#220 - Relationships Are the Business: 8 Lessons from "If Jesus Smoked Cigars"

1
00:00:00,130 --> 00:00:03,014
Focus on building culture, not your
business.

2
00:00:03,014 --> 00:00:07,660
So be transparent and get to that place of
real authentic health.

3
00:00:07,660 --> 00:00:10,615
And then you're gonna find that a lot of
those those other issues,

4
00:00:10,615 --> 00:00:11,616
they're gonna slide away.

5
00:00:32,940 --> 00:00:34,911
All right, you all. A welcome back for
another episode.

6
00:00:34,911 --> 00:00:38,552
I know you want to hear less of me and
more of these great guests.

7
00:00:38,552 --> 00:00:41,373
And so we started to get to know each
other and become friends.

8
00:00:41,373 --> 00:00:42,694
And I just interrupted him and said,

9
00:00:42,694 --> 00:00:44,235
No, stop. This is going to be great.

10
00:00:44,235 --> 00:00:46,896
So ~ sometimes we do an intro at the
beginning,

11
00:00:46,896 --> 00:00:48,456
sometimes middle, sometimes end,

12
00:00:48,456 --> 00:00:51,117
sometimes never get to it. But I'm going
to give an intro in the beginning

13
00:00:51,418 --> 00:00:54,179
to give context on the special guest we
have today.

14
00:00:54,179 --> 00:00:57,900
And so then you understand everything
about this human being.

15
00:00:57,900 --> 00:00:59,311
Everything's gonna come out of their
mouth,

16
00:00:59,311 --> 00:01:02,122
all their experiences, whether it's fun.

17
00:01:02,508 --> 00:01:05,379
Whether it's boring, whether I'm kidding.

18
00:01:05,379 --> 00:01:09,682
It's gonna be awesome. So today's guest is
Joshua Evarts.

19
00:01:09,682 --> 00:01:13,054
And you need to learn how to spell it if
you're gonna search him online.

20
00:01:13,054 --> 00:01:15,415
We'll talk about that. ~ but he's an
entrepreneur,

21
00:01:15,415 --> 00:01:17,906
business owner, and author of the new
book,

22
00:01:17,906 --> 00:01:23,469
If Jesus Smoked Cigars, The Eight Lessons
in Relational Leadership.

23
00:01:23,469 --> 00:01:28,082
Joshua also spent 25 years in business and
the last decade as the owner

24
00:01:28,082 --> 00:01:30,363
of the Vault Cigar Lounge in Idaho,

25
00:01:30,363 --> 00:01:31,914
and I believe Meridian, Idaho.

26
00:01:32,216 --> 00:01:35,667
Where he's built a business around
something most companies say they value,

27
00:01:35,667 --> 00:01:38,568
but don't always understand relationships.

28
00:01:38,568 --> 00:01:42,869
And his belief is that relationships
aren't just a nice part of doing business,

29
00:01:42,869 --> 00:01:45,991
they can be one of your biggest
competitive advantages.

30
00:01:45,991 --> 00:01:48,111
So today we're gonna talk about trust,

31
00:01:48,111 --> 00:01:49,922
leadership, sales, relationships,

32
00:01:49,922 --> 00:01:53,753
building community, and what it really
takes to create a business that people

33
00:01:53,773 --> 00:01:55,054
actually want to be a part of.

34
00:01:55,054 --> 00:01:56,374
Joshua, welcome to the show, man.

35
00:01:57,228 --> 00:01:59,490
Mark, first of all, thank you so much for
having me on here.

36
00:01:59,490 --> 00:02:03,761
I know you probably have a ~ a plethora of
folks who want to come on here

37
00:02:03,761 --> 00:02:06,657
and be on here. So the fact that you
choose me means a lot.

38
00:02:06,657 --> 00:02:07,657
Thank you.

39
00:02:07,532 --> 00:02:10,473
He's humble. You're welcome, but that was
unnecessary.

40
00:02:10,473 --> 00:02:13,864
So where where do you think, instead of
the old age question of where

41
00:02:13,864 --> 00:02:15,548
did it still start and tell your story,

42
00:02:15,548 --> 00:02:18,160
but if we go back to when you remember,

43
00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:20,822
since this is an entrepreneurial podcast
and we're just gonna take

44
00:02:20,822 --> 00:02:23,904
it wherever it goes, but when did you
become an entrepreneur?

45
00:02:25,016 --> 00:02:26,347
I will tell you, I was six years old.

46
00:02:26,347 --> 00:02:28,648
I wrote about it actually in the book.

47
00:02:28,648 --> 00:02:32,021
My ~ parents owned a floor covering
business.

48
00:02:32,021 --> 00:02:37,274
So I started laying carpet ~ since the
time that I could jump in my dad's truck

49
00:02:37,274 --> 00:02:40,186
and go with him. But this specific trip,

50
00:02:40,186 --> 00:02:45,630
it's it's vivid in my memory. We were
laying carpet in

51
00:02:45,630 --> 00:02:48,182
a movie theater in Central California.

52
00:02:48,182 --> 00:02:52,975
And my job was to effectively stay out of
my father's way,

53
00:02:52,975 --> 00:02:54,026
and he had given me

54
00:02:54,434 --> 00:02:59,876
The very specific instructions of pick up
scraps and stay out of my way.

55
00:02:59,876 --> 00:03:01,537
So as he's laying carpet, you know,

56
00:03:01,537 --> 00:03:03,578
he's trimming carpet and there's leftover
pieces.

57
00:03:03,578 --> 00:03:08,620
And my business relationship with my
father is I would get a penny

58
00:03:08,900 --> 00:03:10,561
for every scrap that I picked up.

59
00:03:10,561 --> 00:03:15,783
The moment I knew I was an entrepreneur is
I had snuck into my dad's toolbox

60
00:03:16,163 --> 00:03:18,624
and got what they call a banana knife.

61
00:03:18,624 --> 00:03:22,356
It was a big curved knife, and proceeded
to cut.

62
00:03:22,478 --> 00:03:27,602
pieces of carpet into smaller pieces so I
could maximize my return on investment.

63
00:03:27,602 --> 00:03:31,015
So lo and behold, after two days and we
had to work at night because

64
00:03:31,015 --> 00:03:32,907
the movie theater was open during the day.

65
00:03:32,907 --> 00:03:35,038
But at the end of the second day,

66
00:03:35,038 --> 00:03:36,690
when I counted up all my scraps,

67
00:03:36,690 --> 00:03:38,071
and my dad came to me and said,

68
00:03:38,071 --> 00:03:39,692
Hey, so how many, how many scraps?

69
00:03:39,692 --> 00:03:43,976
What what am I into you for? And I had
four hundred and ninety eight scraps.

70
00:03:43,976 --> 00:03:46,188
And my dad looked at me and he's like,

71
00:03:46,188 --> 00:03:48,339
you have worked so hard this weekend.

72
00:03:48,339 --> 00:03:51,412
I'm going to round that up to 500 and I
got a five dollar bill.

73
00:03:51,734 --> 00:03:54,385
And right there, like I thought I got over
on the old man.

74
00:03:54,385 --> 00:03:57,957
I'm like, look, he he had no idea that I'd
gotten a knife and risked cutting

75
00:03:57,957 --> 00:04:02,620
off my fingers. ~ but but that that was
really the moment that I knew that boy,

76
00:04:02,620 --> 00:04:05,902
there was there was something in me that
could go and be creative and

77
00:04:05,902 --> 00:04:06,902
try to create wealth.

78
00:04:07,362 --> 00:04:09,707
So what we're learning is this is the
question we have to ask.

79
00:04:09,707 --> 00:04:12,113
Are future entrepreneurs also criminals?

80
00:04:12,113 --> 00:04:13,938
Joshua. Yeah, they could they

81
00:04:13,848 --> 00:04:14,848
Could

82
00:04:14,019 --> 00:04:18,204
very well be. ~ yeah, that's that's that's
certainly ~ certainly something

83
00:04:18,204 --> 00:04:19,204
to explore.

84
00:04:20,718 --> 00:04:22,561
So you went the good way. Yeah.

85
00:04:22,561 --> 00:04:24,505
Yeah. That

86
00:04:23,894 --> 00:04:24,894
Absolutely.

87
00:04:24,886 --> 00:04:28,742
that six year old boy, would we call that
problem solving,

88
00:04:28,742 --> 00:04:30,616
curiosity, creativeness?

89
00:04:31,894 --> 00:04:33,956
I think I think it's a little bit of all
of it.

90
00:04:33,956 --> 00:04:36,448
I think it's a little bit of ~ you know,

91
00:04:36,448 --> 00:04:38,159
there was not always scraps to pick up.

92
00:04:38,159 --> 00:04:40,071
So a lot of it was I want to be
productive,

93
00:04:40,071 --> 00:04:42,633
I want to be doing something, and the only
thing I could really do was grab

94
00:04:42,633 --> 00:04:44,204
a knife and cut into smaller pieces.

95
00:04:44,204 --> 00:04:50,159
So there's certainly something ~ unsettled
in me when there's nothing going on.

96
00:04:50,159 --> 00:04:53,622
So so I think one of the key things for
entrepreneurs to keep in mind

97
00:04:53,622 --> 00:04:57,735
is there is always something you can be
doing to make your business better,

98
00:04:57,735 --> 00:05:00,618
right? And so or or to improve your bottom
line.

99
00:05:01,016 --> 00:05:05,449
So in those margins, and I think that's
something that is caught and not taught.

100
00:05:05,449 --> 00:05:07,861
So as leaders of an organization,

101
00:05:07,861 --> 00:05:11,014
if you're out there always looking to make
your business better

102
00:05:11,294 --> 00:05:13,316
and make improvements, your staff,

103
00:05:13,316 --> 00:05:15,838
your customers, your vendors are gonna see
that.

104
00:05:15,838 --> 00:05:18,300
And, you know, when the tide rises,

105
00:05:18,300 --> 00:05:21,322
all boats float and I think that the whole
organization gets more healthy.

106
00:05:21,804 --> 00:05:26,425
Hmm. So why there's you're so much more
than cigars.

107
00:05:26,425 --> 00:05:27,909
And we'll talk about that today.

108
00:05:27,909 --> 00:05:29,804
But why cigars?

109
00:05:30,806 --> 00:05:34,729
Yeah, so the cigar journey actually
started on rivers in Idaho.

110
00:05:34,729 --> 00:05:39,992
So ~ I was a big whitewater rafting fan
and a group of guys that I went with

111
00:05:40,232 --> 00:05:44,996
~ all enjoyed like craft beers and cigars
and so kind of got introduced

112
00:05:44,996 --> 00:05:49,118
to it and what I realized that it was less
about the cigars and more about

113
00:05:49,118 --> 00:05:52,120
the community. Like it was it was
something special,

114
00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:55,663
like the the cigars would set the tone on
the side of the river,

115
00:05:55,663 --> 00:06:00,306
you know, looking up at the stars and
Hell's Canyon and Snake on the Snake
River.

116
00:06:00,694 --> 00:06:02,475
So that's that's where it kind of began.

117
00:06:02,475 --> 00:06:06,889
And then when I ~ started doing work for
the Department of Defense,

118
00:06:06,889 --> 00:06:11,702
~ made two deployments into Iraq in seven
and eight.

119
00:06:11,702 --> 00:06:15,475
And cigar smoking was a big, big part of
military culture.

120
00:06:15,475 --> 00:06:17,987
So I think that I was familiar with
cigars,

121
00:06:17,987 --> 00:06:22,890
but then really got passionate as I was
around a bunch of like minded individuals

122
00:06:23,211 --> 00:06:25,192
in a non permissive environment,

123
00:06:25,192 --> 00:06:27,434
you know, where we were very doing a very
tough job.

124
00:06:27,434 --> 00:06:28,434
And I think

125
00:06:28,394 --> 00:06:32,120
what became clear to me is cigars were
much more than connection.

126
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:33,972
~ it was almost like a refuge.

127
00:06:33,972 --> 00:06:38,489
Like it was a place to calm everything
down and be still and and

128
00:06:38,550 --> 00:06:41,504
and make the engagements about people and
just happen to be over a cigar.

129
00:06:42,488 --> 00:06:43,948
So where'd Jesus come into this?

130
00:06:44,674 --> 00:06:48,755
Yeah, so I mean I was I was born and
raised in a in a Christian home.

131
00:06:48,755 --> 00:06:54,207
And I think that ~ one of the things that
we dispel very early on in the book,

132
00:06:54,207 --> 00:06:55,997
the Pope publisher asked the question,

133
00:06:55,997 --> 00:06:59,368
why why the title, right? If you smoke
cigars.

134
00:06:59,368 --> 00:07:03,189
And so I have to spend the first section
of the first chapter laying

135
00:07:03,189 --> 00:07:07,320
out the case that it's actually not
possible for Jesus to have ever smoked a
cigar.

136
00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:09,081
That that wasn't the point that I was
trying to make.

137
00:07:09,081 --> 00:07:13,622
The point that I was trying to make is
what would it look like

138
00:07:14,260 --> 00:07:17,593
if we took that relational model that
really began with Jesus as kind

139
00:07:17,593 --> 00:07:19,014
of the author of relationships?

140
00:07:19,014 --> 00:07:21,666
What if we took that model where it was
all about people?

141
00:07:21,666 --> 00:07:24,258
Because 2,000 years ago, there was no
internet,

142
00:07:24,258 --> 00:07:26,660
social media, podcasts, anything like
that.

143
00:07:26,660 --> 00:07:31,594
And yet this individual had such a
relational impact on the world that

144
00:07:31,594 --> 00:07:32,945
we still talk about him today.

145
00:07:32,945 --> 00:07:35,187
So it was important to look at it and say,

146
00:07:35,187 --> 00:07:39,911
okay, so so what can I take from from from
his model of of leadership?

