bills. Credit scores suck. Right? The only thing I knew how to do right then let me go sell something. So maybe I can catch up on some bills so this dream can come to fruition.

44:03 What I know is, is that you touched on it earlier, like give me people who have come through the fire. But what I, but what I accept about the fire is all the decisions that are being made in the fire and, and, all the behavior, it's not going to be awesome because you're actually as a human, like you're learning if you're going to be forged coming out of that. Like, is this person going to come out of it and be stronger, a stronger version of themselves? And if that's the case, it's going to be because we made a lot of mistakes. wouldn't make again. Right. And in those seasons, the thing I am happy about is that I had the resilience that I kept going. But if someone would have talked to me in those seasons, I probably would have been like a blubbering idiot.

44:44 Yeah. Right. And what would have probably come out of me was just like survival. So I try to find out who they are as a human, because if I believe in my organization and I would hold myself to high esteem as a leader, then I'm to be part of the catalyst that like reawakens them. That is going to give them environment to really fulfill what I see as their capability. So, um, I appreciate the hardships. appreciate when someone's actually going through it. And if they can be vulnerable and tell me about what they're going through it, I will sit down and say, Hey, listen, we don't want to have this reflective thing that we beat up on ourselves, but knowing what you know now, would you do the same thing again? Yeah.

45:24 And then work. That's it. Work through that process because the best human beings to lead organizations, it's not that I'm looking to change every day, but I walk into a room and I walk into a company, show me where I'm wrong. Show me the errors that I have. Show me the weaknesses that I have. Because the ego's gone. I want to take that and crush and grow right now. I think this is the core of what I'm talking about. You know, what's interesting, we just had a conversation about this internally, maybe about a month ago. We've, we've been hiring from a, from a certain shop and we've started to do some analysis or some assessment of like, is that? And what we've realized is the, one of the shops is like incredibly cutthroat and it's just churn and burn.

46:09 so like, there's people that make incredible money at this firm. Um, but at the end of the day, like they're selling their soul to get there. and it's burning folks out. And what's interesting is like, we've kind of developed this hypothesis and like, this is going to sound stupid because adversity is probably the biggest reason that I'm where I'm at today, which is like, if I didn't experience those things and like be able to get back up, then like, you know, I won't say I'm numb to things at this point, but I can tolerate quite a bit of. Yes. Incredibly. a high threshold and not, not like braggadocious. It's because I've made so many stupid decisions in the past that I put myself in positions where like it was either keep going or, or give up, guess.

46:50 Um, but it's like, if you can find those things where like someone pushed through, like it may not have been the culture for them, but like they've already had that adversity in their lives. And maybe that's not the culture that they're looking for, but they've been through it and they've, they've been able to succeed. Um, I don't know. We just have this interesting hypothesis internally right now with like where we're doing our own searches and the organizations that we're, we're targeting because we're getting world-class talent right now, which is, which is pretty incredible. Yeah, are you finding you're getting the world-class talent from the people that went through the churn and burn or that's bad? No, that went through it because like what, and came through the other side, I should say, like went through it, succeeded, but ultimately at some point hit a brick wall because like the, was just way too much.

47:40 their ability to be successful in an enterprise like that and face that adversity, like everybody's going to burn out at some point. And I'd almost make an argument that, you know, my bank, I wrote a blog on this a long, long time ago, was part of the self therapy. But like I wrote this blog and the title was I chose to fail. And the whole premise was like, you can go pretty low. Like folks, folks out there, there's a guy I'm talking to right now and helping him work through some, cashflow issues. And, and he was like, it's all over. And I was like, what have you missed any payments? And he's like, no. And I was like, dude, you're like 18 months from it being all over. Like every time I thought there wasn't another level, we dropped down and be like, okay, well, this is still uncomfortable, but like we're not dead yet.

48:23 And I think a lot of business owners don't understand, not that that should be the goal, but a lot of business owners don't understand that. Like you kind of choose to fail because like you either throw in the towel and say like, this is it, or you just keep fighting through. uh So anyhow, long winded, like, you know, I think having that adversity, being able to persevere through it is incredibly important. And those are some folks that we look for. Yeah, I heard a lady, I don't know who she was, but she was one of the first early like first 30 hires at Apple. And people were, know, there's this big, it's a conundrum about was Steve Jobs good or was he bad? We can come up with all these things, all these iPhones we have in the technology without a forward thinker who is determined as him, who's crazy as him.

49:05 We don't have the thing, right? But what did it take? How many things did he break? How many people did he ruin to get there, right? But there was a lady, one of the first 30 hires. And she talked about, she's like, listen, he was the most difficult person that I ever worked for. And most days that I worked for him were not fun. And she said something like she's a percentage. She's like, broke 85 % of the people that worked for him and came through the company. But for the 15 % that weren't broken like me, it gave me the life I have. That's tough to put that together and deal with. But then I take back and I'm like, okay, there's personal responsibility here.

