Welcome to Hal leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, it's our responsibility as leaders to make sure that people from every walk of life are included and heard and valued when they come to work. But of course, the big question is, how do we do that? Because obviously, this is a challenge that everyone's working on. And if we're being honest, a lot of diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives at the corporate level just aren't moving the needle enough. My guest today thinks about diversity, equity and inclusion differently. Paul Sorvati is the chairman and CEO of Insparity, an HR solutions company for small and mid-sized businesses. Today, you're going to hear how Paul and his team embrace diversity as a starting point and then they build on it to find a true sense of commonality and cohesion. Instead of just checking a box for DEI initiatives, they're actually developing genuine connections that really move their business forward. All while making sure everyone has a voice at the table. You're really going to love hearing how Paul values people and how it shows up in the way the company operates and the way he leads. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Paul Sorvati. Before we get into your incredible career, which is incredible and how you lead , I know you and your brothers are owner of the Renaissance Golf Club, which is in North Berwick and it's the site of the Scottish Open. How'd that come about? Well, that was an opportunity that came to us when we actually had a family golf outing and an individual there asked us if we wanted to build a golf course in Scotland. Of course, we said of course not because there's already plenty of golf courses there. And then I think we just had a little bit too much wine to drink that night and then we got interested in it. But Tom Doke designed the course for us and what really intrigued us is it's adjacent to Mirafield. So it's right next to one of the greatest golf courses in the world and we were able to build what I call a family legacy right there, right next door. And it's really a great give back to the game of golf that's meant a lot to our family. Well, that's great. I was lucky enough to play at the Renaissance and Mirafield. This is I think five or six years ago. Is there been anything really interesting that's happened since then? What are you most proud of? Involvement in the Scottish Open and becoming really the home of the Scottish Open has really been significant. This is our fourth year coming up and we've got another three years under contract after that. We'll see where it goes from there. But we've actually had the golf course tweaked a little bit by Padre Harrington and Tom Doke working together. And the reality is everything about it when you hold an event in the same place year after year, you can get it, make it better and better and better. And it's just off the chart right now in so many different ways. So our goal of becoming a really elite club, we've really accomplished that now and we're on a nice path forward. And Paul, you've been at Insparity now for I believe 36 years ago since you started it. You were the founder. I think it'd be fun to start by kind of going back to the beginning. Tell us the path you took to become an entrepreneur. Well, I got to tell you when I was going to university, going to college at Rice University first and then ran out of money, went to University of Houston and I got to a point there where I said, you know, my desires and wishes were more on the entrepreneurial bent. And I left school and started businesses. And I had actually six different businesses of my own in my 20s. And then finally when I was 29, came up with this idea because I'd seen how difficult it was to start and build a small business. And I really consider those who are successful at that to be real heroes in our society and our communities because, you know, starting from scratch, building a business, you end up with employment in your community and supporting the community. So I wanted to change the success equation for small and mid-sized businesses, increase the likelihood and degree of success. And that's how we came up with this concept and disparity to become a company that stands right next shoulder to shoulder and even co-employees, all of the staff at the location, do all the administration, provide the benefits so they can attract and retain key people and help the business owner get a people strategy that takes them to their success that they're after. And, you know, that was the idea and it has been enormously successful. And we really do change the success equation for those businesses. You started in disparity in 1986. And as I understand it, you had a 600 square foot office. What's one of your favorite stories of those early days that you just love to tell? The interesting part about starting in disparity was that we weren't just starting a company. The idea of outsourcing the HR function did not exist. We had to start an industry and a company. And so literally in the first seven or eight years in business, I was spending my time like any entrepreneur doing what it takes to try to build and grow the business . And at the same time, for those seven or eight years, I was fighting in all kinds of legal and regulatory environments and state regulation, trying to, you know, have the right to exist. So it was kind of unique to start a new industry at the same time. So what was the big problem? Why didn't people want you around? I thought everyone would love it, you know, because I mean, look what we do. What we do for employees, better benefits and better services. And look what we do for the small business. Who would not like that? But it turns out we found that our concept that I wrote down the term co- employment was a word that disrupted the entire legal and regulatory history of employment and how could you actually co-employee people so that we could aggregate all the small, medium-sized business employees onto a