147
00:07:39,911 --> 00:07:43,014
What can I look at in my 25, 30 years

148
00:07:43,790 --> 00:07:46,572
of professional development, whether that
was software,

149
00:07:46,572 --> 00:07:49,014
real estate development, or the cigar
lounge,

150
00:07:49,014 --> 00:07:54,017
the common thread was just people and and
how I interacted with people

151
00:07:54,097 --> 00:07:57,119
and having better relationships than my
competitors.

152
00:07:57,119 --> 00:08:00,631
And that's really kind of where the the
the title came to be.

153
00:08:00,631 --> 00:08:03,443
And it was cheeky, right? People would see
it on a shelf and go,

154
00:08:03,443 --> 00:08:04,794
man, what what what in the world?

155
00:08:04,794 --> 00:08:06,385
My mom hates the title by the way.

156
00:08:06,385 --> 00:08:07,846
I just want to be really clear.

157
00:08:07,846 --> 00:08:13,290
Sorry mom. ~ she's convinced that I'm
blasphemer and and ~ so

158
00:08:13,626 --> 00:08:15,412
You're doing the devil's work by writing
the book.

159
00:08:15,884 --> 00:08:18,448
Yeah, yeah. Really, really and she hasn't
read the book.

160
00:08:18,448 --> 00:08:21,533
So so at some point I'm hoping that she
reads the book and and is able

161
00:08:21,533 --> 00:08:23,306
to take some some some truth out of it.

162
00:08:24,142 --> 00:08:28,684
So what do you think? ~ can you take
without us understanding the context

163
00:08:28,684 --> 00:08:32,106
of all your experience, even before the
cigar lounge and you

164
00:08:32,106 --> 00:08:33,687
you talked about deployments in Iraq,

165
00:08:33,687 --> 00:08:36,139
but do you think you can take this,

166
00:08:36,139 --> 00:08:41,451
the metaphor of the relationship piece
from the stories of Jesus,

167
00:08:41,451 --> 00:08:46,694
your experience of smoking cigars on the
Snake River,

168
00:08:46,694 --> 00:08:52,507
your experiences in a whole nother realm
on the cigar culture in the military

169
00:08:52,507 --> 00:08:53,507
on the deployment.

170
00:08:54,232 --> 00:08:57,563
Do you think we can just take that and put
it together in a nucleus?

171
00:08:57,563 --> 00:09:00,545
And does that approach apply everywhere?

172
00:09:00,545 --> 00:09:03,086
Like let's have this conversation on what
our theory is.

173
00:09:03,086 --> 00:09:05,066
If it are there restrictions to it,

174
00:09:05,066 --> 00:09:09,128
would it not apply? Is there some realm in
business and entrepreneurship

175
00:09:09,128 --> 00:09:11,889
or some place in personal society it
doesn't belong,

176
00:09:11,889 --> 00:09:13,190
or does it work everywhere?

177
00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:18,132
My personal experience, my personal
opinion is it applies everywhere.

178
00:09:18,132 --> 00:09:23,974
So there are three very real truths for
business owners,

179
00:09:23,974 --> 00:09:26,615
entrepreneurs, coaches, parents,

180
00:09:26,615 --> 00:09:28,666
because we all lead somewhere,

181
00:09:28,666 --> 00:09:32,077
right? We we all have a leadership
function somewhere in our life.

182
00:09:32,077 --> 00:09:35,739
We might not have defined it as leadership
and it might not be business leadership,

183
00:09:35,739 --> 00:09:37,800
but we are certainly leading somewhere.

184
00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:39,180
And these three truths are this.

185
00:09:39,180 --> 00:09:43,322
I think that people work and do business
with people.

186
00:09:43,554 --> 00:09:45,095
that they like. That's kind of,

187
00:09:45,095 --> 00:09:50,859
you know, where it starts. I think people
stay loyal to people that they trust.

188
00:09:50,859 --> 00:09:53,681
And I think that they will evangelize.

189
00:09:53,681 --> 00:09:55,101
And that's really where we're trying to
get.

190
00:09:55,101 --> 00:09:59,044
I think people will evangelize for people
that make them feel loved.

191
00:09:59,044 --> 00:10:01,365
And so and I think that's universal.

192
00:10:01,365 --> 00:10:03,837
I think that that is where we're at.

193
00:10:03,837 --> 00:10:06,769
That's the message that that I take when
I'm coaching,

194
00:10:06,769 --> 00:10:08,120
when I'm lecturing.

195
00:10:08,726 --> 00:10:12,230
If we can get to that level where people
are willing to evangelize for us,

196
00:10:12,230 --> 00:10:13,751
for our business, for our basketball
teams,

197
00:10:13,751 --> 00:10:18,476
for our classrooms, that that we have
connected on a level that is just

198
00:10:18,476 --> 00:10:20,148
so important and it's universal.

199
00:10:20,984 --> 00:10:23,356
Do you think that listen, love's a great
word?

200
00:10:23,356 --> 00:10:27,300
Yeah. And when you really feel it might be
the ultimate word in society.

201
00:10:27,300 --> 00:10:29,180
And we all have I think we all have a
different,

202
00:10:29,180 --> 00:10:30,843
we're carrying a different dictionary
though,

203
00:10:30,843 --> 00:10:32,284
of the definition of that word.

204
00:10:32,284 --> 00:10:38,550
Yeah. But do you think that's too broad
that people will evangelize when they feel

205
00:10:38,550 --> 00:10:41,312
loved? Do it does it have to go that far
that they feel loved?

206
00:10:41,312 --> 00:10:45,306
Or is that maybe the ultimate goal to make
them feel that way?

207
00:10:45,306 --> 00:10:47,988
Because because won't they evangelize
before feeling loved?

208
00:10:48,620 --> 00:10:50,341
Well, I think what I think absolutely,

209
00:10:50,341 --> 00:10:52,231
I think they will evangelize before that.

210
00:10:52,231 --> 00:10:54,793
but I think that you make a great point,

211
00:10:54,793 --> 00:10:56,753
which is we've got to really define love.

212
00:10:56,753 --> 00:11:01,455
So the eighth lesson actually in the book
is you don't have to like people,

213
00:11:01,455 --> 00:11:02,976
but you are required to love them.

214
00:11:02,976 --> 00:11:04,567
And so if I'm gonna make that statement,

215
00:11:04,567 --> 00:11:07,618
if I'm gonna say that that is a rule of
relational leadership,

216
00:11:07,618 --> 00:11:11,544
then I had to define love. And the best
definition that I could find,

217
00:11:11,544 --> 00:11:15,111
and it's the only time that I actually put
any of the Bible in the book,

218
00:11:15,111 --> 00:11:17,782
is the, you know, verses out of First
Corinthians.

219
00:11:18,146 --> 00:11:19,747
You know, where we talk about love being
patient,

220
00:11:19,747 --> 00:11:23,080
kind, long suffering. And so we go through
those thirteen attributes of love,

221
00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:24,491
but we apply them to business.

222
00:11:24,491 --> 00:11:27,783
Right. Like the book is not ~ you know,

223
00:11:27,783 --> 00:11:34,018
some kind of theological dissertation on
on on Jesus as the author of
relationships.

224
00:11:34,018 --> 00:11:39,162
~ but it was appropriate to provide a
definition of what I think love is,

225
00:11:39,162 --> 00:11:41,204
regardless of your faith construct,

226
00:11:41,204 --> 00:11:43,525
and then be able to walk through how do we
how do we apply that

227
00:11:43,525 --> 00:11:44,525
in a business setting.

228
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:48,853
How do you think we take I I just love
what you said about your faith construct.

229
00:11:48,853 --> 00:11:52,296
And so I grew up in a similar way that you
did.

230
00:11:52,296 --> 00:11:53,497
People that know me personally,

231
00:11:53,497 --> 00:11:56,719
they know the evolution of what that is
now on being so independent thinking

232
00:11:56,719 --> 00:12:00,763
on so many levels. But that I don't try to
impose my thoughts or beliefs on anybody.

233
00:12:00,763 --> 00:12:03,004
Just live the life that you think is best.

234
00:12:03,004 --> 00:12:06,247
And if it's evident enough that it's a
good life and you're impacting people,

235
00:12:06,247 --> 00:12:08,149
maybe other people will follow and do the
same thing.

236
00:12:08,149 --> 00:12:10,050
That's kind of the that's kind of the
approach.

237
00:12:10,050 --> 00:12:12,552
How yeah. Go ahead. No, no, no,

238
00:12:12,552 --> 00:12:14,614
please. Go ahead. ~ I want you to

239
00:12:14,766 --> 00:12:16,096
Go ahead and go with you or go on,

240
00:12:16,096 --> 00:12:19,659
because I want to talk about the construct
because there's think about what

241
00:12:19,659 --> 00:12:25,512
you were going to say, but what's
happening now in 2026 for me is that
there's

242
00:12:25,512 --> 00:12:27,693
now an because we have such access to
information.

243
00:12:27,693 --> 00:12:29,914
So I'm 47. When I was growing up,

244
00:12:29,914 --> 00:12:31,966
we didn't have the internet. We might have
had,

245
00:12:31,966 --> 00:12:36,298
you had, you had brilliance of minds of
people you had access to.

246
00:12:36,298 --> 00:12:38,869
Yeah. And and books and dictionaries.

247
00:12:38,869 --> 00:12:43,412
There were so many people that didn't have
access to a bunch of different.

248
00:12:43,860 --> 00:12:45,671
opposing ways of living a life,

249
00:12:45,671 --> 00:12:48,012
opinions, beliefs that we have now.

250
00:12:48,012 --> 00:12:50,373
And we're now presented in this world.

251
00:12:50,373 --> 00:12:52,924
Anything that you fundamentally believe,

252
00:12:52,924 --> 00:12:54,635
there are plenty of people to show up,

253
00:12:54,635 --> 00:12:59,687
not just in religion, that show up and
believe something that they're proposing

254
00:12:59,687 --> 00:13:01,018
that's completely different.

255
00:13:02,766 --> 00:13:08,030
I I will say that I think you're you're
you're describing

256
00:13:08,346 --> 00:13:14,645
the very ~ in a very clear way why the
timing of this book I think

257
00:13:14,645 --> 00:13:18,378
is so important. I think there are three
things that happened in I'm just

258
00:13:18,378 --> 00:13:23,711
a few years older than you, but in our
lifetime we've had three huge,

259
00:13:23,711 --> 00:13:28,185
huge things happen that have disrupted our
ability to relate to people.

260
00:13:28,185 --> 00:13:29,886
Number one is technology. You share about
it.

261
00:13:30,566 --> 00:13:34,018
the fact that we've got the internet and
email and the and the speed

262
00:13:34,018 --> 00:13:38,671
at which information moves and the fact
that I get to FaceTime my grandson,

263
00:13:38,671 --> 00:13:41,392
like which, you know, when my wife and I,

264
00:13:41,392 --> 00:13:42,653
my wife have thirty-two years,

265
00:13:42,653 --> 00:13:45,995
when we were dating, we lived nine hundred
miles apart and we had

266
00:13:45,995 --> 00:13:47,306
to write letters to each other,

267
00:13:47,306 --> 00:13:50,638
right? That like you know, I had to go to
a post office and buy a stamp.

268
00:13:50,638 --> 00:13:53,199
~ so so we've had this technology,

269
00:13:53,199 --> 00:13:57,662
social media, ~ which has blurred what
relationships look like.

270
00:13:57,772 --> 00:14:02,105
Right, we've can we've confused influence
with authenticity.

271
00:14:02,105 --> 00:14:03,894
And so that's the first thing that
happened.

272
00:14:03,894 --> 00:14:05,968
The second thing that happened is in 2020,

273
00:14:05,968 --> 00:14:10,952
we had a worldwide pandemic. And
regardless of how you feel about responses

274
00:14:10,952 --> 00:14:13,334
or should the world have shut down or
anything,

275
00:14:13,334 --> 00:14:15,976
that it did. We started wearing masks,

276
00:14:15,976 --> 00:14:18,007
we started standing six feet apart,

277
00:14:18,007 --> 00:14:21,840
businesses were closing, and so related
and we sent our workforce home,

278
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,212
right? The whole work from home model kind
of exploded.

279
00:14:24,566 --> 00:14:25,941
And kids home and kids home.

280
00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:27,520
Kids,

281
00:14:26,970 --> 00:14:30,474
right? So my my youngest son was deeply
impacted by that.

282
00:14:30,474 --> 00:14:32,956
~ so you know, in his very early 20,

283
00:14:32,956 --> 00:14:36,620
21 years old, was living in a world where
he had no connection.

284
00:14:36,620 --> 00:14:39,903
~ and then the third thing that's happened
in the last couple of years

285
00:14:39,903 --> 00:14:42,126
has been this proliferation of AI,

286
00:14:42,126 --> 00:14:43,897
where now we're in relationships,

287
00:14:43,897 --> 00:14:45,609
but we're in relationships with agents.

288
00:14:45,609 --> 00:14:50,274
We're in relationships with large language
models and and we're having to navigate

289
00:14:50,708 --> 00:14:52,529
what that looks like. And again,

290
00:14:52,529 --> 00:14:54,639
the lines have gotten even a little bit
more blurred.

291
00:14:54,639 --> 00:14:56,740
Like, can we trust what we see?

292
00:14:56,740 --> 00:14:58,180
Can we trust what we're hearing?

293
00:14:58,180 --> 00:15:02,461
Can we trust a response that comes back ~
to the questions that we ask?

294
00:15:02,461 --> 00:15:07,903
So all of these things have confused
relationships at their core.

295
00:15:07,903 --> 00:15:11,014
And I I think that's why it's important to
r as a leader,

296
00:15:11,014 --> 00:15:13,444
as an entrepreneur, to understand those
things.

