In this insightful episode of The Business Owner’s Journey, host Nick Berry sits down with Phil Putnam, founder of Phil Putnam Coaching. They explore how to improve employee motivation and performance by focusing on the employee’s desires and needs, not just the company’s goals. Phil shares his innovative approach—which is also the name of his new book— Desire-Based Leadership. He shares actionable insights for business owners on creating a motivating work environment. They discuss critical topics such as Gen Z in the workforce, workplace culture, emotional safety, and vulnerability in leadership.
Phil Putnam emphasizes the importance of accepting that employees care more about their personal well-being than the company’s success. As a business owner, it’s critical to align employee goals with business objectives to drive performance. Trying to motivate them based on what matters to you instead of what they want from their job is a dangerous trap. By understanding their goals and offering them what they desire most, you can inspire true motivation and high performance.
As an entrepreneur, your mind is your biggest asset. Phil discusses the importance of intellectual sharpness for business owners, particularly those offering coaching or thought-leadership services. He shares his approach to avoiding the isolation that can come with running a solo operation and the necessity of staying curious and open to new ways of thinking.
Ignoring the inherent power dynamic between leaders and employees is a major mistake. Phil advocates for leaders to acknowledge this dynamic and create safe spaces where employees feel empowered to share what motivates them. This transparency is key to building trust and getting the most out of your team.
Are traditional leadership methods effective for managing Gen Z employees? Phil suggests they are not. Gen Zers prioritize personal values like climate change and mental health over corporate goals. Business owners must adapt their leadership styles to meet the values and motivations of this younger workforce or face higher turnover and disengagement.
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Phil Putnam (00:00)
You know, we've created this thing.
It is a form of a child to us. It is so special and we see it inside and out and we're unfailingly committed to it, yet we have the least amount of objectivity about it of anybody on earth. And so it's easy for us to think that everybody wants to be a part of what we're doing because we're so in love with it. That's a trap.
That is such a dangerous trap for a leader of any level. If you consciously or subconsciously are operating from an expectation that your employees will have the same relationship with your company that you do, you are in danger. And also you're just wrong. You're just misreading and misunderstanding why humans work.
what motivates them.
Nick Berry (00:47)
The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your
Nick Berry (00:59)
This is a really interesting conversation with Phil Putnam about how to motivate employee performance in ways that employees actually care about. Phil's focused on bridging the gap of understanding between owners, leaders, managers, and employees. I thought it was really interesting to hear this angle on the misconceptions and the beliefs that tend to get in the way of true employee employer alignment.
and then how we can start to adapt and make these things easier, make them more efficient. He's got a book out, Desire-Based Leadership. I have not read it yet, but after this conversation, I definitely will be.
Phil Putnam (01:35)
curiosity is, I work a lot with with leaders and leadership skills. And over the last year, I've become more convinced than ever before that that curiosity about people is a central core skill to being an effective leader, an effective business owner, an effective change agent. And so
I see you expressing that curiosity here in this podcast, that desire to learn. But for any leader to be effective, if you're leading people, you have to be genuinely curious about people.
Nick Berry (02:11)
Is it something you can work on? How do they improve on it?
Phil Putnam (02:13)
I think it's a combination of something that you can and cannot work on, honestly. There are some people who are just innately curious about the world around them. And some people that are more fixated, I think, on the processes and the operations and the structures rather than the people. I think every business needs both type of people and several other types of people to be effective. But I do think there is something innate to a natural curiosity about humanity.
and then what can be learned, I think are the tactics and the operational, behaviors that take that curiosity about people and turn it into a function, a workflow, a business asset. but if you're going to get performance out of your people, which is essential to any business, I do think you have to be a truly empathetic.
You have to be naturally curious and interested and invested in what they care about because that's what's going to motivate them to perform far more than any concern they might have about the success of your business.
Nick Berry (03:25)
Mm -hmm. Because everybody wants to know that you give a shit about them, right? At least to some degree.
Phil Putnam (03:30)
Absolutely. Yeah. And especially for us as business owners, I spent so much of my career on the other side as the employee. And so I've been in that place where I'm sitting there and thinking, this CEO is completely expecting me to care as much about his or her business as I care about my own life. And that's never going to happen because I will never benefit as much from the success of their business as they will. So
Nick Berry (03:54)
Right.
Phil Putnam (04:00)
I've experienced that, but now as a business owner, I realized that I don't want to put that on the people that I work with. You know, I want to motivate them in terms that are going to matter to them, not motivate them on the terms that are going to matter to me and pay off more for me than they will for them.
Nick Berry (04:16)
So one of the things in the notes that I got from you, It's you motivate employee performance in ways employees actually care about. So when I read that, I was like, OK, this is going to be good. So and that's what I think you're describing. Is that an epiphany that you had that led to your entrepreneurship, like going starting your business, or is it one that's just formed since?
Phil Putnam (04:36)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. It was certainly part of the process. So short story of my background, I spent 20 plus years working primarily in tech as an individual contributor on up to an executive. Companies as large as Apple and Adobe, and also very early stage startups. So I've been in the full spectrum of chaos and organization.
And, but I've worked from other people for the majority of my life. And, I, in 2023, in October of 23, I got laid off from, from an executive job at a tech company. They needed to cut costs. wanted to get rid of higher salaries. So I was, I was moved out. And, while I was there in my last year at that company is when I really dug into how to motivate performance. because I was in a place where I had a very large global mandate.
had a very short time span in which to generate top results. And I had to assemble a team on top of one person I inherited when I took on the role. And so I had to have a very quick way, a lightweight, effective way to motivate their performance so we could hit our goals very quickly. And then also I had to make sure I hired people who wanted the experience and the compensation and the day -to -day work life that my company could provide.
So I had to find a way to figure out how do I do all this? And so I just common sensed it one day and I asked myself, what's the best way to get somebody to give me what I want? Well, it's to give them what they want. So when I was getting to know the team member who I'd inherited and then also interviewing candidates to join my team, I would just say, hey, let's set aside the job for a second. Tell me about your life.
Tell me about what you're trying to build for yourself in exchange for the work that you do. Because I believe that's why you work. That's your number one career goal is to get the life that you desire. And I want to be a part of helping you get that. So I would just discover what they wanted. And then I would honestly assess if I could give it to them within what my business could offer, what my company could offer.