common platform and bring value to the table in a much stronger way, volume discounting and all kinds of other things. So I thought everybody would love it, but it turns out we were kind of messing up the way things had been organized, the way laws had been written, and we were disrupting the definition of employer. Well, as they say, the rest is history because now you've got a $5 billion business. So describe the business as it is today and how it's really evolved over the years. It's absolutely incredible to see what the people in our company do every day to help these companies succeed. What makes us unique is in our DNA is the care and concern for the small and midsize business ownership and leadership and what it takes to be successful and standing right alongside those business owners and helping them get the people strategy right to accomplish their goals. And when you think about it, every company's got to have a financial plan, they have to have a sales plan, they have to have operations and technology, but they really need to have a people plan because it's the people that implement all those other plans. And it's amazing how many times business leadership, that's not their strength. And so we are able to really provide something that is icing on the cake. It helps drive the results. And to when I look around our company today and see what our people do every day, day in and day out, the breadth of our services, the depth of our services and the level of care, it really makes a huge difference for the clients. And it's really been a dream come true. You're obviously very mission directed, very focused on your clients and helping them win in whatever marketplace that they're in. When you think back about it, Paul, do you remember that aha moment when you actually had the idea? You've done a great job of describing what the idea was, but was there that big moment where you just go, this is it? You know, there was early on, there was an individual that talked to me about a potential business that was basically just putting payroll and benefits together. So kind of combining those two components, which in and of itself can be a big solution to some serious problems for a small business. But I believe that when I heard that description, what I thought of was different than what he was describing. And I really thought since I'd come through several businesses, some that did well, some that crashed and burned, and of course you learn more from the crashing and the burning than you do from the ones that are successful. But right away, I thought about literally bringing that expertise, bringing up people's strategy to bear in a small, mid-sized company and how big of a difference that could make. And that wasn't the idea they were talking about, but that's the idea that popped in my head. That's a great example of pattern thinking there. And speaking of crashing and burning, it does take a lot of courage to start a business, especially when you've had some ideas fail. What advice would you give to a young leader who's struggling to find their footing and really wants to be an entrepreneur? Yeah, I think what you need to have that will drive you forward because obviously you're going to have all kinds of obstacles. And I think really understanding who it is you're trying to help, how you're trying to help them, and why you're doing what you're doing. If you really hone in on the why, then you'll figure out the how. And that's where I think a lot of times companies get started and they're basically thinking just about a product or a service, but they're not really getting in the mindset of the client base, putting them first, putting your employees first because they're the ones who are going to accomplish what you're trying to do with the clients. But you knowing the why and then being able to explain the why to your own staff, that is really key to kind of facing the obstacles and getting through to the other side. You know, Paul, I really admire this philosophy that you have, which is to value people above all else. Can you give us an example of when this idea was really put to the test? Well, yes, there have been quite a few examples of this. But I've always said that we have no right to help anyone else take care of their people if we're not taking care of our people. So I ended up writing a book, Take Care of Your People, that you're aware of, David, and it helped to really put into detail what we'd gone through over time to get this part of our business right. But I remember a time when we had a significant financial obstacle in the business back in 2002. It was a contractual failure with an outside firm that was significant and severely damaging. In fact, it was going to wipe out our entire earnings for the year to go through this. Wow. And you know, I just said, look, here's the thing. Even though they had a contractual failure with us, we're not going to go back to our clients because we're going to honor our contracts with them. And when you actually walk out your values that you talk about integrity, doing what you say you're going to do, accountability, things, other values, it's when you walk that out, that's when you really see the reward of it. And that helped to secure so much in the minds of our corporate staff and our client base, even though it was super painful for a year, it helped to elevate us over the long run. Paul, I'd love to hear you talk about your business because you're so passionate about one of the things that you say is that you hire people for their input rather than their output. What do you mean by that? Absolutely. I think seeing people as a unit of production or seeing how much profit can I make on somebody, I never think like that. You know how I think about it? I think that every time I see a new person join our company, I get so excited because I believe that every person changes the potential of your company. Think of an idea, one idea or one action that someone can take. When you add another person to your