297
00:15:13,444 --> 00:15:16,265
And I'm not I made most of my wealth in
technology.

298
00:15:16,265 --> 00:15:18,286
So I'm not an anti-technology guy.

299
00:15:18,286 --> 00:15:19,846
But if technology

300
00:15:20,210 --> 00:15:25,453
is ~ i if it's not an enabler for creating
more connection,

301
00:15:25,453 --> 00:15:26,924
connection with your employees,

302
00:15:26,924 --> 00:15:28,465
connection with your customers,

303
00:15:28,465 --> 00:15:32,637
connection with your vendors, then I think
you have to really consider

304
00:15:32,637 --> 00:15:33,637
how you're employing it.

305
00:15:34,498 --> 00:15:36,209
So, what's the instruction that we should
give?

306
00:15:36,209 --> 00:15:38,431
I'm going to give an example in my past 24
hours.

307
00:15:38,431 --> 00:15:43,084
So I just downloaded a brand new app from
one of the largest tech companies.

308
00:15:43,084 --> 00:15:45,576
They're really making a push. So it's not
chat,

309
00:15:45,576 --> 00:15:49,689
it's not Gronk. It's not, it's a it's one
that's making a big push,

310
00:15:49,689 --> 00:15:52,731
a brand new one. And I know somebody that
works in that company at

311
00:15:52,731 --> 00:15:55,192
the high levels that's selling their AI.

312
00:15:55,192 --> 00:15:58,214
And they sent me a link to download the
app.

313
00:15:58,214 --> 00:15:59,335
I had heard about it weeks ago.

314
00:15:59,335 --> 00:16:03,278
So I downloaded I downloaded the app and
it gave me a billion tokens.

315
00:16:03,798 --> 00:16:06,300
Because of the the the referral code or
whatever.

316
00:16:06,300 --> 00:16:08,201
So then it said you have twenty uses.

317
00:16:08,201 --> 00:16:11,864
So then I sent it to twenty of my people
and they're like,

318
00:16:11,864 --> 00:16:13,525
Did you get hacked? What are you sending
me?

319
00:16:13,525 --> 00:16:16,187
But I sent it to them. But I what I want
to talk about is here,

320
00:16:16,187 --> 00:16:21,020
that actually created connection because
if you look at the text messages that

321
00:16:21,020 --> 00:16:25,193
I sent them when they were asking if it
was really me and why,

322
00:16:25,193 --> 00:16:27,995
and I started using it and how it could be
used and saying thank

323
00:16:27,995 --> 00:16:30,757
you and you're welcome at how it probably
meant for them that they were

324
00:16:30,757 --> 00:16:32,408
one of my top twenty. So

325
00:16:32,850 --> 00:16:38,535
As you said that, what I know in my brain
is I can take all this technology

326
00:16:39,195 --> 00:16:43,009
and use it to further relationships
because what it can give back to me,

327
00:16:43,009 --> 00:16:45,290
I don't know if AI in its current form,

328
00:16:45,290 --> 00:16:46,662
because it's been around for decades.

329
00:16:46,662 --> 00:16:49,223
People just had no talk. Yes. Yep.

330
00:16:49,223 --> 00:16:54,238
And so in this current form that all of us
are utilizing it now and going

331
00:16:54,238 --> 00:16:56,249
to it for answers and to solve problems,

332
00:16:56,249 --> 00:16:59,292
in the current form that we're using it,

333
00:16:59,292 --> 00:17:01,464
I know.

334
00:17:02,478 --> 00:17:05,750
That I can u utilize it to highlight
relationships because it can give

335
00:17:05,750 --> 00:17:09,762
me back some of my time through efficiency
that I can so,

336
00:17:09,762 --> 00:17:13,584
but I don't get buried in it. So if I
showed you the exchange I had with

337
00:17:13,584 --> 00:17:15,806
20 people and right before this podcast,

338
00:17:15,806 --> 00:17:21,769
in between the last one, a guy from Texas
who's a a friend,

339
00:17:21,769 --> 00:17:24,531
business associate, called me and we
talked about it.

340
00:17:24,531 --> 00:17:26,482
And he said, Tell me about using it.

341
00:17:26,482 --> 00:17:30,124
What do you think? So what's the
instruction that people should have?

342
00:17:31,982 --> 00:17:34,975
about furthering relationships with this
new technology.

343
00:17:35,970 --> 00:17:39,873
Yeah, I think with anything I I love the
word moderation,

344
00:17:39,873 --> 00:17:45,458
right? ~ I think that in any aspect of our
life we can get

345
00:17:45,658 --> 00:17:49,702
we can get sideways and we can get focused
on the wrong things.

346
00:17:49,702 --> 00:17:53,425
And so so utilizing something like AI,

347
00:17:53,425 --> 00:17:55,397
~ or technology in general, right?

348
00:17:55,397 --> 00:17:58,699
I think is a great point. Social media is
a a great point.

349
00:17:58,699 --> 00:17:59,699
I as a

350
00:17:59,582 --> 00:18:03,793
again, as a grandfather, I love sharing
the only thing I share on social media

351
00:18:03,793 --> 00:18:05,844
is pictures of me and my grandsons.

352
00:18:05,844 --> 00:18:09,465
And whether we're golfing, whether we're
playing at the park,

353
00:18:09,465 --> 00:18:14,137
you know, dressing up in in in teenage
mutant ninja turtle costumes

354
00:18:14,137 --> 00:18:17,748
and running around the house. ~ I I'll
I'll share those pictures and

355
00:18:18,028 --> 00:18:21,289
and what I'm what I'm looking for is I'm
not looking for the followers.

356
00:18:21,289 --> 00:18:24,230
I'm not looking for the clicks or the hard
emoji or anything like that.

357
00:18:24,230 --> 00:18:25,230
~

358
00:18:25,068 --> 00:18:29,680
What I what I love is when I have people
that follow me that then reach

359
00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:33,331
out to me and go, Man, I love seeing those
pictures of of you and

360
00:18:33,331 --> 00:18:37,562
the grandsons and and then that is when I
will engage and connect with them,

361
00:18:37,562 --> 00:18:41,764
right? So I've used technology to further
relationship,

362
00:18:41,764 --> 00:18:45,055
authentic relationship, not how many
people can I get to follow

363
00:18:45,055 --> 00:18:48,276
me 'cause my grandsons are cute or or how
many how many shares,

364
00:18:48,276 --> 00:18:49,276
likes, ~

365
00:18:49,494 --> 00:18:54,258
Whatever. And I think that is the message
I give to people is when you're employing

366
00:18:54,258 --> 00:18:57,601
technology, I love the idea of of of
saving time.

367
00:18:57,601 --> 00:19:02,285
There's some AI agents that I have working
~ on my network appliances

368
00:19:02,285 --> 00:19:07,129
~ that are just str simply streamlining a
lot of my research that I do for books.

369
00:19:07,129 --> 00:19:12,674
~ not to write anything, but like if I'm ~
I'm always talking about historic

370
00:19:12,674 --> 00:19:15,866
characters. ~ I was actually going to be a
history teacher and

371
00:19:15,866 --> 00:19:17,738
a basketball coach when I started in
college.

372
00:19:18,136 --> 00:19:20,137
So I've always been fascinated with
history,

373
00:19:20,137 --> 00:19:24,804
but I love the obscure. The problem with
writing the history

374
00:19:24,804 --> 00:19:28,338
of obscure characters is that you've got
to dig deep.

375
00:19:28,338 --> 00:19:30,101
There's a lot of work to be done there.

376
00:19:30,101 --> 00:19:33,294
So a lot of times I'll I'll put an agent
on it to go out there and like,

377
00:19:33,294 --> 00:19:36,759
I need you to dig deeper on this and then
validate and and and

378
00:19:36,759 --> 00:19:37,780
get that information to me.

379
00:19:39,128 --> 00:19:42,881
So back to the book on relationships.

380
00:19:42,881 --> 00:19:45,814
Yeah. I think you're making an argument
without me fully reading it now,

381
00:19:45,814 --> 00:19:47,305
right? I I had the cliff notes.

382
00:19:47,305 --> 00:19:50,507
I dug in a little bit. I think I
understand the premise without knowing

383
00:19:50,507 --> 00:19:55,592
all the chapters. But if the argument is
is that relationships and

384
00:19:55,592 --> 00:19:56,753
I'm putting words in your mouth.

385
00:19:56,753 --> 00:19:59,835
Sure. Relationships are actually the
business.

386
00:19:59,835 --> 00:20:06,241
Yeah. ~ what's something that you found or
you believe about relationships that

387
00:20:06,241 --> 00:20:07,902
sounds good, but it's actually not true?

388
00:20:09,966 --> 00:20:13,169
I think that one of the things and I
apologize to all the leaders

389
00:20:13,169 --> 00:20:16,192
and and entrepreneurs that are listening
right now,

390
00:20:16,192 --> 00:20:21,076
I think one of the fallacies of of
relationship as it relates

391
00:20:21,076 --> 00:20:23,709
to leaders and entrepreneurs is that the
leaders and entrepreneurs have

392
00:20:23,709 --> 00:20:28,103
it all figured out. One of the things that
I do when I'm coaching leaders

393
00:20:28,103 --> 00:20:35,059
is ~ the idea of being transparent and
honest with with your organization.

394
00:20:35,059 --> 00:20:36,059
~

395
00:20:35,980 --> 00:20:39,551
I think as leaders, we tend to not do that
because we don't want to show weakness

396
00:20:39,551 --> 00:20:41,142
or insecurities or we you know,

397
00:20:41,142 --> 00:20:44,213
we don't want to expose any of that to our
organization.

398
00:20:44,213 --> 00:20:50,756
And and I'm not suggesting that we dump or
or or air dirty laundry,

399
00:20:50,756 --> 00:20:53,867
but when we are I I believe business is
tough,

400
00:20:53,867 --> 00:20:55,358
I believe relationships are tough.

401
00:20:55,358 --> 00:20:58,159
So as we're navigating things that are
difficult,

402
00:20:58,159 --> 00:21:01,550
and if markets are in fact efficient and
we have got to improve

403
00:21:01,550 --> 00:21:04,381
our efficiency to capitalize and grow
wealth,

404
00:21:04,381 --> 00:21:05,432
then then

405
00:21:05,656 --> 00:21:07,006
then there's going to be struggles.

406
00:21:07,006 --> 00:21:09,267
So being willing to share those struggles.

407
00:21:09,267 --> 00:21:11,748
And I always tell organizations this,

408
00:21:11,748 --> 00:21:15,609
~ focus on building culture, not your
business.

409
00:21:15,609 --> 00:21:20,130
Because a healthy culture ~ in a in a
business is going to attract,

410
00:21:20,130 --> 00:21:21,930
guess what, healthy employees,

411
00:21:21,930 --> 00:21:26,252
healthy, healthy customers, healthy vendor
relationships.

412
00:21:26,252 --> 00:21:32,293
And so, so, so be transparent and get to
that place of real authentic health.

413
00:21:32,293 --> 00:21:34,264
And then you're going to find that a lot
of those

414
00:21:34,444 --> 00:21:37,966
those other issues, especially
interpersonal ones or they're they're just
gonna

415
00:21:38,027 --> 00:21:39,030
they're gonna slide away.

416
00:21:40,064 --> 00:21:43,280
Is transparency the health indicator or is
it deeper,

417
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:44,280
or is the health deeper?

418
00:21:44,812 --> 00:21:51,136
I I I think it's I think I think
transparency is one aspect of of health,

419
00:21:51,136 --> 00:21:53,078
but I but I do think that it does get
deeper,

420
00:21:53,078 --> 00:21:54,949
right? I think that, you know,

421
00:21:54,949 --> 00:21:59,812
with transparency you also have to add
things like ~ cooperation,

422
00:21:59,812 --> 00:22:03,755
right? So I've seen a lot of leaders that
they will be transparent,

423
00:22:03,755 --> 00:22:07,117
~ and then they will solicit and get some
feedback,

424
00:22:07,117 --> 00:22:11,520
but they then will take that and hoard
that information and not

425
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,362
be cooperative with that information,

426
00:22:13,362 --> 00:22:14,362
right?

427
00:22:13,982 --> 00:22:16,463
or to give praise. Like a as a leader,

428
00:22:16,463 --> 00:22:23,447
I tend I tended to check my ego and at the
door,

429
00:22:23,447 --> 00:22:27,830
like like I was very, very quick to praise
people in the organization,

430
00:22:27,830 --> 00:22:29,130
regardless of where they were,

431
00:22:29,130 --> 00:22:32,362
for the good work and the value that they
were adding to the organization.

432
00:22:32,362 --> 00:22:35,114
Because that created loyalty. Like people
just wouldn't leave.

433
00:22:35,114 --> 00:22:38,105
They'd be like, man, even though I was a
you know in my software company,

434
00:22:38,105 --> 00:22:40,827
this is a tech support agent that took
care of a really,

435
00:22:40,827 --> 00:22:43,008
really difficult engagement and a tough
problem.

436
00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:45,473
I want to go I want to go celebrate that
person,

437
00:22:45,473 --> 00:22:48,418
even though they're not one of the highly
compensated people,

438
00:22:48,418 --> 00:22:51,002
because that made that the it was genuine.

439
00:22:51,002 --> 00:22:54,918
Like they did do something really
important and we were able to advance

440
00:22:54,918 --> 00:22:56,200
as an organization because of it.

441
00:22:57,646 --> 00:23:00,230
So you built the business, the cigar
business.

442
00:23:00,230 --> 00:23:04,116
Yeah. You built the business on a product
that's called cigars.

443
00:23:04,116 --> 00:23:09,144
Yeah. But I suspect that the cigar isn't
really the product.

444
00:23:09,144 --> 00:23:12,289
What what are people what are people
paying you for?