And if we could, I mean, that's party time. That's great. Because I know they're getting what they want most, which is a viable pathway to the life that they desire. So they're going to be fundamentally motivated to bring me their best performance. Because this job scenario is a pathway to them getting what they want most. And if they can't get what they desire from the job, I'm going to tell them.
because they're going to realize it eventually if they haven't already. And when they do, they're going to disengage. Their performance is going to suffer. My business results will suffer. And eventually, they will leave. And here's the kicker, Nick. When they leave, it's going to cost my employer or my business, now that I have my own business, anywhere between 5 and 12 times to replace them what it would have cost to satisfy them while I
Nick Berry (07:54)
Hmm.
Phil Putnam (07:55)
mean, the cost of attrition and replacement is astronomical. And several organizations have found data that supports those Forbes and Gallup are chief among them. The cost of replacing one person is between 50 and 200 % the salary of their role. And that's for an individual contributor. For a leader, it's 271 % and more.
I just put together this whole approach to managing people to first solve the problem I had in front of me when I was working for somebody else's company. And then when the time came for me to start my own business after that layoff, I thought, well, what do I want to do? And it took a while for me to kind of find the right calibration of the products I had built. But what I've landed on is really focusing on a business that teaches leaders how to motivate that performance.
and cut their people related costs in ways that don't solely rely on force reduction and layoffs.
Nick Berry (08:56)
Okay. So when you start asking this question, kind of going back just to your discovery, figuring out your process, first of all, think it's kudos to you, but it's really interesting for somebody to have been in a field for 20 years or so and still have the mindset to be open to coming up with a different way to solve the problem.
most people are like, I've been here doing this for 20 years. Like if I haven't been told the answer, like it's somewhere in the things that I've been taught, I have to do those things. like I said, kudos to you for your perspective on things, but how was that received? Because if it's new to you, it's probably new to them. are they looking at you like, hang on, man.
Ha ha.
Phil Putnam (09:45)
It is wild what it did to my relationships with my team members and then the interview candidates. Everybody, every single person that I have, used this motivation discovery model on, I call it the life motivation discovery model. I'll unpack that in just a second. Every one of them has said, I have never been asked this by a leader or by a job interviewer.
I've never been given this level of consideration before in a work setting. And for me, was both heartbreaking, but also so motivating and so affirming. Because my full life mission, apart from even my work, is to increase people's peace of mind. Because if I can do that, if I can make it
more peaceful for you to live in your heart and your mind every day, I have drastically improved the quality of your life. And I've made it easier for you to get what you want from your time alive. And I mean, that to me, time is so much more important than money. Time is the most important resource that I'm aware of. And I want every single person to get exactly what they want from their time alive. And...
because work consumes the majority of an adult professional's time. I choose to do my work in the context of employment. But this message, this question of, or it's not even a question, it's saying to somebody, you know what, I'm just gonna start from the basic human truth that you love yourself more than you love my business, and I'm gonna celebrate that. I'm just not gonna question it. I'm not gonna ask you to behave like it's not true.
I'm going to accept the fact that you want employment to be a tool by which you generate the life you want to live. And I'm going to jump into that current of human nature and use it as a source of momentum. So I just want you to tell me what you're trying to build. What do you desire in your life? And then if I can give that to you for the next two, three, four, 10, 20 years, however long our desires are aligned, I'm going to do that because I don't want to waste your time.
And it has a level of regard to it, of human regard and respect that I have found to be very rare in business. And that's why people respond as strongly as they do to it. So it has the tactical and the business output and the benefit of me actually having reason to believe that I'm going to get top performance from somebody. It also nurtures the relationship on a level that is truly transformative.
Nick Berry (12:35)
So I'm assuming that it's not a perfect fit for every culture, right? Like what are the characteristics?
Phil Putnam (12:42)
Well, I think it's a perfect fit for every culture and every industry because every industry employs people. And every human's number one career goal is to get the life they want. And even for us as business owners, we've chosen to work in this setting because it satisfies us to a certain extent, but we're still running our businesses to have the life that we want for ourselves and our loved ones. So I think it's applicable everywhere. The variable
is that you have to have senior leadership in the organization that accepts this truth, that adopts this view of employment. And what it requires is a level of humility and a level of just honesty with themselves about humans, about why humans work. And this is something I think can be particularly difficult, excuse me, for us, not only as business owners, but business creators. You know, we've created this thing.
It is a form of a child to us. It is so special and we see it inside and out and we're unfailingly committed to it, yet we have the least amount of objectivity about it of anybody on earth. And so it's easy for us to think that everybody wants to be a part of what we're doing because we're so in love with it. That's a trap.
That is such a dangerous trap for a leader of any level. If you consciously or subconsciously are operating from an expectation that your employees will have the same relationship with your company that you do, you are in danger. And also you're just wrong. You're just misreading and misunderstanding why humans work.
what motivates them.
And that's where a lot of companies get into some serious performance and motivation problems. a lot of companies right now are ingrained in this performance crisis and they can't figure it out. They can't figure out why the solutions they're pursuing aren't working. And it's because they're not actually tackling the core problem of performance, which is motivation.
They're not trying to motivate their employees on terms that matter most to the employee. They're still taking an employer -centric approach to motivation and performance uplift.
Nick Berry (15:10)
What does it look like when leadership hears what you're saying and they have the epiphany where they're like, no, I've been doing this. I've had this backwards for so long.
Phil Putnam (15:21)
Well, I can only say what it's like when I deliver the message. I'm very graceful. So I'm sort of known as somebody who's like, wow, you slipped the knife in really smoothly. Thank you for that. So I don't embarrass people. But what this is the most fascinating thing that I've noticed is that it brings relief. I think that's the biggest thing that I've been encouraged by.
is it brings relief to these leaders because first of all, it makes sense. It lands because it's an essential human truth and they're human. And so they recognize it first as an employee themselves, you know? Because every leader is also an employee. Every business owner is also an employee in terms of you're depending upon this business to fund and help fuel the life that you're trying to build.
And so it brings them relief and it makes sense on a subconscious and conscious level. And it's a bit of an awakening. Now, any kind of awakening, it's gonna be both joyful and compelling and also obnoxious and disruptive. When you get jarred out of a sleep, it's not always a great experience.
Nick Berry (16:44)
You're seeing it unfold right in front of you here.