company, it adds to the potential of your business. And so, you know, I'm not bringing the amount to tell them what to do or how to do what to do or, you know, I'm bringing the amount because their input is what's going to help elevate our organization. So we definitely hire people for their input, not just how much work they can do. You know in your new book, which is called Making Differences Work, you describe the in-sparity culture being one that makes every person feel appreciated. What's your process of recognition and how do you drive that behavior as the CEO? Yeah, this is so critical, you know, knowing that we appreciate every person and it starts with a value statement about the worth of every individual. And that is foundational to us. Every person regardless of the reality of our differences, we're all different, you know. There's seven billion of us in the world and what may be closer to eight now and even twins are not the same. You know, every one of us are unique and different people. And so we believe that appreciating the worth of every person is the starting point and then acting on that and how we interact, making sure that woven into the fabric of our everyday interaction is a great deal of respect, care and concern for the people we're working with. And you know, to develop care and concern, you have to know people. You have to get to know people beyond the differences, finding the common alities we have with one another. And that's when your connections get stronger and stronger. So you know, you hear a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, I try to focus on commonality, equality and cohesion as a higher goal, a higher step to take that is kind of the flip side of the coin. So starting with diversity, a wide variety of people focusing on commonality so that we get to know each other, better have care and concern. And then a true sense of belonging is what it's all about. Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guests? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do too. My name is Koolah Callahan and together with David, I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes and in them, I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading young brands and all of his answers are super practical and inspiring. Think this great insight David shared in one of our most recent three more questions episodes. You will never ever get to the next level until two things happen. Number one, you show people that you are functionally excellent. So if you're in marketing finance, IT or whatever, you got to show people that you know how to do your job really well. And you'll never get to be the leader of those teams if you haven't demonstrated the ability to get along with people, take people with you, inspire them and coach them. Because the people that move up ultimately are the people who've demonstrated that they know how to get the most out of people and the most out of their teams. Get the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to How Leaders Lead wherever you get your podcasts. You know speaking of your new book and just touching on one of the major tenets of the book just there, what was your motivation to write it? I'll tell you what happened. This was immediately after the George Floyd tragedy that took place and all of us, you know we remember how impactful that was for all of us to watch for 29 seconds someone with a knee on their neck and drawing their last breath and because of the nature of it with a police officer, it doesn't matter who that would be one person or another person but because it was a white police officer and a black victim, it caused such an enormous surge in the pain in our society and you know wishing that we'd come further along. It just was a raw incident. So that caused a lot of companies, a lot of people to say I want to do something, I want to do something now. Now I have found when you have something that significant, that emotional, that the people who went over the long run are those who are focused and deliberate and thoughtful about what to do, not reacting but thinking things through. And so what I did at that point, first thing I did was reach out to a good friend of mine who had been on our board of directors, happens to be black, his name is Dr. Eli Jones and he co-authored this book with me making differences work but that came much later. But I called Dr. Jones because some of what was going on I wanted to understand better and what I really saw was that we have a great culture but we didn't have a DEI program and I'll tell you why in a second. But because we didn't have a DEI program, some of the reaction was we need to do something, we need to do something and I said well look here's what we're going to do. We ended up bringing in an outside firm and going ahead and doing a full evaluation of where we stood on every DEI measure. And the reason we didn't have a DEI program was that back in the 90s I was on a committee in Houston with other CEOs as DEI was developing and I was on it for nearly two years. Every quarter we had this meeting at the end of the two years, I finally started asking questions and I said what actually have you seen positive out of this effort we 're working. What measurable results have you had? How have attitudes changed? How much change have you seen in your organization? And everybody looked at me like I was asking questions no one wanted to answer. And so what I saw was a check the box mentality and if you look at traditional DEI efforts within businesses they end up for most of history it ends up more of a checking of the box. Oh yeah we need to do this, we're going to check the box we had those meetings. You know that didn't cause much change. The second thing was sometimes you have these meetings and instead of just checking the box you have a drain of energy in the organization just because it's off to the side. It's not about what the business is doing it's just about this topic that everybody needs to pay