445
00:23:12,544 --> 00:23:15,015
Yeah, you nailed it. So so first of all,

446
00:23:15,015 --> 00:23:17,126
let's let's talk about the cigar business.

447
00:23:17,126 --> 00:23:19,797
I'd never intended to open a cigar lounge.

448
00:23:19,797 --> 00:23:24,499
~ I was doing restoration of historic
buildings in our downtown.

449
00:23:24,499 --> 00:23:28,641
One of the buildings happened to be a bank
building that was built in nineteen five,

450
00:23:28,641 --> 00:23:30,722
small, fifteen hundred square foot,

451
00:23:30,722 --> 00:23:34,903
that this the city had deemed that it was
unsafe and they were looking

452
00:23:34,903 --> 00:23:38,965
at tearing the building down. And I was
historic preservation commissioner.

453
00:23:38,965 --> 00:23:41,166
I went to the city, I said, We can't tear
down

454
00:23:41,422 --> 00:23:43,684
Beautiful old things. We got to bring them
back to life.

455
00:23:43,684 --> 00:23:46,125
So my wife and I found the owner.

456
00:23:46,125 --> 00:23:50,819
We were able to buy the building and we
spent ~ almost a year restoring this

457
00:23:50,819 --> 00:23:54,516
120-year-old building. In the midst of
doing that,

458
00:23:54,516 --> 00:23:56,383
~ my wife and I both smoke cigars.

459
00:23:56,383 --> 00:23:58,254
We love scotch. We love great wines.

460
00:23:58,254 --> 00:24:00,856
So when we got it done for for a year and
a half,

461
00:24:00,856 --> 00:24:03,217
it was our living room. So our home,

462
00:24:03,217 --> 00:24:05,759
which is like a block away, was built in
1913,

463
00:24:05,759 --> 00:24:07,710
and there's no living room in our in our
home.

464
00:24:07,710 --> 00:24:09,772
It's just an old, old person house.

465
00:24:10,322 --> 00:24:14,976
And so we used the the what what we called
the vault as just our living room

466
00:24:14,976 --> 00:24:19,199
and the windows were frosted so people
couldn't look in 'cause early on we'd

467
00:24:19,199 --> 00:24:21,471
be in there enjoying a cigar, a bottle of
wine,

468
00:24:21,471 --> 00:24:24,143
and people, you know, put their faces up
to the window,

469
00:24:24,143 --> 00:24:26,054
What business is it? And we'd say,

470
00:24:26,054 --> 00:24:30,968
None of your business and so we made the
mistake though of inviting our mayor

471
00:24:30,968 --> 00:24:34,951
at the time and her husband to come have
cigars and a bottle of wine with

472
00:24:34,951 --> 00:24:35,951
us one night and

473
00:24:36,190 --> 00:24:38,862
And Mayor Tammy went full mare mode on me
and she said,

474
00:24:38,862 --> 00:24:40,873
Josh, you really need to open a cigar
lounge.

475
00:24:40,873 --> 00:24:42,415
And I'm Mayor, I don't really like people.

476
00:24:42,415 --> 00:24:43,896
I'm like, how's that gonna work out for
me?

477
00:24:43,896 --> 00:24:48,019
And she's like, It's gonna work out
because it's gonna be a great economic
driver

478
00:24:48,519 --> 00:24:51,702
and and your down your downtown is gonna
be better for it.

479
00:24:51,702 --> 00:24:53,473
And so we got bullied into it.

480
00:24:53,473 --> 00:24:55,765
But I told my wife, I said, If we're gonna
do this,

481
00:24:55,765 --> 00:24:59,507
and at this point all of our kids had left
home and we were at a place where

482
00:24:59,507 --> 00:25:02,880
we were looking at the next twenty years
and what could we do together?

483
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,592
~ she didn't get to to join me in my work
with the military.

484
00:25:07,592 --> 00:25:10,763
She was a registered nurse, so I didn't
really get to participate.

485
00:25:10,763 --> 00:25:13,124
So we thought this is something that we
could do together,

486
00:25:13,124 --> 00:25:16,185
but it has to be intentional. So our
mission statement,

487
00:25:16,185 --> 00:25:19,717
to get back to your question, the mission
statement of the vault was

488
00:25:19,717 --> 00:25:23,348
to provide a premium cigar experience
where the primary currency

489
00:25:23,348 --> 00:25:26,399
we exchange is relationship. It was just
about people.

490
00:25:26,399 --> 00:25:30,351
How can we build an environment where
people feel better when they leave than
when

491
00:25:30,351 --> 00:25:32,372
they come in? ~ you know, the

492
00:25:32,782 --> 00:25:37,123
Common denominator of a cigar lounge is
that we're lighting our money on fire,

493
00:25:37,123 --> 00:25:41,835
one cigar at a time. And so, so that
people can do that anywhere.

494
00:25:41,835 --> 00:25:44,856
~ Amazon won. So all these cigars that I'm
selling,

495
00:25:44,856 --> 00:25:47,007
you can get cheaper online with free
shipping.

496
00:25:47,007 --> 00:25:49,467
So that couldn't be my unique selling
proposition.

497
00:25:49,467 --> 00:25:54,729
So my unique selling proposition had to be
the relationships that we engaged

498
00:25:54,729 --> 00:25:57,410
in in a very intentional way in our
lounge.

499
00:25:58,498 --> 00:26:00,993
So did y did you then run for the next
mayor?

500
00:26:01,866 --> 00:26:04,527
No, no. They ~ I I was asked to,

501
00:26:04,527 --> 00:26:06,767
~ but but then it looked like a job.

502
00:26:06,767 --> 00:26:11,649
And ~ the other thing I found out is that
City Hall had an anti smoking provision

503
00:26:11,989 --> 00:26:16,100
that ~ that ~ I I actually met with a city
attorney and I asked him,

504
00:26:16,100 --> 00:26:19,051
I said, I know that we've got a smoking
ban in City Hall.

505
00:26:19,051 --> 00:26:22,022
~ but is there any enforcement associated?

506
00:26:22,022 --> 00:26:24,653
Can you like look at the law and and and
Bill went and looked at the

507
00:26:24,653 --> 00:26:25,933
law and he's like, Yeah, he's like,

508
00:26:25,933 --> 00:26:27,814
It's on the books that you can't smoke in
City Hall,

509
00:26:27,814 --> 00:26:28,814
but there's

510
00:26:28,650 --> 00:26:30,731
No enforcement or fine or, you know,

511
00:26:30,731 --> 00:26:33,762
it's not it's not really labeled what they
said nobody's ever challenged that.

512
00:26:33,762 --> 00:26:38,084
And so what I what I told the city
leadership is I'm better as a servant

513
00:26:38,084 --> 00:26:40,516
to my community as opposed to leading it.

514
00:26:40,516 --> 00:26:44,207
Except if we go to war. So we have a
neighboring community,

515
00:26:44,207 --> 00:26:46,659
Cuna, that's just south of us by about
twelve miles.

516
00:26:46,659 --> 00:26:49,080
And so what I've told everybody is if
Cuna,

517
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,341
Idaho, ever invades Meridian, Idaho,

518
00:26:51,341 --> 00:26:53,932
I'd be a great wartime mayor, a real
Churchillian figure.

519
00:26:54,625 --> 00:26:58,085
sitting in City Hall marshalling resources
to defend ourselves.

520
00:26:58,085 --> 00:26:59,085
So

521
00:26:59,052 --> 00:27:01,627
You're definitely an author. You are a
fiction author.

522
00:27:01,627 --> 00:27:05,004
~ so you built

523
00:27:07,596 --> 00:27:09,489
You built this around relationships.

524
00:27:09,489 --> 00:27:11,672
That's the entire premise of the book,

525
00:27:11,672 --> 00:27:13,556
the conversation, the cigar lounge.

526
00:27:13,556 --> 00:27:18,996
~ have you added more locations than the
first one?

527
00:27:20,342 --> 00:27:23,665
Yeah. So while we're being transparent and
sharing failures,

528
00:27:23,665 --> 00:27:27,067
~ we had ~ we had a group in a neighboring
city,

529
00:27:27,067 --> 00:27:30,710
~ called Eagle, again, like fifteen
minutes away.

530
00:27:30,710 --> 00:27:36,054
And this group said, We really want to
have a Vault Cigar Lounge in Eagle.

531
00:27:36,054 --> 00:27:37,796
You know, would you be willing to support
that?

532
00:27:37,796 --> 00:27:39,449
And and what I told him is I said,

533
00:27:39,449 --> 00:27:43,080
I I am I I'm not I'm not interested in
running it.

534
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,992
However, I'll give you the playbook.

535
00:27:46,284 --> 00:27:49,605
Like at this point, I was writing the
tobacconist column for

536
00:27:49,605 --> 00:27:52,296
the Premium Cigar Association magazine
once a quarter.

537
00:27:52,296 --> 00:27:57,778
I was traveling around helping other cigar
lounges get open and and training them

538
00:27:57,778 --> 00:28:02,639
in how to build culture and and organize
themselves for success.

539
00:28:02,639 --> 00:28:04,790
And so I agreed to do it. I said,

540
00:28:04,790 --> 00:28:07,241
I'll I'll lend you the name. I don't want
any ownership.

541
00:28:07,241 --> 00:28:08,511
I said, but I'll lend you the name.

542
00:28:08,511 --> 00:28:09,982
I'll train all your tobacconists,

543
00:28:09,982 --> 00:28:11,042
I'll train your staff.

544
00:28:11,602 --> 00:28:14,273
~ and we will do all the acquisition of
your cigars.

545
00:28:14,273 --> 00:28:17,424
Cause I think one of the things that's a
little bit misunderstood about

546
00:28:17,445 --> 00:28:23,097
the cigar industry is ~ we are in the
greatest period of cigar making

547
00:28:23,097 --> 00:28:24,487
in the history of cigar making.

548
00:28:24,487 --> 00:28:28,679
there are so many options coming out of
the Dominican Republic,

549
00:28:28,679 --> 00:28:30,960
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica,

550
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,311
Mexico, just unbelievable products.

551
00:28:33,311 --> 00:28:37,373
But navigating ~ value and navigating,

552
00:28:37,373 --> 00:28:40,034
you know, how what are your unique
offerings?

553
00:28:40,428 --> 00:28:42,919
given the challenge of like online cigar
sales,

554
00:28:42,919 --> 00:28:45,579
which is probably eighty-five percent of
the market,

555
00:28:45,579 --> 00:28:48,330
~ how how do you how do you organize your
humidor?

556
00:28:48,330 --> 00:28:50,141
So we did all the buying for them as well.

557
00:28:50,141 --> 00:28:54,162
~ that lounge actually closed two years
after we opened it.

558
00:28:54,162 --> 00:28:58,903
And and it closed because the senior
partner that had put together

559
00:28:58,903 --> 00:29:04,705
the whole concept had embezzled about $1.4
million out of the lounge over

560
00:29:04,805 --> 00:29:07,685
so it wasn't a case of the the the lounge
wasn't a success.

561
00:29:07,685 --> 00:29:09,726
It was a wild success, so successful

562
00:29:10,028 --> 00:29:14,100
that this guy was able to steal all this
money and ~ and not pay back

563
00:29:14,100 --> 00:29:16,642
the original folks. So but my wife and I
both contributed,

564
00:29:16,642 --> 00:29:20,084
~ or we contributed money towards getting
it open with a,

565
00:29:20,084 --> 00:29:25,567
you know, a a a a loan to get that money
paid back and n ~ all of us were out.

566
00:29:25,567 --> 00:29:29,890
~ and so again it speaks to why
relationships matter.

567
00:29:29,890 --> 00:29:34,462
I wish I had taken a little bit more of my
own advice and really done

568
00:29:34,462 --> 00:29:37,204
the due diligence to understand who I was
partnering with.

569
00:29:37,762 --> 00:29:42,676
before we open that up and so now I'm
strictly focused on helping others achieve

570
00:29:42,676 --> 00:29:46,548
achieve their their goals. We we helped
two other shops in Idaho open up

571
00:29:46,689 --> 00:29:49,771
~ in the last twelve months and that's
what I'm excited about

572
00:29:49,771 --> 00:29:53,964
is helping others achieve their their
goals and dreams and aspirations.

573
00:29:54,702 --> 00:29:57,303
So your middle name now is altruism.

574
00:29:57,303 --> 00:30:01,576
Here we go, you all. ~ So is there
anything in hindsight,

575
00:30:01,576 --> 00:30:05,688
because we all can play Monday morning
quarterback in our lives and
relationships?

576
00:30:05,688 --> 00:30:09,500
If you would have dug deeper, would you
have found things?

577
00:30:09,500 --> 00:30:11,911
Can you honestly play a Monday morning
quarterback?

578
00:30:11,911 --> 00:30:12,922
Because sometimes people are like,

579
00:30:12,922 --> 00:30:16,414
Yeah, I told you so. But I think if we're
really honest,

580
00:30:16,414 --> 00:30:18,895
we're like, okay, in that situation,

581
00:30:18,895 --> 00:30:21,126
if I would have had this more information,

582
00:30:21,126 --> 00:30:23,808
would I have still made a different
decision versus now?

583
00:30:24,354 --> 00:30:27,597
Is there something that we all could learn
that you learned from it?

584
00:30:27,597 --> 00:30:31,531
Is it more of a microscope? Is it more
time digging deeper?

585
00:30:31,531 --> 00:30:34,163
Or sometimes people just aren't who they
say they are?

586
00:30:34,163 --> 00:30:36,666
Or or they change.

587
00:30:37,410 --> 00:30:39,331
Yeah, or they change life circumstance,

588
00:30:39,331 --> 00:30:41,554
right? Like, you know, could be something,

589
00:30:41,554 --> 00:30:43,556
you know, some some big significant event.