49:48 There's personal responsibility and choice to say, how much do I want? What's the type of life I wanna live? What threshold of pain am I willing to accept? How deep am I willing to go on self-awareness? How exposed am I willing to make my ego because I want the exchange for this life? and we shouldn't tear down organizations or situations or new startups just because we don't like it or we don't fit there, right? There's a personal responsibility to choose. Yes. And like, have this conversation a lot of like, there's no, there's no good or bad or right or wrong when it comes to company culture. Like, you know, and Apple's an example of that. Tesla's an example of that.

50:29 SpaceX, like you've got these like maniac founders. You said this earlier, like without that, we would not have much of the things that we have today. And then you've got the opposite side. Like, I don't know why I always think about Zappos in this, but like Zappos used to be like, oh, like. It's all customer centric and oh, if you don't want to be here after three months, we'll pay you 25,000 to like literally just go away. If you don't want to be a part of this culture, there's no right or wrong in this. And it's really a matter of like what drives innovation and what makes that organization successful. I have, I have thought about this though a lot lately and I haven't come to a conclusion. What types of organizations have been developed and been like incredibly successful from an innovation other standpoint where it did not have.

51:14 that type of culture. There aren't I've been like brainstorming on this for for the last couple months There aren't many. And, and, and so I don't have an answer to, it good or not? I just look at, and I'm, I'm trying to get, but I'm just looking at data. And the thing is like, well, don't you have empathy for the tough? It's like, well, kind of, but we're forged the future great sword to go into battle is forged out of these failures and bad experience. We've all had, we all have had. Right. If you're saying the tough parts of your life, you couldn't have been this person talking today with the mindset. with now having the understanding to go start these other companies that are benefiting society.

51:56 What I know is I'm going to attribute this with parents today. What I, it seems like what parents always want. I'm going to get parents always want their kids to just level up and they want their wife to be better than theirs. You hear that generation after, okay, great. That's awesome. as companies, the best companies, we want to lift people up and let me give you a vehicle that also gives customers and clients what they want, but also improves your life and allows you to develop and allows you to maybe create financial independence and you to have a better family. But here's the problem where we're at in society now with families, with parents, with kids, and with leaders now coming up. part of what they mean where they want their kids or people to have a life better than theirs.

52:41 country is so rich now and it is so filled with opportunity and easier than it's ever been to live a good life that a part of the thing that they're saying about I want them to have a better life is they're removing the adversity. and how we've become who we are sitting here is through the adversity. So it is very admirable that the goal of wanting people to have a better life, to make their life easier, but the only way my life has become easier is by me improving myself as a human and going through hard moments. I don't know how we can replace this experience and have the same outcome.

53:24 No, I, and frankly, I don't think you can. that I, I've been trying to figure this out. One, this is such a relevant and like topical conversation. Cause like, I even think about that with my own organization. And I think where I've like fallen on the spectrum is like, I think there's a way to have like care and empathy, but also like a high expectation. And that's, that's kind of the balance that I've had is like, we will care, we will have empathy and we will pour into you. Like. We will invest in your professional develop. We'll have an understanding of what's going on in your personal life. We will support. We will be there to support you while at the same time, the expectation is this. uh and like times aren't always, um, you know, great.

54:05 Um, we went through a growth spurt in, uh, probably November, December, and like, was stressing out the organization and like, you know, like I could have said, pull back or like, let's do this or let's do that. I'm like, no, like this is. this is why we do all the other stuff is so that we rise to these moments. And everybody got through and we got through and it was great. But I just, think about that often of like, you know, do you have to be a dick? Do you, do you have to be like hard to like get someone through? And I don't even know where I fall on that today. Cause especially the military. Yes, so we're talking about the leadership, What is the perfect leadership style? Is it a John Maxwell book?

54:47 Is it listening to some of the most hard and rigid David Goggins podcasts? Right? I think everybody's searching for the truth and right. And unfortunately, if you're leading an organization, you got to go out and find it. I think you have to, you have to decide what your template is and stamp the company, whether I'm right or wrong, I'm standing up in a sales meeting the other day and there's 50 or 60 people from my company there. And I said, you all, what we have to understand is my job and my role as a CEO is to create an environment for excellence to occur. And that excellence to occur is every one of us showing up every day and realizing our first job as this company, it is to lift us up and make sure that we are going out into the marketplace.

55:29 and delivering an elite level of whatever we say we're doing. That is job number one. Here's job number two. We just happen to be a company when hard things are going on, we step next to you and put our arm around you and lift you up as well. But that is not our exclusive job. Our exclusive job is what the job of this company is. It is for us to excel in that role to make sure we execute and we perform on what that is. And thankfully, we have a culture that also celebrates us and picks us up in hard times. It's not the second one first. I don't believe so. People could argue with me, I'm open for debate on it. Why I want to like, that's, that's like where I'm starting to cut.

56:12 Like that's the conclusion I've been, and I told you this earlier of like, I've been thinking about this long and hard over the last few months of like, you know, what organizations out there that had like a soft is, is not a, it's probably not the best word, but like they leaned more on care and empathy than they did to driving innovation and like you, and obviously the question for you was in the moment, but I've spent three months on it and like, I've not been able to identify where it was like, you know, It was all about just like Care Bears and rainbows and everything else. Like, no, like the organizations that succeed are the, are the ones that like are, forged and, are battle tested. Um, and then that makes me ref. You know, this is how I know how because we're as leaders being held accountable for everybody's performance.