attention to. More recently DEI programs have even caused a level of polarization inside a business. And you know I've got a business mind. I'm after what is the best approach to take to not only reach the DEI goals, the unifying goals not every DEI goal but the unifying goals and what also improves business performance. If people care about each other and work better together it improves performance. But anyway back to the story when we went through the process of evaluating whether it's parity because I'm sorry I forgot to mention as I came out of that effort the two years working in the DEI CEO group I decided we weren't going to have a program . We were going to build it into our DNA about how we treat each other. And so what happened then after this incident during the pandemic with George Floyd tragedy that's when we went through the process to evaluate where we were. And I got to tell you we bought in a consulting firm that uncovered every rock looked at every possibility and as we were going through it I was kind of wondering well gosh how are we going to measure up here. And when we got to the end what we found that on every benchmark that they measured we were above even though we didn't have this DEI program that is more traditional. So I asked the question I said let me ask you a question. We're exceeding every benchmark and we're not doing almost any of the things that you guys are recommending as a DEI program. Why do you think that's happening? And they said well we don't know. And I said well you know what I think I know but I've never written it down and that's what made me decide to write this book. And if you had to boil it down Paul what are the top two or three things leaders should keep in mind in thinking about DEI and building it into your DNA versus this program off to the side or as you describe it the check the box kind of mentality. Exactly well what I believe is the right approach is to have a values based, culture driven, people centric approach and I call that commonality equality and cohesion. And I really talk about diversity equity and inclusion as being a good starting point. It's obviously important to want to have a diverse group of people. But obviously important to be inclusive but that can't be the goal because just having the right people on the table doesn't accomplish anything yet. Don't you want people to do something? Don't you want them to work together better? They have to have commonality to see what they have in common and connect better. You know do you want just inclusion? No I'll give you an example. You know I come from a family of nine children I was seventh out of nine. I was the fifth boy in the family and I was younger. We used to have little baseball games in the backyard and I say backyard it's not a baseball field. There were trees in center fields. I'm talking about like a farmland. And we'd have little baseball game out there. Of course what you do first thing you do is pick teams right? Well since I was kind of the run child guess who was always last to get picked? Well that was me. And sometimes if it wasn't even they'd say well you don't get to play because you know it's not you know with odd number of people there. Well I'd go crying back into mom right? And she'd come back and she'd say alright guys you guys have to include Paul. And then she'd go on. And they'd say okay Paul get out to right field and you don't get to bat. So I was included but I was far from feeling appreciated. So inclusion is not a high enough goal to reach the objectives you want in your company. That's why if you think about cohesion. Cohesion comes from the word cohere which is means stick together. That's perfect. You want your people to stick together. You want cohesion in your organization. So this is about setting these goals differently and then reinforcing those in a manner that produces a greater sense of belonging that achieves four business outcomes. This is really important because what I'm saying to you today is that if you do this right not only do you really accomplish the unifying goals of diversity equity and inclusion but you also improve the likelihood of success in your business because you'll get greater individual discretionary effort, better team collaboration, better innovation in your business and a better ability to have alignment in your organization. Now if you're a business leader and you don't want those four things you don't know what you need to be focusing on to take your business to the next level. Those are four important things and this strategy accomplishes both. I love how you believe in just having an inner woven in everything that you do and as the output becomes those four things. I think that makes so much sense. It's important for any leader to keep an open mind and seek outside perspectives. How do you lean into this as part of your leadership, Paul? First of all, in our organization we make sure that everybody's opinion is valuable. This is a real interesting issue because in a lot of the efforts of the DEI within businesses more recently those programs have limited discussion, have caused people to clam up and that's directly the opposite of what needs to be accomplished I believe in effective leadership and that is to be welcoming and open to new ideas, other ideas, other opinions, other concepts and we all do better when our own ideas are challenged. How do you create an environment where you can have challenged ideas can be challenged without people feeling challenged, feeling defensive and that's so important. That's why this is a culture driven solution because that's an aspect of your culture. To me the culture is the oil of the engine, it's not any particular part, it's the oil that makes all the thing work together and so that's so critical to have an environment where people can speak out and can throw out ideas and not feel like you're getting judged and getting slapped down or not open to ideas. You mentioned earlier that you were the seventh of nine children