590
00:30:43,556 --> 00:30:48,891
What I would say, ~ as a as a general
comment to entrepreneurs

591
00:30:48,891 --> 00:30:50,342
and people starting businesses,

592
00:30:50,342 --> 00:30:56,438
~ people overlook two things I think when
they're when they're starting companies.

593
00:30:56,438 --> 00:31:02,324
Number one, I think they overlook the
actual legal framework of their
organization.

594
00:31:02,700 --> 00:31:03,970
Right. Because as an entrepreneur,

595
00:31:03,970 --> 00:31:05,701
it's like, look, I'm hanging a shingle.

596
00:31:05,701 --> 00:31:08,372
I got a few dollars. I just gotta I gotta
start working.

597
00:31:08,372 --> 00:31:13,733
Right. And the very first company that I
built when I was in college that

598
00:31:13,733 --> 00:31:15,454
I ended up selling back to my partners,

599
00:31:15,454 --> 00:31:18,462
~ we we that's that's what we did.

600
00:31:18,462 --> 00:31:19,675
I mean, we were all, you know,

601
00:31:19,675 --> 00:31:21,195
nineteen, twenty, twenty one years old,

602
00:31:21,195 --> 00:31:23,766
and we just decided we want to start a
company and we ended up having

603
00:31:23,766 --> 00:31:26,557
a lot of success. but we didn't paper,

604
00:31:26,557 --> 00:31:29,517
we we didn't provide the light right legal
structure.

605
00:31:29,517 --> 00:31:31,328
And so when that when that

606
00:31:31,522 --> 00:31:34,444
change of control event happened and I I
sold out to my partners,

607
00:31:34,444 --> 00:31:37,707
it was very, very difficult. Like we
didn't have the right documents.

608
00:31:37,707 --> 00:31:41,050
We didn't have the right operating
agreements that we needed to have

609
00:31:41,050 --> 00:31:44,513
in order to navigate that. ~ and certainly
we didn't put any of those

610
00:31:44,513 --> 00:31:48,496
in place when we did this second cigar
lounge that failed here in the valley
either.

611
00:31:48,496 --> 00:31:53,870
So so number one is is legal structure and
having the right guiding documents that

612
00:31:53,870 --> 00:31:58,294
memorialize what the deal is. Like like
what are we working towards?

613
00:31:58,294 --> 00:31:59,925
Where are everybody's responsibilities?

614
00:31:59,925 --> 00:32:00,925
So that's number one.

615
00:32:01,164 --> 00:32:03,716
The number two is an org chart.

616
00:32:03,716 --> 00:32:07,699
And I know it sounds really campy and it
and it feels very like,

617
00:32:07,699 --> 00:32:10,561
you know, Harvard business school or or

618
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:12,000
Sign

619
00:32:11,575 --> 00:32:13,249
siload and you know.

620
00:32:13,186 --> 00:32:14,186
Yeah.

621
00:32:13,666 --> 00:32:15,558
All that stuff. But what I will tell you,

622
00:32:15,558 --> 00:32:17,359
especially having worked with the
military,

623
00:32:17,359 --> 00:32:22,712
is what that what that ~ org chart
provides is lines of communication.

624
00:32:22,712 --> 00:32:28,416
How do how do we work up and down that
organization and how do we communicate?

625
00:32:28,416 --> 00:32:31,508
How do we lead? where do responsibilities
lie?

626
00:32:31,508 --> 00:32:37,022
And I have seen more pain in organizations
that that actually don't have a chart.

627
00:32:37,022 --> 00:32:41,025
They're flat, right? They'll have a a
single entrepreneur and and he's got,

628
00:32:41,025 --> 00:32:42,826
you know, fifteen to twenty people that

629
00:32:43,242 --> 00:32:47,935
all knock on his door, right? And and I've
never wanted to be that kind of a leader.

630
00:32:47,935 --> 00:32:51,047
I've always wanted to push ~ decision
making and authorities.

631
00:32:51,047 --> 00:32:56,011
Like I felt like as a CEO, my job was to
put the organization in position

632
00:32:56,011 --> 00:32:59,542
to have success. And so for me to do that
means I've got to I've

633
00:32:59,542 --> 00:33:03,536
got to mobilize everybody who works for me
and I've got to push that decision making

634
00:33:03,876 --> 00:33:08,319
as deep into the organization as I can
while providing guardrails.

635
00:33:08,319 --> 00:33:10,280
Right. Like I don't want you driving off
the road.

636
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:12,512
So here here's here's the road that you're
going to drive on.

637
00:33:12,856 --> 00:33:15,058
But I'm gonna empower you you got the keys
to the car,

638
00:33:15,058 --> 00:33:17,215
you got fuel in the in the in the tank,

639
00:33:17,215 --> 00:33:20,623
and I need you to go out and do these
things and and I wanna make sure that that

640
00:33:20,623 --> 00:33:22,156
you get to where I need you to be.

641
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:29,398
So in that same form, ~ in this world

642
00:33:29,398 --> 00:33:32,653
of entrepreneurism and people being
entrepreneurial and wanting

643
00:33:32,653 --> 00:33:35,697
to start businesses and not knowing what
we're getting into before we start them,

644
00:33:35,697 --> 00:33:37,630
I don't think many of us really,

645
00:33:37,630 --> 00:33:39,913
really know. Not the full context,

646
00:33:39,913 --> 00:33:40,913
but

647
00:33:43,042 --> 00:33:47,308
What when we all start the cigar shop for
you,

648
00:33:47,308 --> 00:33:50,774
even being an author, it's an
entrepreneur,

649
00:33:50,774 --> 00:33:54,559
me doing real estate things, podcasts,

650
00:33:54,559 --> 00:33:56,212
real estate development.

651
00:33:58,894 --> 00:34:05,516
Do you think that we all set out to be
something similar?

652
00:34:05,516 --> 00:34:07,626
And I'm gonna use these adjectives,

653
00:34:07,626 --> 00:34:11,077
to be great, to be e to be elite,

654
00:34:11,077 --> 00:34:14,068
to have an incredible, awesome experience.

655
00:34:14,068 --> 00:34:17,339
Like, do you think we all because I'm
gonna have a follow up question with that?

656
00:34:17,339 --> 00:34:21,120
Do you think we all quietly, even if we
don't know what we're doing,

657
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,781
do you think the vast majority of us go
into it wanting and thinking

658
00:34:25,101 --> 00:34:26,101
the same thing or no?

659
00:34:27,103 --> 00:34:29,195
No, I think for everybody it's a little
bit different.

660
00:34:29,195 --> 00:34:32,356
~ I I have, and I'm not just saying this,

661
00:34:32,356 --> 00:34:38,458
I have never had a goal of necessarily
being great at one particular thing

662
00:34:38,638 --> 00:34:43,759
or or money. ~ that's never been a a
motivation for me.

663
00:34:43,759 --> 00:34:49,460
I love solving problems. ~ in in in both
my software business

664
00:34:49,860 --> 00:34:51,722
and in my real estate, you know,

665
00:34:51,722 --> 00:34:52,812
redevelopment business.

666
00:34:53,246 --> 00:34:55,257
I was solving very, very tough problems.

667
00:34:55,257 --> 00:34:58,608
Like for me, it was the challenge of ~ you
know,

668
00:34:58,608 --> 00:35:02,109
the first company we were developing tools
for law enforcement in

669
00:35:02,109 --> 00:35:05,279
the military for as they were getting,

670
00:35:05,279 --> 00:35:10,520
guess what, computers and phones in their
squad cars on their person.

671
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,121
Like we had to build technology that met
them where they were at.

672
00:35:14,121 --> 00:35:17,881
So it was really ~ a journey of
understanding what does it look like to

673
00:35:17,881 --> 00:35:20,792
be a law enforcement officer on the side
of the road at two AM?

674
00:35:21,130 --> 00:35:23,331
investigating an automobile accident.

675
00:35:23,331 --> 00:35:25,553
So what how do I provide drawing tools?

676
00:35:25,553 --> 00:35:27,514
How do I provide reconstruction tools?

677
00:35:27,514 --> 00:35:30,786
How do I provide data capture tools that
make that job easy?

678
00:35:30,786 --> 00:35:36,049
Because no policeman ever got into uniform
with a gun so that they could

679
00:35:36,049 --> 00:35:38,700
be on the side of the road working an
automobile accident.

680
00:35:38,700 --> 00:35:43,153
So so th this was something that was a a
necessary but it wasn't why they

681
00:35:43,153 --> 00:35:47,205
got into it. So my motivation's always
been to solve tough problems.

682
00:35:47,205 --> 00:35:48,826
As I've gotten older

683
00:35:49,406 --> 00:35:51,587
And specifically with the cigar lounge,

684
00:35:51,587 --> 00:35:58,311
it was connection. It was how do how do I
how do I create community that's authentic

685
00:35:58,331 --> 00:36:03,374
and that's relational, that that that I
can take all these experiences that I've

686
00:36:03,374 --> 00:36:07,186
had and I can breathe them into an
organization where I can see kind

687
00:36:07,186 --> 00:36:11,458
of an exponential return. So when I see ~
entrepreneurs,

688
00:36:11,458 --> 00:36:13,259
you know, even even handy men,

689
00:36:13,259 --> 00:36:15,480
stuff like that that are coming into my
cigar lounge,

690
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,582
I'm always very, very active with being

691
00:36:19,118 --> 00:36:23,677
curious and inquisitive and making sure
that I'm making myself available.

692
00:36:23,677 --> 00:36:26,663
Like that's my gift to them is is being
able to provide them.

693
00:36:26,663 --> 00:36:30,941
Here's some of the lessons and the lumps
that I've taken and encourage them along

694
00:36:30,941 --> 00:36:31,941
the way.

695
00:36:33,368 --> 00:36:36,903
So if we all have different ideas when we
start.

696
00:36:36,903 --> 00:36:38,925
Yeah. Maybe different desires,

697
00:36:38,925 --> 00:36:42,530
different goals. But if we all knew what
we were getting into,

698
00:36:42,530 --> 00:36:44,893
it they better be pinned down to something
real.

699
00:36:44,893 --> 00:36:49,069
Yes. So the question is,

700
00:36:49,069 --> 00:36:51,512
could somebody achieve their goals?

701
00:36:53,954 --> 00:36:58,516
Becoming an entrepreneur if they're not
particularly likable.

702
00:37:00,844 --> 00:37:04,335
think it's very, very tough. ~ the my
mentor,

703
00:37:04,335 --> 00:37:10,487
kind of my CEO mentor, ~ he was ~ actually
the CEO of the defense contractor that

704
00:37:10,487 --> 00:37:12,858
bought my software company in 2009.

705
00:37:12,858 --> 00:37:17,479
~ he shared a story with me that was
shared to him by his father.

706
00:37:17,479 --> 00:37:23,371
And his father was in construction and
then Ken served ~ as

707
00:37:23,371 --> 00:37:26,542
a Navy bomb tech ~ master chief

708
00:37:26,834 --> 00:37:30,896
And then started a counterterrorism
company kind of post-9-11.

709
00:37:30,896 --> 00:37:34,320
And so, so two very, very different
industries.

710
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:39,173
But but what Ken told me was the wisdom he
got from his father was that there were

711
00:37:39,173 --> 00:37:41,305
three secrets to business success,

712
00:37:41,305 --> 00:37:43,556
but that you only had to get two of them
right.

713
00:37:43,556 --> 00:37:45,348
And I was like, Ken, like hit me.

714
00:37:45,348 --> 00:37:46,889
I I I gotta hear these. And he's like,

715
00:37:46,889 --> 00:37:49,341
number one, people like you. He's like,

716
00:37:49,341 --> 00:37:52,063
number two, people like you. And number
three,

717
00:37:52,063 --> 00:37:53,754
that you have a good product and service.

718
00:37:54,434 --> 00:37:57,256
He's like, the reality is if people like
you,

719
00:37:57,256 --> 00:38:02,080
then business is hard and you're going to
be able to overcome missteps,

720
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:07,144
~ missed deadlines, mistakes because
people want to work with you.

721
00:38:07,144 --> 00:38:10,587
He's like, but if you have the best
product or the best service

722
00:38:10,848 --> 00:38:12,869
and you're just simply unlikable,

723
00:38:12,869 --> 00:38:16,863
it's very, very difficult. Like you just
have to execute at such

724
00:38:16,863 --> 00:38:22,317
a perfect level because you've you've
you've not treated this whole idea

725
00:38:22,317 --> 00:38:23,317
of relationship.

726
00:38:23,838 --> 00:38:27,221
~ and like ability with the gravitas that
it really deserves.

727
00:38:28,632 --> 00:38:32,155
So then just to counterpoint to all the
people listening saying,

728
00:38:32,155 --> 00:38:33,796
but what the books we've written,

729
00:38:33,796 --> 00:38:37,149
and and to point out like a a Steve Jobs
or an Elon Musk.

730
00:38:37,149 --> 00:38:40,702
I have massive, right? You've probably
I've read the Walter Huddings.

731
00:38:40,702 --> 00:38:41,773
I've re- We've read them, right?

732
00:38:41,773 --> 00:38:45,796
We've read them. Neither one of them are
particularly likable.

733
00:38:45,796 --> 00:38:48,858
However, I think this is probably in line
with your argument.

734
00:38:48,858 --> 00:38:52,131
They're just elite. Yeah.

735
00:38:52,131 --> 00:38:54,033
Both of them were just elite performers,

736
00:38:54,033 --> 00:38:55,924
thinkers. There's something about their
DNA.

737
00:38:55,924 --> 00:38:57,656
So then we shouldn't say, well,

738
00:38:57,656 --> 00:38:58,656
see.

739
00:38:58,722 --> 00:39:00,803
There's an example. You don't have to be
likable.