Phil Putnam (16:47)
I mean, I do this with every coaching client I have. I you, I see what's happening in this realization that's dawning this awakening. And I've asked a few people about what is that experience like? What is that moment like for you? And well, actually, I'll even ask you, I won't speak for you. As you're experiencing this here in the moment, how would you describe it?
Nick Berry (17:13)
it's.
It's that feeling of when you're getting feedback and you're like,
Phil Putnam (17:26)
Ha
Nick Berry (17:26)
Now I get it. And it kind of, you know, it's like, what an idiot. did I? Because the way you described it, it's like perfectly clear, right? But it was not that before it had been articulated that way. And so I'm like, man, all the times that I painted this beautiful picture, and shared that with a room full of people and...
Phil Putnam (17:37)
Mm
Yeah.
Nick Berry (17:52)
All of them were shaking their head. All of it. And, I'd like to think that I I've attempted to understand the importance of the work we were doing in their eyes, but still just didn't connect it as clearly as you laid out with like their overall purpose. Like this is my baby.
Phil Putnam (17:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Berry (18:15)
that's their baby is different. so, but it's important, right? So in that way, it feels good to like, okay, now I get it. But I sure didn't before.
Phil Putnam (18:16)
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and I'll say this, it's not your fault that you didn't get it before. This is my honest view. Because also, I'll talk from my own experience, it took me more than 20 years of my career to have this realization. And part of it is that no one ever taught me that I had permission to put myself on the throne of my relationship with employment.
All I was ever taught was that I would succeed when my employer succeeded. so devotion to the employer was the pathway to my greatest success. And therefore it was expected to be the pathway to my greatest performance and the motivation to give that to my employer. And I do think that most of us who are around, I mean, I'm 45 now, so around our age or older, we were taught the same thing. And, you know, as leaders,
we can't give somebody something we don't have. So we're just gonna keep sharing what we were taught plus what we've sort of ratified out in our mind over the years as the best way to do things.
And actually in my book that I put out recently, I dig into this a little bit. I'm fascinated by sort of the generational impact of how ways of working are passed down. And so I am personally right on the edge of Gen X and millennial generations. I was born in July 79 in 1980, is often seen as the dividing line between those two generations. But like most Gen Xers, I was raised by baby bloomers.
And my parents, and particularly my mother, she was a first grade teacher for a public school district her entire career, had the same employer for 40 plus years, and was very much the model of the loyalty -based relationship with employment that really defines Baby Boomer's relationship with employment. She also imbued into me the Boomer belief that loyalty to an employer is a mark of good character.
Like it's about who you are, right? So you stick with an employer even through the bad times if you're a good person and a bad person hops around jobs, right? So I had this loyalty -based relationship with employment imbued into me. The problem is that for my mom, because of her profession and where just work culture was in her career, she got all the payoff of loyalty.
know, unions, benefits, meaningful employer contributions to retirement funds, profit sharing, you know, et cetera. None of those things have been available to me in my career, partly because of my age and also because of my chosen industry. So I had all the expectation of being loyal in my relationship with employment, but none of the payoff. It takes a long time to unwind that.
And it just so happens that developing this approach to people leadership and motivation and performance was a key part of unwinding that relationship with employment and coming to my own decision about how I was going to approach it.
Nick Berry (21:46)
Yeah. I mean, in that way, it's similar to people's relationship with money, for example, right? Like you pick that up with how you were raised and then you don't realize that you're looking at it the way that you look at it and not necessarily the only way to look at it until you're old enough to think about things like that. And then you spend a long time trying to figure out how to, do you need to change it? Do you want it to say the same?
Phil Putnam (22:13)
Yeah, but even the wisdom and what you just said about just you knowing that you have a relationship with money and you have to figure that out and it's going to grow and change. Not everybody sort of approaches these core elements of life in that way. But once you accept the fact that you have a relationship with employment,
or relationship with money, you're already off down the road of realizing that you have agency in that relationship. You can set the terms of it. And that's really what I want to help people do. I want to help leaders and business owners accept the realistic terms that employees have with employment so that we can get the value from our investment in their employment that we need.
I also want to help employees get what they need from their life and their work as well. And again, because every leader is an employee as well, this message applies to everybody.
Nick Berry (23:18)
So you started the business in 23, right? So pick up from there. What's it been like? What have you learned?
Phil Putnam (23:27)
gosh, well big things. Actually, for those who are watching on video, what you're seeing on my side of the picture is actually incredibly poignant because this is where I have sat for the last year and figured out my life and figured out my business. It happened kind of in two major sections. The first six months, so October through March, October 23 through March 24, was really just me kind of chasing whatever would pay me.
Right, and I only realized this in hindsight. When I was in it, I had no perspective. know, I was all the disruption of being laid off and mixed with a fundamental change in my relationship with employment and my relationship with myself and how I move through the world. That's a lot of big change, right? So I liken it to when you end a long -term romantic relationship and like two months after the breakup, you're like, I'm ready.
I'm ready to date, I'm healed, I've got it, and you are so not, you are a train wreck and you cannot see it, right? So that's kind of what it was like. had no perspective. I built three product lines, all that generated a number, revenue a number of times in those six months. Coaching, like individual executive coaching, go -to -market strategy and consulting for businesses.
Nick Berry (24:36)
Yeah.
Phil Putnam (24:54)
and then speaking and teaching and leading workshops. And I got to March, a very particular day in March, sitting right at this desk where I'm sitting right now. And I thought, you know, I've never in my life had complete control of my schedule before, and I've never felt more out of control of my schedule. Why is that? So I dug into it, and what I found is that I was trying to build a coaching business as the center.
coaching is the centerpiece of my business. And I realized I didn't really want to build a volume business, which is really what coaching is. And as much as I love coaching and I do, I was not particularly enjoying it as much as I thought I was going to. So I thought, you know, if I'm going to take the risk of building my own business and putting my life on the line in that way, I should probably build not only a job, but a business for myself. And I should probably build something I most want to do.
So I stopped and I thought, what do I most want to do? What brings me the greatest satisfaction and what am I best at? Like, what am I most going to be able to command a price around and deliver a product that's truly valuable to people? And it was so obvious to me, it was like speaking, teaching workshops. I am in all humility, am.
remarkable at that skill. I also love it more than anything else. It's like I am sitting in the palm of the hand of why I exist when I'm leading a workshop or when I'm speaking to a group of people. So I pivoted right away and I was like, this is what I'm going to focus on. If I want to build a business, this is going to be my business. If I can't do this, then I'm just going to have to figure out something else.