and your mom taught you a lot about inclusion by how she handled that situation. What else did a teacher be in the seventh of nine kids? Well it does teach you that you have to make a conservative intentional effort to get along. That's the reality of it. When you're giving another example that's kind of a funny one but when you're in a family that size and we didn't, my parents ultimately did fairly well over the course of their lives but when you have all those kids and we're actually second generation, all four of my grandparents came to the United States from Romania actually and so starting with nothing and working our way through. My parents in our household, when the groceries came in there was a certain way you had to handle these things. For example, a pickle jar, there was only enough for one pickle for every person. That was it. You weren't allowed to have more than one and one of the things I remember that was interesting is the first work I did, I went to the golf course and I caddied and one of my older brothers was the caddymaster. He puts me out there on ladies day and I got a couple of bucks at the end of the day and I went straight across from the golf course to the one little general store that was in town and guess what I did? I bought a jar of pickles and sat down there and ate those pickles. That's another thing you learn in a big family like that. You learn that if you go take the initiative you get to have what you want. You know that will make a good deal there. I love it. We talked a bit earlier about you being an entrepreneur. What was the first business you ever started? One of the early businesses I did was in the multi-level world. I got into the Amway business early on and I learned a lot there. Bloody your nose in that business. You learn a lot about people, a lot about how businesses work. Then I also went into some construction related businesses because I thought, " Hey, if I can do that I can do this." We had a construction business that was in the masonry subcontracting business that hit the wall when an economic reversal took place in the Houston area back in the early 80s. It was in my blood to be entrepreneurial. I can see opportunities. I can see solutions to problems and how to help people is a big part of being an entrepreneur and that all fit together. I know you believe in the idea of failing fast. Tell us about your most memorable fail fast story. That really comes out from the early stages of this business because I'll give you a good example. In the first year, here you had this new business that was also a new industry. I went out and personally met with 100 business owners in the first year. I sold 12 accounts. After that year was over, I went back to the other 88. Wasn't able to talk to all of them but to talk to a bunch of them to find out what I did well, what I did wrong and the reality was that what I heard from that was that what we were doing, administrative relief, better benefits, all this support and saving them money. It seemed too good to be true. A lot of folks, it just seems too good to be to it. My mother told me to stay away from folks that have something too good to be true. That helped me solve a problem right away because I decided to be the premium provider and raise my price so that it would be more. Then we could do more for the customer. It was a pivotal thing. It was the failing fast, literally seeing 100 prospects face to face in the first year that I always say, "Look, we need to realize it's failing fast. There's another word for it. It's called learning fast." I think that's really important. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Paul Sorvati in just a moment. You can tell Paul really values and cares for people. That's a trait I see all the time and the great leaders I talk to. In my conversation with John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, you'll hear how he puts this idea into action with his team. Well, it all starts with trust. If they trust, they won't be timid. If they don't trust, they'll be selfish and timid both. It starts with being honest and being real, being upfront. Larry Brown told me if you care about people, you'll always have a job. If they know you care, you can be aggressive. You can coach them as long as they know you care. If you want to elevate your team and help them be at their best, go listen to my conversation with Coach Cal, episode 22, here on How Leaders Lead. Paul, you're obviously a great leader and if you had to pick one distinguishing characteristic that has separated you and helped you have the success that you have, what would it be? I would have to say it's caring. I really care. I care about our employees, every one of them. When we were going through this process of evaluating how the company had done and we were digging through where we were, there were some stories, incidents of stories where people felt couldn't be who they wanted to be. Those stories crushed me because I care. I care about every person in the company. I care about every customer. I think that helps a lot and very good leaders that I've seen throughout my history, that's a big thing. You know they care and that passion really adds a lot to the scenario. For me, that's what's made the difference. Sam Walton had to say that nobody will care about you until you care about them . I think that makes a good sense. Obviously for you, you had a lot of failures as an entrepreneur early on and then you built this great company. I'm sure it hadn't been a straight line all the way to the top as a leader. Was there a time where you really learned about your own leadership that you really needed to change and what was it and what did you do? I had to make a lot of changes because if you think about going from the entrepreneurial phase of starting a business where you're making all the decisions yourself and you're having to be all at the right spots and then it gets a little bit bigger and now you're kind of spinning plates and you're making sure