740
00:39:00,803 --> 00:39:06,529
And it's like, hey, we're probably talking
about one in a hundred million

741
00:39:06,589 --> 00:39:10,653
or one in ten million of a human being
that for some reason the combination

742
00:39:10,653 --> 00:39:14,447
of their talents just wins in spite of all
the things that's not going

743
00:39:14,447 --> 00:39:15,788
to work for the vast majority of us.

744
00:39:16,834 --> 00:39:19,576
I agree. And I th and I think with those
two names,

745
00:39:19,576 --> 00:39:26,302
~ Jobs and Musk, you're you're talking
about two of the most innovative brains

746
00:39:26,362 --> 00:39:28,224
that have existed in the last hundred
years.

747
00:39:28,224 --> 00:39:33,468
I mean, they were thinking thoughts and
are or are in Musk's case still thinking

748
00:39:33,468 --> 00:39:38,553
thoughts that just d like I consider
myself a pretty high IQ individual

749
00:39:38,873 --> 00:39:42,236
and I'm not even having the kind of
thoughts or trying to solve the kind

750
00:39:42,236 --> 00:39:44,778
of problems that Elon Musk is trying to
solve.

751
00:39:45,068 --> 00:39:46,639
So I think those are the exceptions.

752
00:39:46,639 --> 00:39:51,233
I think most businesses and and the
example is consider the

753
00:39:51,233 --> 00:39:55,046
10 businesses that you're frequenting on a
regular basis in your community.

754
00:39:55,046 --> 00:39:58,119
Why are you there? Like I guarantee you,

755
00:39:58,119 --> 00:40:00,071
if you really think carefully about it,

756
00:40:00,071 --> 00:40:03,454
it's not because they have the most
innovative product.

757
00:40:03,454 --> 00:40:07,007
It's because you got introduced to them or
you had an experience there that

758
00:40:07,007 --> 00:40:09,919
was positive. And there is some relational
element,

759
00:40:09,919 --> 00:40:12,241
whether, you know, like my plumber,

760
00:40:12,241 --> 00:40:13,241
~

761
00:40:13,494 --> 00:40:15,255
Who works on all my commercial buildings?

762
00:40:15,255 --> 00:40:17,517
~ he's originally from New Zealand.

763
00:40:17,517 --> 00:40:21,961
He's a Kiwi. He just relentlessly returns
calls to me.

764
00:40:21,961 --> 00:40:24,853
Like, doesn't matter what time that I've
got a leak in a building or

765
00:40:24,853 --> 00:40:28,967
or a water issue, or I had a sewer line
that actually broke and I had,

766
00:40:28,967 --> 00:40:32,430
you know, unpleasantness gurgling up on a
patio.

767
00:40:32,430 --> 00:40:37,484
~ he relentlessly answers his phone
immediately with his great accent.

768
00:40:37,484 --> 00:40:38,874
Josh, how can I help you today?

769
00:40:38,874 --> 00:40:39,986
You know, what what do you need?

770
00:40:39,986 --> 00:40:42,338
And so I'll never he's not the cheapest.

771
00:40:42,656 --> 00:40:45,789
But I know that he's always gonna answer
my call.

772
00:40:45,789 --> 00:40:48,341
He's gonna be super delightful and do it
with a smile,

773
00:40:48,341 --> 00:40:51,243
even when he's dealing with some of the
most horrible things you'd have

774
00:40:51,243 --> 00:40:55,146
to deal with. And so I think we can look
at those those those businesses

775
00:40:55,146 --> 00:40:59,320
and I think that is the normal ~
experience that we have

776
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,582
is there's something relational there as
opposed to,

777
00:41:01,582 --> 00:41:05,055
you just have to have a big brain and a
big idea and that overcomes everything.

778
00:41:05,055 --> 00:41:06,446
I I think those are the exceptions.

779
00:41:07,928 --> 00:41:13,871
All right. So we're checking the
likability box and saying you're going

780
00:41:13,871 --> 00:41:20,365
to be substantially better off if you
develop the ability to be likable,

781
00:41:20,365 --> 00:41:22,166
even if naturally maybe you weren't.

782
00:41:22,166 --> 00:41:24,062
If you develop that and you work on that,

783
00:41:24,062 --> 00:41:26,709
you're going to have a higher chance to
succeed and get what you want in life,

784
00:41:26,709 --> 00:41:32,692
make impacts, like your day. What do we do
though with also work ethic,

785
00:41:32,692 --> 00:41:35,604
with commitment?

786
00:41:36,544 --> 00:41:40,810
With discipline. What do what do we do
with those then?

787
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,771
So as we talk about building culture,

788
00:41:44,771 --> 00:41:47,772
like one of the mentors, one of the books
that I read ~ when I was

789
00:41:47,772 --> 00:41:49,632
in high school was John Wooden's book.

790
00:41:49,632 --> 00:41:51,933
So John Wooden, coach at the UCLA Bruins,

791
00:41:51,933 --> 00:41:54,554
~ he had his pyramid of success.

792
00:41:54,554 --> 00:41:57,134
~ so I was studying that, you know,

793
00:41:57,134 --> 00:41:59,155
as a as a high school basketball player.

794
00:41:59,155 --> 00:42:03,516
~ because here's a guy that won eleven NC
two A championships,

795
00:42:03,516 --> 00:42:07,437
which is just unmatched. Like you're never
going to see that again.

796
00:42:07,437 --> 00:42:09,568
And Coach Wooden was a

797
00:42:09,742 --> 00:42:12,684
culture warrior. And if you look at his
pyramid of success,

798
00:42:12,684 --> 00:42:14,785
there's five blocks at the bottom.

799
00:42:14,785 --> 00:42:17,377
Three of them are relational. ~ so,

800
00:42:17,377 --> 00:42:19,409
you know, they're touching on topics like
friendship.

801
00:42:19,409 --> 00:42:21,080
I think it's friendship, loyalty,

802
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,691
and cooperation. So very relational kind
of topics.

803
00:42:23,691 --> 00:42:27,694
But the book ends of it, I think are what
you're speaking to,

804
00:42:27,694 --> 00:42:30,376
which is one is industriousness,

805
00:42:30,376 --> 00:42:33,438
you know, your ability to you've got to
work hard.

806
00:42:33,438 --> 00:42:38,932
Like at the end of the day, worthwhile
results ~ come from hard work and
planning.

807
00:42:39,052 --> 00:42:41,844
Like that has to be there. The other
bookend is enthusiasm.

808
00:42:41,844 --> 00:42:43,615
And I tell people this all the time.

809
00:42:43,615 --> 00:42:47,438
If you do not have a passion for the
industry that you're in and

810
00:42:47,438 --> 00:42:51,951
the work that you're doing, go find
something you are passionate about because

811
00:42:52,252 --> 00:42:56,385
it is very, very unlikely that you're
going to invest the time,

812
00:42:56,385 --> 00:43:00,758
the energy into the relationships and the
growth if you're not passionate about

813
00:43:00,758 --> 00:43:04,300
the subject matter. So so I I think that
speaks to,

814
00:43:04,300 --> 00:43:05,541
you know, you're very, very right.

815
00:43:05,541 --> 00:43:06,541
I and

816
00:43:06,432 --> 00:43:09,543
And relationships and that whole skill set
of likability,

817
00:43:09,543 --> 00:43:11,404
you can learn to be better at that.

818
00:43:11,404 --> 00:43:14,866
And I know some people that don't feel
like they're naturally likable.

819
00:43:14,866 --> 00:43:16,926
Like, like, you know, I get this from you,

820
00:43:16,926 --> 00:43:18,867
Mark. You you you oo likability,

821
00:43:18,867 --> 00:43:20,858
I oose likability. So Josh, well,

822
00:43:20,858 --> 00:43:22,909
of course it's easy for you to talk about
this.

823
00:43:22,909 --> 00:43:27,471
What I encourage people to do is start
with the one.

824
00:43:27,471 --> 00:43:29,932
Like, like I'll ask people, like,

825
00:43:29,932 --> 00:43:31,963
what's the one relationship that you have
right now,

826
00:43:31,963 --> 00:43:33,544
whether it's a customer, you know,

827
00:43:33,544 --> 00:43:34,554
vendor, employee.

828
00:43:35,128 --> 00:43:38,260
that's not good today. Go talk to that
person.

829
00:43:38,260 --> 00:43:40,981
Go try to heal one relationship.

830
00:43:40,981 --> 00:43:43,423
And and and you're gonna mess up,

831
00:43:43,423 --> 00:43:45,844
right? If you're not naturally likable,

832
00:43:45,844 --> 00:43:48,425
you're gonna trade paint. It's gonna be a
little bit awkward.

833
00:43:48,425 --> 00:43:51,407
But what I would encourage you to do is
start by listening.

834
00:43:51,407 --> 00:43:56,370
You know, the like when we create margin
for others to speak to us,

835
00:43:56,370 --> 00:43:58,971
that's the first step in kind of getting
healthy.

836
00:43:58,971 --> 00:44:00,872
And then we need to be considerate.

837
00:44:00,872 --> 00:44:03,864
We need to do things like cooperate and
and

838
00:44:04,130 --> 00:44:07,531
But when people are feeling heard and pee
and you're taking time out of your

839
00:44:07,531 --> 00:44:10,032
day to fix that one relationship,

840
00:44:10,032 --> 00:44:13,673
that becomes contagious. And and I and I
tell people like,

841
00:44:13,673 --> 00:44:19,534
keep doing that. Like, so one fixing one
relationship is also going

842
00:44:19,534 --> 00:44:24,075
to breathe into their life that you took
time and that's a contagious thing.

843
00:44:24,075 --> 00:44:25,856
And they're going to go do that with one
person.

844
00:44:25,856 --> 00:44:29,657
So you do that enough, you're going to
find yourself in a culture,

845
00:44:29,657 --> 00:44:33,208
which is what we should be focused on of
mutual respect.

846
00:44:33,843 --> 00:44:37,616
and and hard work and the things that
create a healthy organization.

847
00:44:38,754 --> 00:44:42,617
When'd you come to we we talked about or
or you shared about the six year

848
00:44:42,617 --> 00:44:45,840
old Joshua and yeah whether he's an
entrepreneur or a criminal,

849
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:47,081
I don't know. I don't know which one,

850
00:44:47,081 --> 00:44:48,262
taking that money from dad.

851
00:44:49,138 --> 00:44:51,305
sorry. Like I I knew he read the book,

852
00:44:51,305 --> 00:44:54,153
he read the story, but I I think he knew
what I was doing.

853
00:44:54,153 --> 00:44:55,153
Well

854
00:44:54,326 --> 00:44:55,326
Yes.

855
00:44:54,826 --> 00:45:00,760
Yeah, he probably did. ~ so where did the
philos the relationship philosophy,

856
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:05,593
where'd that come from that you
intentionally apply it now?

857
00:45:05,593 --> 00:45:10,526
I don't I'm i'm I'm I'm assuming that you
weren't already that and

858
00:45:10,526 --> 00:45:12,057
you realize like all this works,

859
00:45:12,057 --> 00:45:13,108
or did you? Yeah.

860
00:45:14,414 --> 00:45:17,405
no, I would say it was with my software
company.

861
00:45:17,405 --> 00:45:23,637
So so prior to that the technology that I
was building was very ~ impersonal.

862
00:45:23,637 --> 00:45:28,778
Like like it was we were building ~ back
end ticketing solutions for

863
00:45:29,068 --> 00:45:30,848
the similar to like a ticket master
concept,

864
00:45:30,848 --> 00:45:34,209
but this is in, you know, the mid nineties
before the internet

865
00:45:34,209 --> 00:45:37,730
was really even prevalent. I remember the
pitch that I made ~

866
00:45:37,730 --> 00:45:39,661
to the ticketing organization about,

867
00:45:39,661 --> 00:45:43,862
you know, being able to sell tickets to a
concert online and the

868
00:45:44,180 --> 00:45:47,322
owners of that ticketing company actually
and is one local

869
00:45:47,322 --> 00:45:49,954
to Idaho called Selectacy, but they had
said,

870
00:45:49,954 --> 00:45:52,956
Well Josh, they're like, how how would
people pay for the tickets if they

871
00:45:52,956 --> 00:45:54,227
buy the ticket online? I said,

872
00:45:54,227 --> 00:45:55,458
they'll use their credit card.

873
00:45:55,458 --> 00:45:57,339
And I remember vividly, they're like,

874
00:45:57,339 --> 00:46:01,062
no. They're like, nobody'll ever put their
credit card number online.

875
00:46:01,062 --> 00:46:03,524
They'll never the and I said, you're just
wrong.

876
00:46:03,524 --> 00:46:09,408
I said, I think human nature is naturally
a little bit lazy and we will look

877
00:46:09,408 --> 00:46:11,159
for ways to make our life easy.

878
00:46:11,159 --> 00:46:12,280
And and

879
00:46:12,544 --> 00:46:16,757
If I have to if I have the choice between
showing up at a grocery store where

880
00:46:16,757 --> 00:46:20,799
you do your on sale for the Garth Brooks
concert and it's February in Idaho

881
00:46:20,799 --> 00:46:24,321
and I'm freezing, but I've got to be there
at four AM because the tickets

882
00:46:24,321 --> 00:46:30,365
go on sale at eight AM, or I could be at
home in my pajamas at seven fifty nine
with

883
00:46:30,365 --> 00:46:32,707
my credit card ready to click and buy the
ticket.

884
00:46:32,707 --> 00:46:36,449
I think they'll do that. And so we had
success because we took the risk

885
00:46:36,449 --> 00:46:38,060
and we built that ticketing engine.

886
00:46:38,422 --> 00:46:40,923
And we just charged and we we didn't get
paid for it.

887
00:46:40,923 --> 00:46:44,224
So we just charged a a ticket fee for
anything that got transacted.

888
00:46:44,224 --> 00:46:47,026
And within six months, we we had done
very,

889
00:46:47,026 --> 00:46:50,147
very well and sold the technology back to
the the the entity.