And then the other thing I realized is that the coaching opportunities and the strategy consulting opportunities will naturally flow from the workshops and the speaking career and the writing career as well. So I could still get all the things I wanted, but I'd calibrated these three product lines now in a way that worked for me. And my calendar has never been more open in my life and I've never been more successful.
Nick Berry (27:03)
Mm
Good for you. You've got it.
Phil Putnam (27:13)
So it just completely inverted the experience I had in the first six months. And now I'm coming up on a year where we're at right now in the calendar and things are really starting to cook.
Nick Berry (27:18)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah. is the book out?
Phil Putnam (27:27)
Here, I'll put it up on the screen. It's called Desire Based Leadership. For those who can't see, who are listening, just look for the blue cover with an ice cream cone. You can't miss it. So the book is out. Yep, you can buy it on PhilPutnam .com or Amazon. So yeah, it's available to everybody. There's also going to be an audio book. I don't know the exact date of when that's going to be available.
Nick Berry (27:29)
There we go.
Phil Putnam (27:53)
Publishing dates in self -publishing are remarkably squishy. If you've never gone through it before, it's wild. You're like, you don't know the actual date your book will be available until like two weeks before. It's weird.
Nick Berry (28:08)
the time that you made your pivot, when you realize like, is not, this is chaos and this is not how it's supposed to be. what's your support system? Do you get coaching? Do you have, are you have peers that you're getting feedback? Like what are, what are the inputs that you use to help you think better?
Phil Putnam (28:20)
Yes.
Yeah. So a few. First and foremost is my partner. His name is Raj. Rajas, but he goes by Raj. He is my strongest emotional support, for sure. Also, he is my motivation. He's my balance. So I'm never going to do anything in my business that compromises his life or his dreams.
And so he helps me stay within that tension between reality and ambition and obsession that all of us business owners have to live in and have to perfect. It's kind of a strange home, emotional home to have, but that's what we've chosen. So he's first and foremost.
The second is my best friend Brooke Goggins. She is a brilliant business owner herself. She specializes in public affairs for large government projects and owns her own firm based in Fort Worth, Texas called Mosaic Partners. She knows me inside and out. We've known each other since middle school. It's just a really, really experienced and very successful business owner. So she gives me a lot of really good advice.
The third is sort of the person who I look to as my coach. Her name is Amy Oravchik. One of the most brilliant business leaders and sellers I have ever met. Like one of the only true rainmakers I've ever met. And we've been friends for a couple years and the amount of emotional labor we have put into each other over the past year, because we're both building our own businesses now.
It's been really astounding. And there was one piece of advice that I got that was probably been more helpful than anything else. And it was the day that I got laid off and it came from Amy. And she said, cause she asked, know, what are you going to do? I said, I think I'm actually going to start my own business. And she said, just remember when you're an entrepreneur, the highs are higher, the lows are lower and they cycle faster.
And that one piece of advice has been more helpful to me in the past year than almost anything else I've learned. And then the fourth main source of support are other owners, other CEOs, people who have been my mentors and my friends over the years, people who have hired me. I still have fantastic friends in senior leadership at Adobe, at Apple, at various companies I've worked for.
other people I've met through networking efforts who are very generous with their time and their wisdom. I'm a big believer in listening to the experts, experts who can be trusted, obviously, but trying to figure out everything entirely on my own. that's never been my MO. I was never somebody who needed to learn things the hard way. Maybe it's because I'm the youngest child in my family. So,
I kind of grew up watching other people try things. And I was like, well, I don't really need to do it because they did it and it worked or it didn't work. Like I don't, I don't need to prove this through my own experience. I'll just sort of take it at face value of what they experienced. Yeah.
Nick Berry (31:44)
I wish I could relate to that a little bit better. I'm the older and I have to know, I've got to know, I've got to try it myself. Yeah. But that's probably one of those traits that I had to work really hard as I became more aware of it and got older to change. I wasn't good at asking for help, still not great at it, but I know the way is through
Phil Putnam (31:47)
Where? I was gonna ask, yeah.
Yeah.
Nick Berry (32:11)
like leaning on others, reaching out, leveraging people who have the experience. And still, if I'm not attentive to it, I can fall into those patterns of Lone Ranger. I'm just gonna go try some stuff.
Phil Putnam (32:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. I want to talk about this. I can see a theme emerging in our conversation, sort of the curiosity and isolation. And, you know, one of the things that I've really been reckoning with now in my first year of full -time business ownership. I mean, I've had side hustles, honestly, since I was 10 years old. Like I was thinking about this as I was getting ready for this conversation. I started my first business when I was 10 years old.
Like I've always sort of had this spirit in me. It was before the days when recycling was a city service, along with garbage, right? So we're old enough, at least I'm old enough to remember these days, right? But it was also when there were commercial recycling centers available to the public where you would take your cans and bottles in and you would walk away with like $12 .72 in your pocket, you know?
like back when people actually used change. And so I, at 10 years old, I got a number of my neighbors to be willing to give me their recyclables. And so I would go around once a week, collect the recyclables from the neighbors who had chosen to participate. They would get the value of not having to deal with their own recyclables.
And I would get the value of having, you know, spending money, having pocket change as a 10 year old kid from this business that I started. So that was my first business. But anyway, now that I'm doing full time business ownership, it's so isolating. And especially because I'm a solopreneur, so I don't have a staff yet. It's just me. I work full time in my apartment. Right. So it is physically isolating.
It is emotionally isolating, but then I also realized it's ideologically isolating because my business is my mind. Like my business is my perspective and my point of view on things. It's a, it's book that I've written. It's a methodology that I've created. And so if you're going to make your, your intellect, the products of your intellect, your product in the market, you have to be kind of in love with your own mind.
to have the level of belief and confidence that your business is going to work. But that becomes isolating. And what I realized is that I was spending so much time thinking about my own thoughts and seeing things through my own perspective. And because I wasn't surrounded with other people each day like I used to be, I was becoming isolated from the other ways of thinking.
And I never want that to happen in my life as a human or as a business person. So I very deliberately sought out ways to stay exposed to the ways that other people do things, other ways of thinking, other ways of leadership to not really become a victim of that ideological isolation that now seems innate in the work that I've chosen. Yeah.