56:58 Our employees are holding us accountable for making sure we maintain and grow this company that they can thrive in. The consumers are holding us accountable to deliver a plus in everything that we do. We are, we are evaluated in our jobs on the performance of the company. First, first, that's it. then it was a great place to work and all that. There is no great place to work and us to care about each other if we are not performing at Nextelola. Yeah. Like I probably have a great example from, from hunt to killer days, like for, for your audience, like go to, go to glass door. Like you will see some ridiculous things about me. And I don't, I don't think I'm a tyrant. I do think that there was a certain point in the organization where we crossed that threshold of like, we went from like being incredibly performance focused and like, what are we here to do and what are we going to do to like, we were way too much on the it's all about care and this is a great place to be.

57:54 and like. What was interesting about that is once that dynamic started to shift... the culture was really no longer there. And yeah, I don't know how much I have to say on that, but it's interesting as we kind of process this in real time. Yeah, I think what we can finish on this and because we're wrapping up our time. mean, I could sit here and go on this stuff for an hour or two, man. I think it's awesome. The mindset and perspective that you have and relevance to the world. But, you I just. I do love when people live better lives. I I love seeing people win, I have a very, I have a growth mindset.

58:38 There's nothing about anything scarce in my mind at all. Like at all. It is. I think kindness is giving honest, feedback. Because without it, there's no growth of people that I'm responsible to lead. I can do it in a caring, kind way, but if that person isn't willing to go down the journey, it's not gonna feel kind. And you don't do it overnight with one big meeting. You do it in small incremental steps in every interaction you have with that human. But if you lose transparency and honesty and a com and within a company and all of a sudden you give them a pink slim one day and they're looking around, they're like, what?

59:22 That wasn't kind. So. That's that was, that was me by the way. Like, like, and I, I've gotten coached on this and I continue to work on this to this day. My biggest issue, probably some of my early companies was that exact thing, which was like, I tolerated because I didn't want to have the tough conversations. I tolerate a lot. And what's the next step out it? Like once it gets to that point, there's no, there's no coaching anymore. It's just down. And so the, situation you just talked about, like I've lived that with friends. I've lived that. uh And that's not the place, like, that's why like, you know, more frequent conversations and coaching is like so important to me this day is cause I don't want to get back to a place of where here's a pink slip.

1:00:04 It's a surprise. And you've been screwing up for the last three months. Um, what a way to end it since I'm going to hand it back to you cause we're not going to up on screwing up, right? But I'm going to hand it back to you. Um, you know, everybody's going to, from our audience is going to find out about you as we collaborate and put posts out and all micro content, but I'm going to hand it back to you to wrap it up. We're here in 2026. There's just craziness happening around AI. There's efficiency all over our world. We're saying that human engagement is still going to win. And it's number one. I think everyone is, um, there's a of people were scared. There's a lot of people confused. But I look at it as what an opportunity to change your life in a shorter timeframe than was ever possible for the average human.

1:00:44 But I want to hand it back to you to say, Ryan, give us the state of the union as we wrap up for how you're seeing where we're at right now here in 2026. It can be what you're excited about, what you see as the future or just whatever you just thought about this morning. Yeah, I think, well, since you brought up the AI thing, I'll talk about that just real quick. You know, there's a lot of fear that's being, um that's coming from this whole notion of AI. When we think about AI, we think about how do we make uh our teammates lives better? How do we serve our clients better? um What platforms exist that we can take off the shelf that already have AI included and things like that?

1:01:26 I'm not going to say AI is a nothing burger because it's already had massive impacts and, and, know, massive innovation on everything that we do. I will say that a lot of the hype that's been driving this fear has been coming from the people that need to go raise the money to continue to build servers and, and build, uh empower infrastructures and everything else. You know, I think, I think the day's coming where, where there's going to be a lot of things that we do on a daily basis. um That AI is gonna be taken care of look We used to write we used to do our balance sheet and checkbooks or we used to like write down Logs and a PNL and a paper then we did it in Excel then we did it in QuickBooks online So will things continue to evolve?

1:02:07 Yes, will they evolve faster? Most likely is the world over tomorrow and all jobs going away? Absolutely not and I think that organizations that can like stay focused on what they're doing and then kind of take things that are happening and and bring them into their organization are the ones that gonna be winners Frankly, think some of the ones that are gonna be losers are gonna be the ones that are like going and building 50 AI agents thinking that all this stuff's gonna solve all their problems tomorrow um because they're gonna lose focus on why they exist in the first place. So I think technology and AI is an enhancement, not a replacement. That's just my humble opinion next year. Maybe we're all fired and robots have taken over the world. and they'll change what this podcast, what was said in it.

1:02:48 There we go. gosh, then they're coming after me. Ryan Hogan, Hey, I appreciate you being on, man. This was awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me, Mark. This was a really fun conversation. Awesome, man. Thanks a lot.