890
00:46:50,147 --> 00:46:52,808
And so, ~ but it was very interpersonal.

891
00:46:52,808 --> 00:46:55,249
When I started my work with law
enforcement,

892
00:46:55,249 --> 00:46:59,022
I think one of the very common threads
between law enforcement and

893
00:46:59,022 --> 00:47:01,131
the military is just relationships.

894
00:47:01,131 --> 00:47:04,043
There's a natural distrust, right?

895
00:47:04,043 --> 00:47:07,174
Because of the work that law enforcement
and the military has to do.

896
00:47:08,046 --> 00:47:11,829
that I think they come into all
relationships with skepticism.

897
00:47:11,829 --> 00:47:17,683
And so it was really where I I home this
message of ~ number one,

898
00:47:17,683 --> 00:47:19,955
I'm not imposing technology on them.

899
00:47:19,955 --> 00:47:24,598
Like my job is not to go ~ solve problems.

900
00:47:24,598 --> 00:47:30,082
My job is to understand what their
troubles are and then look to bring
solutions

901
00:47:30,082 --> 00:47:34,345
to them. So I think that's the the I think
I really have our law enforcement

902
00:47:34,345 --> 00:47:35,946
and our military community to thank.

903
00:47:36,354 --> 00:47:41,148
for helping me really understand
relationships and how to engage with a
customer.

904
00:47:41,148 --> 00:47:44,641
And then by the time we got to a cigar
lounge it was it was running downhill.

905
00:47:44,641 --> 00:47:49,846
Like it was just a natural extension of
what we'd built ~ during those early
years.

906
00:47:51,566 --> 00:47:52,951
So then you write this book.

907
00:47:56,110 --> 00:48:01,047
Were you the same person after you were
finished writing the book than

908
00:48:01,047 --> 00:48:02,047
you were when you started?

909
00:48:02,604 --> 00:48:05,777
No. ~ I started the book in 2019.

910
00:48:05,777 --> 00:48:10,641
So at at that point, ~ the cigar lounge
had been open two years.

911
00:48:10,641 --> 00:48:15,185
I had been writing my entire professional
career,

912
00:48:15,185 --> 00:48:16,987
but mostly for trade publications.

913
00:48:16,987 --> 00:48:19,351
~ so in every business that I did,

914
00:48:19,351 --> 00:48:21,591
I always wrote articles and submitted
them.

915
00:48:21,591 --> 00:48:23,422
That was one of my marketing strategies.

916
00:48:23,422 --> 00:48:26,045
Get get published in different trade
journals,

917
00:48:26,045 --> 00:48:27,706
trade magazines, things of that nature,

918
00:48:27,706 --> 00:48:29,558
but never found a topic

919
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:34,111
that I was really interested in doing the
hard work of 60,000 words.

920
00:48:34,111 --> 00:48:36,732
Like that's just for anybody who's written
a book,

921
00:48:36,732 --> 00:48:38,132
I applaud you because it's very,

922
00:48:38,132 --> 00:48:41,023
very hard. it's hard to to build those
threads,

923
00:48:41,023 --> 00:48:44,324
to do the research, to write. It's very
hard to be edited.

924
00:48:44,324 --> 00:48:48,275
~ so when we went through the editing
process this last spring to have people

925
00:48:48,275 --> 00:48:52,936
be critical ~ of how you tell your story ~
is is a little bit tough.

926
00:48:52,936 --> 00:48:57,137
~ but in in doing all that starting in
2019,

927
00:48:57,137 --> 00:48:58,798
~ in 2020,

928
00:48:59,350 --> 00:49:01,811
I got cancer the middle of the summer.

929
00:49:01,811 --> 00:49:04,051
So I got primary pancreatic lymphoma.

930
00:49:04,051 --> 00:49:06,532
~ and so the book book went away.

931
00:49:06,532 --> 00:49:09,233
Like, you know, at this point I'm in a
battle.

932
00:49:09,233 --> 00:49:15,584
~ I'm in chemotherapy and my infusions are
eight and a half hours ~

933
00:49:15,584 --> 00:49:17,825
in the drip chair and I had to do this all
alone.

934
00:49:17,825 --> 00:49:19,746
So even though my wife was a registered
nurse,

935
00:49:19,746 --> 00:49:23,437
this is COVID. So the only patients could
be in the hospital,

936
00:49:23,437 --> 00:49:26,748
only patients could be in the infusion
centers for chemotherapy.

937
00:49:26,748 --> 00:49:27,748
So

938
00:49:27,562 --> 00:49:33,435
I was by myself having to kind of journey
through this this thing called cancer,

939
00:49:33,435 --> 00:49:36,096
not knowing, you know, ~ you know,

940
00:49:36,096 --> 00:49:38,327
whether I was going to make it or not.

941
00:49:38,327 --> 00:49:42,099
And so when when I finished up ~ kind of
that journey,

942
00:49:42,099 --> 00:49:44,089
which, you know, the chemotherapy was,

943
00:49:44,089 --> 00:49:47,551
you know, a half a year and then probably
a full year after that of

944
00:49:47,551 --> 00:49:53,244
~ the the specific cocktail that I got ~
attacked all your ~ soft tissue

945
00:49:53,244 --> 00:49:54,244
in your body. So

946
00:49:54,572 --> 00:49:57,724
by my third infusion, I couldn't really
walk anymore.

947
00:49:57,724 --> 00:50:02,107
Like I had a cane and I would fall
regularly and so so my body just

948
00:50:02,107 --> 00:50:07,091
had to get healthy again. And so I think
that ~ when I dove back into

949
00:50:07,091 --> 00:50:13,035
the book to finish it, I just had a I
there was a sense of urgency that

950
00:50:13,075 --> 00:50:15,356
if I was this passionate about the
message,

951
00:50:15,356 --> 00:50:19,219
I I I needed to pour everything I have
into it.

952
00:50:19,219 --> 00:50:23,862
And and the book is not it's not as much
for others as it was for me.

953
00:50:24,236 --> 00:50:27,398
I was writing to myself like these are the
lessons that I learned and

954
00:50:27,398 --> 00:50:30,728
I don't want to forget And and I certainly
don't want my children,

955
00:50:30,728 --> 00:50:34,282
I don't want my grandchildren to not be
able to read these words.

956
00:50:34,282 --> 00:50:36,573
And so you'll you'll see even in the
writing style,

957
00:50:36,573 --> 00:50:42,776
it's very conversational. it's very much a
transparent walk in in in my journey.

958
00:50:42,776 --> 00:50:46,298
And so yeah, I was very, very different in
publishing the book than when

959
00:50:46,298 --> 00:50:49,860
I first started it. And I think it's a
better product for it.

960
00:50:49,860 --> 00:50:53,122
I don't I don't think the I don't think
the book would have carried

961
00:50:53,528 --> 00:50:57,354
the amount of weight that it does had I
not gone on my own personal journey.

962
00:50:58,978 --> 00:51:03,945
What do you think ~ now, 'cause we can
listen to these books too at times.

963
00:51:03,945 --> 00:51:05,548
All right. Don't know if you did audible
or not.

964
00:51:05,548 --> 00:51:06,548
Don't know if you've done that,

965
00:51:06,399 --> 00:51:07,399
but but

966
00:51:10,028 --> 00:51:12,799
What do you think is best about the
experience?

967
00:51:12,799 --> 00:51:18,182
There's so many books now. What's best
about the experience

968
00:51:18,602 --> 00:51:21,964
for the reader actually reading books?

969
00:51:21,964 --> 00:51:24,285
Like what what do you think we get from
it?

970
00:51:24,285 --> 00:51:25,806
And here's why I asked the question.

971
00:51:29,132 --> 00:51:34,867
In an idealistic world, the person that
you were from going through cancer,

972
00:51:34,867 --> 00:51:39,081
fighting the battle, if the book and the
experience for the reader

973
00:51:39,081 --> 00:51:43,355
is much better because you went through
that and how to live a better life

974
00:51:43,355 --> 00:51:45,437
and these approaches and who should who
who you should be,

975
00:51:45,437 --> 00:51:51,092
in an idealistic world, every single
person who reads it applies it.

976
00:51:53,890 --> 00:52:00,078
That doesn't happen. So are they still
just entertainment?

977
00:52:00,078 --> 00:52:02,702
What should we do with these? If that's
the case,

978
00:52:02,702 --> 00:52:05,536
what I just said, what should what should
we do better?

979
00:52:07,310 --> 00:52:10,972
I think we all should be taking inventory
of our time.

980
00:52:10,972 --> 00:52:16,775
So so one of the things that my wife and I
started doing I wanna say it's been two,

981
00:52:16,775 --> 00:52:22,398
three years ago, is we stopped bringing
our phone to meals.

982
00:52:22,398 --> 00:52:25,880
whether that was a meal at home or when
we'd go out to eat.

983
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:29,943
~ we wanted to make sure, even after being
married thirty-two years,

984
00:52:29,943 --> 00:52:33,265
we want to be intentional about that time
together.

985
00:52:33,265 --> 00:52:35,726
Like when we're sitting there at a meal.

986
00:52:36,362 --> 00:52:39,174
I'm I'm engaging with her and and man,

987
00:52:39,174 --> 00:52:40,825
would I love to see a sports score?

988
00:52:40,825 --> 00:52:42,627
Would I l you know love to be able to,

989
00:52:42,627 --> 00:52:45,108
you know, take the phone call from the
grandsons?

990
00:52:45,108 --> 00:52:48,751
Like absolutely. But but in that moment of
time,

991
00:52:48,751 --> 00:52:52,574
we wanna we wanna set that aside for for
the two of us.

992
00:52:52,574 --> 00:52:55,736
And I think that in society right now,

993
00:52:55,736 --> 00:52:59,779
we have allowed too many distractions into
our life.

994
00:52:59,779 --> 00:53:03,562
And and and the reason I say that is I see
it in my cigar lounge every day.

995
00:53:04,218 --> 00:53:08,100
and even though I example it, like we
don't allow cell phones for our staff

996
00:53:08,100 --> 00:53:11,412
or for my wife and I when we're in there
because we want to be in community.

997
00:53:11,412 --> 00:53:12,942
We want to be having conversations.

998
00:53:12,942 --> 00:53:16,784
But I will tell you, seventy-five percent
of the people that come into the lounge,

999
00:53:16,784 --> 00:53:19,806
they buy their cigar, they buy their old
fashioned,

1000
00:53:19,806 --> 00:53:22,787
they sit there on their phone and we have
to have charging cables

1001
00:53:22,787 --> 00:53:27,269
for their phone because they're they're
they're just burning up their entire life

1002
00:53:27,270 --> 00:53:28,270
death scrolling.

1003
00:53:28,492 --> 00:53:30,583
And I'm sure there's some productive
things going on.

1004
00:53:30,583 --> 00:53:32,593
It might be a business deal, it might be
a,

1005
00:53:32,593 --> 00:53:35,846
you know, a a text exchange with a child
or a coworker.

1006
00:53:35,846 --> 00:53:39,087
But it's a lot of death scrolling.

1007
00:53:39,087 --> 00:53:43,319
And I can look around at the screens and
it's a video game and it's Candy Crush

1008
00:53:43,319 --> 00:53:46,131
and it's, you know, whatever, TikTok
videos.

1009
00:53:46,131 --> 00:53:50,533
And I think that we need to be I think the
tactile,

1010
00:53:50,533 --> 00:53:52,724
the that whether you audio book,

1011
00:53:52,884 --> 00:53:56,107
Or whether you read a book, I happen to
use a Kindle because my eyes aren't

1012
00:53:56,107 --> 00:53:59,389
so great anymore. So I like being able to
increase that font size and have

1013
00:53:59,389 --> 00:54:04,603
a backlit screen. But but taking time out
of our day to get wisdom,

1014
00:54:04,603 --> 00:54:06,985
like I didn't have all the answers.

1015
00:54:06,985 --> 00:54:10,999
I was just very curious. And so when I
went into,

1016
00:54:10,999 --> 00:54:12,790
like even into the cigar business,

1017
00:54:12,790 --> 00:54:17,073
I went and sought out people that had done
that in other markets that I knew.

1018
00:54:17,073 --> 00:54:21,035
And I went and met with them and sat down
with them or or would schedule

1019
00:54:21,035 --> 00:54:22,528
a phone call or a video call.

1020
00:54:22,882 --> 00:54:26,604
to get wisdom from them. And so I think
that when we look at a book,

1021
00:54:26,604 --> 00:54:30,167
first of all, you're right. Nobody's gonna
read this book and

1022
00:54:30,167 --> 00:54:32,388
go apply everything because it's not their
journey.

1023
00:54:32,388 --> 00:54:37,072
It's my journey. And so my hope and my
encouragement and certainly a

1024
00:54:37,072 --> 00:54:39,302
lot of the feedback that I've gotten in
the last,

1025
00:54:39,302 --> 00:54:42,495
you know, forty five days since we
launched the book is that people

1026
00:54:42,495 --> 00:54:44,476
are taking one thing. You know,

1027
00:54:44,476 --> 00:54:46,708
of those eight lessons, there's one of
them.

1028
00:54:47,266 --> 00:54:48,907
that resonates and they go, man,

1029
00:54:48,907 --> 00:54:51,570
I want to do this different. I want to do
this different in my life.

1030
00:54:51,570 --> 00:54:53,231
I want to do this different in my
business.

1031
00:54:53,231 --> 00:54:56,914
And and that's my hope is that somebody
would take that one nugget,

1032
00:54:56,914 --> 00:55:00,237
take, take the time, create the discipline
to,

1033
00:55:00,237 --> 00:55:02,819
to read that book and then, and then look
for that,

1034
00:55:02,819 --> 00:55:07,152
look for that one thing. And and I always
write real practical ways to do this.