Nick Berry (35:32)
Yeah. You don't, don't think that you don't hear very many people talk about it like that. I, know for me, I talk about the isolation when you're an entrepreneur and you're a business owner, there are just not nearly as many people who can relate to the things that keep you awake at night But I think what you just described there is like,
probably equally as important of a thing to note because if you get locked in here you can get kind of in this one way of thinking and maybe become obtuse about your perspective on things, which like you, I really like what you said.
Phil Putnam (36:06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Berry (36:11)
your intellect is your business, you can't afford to be obtuse like that. You can't afford to put it in a box and not keep growing it and challenging it and developing it. You've got to sharpen the saw.
Phil Putnam (36:25)
Well, yeah, and you know, I think a lot about the process of creating a product and bringing the product to market and what that actually is. And if you think about it in reality, regardless of what the product is, it is a constant process of making it more narrow and more specific. So you're deliberately shaving off the rough edges and defining something more and more and more and more.
more until you get to a point where you say, yes, my ideal customer profile will find value in this because it solves these three problems unequivocally. That is a process of making something smaller and more narrow and more specific. When your mind, when your thinking is your product, that's what you're doing. And
If you don't want a narrow, limited, shaved down mind and approach to the world while you're making an intellectual product, you have to make sure that you are actively counterbalancing that process. And you also mentioned emotional maturity earlier. And I think a lot about this, especially with lot of, I do a lot of leadership coaching. So in many industries right now,
And this is no unfair critique to anybody who feels like they fit the profile I'm about to explain. So I don't want to sound like I'm being mean to anybody. But there are a lot of leaders that rose up to a level of senior leadership during a period where the conditions of their success were relatively easy. Zero interest capital, a number of industries have had a pretty charmed existence over the past 20 years.
And what that meant is that they never really had to dig in super hard to developing their skills and figuring out how to really meet the moment of whatever new job they had. Well, a lot of those industries are now in very difficult conditions. And you've got a lot of leaders that actually don't know how to solve the problems they're expected to be able to solve.
And again, I'm coming at this from an empathetic place because that's a horribly isolating and scary place to be. When you're at the top of the organizational chain and you're like, I'm supposed to be the person who knows, but I don't know how to solve this performance problem. I don't know how to solve this revenue mechanics problem. I don't know what to do. You're gonna reach out for help, but only if...
you as a human have the emotional maturity to be willing to ask for help. And a lot of people don't. A lot of leaders don't. And leadership in itself is isolating. It becomes more isolating the higher you climb in an organizational ladder. So you get to become the CEO or the SVP of global sales or something, and you look around and you're like,
Nick Berry (39:06)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Phil Putnam (39:23)
Well, I can't ask any of my colleagues because they will lose faith in me. And I can't really go to my direct competitors because they're my direct competitors, even though they're probably going to be best equipped to answer my question. And I'm not a part, like I haven't deliberately fostered relationships with other people in my similar role and situation. So even if I was going to ask for help, I don't have anywhere to go.
It is so isolating and it becomes a major threat to the success of the businesses that we're leading. And so the opposite of isolation is curiosity. And there's a humility that is latent in curiosity.
You have to find value in people other than yourself, in ways of life and thinking other than your own, to be willing to go ask and explore. And that's a mark of curiosity. Also learning requires humility. And now we're getting to why I love teaching and why I'm great at it. But learning is an act of vulnerability and it's an act of humility. You have to first accept the fact that you don't know something that you need to know.
in order to be willing to learn it. And then to do that in the presence of your peers and your leaders as a professional, that's scary. Like that's a real act of vulnerability and humility. And I don't think that gets a lot of respect. But anybody who is willing to learn and be seen learning is a hero in my book. You know?
Nick Berry (40:53)
Yeah.
Agreed. Yeah, I mean, as a leader, you're probably conditioned to think that you should have the answer, that you should know. that's a hard thing to get over just in itself.
Phil Putnam (41:12)
Absolutely. And the human truth is that people love vulnerability. Like, I think the most effective, yeah, the most effective thing a leader can do is say to somebody lower than them in the organizational chart, I don't know how to solve this problem. What would you do?
Nick Berry (41:18)
Yeah, it's real.
Phil Putnam (41:33)
I mean, I'm just getting chills. Like I literally have goosebumps right now. Because think about what it's like for that person that you ask. They're like, my God, my CEO thinks that I can help them solve a problem. How affirming that is. How, yeah, yeah. And then now they're gonna give you their best because you've just affirmed their intellect and their ability in a way that nobody ever has before. So.
Nick Berry (41:34)
and to be real, right?
Mm hmm. Yeah, their self worth is
Phil Putnam (42:00)
Humans were trained to respond to vulnerability in a way that says, you're being vulnerable, I want to support you. I want to comfort you. It's not, I want to exploit you. I want to take advantage of you. There's a small percentage of the population who functions that way. And we shouldn't deny that. But most of us are trained to respond to vulnerability with support. So it's...
It actually is a huge asset, I think, to a leader to be vulnerable, but so many of us have this sort of like, you know, John Wayne, you know, rugged individualism mentality about being a leader that the higher up you go, the less you're supposed to need help, which is just complete bullshit. I mean, there's nothing in human history and human experience that supports that as a valid idea.
Nick Berry (42:50)
another comment that you wrote, sent to me, Make professional adults feel safe enough to learn in the presence of their peers and their leaders, which I mean, I think that's what we're talking about. so for those that it comes naturally to fantastic for those that it come so naturally to how do you get them there?
Phil Putnam (42:58)
Mm -hmm.
Hahaha!
I'll tell in the form of a story because this also sort of is part of the story of how I got to the business that I have now. So when I was working for Adobe, I was lucky to work there for several years. And one day, a woman who was leading their all of customer success for the Americas at Adobe, who had been a champion of mine for a while, she called me up and she said, hey, I want you to help me solve a problem.
We need to really have our customer success managers around the world become better at getting traction with senior level buyers, with executives on the customer side. We're great with junior level account contacts. Now we need executive influence. So we're going to give an executive influence workshop, a two day workshop to every CSM around the world. And I want you to be the trainer for North America.
So you would do this workshop like 25 times over the next 18 months in addition to your regular job as a special project. Do you want to do that? And I was like, well, yeah, I'm bored. First of all, I was really bored at the time in my role. And I'd never done anything like it before, but I was just scared enough by it to be interested. And I thought I could probably do this. Like I used to be a musician. I'm good on stage. I love people. I love talking. I love listening. So I was like, yeah, let's do it.