you're in the right spot at the right time with the prospect or with the client or with the employee and you're still kind of making all the decisions. Then you move to a different phase. Now you've got to work through others. You've got to pick decent people that are going to be responsible. That's a different phase of leadership and how to think. Then it gets bigger. Today we have 4400 employees. I've been a CEO of a public company now since 1997. That's a whole lot different leadership role than the entrepreneurial role that I started in. Figuring out how to lead differently based on how things are changing, what the priorities are, that's really important. I think that one of the key things about being a leader is never stopping on improving, getting better, how to seeing things differently. Not getting just bogged down in one way of thinking. I remember in your last book called Take care of your people. You had a chapter about the power of faith. When I saw the title of the chapter, I thought it was going to be about a religious perspective on the business. But it wasn't really. Talk about what you mean by faith. What I was talking about there is what I call entrepreneurial faith. Faith is believing before you're seeing. It's acting on your belief of what you expect to happen. That's what faith really is. An entrepreneurial faith is such a powerful thing that business leaders have and can't take advantage of if they really understand it. When you paint the picture for your people, whether it's your customers or your employees, that painting the picture about where you're going, being descriptive, being able to hone in on what the real goals and objectives are. I've always felt like the key role of a business leader, CEO especially, is alignment of the organization. In other words, having everybody on the same page, moving the same direction. When you're good at that, getting people on the same page and moving them in the same direction, then it becomes really important that you're setting the right goals . That's what your leadership team should be all about at that point. The entrepreneurial faith is what helps you get everybody on the same page and have people aligned to where they can move the same direction together. That's just faster success. Can you give us a specific story where that faith really paid off for you? Well, I think the one that I mentioned to you about the contractual failure we had, that was a situation where people could see that I was willing to see further down the road and say, "We're going to go through this because it reinforces who we are." At the other side of this, we're going to be better off. We're going to do it. That was a good example of people being able to see. Your entrepreneurial faith, a lot of times, is more understood by watching what you do, not necessarily just what you say. You really have to have that drive to follow through and show that, "Hey, this is where we're going and I'm doing whatever it takes to get there." Paul, this has been so much fun and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Sure. All right. What's one word others would use to best describe you? Encouraging. What would you say is the one word that best describes you? I would say it's focused. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? Oh my gosh. If I could say historically, it would have been Arnold Palmer, who was such an amazing person and lived such an amazing life. For today, I would probably go with somebody like a Scotty Scheffler. What's your biggest pet peeve? Procrastination. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you'd never miss? Before I leave in the morning, I always read one chapter of the Bible. What's your favorite quote? People don't care what you know until they know how much you care. You're trapped on a deserted island. What's one item, not a person. I'm talking about an item here. You'd want with you to pass the time. Well, is there Wi-Fi available? There's the answer. If I turned on the radio in your car, Paul, what would I hear? Oh, you'd probably hear some 70s music, Chicago or something like that. How many hole-in-ones? I've had three. And what's something about you a few people would know? One of my favorite shows was Family Guy. You know, something to make you laugh. It didn't sound like something that would be something I would do, but that was one of my favorite shows. All right. Just a few more questions. I'll let you go here because I know you're busy. You know, you talk about the difference between inspiration and motivation. Can you talk about that? Explain. Yeah. You know, motivation comes from more of what I'd call the carrot in the stick point of view, you know, something you want or something you don't want, punishment and reward. But inspiration is more about, you know, creating the why that I talked about earlier and having that come from the inside, not an outside motivation, but an inspiration that says, hey, you know, I'm doing this because, you know, there's a deep why behind it that's driving me to do what I'm doing. You know, you're heading into your 37th year at Inspirity. What do you see as your unfinished business? I've got a lot of things I'm focused on institutionalizing at the company and making sure, for example, writing this book, making differences work, reinforcing what I think the cultural values based, culture driven, people centric approach, you know, we're in the stage right now of making sure that everybody in the company is consciously competent on this subject of our culture. And what I mean by that, of course, is, you know, I compare a lot of things to golf. And when I see young people playing golf at the college level, they are unconsciously competent. They take on crazy shots that a lot of folks wouldn't take on, and then they do it. They don't realize how good they are. And then as they become a professional, they start to gather a lot of information and all of a sudden they become consciously incompetent. Their game goes backwards. But