1035
00:55:07,152 --> 00:55:09,204
So in a chapter about building culture,

1036
00:55:09,204 --> 00:55:12,777
I give you four or five things at the end
of that chapter and how

1037
00:55:12,777 --> 00:55:14,609
you can improve the culture in your
organization.

1038
00:55:14,609 --> 00:55:16,160
Just start there. Right.

1039
00:55:16,341 --> 00:55:17,635
And and I think you'll benefit.

1040
00:55:17,635 --> 00:55:18,635
Mm-hmm.

1041
00:55:19,086 --> 00:55:21,468
I don't know who it was, if it was Peter
Thiel,

1042
00:55:21,468 --> 00:55:24,091
if it was Larry Ellison, if it was Mark
Andreessen,

1043
00:55:24,091 --> 00:55:26,153
one of these tech guys. I don't know who,

1044
00:55:26,153 --> 00:55:28,455
but they talk, maybe it was Ellison.

1045
00:55:28,455 --> 00:55:30,846
They talk about you, if you're going to
start a business or you're going

1046
00:55:30,846 --> 00:55:33,500
to buy a business, you want one that has a
big moat around it.

1047
00:55:33,500 --> 00:55:36,522
One that can't be penetrated,

1048
00:55:36,522 --> 00:55:38,474
one that people can't come steal your
market share.

1049
00:55:38,474 --> 00:55:39,706
I mean, it's hard to do, right?

1050
00:55:39,706 --> 00:55:42,328
It's hard to create something with a big
moat around it.

1051
00:55:42,328 --> 00:55:44,480
Or unless maybe it's not, but it feels
hard to me.

1052
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:50,097
When does community become a genuine
competitive moat?

1053
00:55:50,097 --> 00:55:53,153
So maybe it's not the business that the
moat's around,

1054
00:55:53,153 --> 00:55:54,646
maybe it's the way the business is run.

1055
00:55:56,076 --> 00:55:58,848
Yeah, I think ~ I think the the moat,

1056
00:55:58,848 --> 00:56:03,302
~ which is a great concept. I th there's
lots of books that have been written.

1057
00:56:03,302 --> 00:56:06,835
I but Blue Ocean Strategy is one that
comes to mind where you got this whole
idea

1058
00:56:06,835 --> 00:56:09,177
of red ocean, blue ocean and being where,

1059
00:56:09,177 --> 00:56:11,339
you know, everybody else isn't and having
some,

1060
00:56:11,339 --> 00:56:13,481
you know, some some blue ocean to operate
in.

1061
00:56:13,481 --> 00:56:19,446
I think relationships are the
discriminator for a lot of

1062
00:56:19,607 --> 00:56:22,709
a lot of businesses. So when we started
the cigar lounge,

1063
00:56:22,709 --> 00:56:23,709
~

1064
00:56:23,778 --> 00:56:26,220
Because in my first company, the
technology company,

1065
00:56:26,220 --> 00:56:28,951
where we were doing work with law
enforcement and the military,

1066
00:56:28,951 --> 00:56:31,303
we had a discriminating technology.

1067
00:56:31,303 --> 00:56:35,006
Nobody had built a ~ you know,

1068
00:56:35,006 --> 00:56:39,909
a a a vector-based diagramming tool for
reconstructing automobile accidents,

1069
00:56:39,909 --> 00:56:41,750
crime scenes, domestic violence,

1070
00:56:41,750 --> 00:56:44,722
bombings. So we had something that was
unique.

1071
00:56:44,722 --> 00:56:46,683
So we had the moat. In the cigar lounge,

1072
00:56:46,683 --> 00:56:48,875
there's no moat. There's no barrier to
entry.

1073
00:56:48,875 --> 00:56:52,357
Most cigar lounge owners in the United
States are hobbyists,

1074
00:56:52,357 --> 00:56:53,357
right? They

1075
00:56:53,548 --> 00:56:56,139
had a career doing something, let's say
law enforcement.

1076
00:56:56,139 --> 00:56:59,320
And when they retired at fifty five,

1077
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:01,741
they still had time and they like smoking
cigars.

1078
00:57:01,741 --> 00:57:03,422
So why not open a cigar lounge?

1079
00:57:03,422 --> 00:57:05,893
So they're not, they're not professional
business owners.

1080
00:57:05,893 --> 00:57:07,824
Like they they they own a business,

1081
00:57:07,824 --> 00:57:12,406
but it's a hobby for them. And so so
there's no barrier to entry.

1082
00:57:12,406 --> 00:57:17,628
And so in that world, the moat does become
the relationship.

1083
00:57:17,628 --> 00:57:22,740
So we were the first like real premium
cigar lounge in the in the jet

1084
00:57:22,904 --> 00:57:25,874
Greater Boise area, of which Meridian's
part of.

1085
00:57:25,874 --> 00:57:28,278
So it exists in what's called the Treasure
Valley.

1086
00:57:28,278 --> 00:57:32,222
So we have a little over a million people
that that live in this large valley

1087
00:57:32,222 --> 00:57:36,605
in numerous cities. but we were the first
one that had like a full bar

1088
00:57:36,806 --> 00:57:40,829
and a walk-in humidor and a lounge area
for you to sit and smoke in.

1089
00:57:40,829 --> 00:57:46,744
Since then, we now have six lounges that
are in our valley,

1090
00:57:46,744 --> 00:57:49,917
right? We've had a lot of growth ~ over
the last,

1091
00:57:49,917 --> 00:57:51,448
you know, seven or eight years.

1092
00:57:51,934 --> 00:57:54,176
~ people leaving California, Washington,

1093
00:57:54,176 --> 00:57:56,577
Oregon, whether they're political
refugees,

1094
00:57:56,577 --> 00:58:00,520
equity refugees ~ that have come to Idaho
and relocated here.

1095
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:05,544
And so there's more lounges, but but the
reason that we maintain our status

1096
00:58:05,624 --> 00:58:11,808
in the Valley is we focus on people and
and and relationships and we make sure
that

1097
00:58:11,988 --> 00:58:14,490
that that's the moat. That's the thing
that we protect.

1098
00:58:14,490 --> 00:58:18,233
~ and that's what we hear pretty
consistently from people that come

1099
00:58:18,233 --> 00:58:20,074
and visit is man, we just we just

1100
00:58:20,524 --> 00:58:24,109
We can't even describe it. We just feel
like we're a part of a family here that

1101
00:58:24,109 --> 00:58:25,715
we've we've been taken care of.

1102
00:58:25,715 --> 00:58:26,715
Hm.

1103
00:58:27,766 --> 00:58:28,766
What ~

1104
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:35,512
Don't like to ask people what you would do
different because it's such

1105
00:58:35,512 --> 00:58:39,914
a cliche question. Because what I always
tell people is even folks that would

1106
00:58:39,914 --> 00:58:42,475
get a divorce, what I share with them is
I'm like,

1107
00:58:42,475 --> 00:58:43,615
but you wouldn't give back to kids,

1108
00:58:43,615 --> 00:58:48,137
would you? Right? And so I look at
business the same way.

1109
00:58:48,137 --> 00:58:52,409
You wouldn't be where you're at now having
whatever conversation with

1110
00:58:52,409 --> 00:58:55,821
the person saying, What would you do
different if you hadn't made some
mistakes,

1111
00:58:55,821 --> 00:58:57,641
worn, grown, become the human,

1112
00:58:57,641 --> 00:58:59,072
be in the situation you are now?

1113
00:58:59,736 --> 00:59:01,894
But I don't think the right question is
what would you do different?

1114
00:59:01,894 --> 00:59:03,722
What would you have done better?

1115
00:59:06,050 --> 00:59:09,862
I think that going through this so so
prior to cancer,

1116
00:59:09,862 --> 00:59:11,772
so we had opened up a lounge in twenty
seventeen,

1117
00:59:11,772 --> 00:59:13,073
it got cancer in twenty twenty.

1118
00:59:13,073 --> 00:59:18,975
~ prior to that, I I was the face

1119
00:59:19,136 --> 00:59:22,457
of the cigar lounge. ~ so I wanted to lead
it,

1120
00:59:22,457 --> 00:59:24,017
I wanted to establish the culture,

1121
00:59:24,017 --> 00:59:28,920
and what I learned going through cancer
and what I would do differently from

1122
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:34,732
day one having gone through that is I
would have been developing my replacement.

1123
00:59:35,138 --> 00:59:39,621
And I would have been very invested in
building culture and

1124
00:59:39,621 --> 00:59:42,523
not building something that required me to
be there.

1125
00:59:42,523 --> 00:59:46,225
Because what we found in those first
couple of years is when I was there,

1126
00:59:46,225 --> 00:59:48,147
people liked hanging around me.

1127
00:59:48,147 --> 00:59:51,489
I was a natural storyteller. I really did
love people,

1128
00:59:51,489 --> 00:59:53,050
even though that didn't fill me up.

1129
00:59:53,050 --> 00:59:57,783
Like as an introvert, like I I don't like
sitting around with a bunch of people.

1130
00:59:57,783 --> 00:59:59,524
That's not that's not what does it for me.

1131
00:59:59,524 --> 01:00:02,336
But I felt like that was my act of service
to my customers.

1132
01:00:02,336 --> 01:00:04,778
In going through cancer, I realized that.

1133
01:00:05,024 --> 01:00:07,335
If I'm gonna build an organization around
me,

1134
01:00:07,335 --> 01:00:09,446
then it requires me to be there.

1135
01:00:09,446 --> 01:00:12,458
And I could have very easily punched my
ticket and not been there.

1136
01:00:12,458 --> 01:00:17,301
So we've been very, very intentional since
then about hiring general managers

1137
01:00:17,421 --> 01:00:22,414
and and forcing our general manager to
consider his secession plan and and

1138
01:00:22,414 --> 01:00:27,446
how is he investing in the next people and
pushing that culture as deep

1139
01:00:27,446 --> 01:00:30,728
as we can into our staff. And so that
would be the thing I would do different

1140
01:00:30,728 --> 01:00:34,210
is I would have started that doing day one
and not relied on

1141
01:00:34,424 --> 01:00:36,629
cancer to to force my hand.

1142
01:00:37,866 --> 01:00:40,498
Awesome conversation. I'm gonna keep this
guy talking forever,

1143
01:00:40,498 --> 01:00:42,689
but boise he needs him back or meridian.

1144
01:00:42,689 --> 01:00:47,663
~ so give the plug on if Jesus smoked
cigars,

1145
01:00:47,663 --> 01:00:50,555
because what I don't know is in the
chapter is since he couldn't,

1146
01:00:50,555 --> 01:00:55,448
because there weren't cigars, what was the
equivalent then and did he?

1147
01:00:56,248 --> 01:00:58,409
Yeah, he broke bread. I mean, honestly,

1148
01:00:58,409 --> 01:01:01,520
the like if you if you read the New
Testament,

1149
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:04,201
what you see a consistent thread of is
meals.

1150
01:01:04,201 --> 01:01:06,342
and I talk about it all the time with my
friends.

1151
01:01:06,342 --> 01:01:07,963
Like, I love breaking bread with people,

1152
01:01:07,963 --> 01:01:09,343
and I think that's what he did.

1153
01:01:09,343 --> 01:01:13,325
So the the common denominator there was
food and gathering

1154
01:01:13,325 --> 01:01:15,886
and bringing people around and having
really,

1155
01:01:15,886 --> 01:01:19,417
really great conversations. And we see
that in the parables that he told.

1156
01:01:19,417 --> 01:01:22,068
Like he was a storyteller. ~ so that's
what he did.

1157
01:01:22,068 --> 01:01:25,690
So the plug though, ~ if Jesus smoked
cigars

1158
01:01:25,952 --> 01:01:28,003
Eight lessons in relational leadership.

1159
01:01:28,003 --> 01:01:34,046
~ we wanted to make it easy. So if you go
to www.ifjesus.com,

1160
01:01:34,046 --> 01:01:35,947
everything that you need is there.

1161
01:01:35,947 --> 01:01:37,988
So all the links to social media.

1162
01:01:37,988 --> 01:01:40,299
You want to buy a hardcover version of the
book,

1163
01:01:40,299 --> 01:01:42,490
if you want links to Amazon, Barnes and
Noble,

1164
01:01:42,490 --> 01:01:45,441
Goodreads, like the the book's available
everywhere,

1165
01:01:45,441 --> 01:01:47,552
and we provide links to all that on the
webpage.

1166
01:01:47,552 --> 01:01:50,103
~ and also some bio information about me.

1167
01:01:50,103 --> 01:01:51,103
So if there's

1168
01:01:51,528 --> 01:01:54,380
~ workshops, ~ training, coaching,

1169
01:01:54,380 --> 01:01:55,610
things that you're interested in.

1170
01:01:55,610 --> 01:02:00,824
We provide a lot of information out there
in regards to that and ~ some direct ways

1171
01:02:00,824 --> 01:02:04,856
to get a hold of me. because I feel like
in whatever the number one cause

1172
01:02:04,856 --> 01:02:07,448
of death is birth. So, you know,

1173
01:02:07,448 --> 01:02:09,739
I I'm I'm gonna wear off this mortal coil.

1174
01:02:09,739 --> 01:02:14,211
And in the meantime, I wanna try to impact
as many lives as I can ~

1175
01:02:14,212 --> 01:02:18,324
in a positive way. So so great ways to get
a hold of me on the website as well.

1176
01:02:19,030 --> 01:02:22,098
right, you all, we love that Joshua Evarts
joined us,

1177
01:02:22,098 --> 01:02:23,321
beard and all.

1178
01:02:24,255 --> 01:02:26,811
you're kind. Okay. Thanks for having me,

1179
01:02:26,811 --> 01:02:27,811
Mark.

1180
01:02:27,067 --> 01:02:28,071
Thank you for the conversation.

1181
01:02:28,071 --> 01:02:29,071
It was really good.