So they gave me an incredible curriculum, gave me incredible facilitation and presenting skills training and mentorship. And I started doing this workshop. And about three times in, I realized I have never been happier ever. Like this is what I was made to do. So that was the first big thing. And I know after five workshops,
I was reflecting on, was like, why am I so effective at this? Because was undeniably effective. My evaluation scores were off the charts to the point where my mentor at the curriculum company who had trained me how to be a facilitator, he called me one day he's like, weird question, it may sound weird at first, are you sure that your evaluation numbers are accurate from your workshop students?
And I was like, well, yeah, was like, I don't, he's like, what process are you doing to get the results done? And I'm like, this is what I'm doing. It's exactly what he told me to do. And I was like, why is there a problem? He's like, well, no, there's no problem. He just said, we're just, we're seeing numbers that are higher than people who've been doing this full time for 15 years. So you must just be a natural. And I was like, great, cause I'm loving it. anyway, I thought, why am I so effective at it?
And I realized people tell me things. I'm just one of those people that if you're around me for more than five minutes, you will tell me things about yourself. And it's been that way throughout my entire life. Like no exaggeration, multiple times I've had people in airports or at sports games or even in business settings. I'm a stranger to them. And before I know their last name, I know
about their battle with cancer or I know that they're having an affair and cheating on their spouse. Like people tell me things. I am just a safe space for that natural human need to unload and to not be alone in what you're dealing with. And when I walk into a room, I shift the energy of the room.
and I shift it towards safety. I do this without even trying. This is just my natural way. And so I think it's this combination of I create safety, I create emotional safety, and humans, we are instinctively driven to share, even if we don't think we are. Like we're instinctively driven to not be alone in our struggles. And when those two things come together,
It's an irresistible combination. And so I make it safe for people to learn. And I use charm and I use humor and I use challenge. I love poking people. I love prodding and goading a little bit, but gracefully, I will never embarrass someone. That's death to a good teaching situation. But I think that's why I'm so effective at it is...
I just make people feel safe enough to be present and to be vulnerable.
Nick Berry (47:37)
Is that part of your program that you're, are you teaching other leaders to make things safer or stop making it unsafe?
Phil Putnam (47:43)
Yes. Yeah, in the ways that are specific to performance and motivation. But yeah, it's definitely a part of it. And because if you're gonna motivate somebody based upon their ability to get the life they want, you first have to get them to tell you the details of that life. So it's about discovery.
And whenever you're in a situation where it's you and your manager already, that is a complicated and uneven power dynamic. And a big mistake a lot of leaders make is trying to operate in denial of that power dynamic, that power differential. That is the worst thing you can do because it's disingenuous and it actually makes the person on the lower end of the power dynamic actually more careful and feel more threatened.
Because you're sitting there and you're like, okay, this person actually has power over how much money I make and if I keep my job or not, like if I can feed my kids and pay my mortgage and all the things that are essential to my survival. But they are asserting the fact that we're equals. We know that's a lie. The worst thing you can do is deny the power differential.
especially when you're on the leadership side of the conversation, because it will stop you from getting more information from the person. The other thing I'm very explicit about and then I teach in my book and in my workshops is that if you're going to use my method and my model before you get into the conversation with somebody, if you're the leader, you must tell them that participation is voluntary.
that it's entirely up to them what they do and do not share, even if it means they share nothing. The reason for this is that in the laws of most states and countries and the policies of most companies, it's completely fine for an employee or a job candidate to share whatever they want about themselves with the hiring organization or with the employer. But there are significant restrictions on what an employer can ask of an employee or a job candidate.
And those restrictions are very good. Do not violate them. Because when you violate them, you alert the candidate or the employee to the fact that you can't be trusted. Like you're trying to go against the boundaries that are there to protect them. And...
Leaders also have to take the lead, I think, in affirming these boundaries and making people aware of them, because a lot of job candidates and lot of employees actually don't know. Like, they're not aware of the protections that are there for them. They're also not aware of how porous those protections are, to be frank. I mean, all those protections are still tilted towards the benefit of the employer, let's be honest. So it's important that I think the leader
Nick Berry (50:30)
Mm -hmm.
Phil Putnam (50:40)
who is asking an employee to tell you about their life is acting honorably and even over indexing on that. I think that's important, yeah.
Nick Berry (50:53)
Yeah. And I mean, psychologically, you're giving them the opportunity to, like they're choosing to share, right? They don't feel like they have no choice in the matter, which you're going to gain more buy -in that way.
Phil Putnam (51:04)
Yeah, this is an overcorrection on my part, again, for the fact that humans were, I say we're built to spill. we, we, in our nature, we are constantly giving information about ourselves to other people. Even those of us who are like, nope, my heart is a rock. I'm an introvert. I'm quiet. I don't share.
Well, maybe you don't share verbally, but you're telling me all kinds of shit with your body language and how you react and don't react to things, right? You can't help it. It's just who we are as humans. so people want to share information. And because it's so rare to have somebody in employment situation ask you about what you care about for yourself and your life, it's like, my God, I want to share that.
And so the excitement and the human connection there can often make people not first stop and think, should I share this stuff? Like, is it going to increase my stability in my job or decrease it? Can I trust this leader or not? What does my past experience with them tell me? Is sharing this information gonna bring me closer?
to having the life that I desire or bring me farther away. That logical thought process doesn't often happen with somebody. It's like you put chocolate in front of a two -year -old, like look out, like that's carnage, right? So I think we as the leaders and the business owners, have to take the lead in protecting our people before we get them to share about their lives with us. That's what I'm trying to say.
Nick Berry (52:42)
Yeah.
Yeah. so you're making a gesture in doing that. And, and ideally the employees are going to sense that in some way, right. And, and your intention is to move the relationship in that direction. Those gestures, that's how you get started. That makes sense to me.
Phil Putnam (53:04)
Exactly.
Yeah, and you know, an important shift that makes this kind of leadership possible, and then the performance that it produces and the business results that it produces, because frankly, that's the whole point for us as leaders is like, yeah, we want to be honorable people. We want to treat people well. And that's a core value for me.
I also need to make sure my business is successful and produces the results that it needs and I can control my costs in a way that works for my business model. I think it's true for all of us as business owners.