once they get to the point where they've learned and then can free the thinking back up and understand why and how they can be successful, then they become consciously competent. That's kind of what we're doing here at Inspirity is to understand how weaving these things in the fabric of the company have led to our success, have literally driven our success. And I want to make sure this goes on for the long term, even when I'm gone. So that's an example. You spend a lot of time codifying what you believe is a business leader. This book is a great example, making differences work. How are you leveraging that internally? You've taken the time to codify it. How are you leveraging the book internally? Or are you? Yes, we really are. The first thing that we did was produced only enough for our company and handed them out to everybody. Everybody's, it's not a mandatory thing. I don't like to make anything mandatory. But we're asking everyone to raid the book, we're holding meetings, we're working with our leadership on facilitating meetings to discuss the topics, to discuss how did we end up, you know, exceeding the benchmarks, understanding that is important for the future. So there's a tremendous amount of activity going on. This year, our goal is conscious competence. And that's what we're going to achieve. And then as soon as we hit that mark, then I think we're ready to take this out beyond it to our customer base and others. You write books, you know, you run this business. It's a huge business, it's a public company, all kinds of demands. How do you balance the, just the personal side of this with your family and what advice can you give? Because you know, it seems like you're 24/7. These books don't happen by accident. No, they don't. But you know, I believe in compartmentalization. And I have to do that. I have to say, okay, when I'm at work, I'm working. And in my particular case, you know, I've got a wonderful wife and six children and 20 grandchildren, 10 grandsons, 10 granddaughters. So when I'm in family time, it's a lot and it's work and it's focus. I can't, I can't be doing business when I'm doing that and doing a good job there. So I try to compartmentalize that helps a lot. You know, we'll be going on a vacation soon, taking everybody. And you know, I'd rather immerse myself in that environment. And then when I'm back here, immerse myself in that. Makes a lot of sense. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who wants to be a better leader? You know, just stay open-minded. I would say, you know, continue to pursue leadership. I mean, I love what you're doing in this podcast, David. And you know, I've listened to so many of the other ones that you've had. And there's so many great leaders. You know, if you get one idea, you know, out of, from someone, always being open to a new idea that can help build your skill set. You know, leadership is a matter of skills and experience and, you know, growing in your attitude and your manner of interaction with other people. And that we all can get better every day. Well, Paul, you know, it's so obvious that you've been successful because you have achieved your mission. You're helping businesses succeed and communities prosper. And it kind of reminds me of that you being a classic example of the more you give, the more you receive it. You know, doing the right things and the right things happen. So you're kind of the poster child for that. And I want to thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us today. Thank you so much, David. It's been enjoyable and I appreciate it. You know, Paul is somebody who really stands out. It's pretty rare to find a founder and CEO who can lead a company from a startup phase all the way to a major corporation with 4,400 employees. I got to tell you, you just can't pull that off unless you're incredibly committed to your own growth, to your people, and to a culture where everybody feels included. Now, look, I understand DEI programs can be a sensitive subject. And for good reason, the workplace just isn't equitable for everybody. We're making meaningful progress, but we still have so much further to go. Now more than ever, leaders have to understand the importance of diversity, equality, and inclusion. But we want those values to be real and meaningful, not just a punch list of initiatives that check the box on DEI. I'm excited to read this book, Making Differences Work that Paul and Dr. Eli Jones have written together. I want to see what really moves the needle to building cultures where everyone feels included and heard. I love this idea that we can make our differences work and create stronger, more connected teams as a result. This week, take some time and read the book yourself. And just as importantly, find some time to take an honest look at your team. Do you see signs of a check the box mentality? What opportunities do you have to build on the initiatives that are in your company and also give people an opportunity to find commonalities and build cohesion? No doubt about it, diversity makes an organization stronger. And to make it as strong as possible, you've got to build on that diversity and keep moving towards commonality, equality and cohesion. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders make differences work. Coming up next on How leaders lead is Mark Esper, the former United States Secretary of Defense. People want to take credit or they want to be the big dog in the room. And I think what you do is you get people to focus on the mission, not about themselves, not about who gets the credit, but how do you accomplish the mission? Who do you use on the team? How do you serve your subordinates? How do you support them to kind of unleash them to do great things? And so I think the big thing about the army is it's all about the team and not about me or I. It's about we and us. And we preach that constantly. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How leaders lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]