Nick Berry (53:38)
You know, the word that keeps coming to mind is alignment. I've always tried to align the best interest of the myself and the business and the employees. But what I was doing was aligning it with.
something that wasn't quite their best interest. So it was kind of, it's about the equivalent of selling on features and no benefits. I just wasn't quite calibrated with, what was most meaningful to them. it was fixable. was doable. It's not to say that we couldn't be that tightly aligned, but not until,
Phil Putnam (53:54)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick Berry (54:11)
got calibrated with like what their true drivers and motivations were
Phil Putnam (54:16)
Well, and what you're describing, the dynamic you're describing, if we're looking at it honestly, is a scenario in which the employer will get more of what they want than the employee will get of what the employee wants. That's what we're describing. And to most employers, they're like, yeah, that's employment. That's the way it goes. And to be honest, up until COVID, most employees accepted those terms as well. That
part of being an employee is that you get less of what you want than your employer gets what they want. But as long as I'm getting enough, I'll stick it out. And so I think most employers and most leaders entered COVID and many of them still today in the midst of COVID and its aftermath still hold that belief. But the fact is that employees changed. Like COVID changed.
people's relationship with employment on a global scale. Because for the first time in the life of the majority of the current workforce, at least within the United States, I want to be specific about what I'm saying here. It was the first time that most of us have lived face to face on a prolonged basis with the fact that life is lethal. Most of us in the United States here don't come from a wartime generation right now.
or have seen genuine threats to our survival here on our soil in a daily way. So we lived with our vulnerability. mean, COVID, those early days, we were hiding in our homes from the air outside and the people who breathed it. Like that is really destabilizing stuff. And so...
For myself and thousands of people I've talked to about this now, we all came out of it realizing that time is precious. Time is precious and we are not willing to spend it in environments that no longer get us closer to the things that we desire most. And that includes employment. And...
This also happened at a very interesting point in time with the development of the global workforce and ages and generations. a stat right now, 53 % of the global workforce are millennials and the top half of the Gen Z generation. They are more than half of the global workforce and
The older half of the millennial generation now, a lot of them are senior leaders, decision makers, buyers, founders of companies. There's a lot of Gen Z founders as well. So I'm very pro millennial and Gen Z by the way. I'm very clear about my bias. Like if you want to come complain to me about how the entitled kids don't want to work anymore, do not expect a good conversation with me about that. I will, I will bust your ass with stats so hard.
Nick Berry (57:07)
you
Phil Putnam (57:12)
But they're the majority of the global workforce. They want different things than Gen X and everybody older than them does. And they are far less willing to stay in situations that do not align with their desires. And that's often what millennials and Gen Zers get critiqued and criticized for. But the reality is...
They're the majority of the workforce. So if you want a successful business without high turnover and crippling people replacement costs, you better fucking figure out how to meaningfully relate to Gen Z millennials. And if you think they're super easy to replace, well, 77 % of the world's companies right now are having difficulties filling roles. There's a global talent shortage.
So this lie that leaders tell ourselves, if people don't like it, they can leave and I'll just replace them. Well, first of all, you're gonna pay five to 12 times more to replace somebody than it would have cost you to satisfy them and keep them. And second of all, you're not gonna have the easiest time finding people.
Like Manpower Group did a study on talent shortage and they found that like, again, 77 % on average of the world's companies are struggling to fill all their roles. The biggest challenge is industry -wise or in life science and healthcare. The country that's having the hardest time is Japan. They have a very low national birth rate. So that's a contributing factor. And then there was one other stat that I can't remember off top of my head from that study.
All these lies that we tell ourselves as leaders that we feel like enable us to mistreat and not take seriously our employees, there's no data to back it up. In fact, the opposite is what the data shows.
Nick Berry (59:00)
it was time to adapt. is time to adapt, right? mean, that's that's takeaway from that.
Phil Putnam (59:04)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. like, return to office is just the arena in which a lot of this is playing out right now. And I think there's a lot about return to office that just shows a fundamental misunderstanding and lack of concern for what motivates the majority of the global workforce, which are millennials and Gen Zers right now.
And by the way, Gen Z is between 13 and 28 years old right now, at least in 2025, they will be between 13 and 28 years old. So over half of that generation has not yet matured into the adult workforce. So what is 53 % of the global workforce now is probably going to grow to being around 65 % sometime in the next 10 years.
So this challenge is only going to intensify. It's not going to get easier for leaders that want to put their head in the sand about it.
Nick Berry (59:59)
Yeah, it's a big enough deal that, and has been a big enough deal that if you're going to be making decisions based off of it, they need to be very well informed decisions.
Phil Putnam (1:00:09)
And you have to understand why people are resisting what they're resisting, right? I actually have a whole chapter in my book about this, about how to effectively motivate performance from millennials and Gen Zers. And I go into, I use return to office as a setting for this, to break this down. And you have to understand why people of those generations are resistant.
because their number, their top two concerns about the world are climate change and mental health. Well, you're asking them to compromise on their core values when you ask them to return to a daily commute. Regardless of what you think about climate change, you're asking them to do something that generates carbon emissions, right? They daily are stressed about whether the earth is going to survive their lifetime straight up. Like,
That and that stress, that anxiety impacts their performance. So if you're a leader that's like, can't these selfish people just deal with it? You're not actually asking them to make a tactical decision. You're asking them to choose between their core values and their biggest fears and their paycheck. That's what you're asking them to do. That's what it means to have empathy and look at it from their perspective.
Nick Berry (1:01:27)
Mm -hmm.
Phil Putnam (1:01:33)
And the last thing I'll say on this topic is this, don't forget that a lot of them, especially millennials, they experienced being in the office before COVID. They experienced the value of having access to colleagues and mentors. They experienced a daily commute. They experienced all the things that leaders hold up as the value of being in the office. And yet, 55 % and 56 % respectively.
of millennials and Gen Z -ers are living paycheck to paycheck today. millennials are the generation that are most likely to be living under the federal poverty line in the US.
So all the magic that we put forward as the benefits of being in the office, you're gonna get mentored, you're gonna get promoted faster. That's an unproven value proposition to millennials and Gen Zers. That's what you're speaking to when you argue about return to office with those generations.
And there's no business upside to it too. Let's take even the most cynical leader who is like humans are cattle. They're just business assets. All I care about is the results. Well, again, the logical business result of alienating the majority of your workforce and the majority of the global talent pool.
is that you will spend millions and millions and millions of dollars every year on people replacement and attrition related costs that you could avoid. Like you will cripple your profitability no matter how much revenue you bring in by choosing millions of dollars of avoidable people replacement costs. That's the only logical flow.
of this decision, this chain of decisions. And so a lot of leaders are living in denial of that. And the path forward is to come out of that denial.
Nick Berry (1:03:30)
Time to adapt. So, you left the nicest review for the podcast. And so I wanted to thank you for that. And I wanted to hear your, said that there was a story or more to talk about because you were talking about a specific episode with
Phil Putnam (1:03:32)
Yep, or
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, the episode changed my life. That is no exaggeration. And I'll tell the story. Before I do, I want to praise you a bit, if I may. And this is sort of me talking to the listeners. Like, I want to tell you a little bit about what it's like to get booked on this podcast, which is, I will say, it is difficult and it is the reason why this podcast is so good. So.
Like the listener, what you don't know is that like I reached out to Nick and say, Hey, I'm a fan of the podcast. I would love to be a guest. he's like, great. I'm selective. Have you listened to the episodes? Do you know what we're about? Like, I want to make sure we're giving a quality experience to the listeners. So please make sure that you really listen to some episodes and you're sure that, that, this is going to work. And then if you're confident, fill out this form, a lot of detail on the form.
And if it works out, I'll let you know. And for me, when I encounter that kind of quality control, it's like, I want to be a part of this, right? It is such a good sign. And so I want to praise you for that because that stands out to me among podcasts. And for the listeners, it's why you get a quality podcast every time is because because Nick applies those quality controls.
As for Hailey Perlus mean, obviously talk about quality. my gosh. So I was coming home from teaching a workshop at a.
a company in New Jersey. I live in Manhattan. I live in New York City. So I'm on the train home after working that day. And I listened to the episode on mental toughness with Dr. Haley Perlus, who started her career as a sports psychologist and performance psychologist for professional athletes, and now also works with business leaders, since the profiles are very similar, the mental profiles.
And I mean, so much of that interview was so profound to me. But one thing she talked about, you had asked her about Scottie Scheffler and his arrest and then his incredible performance on the course that day. And you had talked about how, like how would she have coached or what would she have coached Scottie on that he could have used that day to go from being arrested to performing very, very well.
And one of the things she talked about was the skill of concentration that top performance athletes have and that top business leaders have. And how it's very much this skill of deciding what is relevant right now and focusing and concentrating solely on that. It's not about the next putt or the next drive or the meeting tomorrow.
It's about what is relevant right now and only that. And now this could not be more different from how I normally think. I am somebody who I constantly steal from the present by living in the past and the future, right? If there was an Olympics for worrying, you're dead. I win it all, right? So this was a wild thought to me, it really, it was time for me to hear it.
And part of being a big worrier is I'm a pretty bad sleeper. It takes a lot for me to fall asleep. And there's always this fear that what if I can't fall asleep tonight? And then of course that cycles and keeps me awake. So that night I was like, you know, I'm gonna try this out. What if I just decide as I'm lying here trying to fall asleep, if I just focus on what's relevant for this task.
rather than thinking about what I did 10 years ago or what I'm gonna do tomorrow. And I thought it was gonna be really difficult. It was like a duck to water. The difference it made in that moment was really profound. So then I did it again the next night to make sure it wasn't a fluke. It's not a fluke. Something about this works for my mind.
And it has drastically improved my ability to fall asleep and stay asleep, which I mean, talk about quality of life, talk about peace of mind. No. And so I was drawn to that episode first because of the title, you know, mental toughness. I'm like, yep, yep, we need that. We need that. And I spent a lot of time thinking about how do I maintain this mixture of mental toughness and human permeability?
Nick Berry (1:08:06)
Right. Don't take that for granted.
Phil Putnam (1:08:26)
Right? I never want to become a hardened person because that will be the death of my impact on the world and the death of my business. But I'm like, yeah, I mean, you got to have mental toughness to be a business owner. And then when she dug into it and when you dug into it with her, it gave me things that not only changed me once, but have continued to grow in me and change me. You know,
That's the story of what I gained from that episode.
Nick Berry (1:08:54)
That's fantastic. She's definitely, I'm going to make sure that she knows about that.
Phil Putnam (1:08:59)
So like literally two minutes before I came on the episode with you here, I sent her a friend request on LinkedIn. I was like, you changed my life. Please be my friend.
Nick Berry (1:09:11)
And she's one of those people who your life is better when she's a part of it. So yeah, good. the little exercise that you're doing there where kind of reminding yourself, nothing else matters, get in the moment. Are you applying that elsewhere throughout your day?
Phil Putnam (1:09:18)
Mm
Mm
Yeah, I am. Because, you know, putting out a book, my God, it's so much more demanding than you can think it is. And especially if you're self -publishing, it's your first book, like I am right now. It is really not about the release day. It's just about consistently keeping the balloon in the air over a year.
You know, it's not about selling 10 ,000 copies in one day, although that would be great. Please everybody buy my book. It really is about the steady, consistent, you five copies a day, 12, 10 copies a week kind of thing. You're really introducing yourself to the market. That requires a remarkable amount of focus on the tasks that have to get done on a regular basis to produce that kind of ongoing trickle.
A big part of it is the content marketing, so creating content for LinkedIn posts.
doing podcasts, finding podcasts to be on, selecting marketing partners that might produce content for me. And, you know, because I do post on LinkedIn daily and I want to bring value to people every day, and I put a lot of quality control into my work as well, I spend a lot of time editing videos. I spend a lot of time writing content. I spend a lot of time on those daily tasks. And if I'm not focused,
on what's relevant today, or oftentimes what's relevant in this next hour. What do I have to do in the next hour that's more important than anything else? If I don't apply that ruthless prioritization in a constantly updating fashion, I'm not gonna be on top of where I need to be. So yeah, that skill for choosing and concentrating on what's relevant.
has really become critical for my success right now.
Nick Berry (1:11:23)
Yeah, that's an essential skill when you control your schedule because you can, that schedule can get run right off of the rails.
Phil Putnam (1:11:30)
Absolutely.
Nick Berry (1:11:30)
Phil this has been fantastic. You're a fantastic guest. I'm excited about getting to read your book. I really liked your message.
So, I really appreciate you being here and sharing.
Phil Putnam (1:11:41)
It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
