unReactive

Kyle: Hey Jeff, how's it going today?

Jeff: Well, today's great. It's been a great week, a mix of productivity and calmness, which is nice.

Kyle: Very nice. Any new updates for the week? Anything new going on in your life?

Jeff: Well, in general, we just got back from traveling. So, I've really been in meeting mode since I have been away from home for a while. So, nothing too exciting, but it's been really great. Just to catch up in person. I've done a lot. I've done a lot of coffees this week.

Kyle: Very nice, at least they're in person and not too many webcam calls.

Jeff: Yeah, I actually generally try to avoid webcam calls mostly because I don't, I'm just, I don't like them. I feel awkward and weird. So whenever I can meet in person, I definitely prefer to meet in person if it's not taking people's time. But I also even had a web call with somebody that lives back east or mid Atlantic more accurately, a former client that we worked with, Kyle.

Maybe you can guess who. And so the bottom line was that was also a really nice catch up, so.

Kyle: Oh great.

Yeah, on my side, I bought a new car this week, so that's

Jeff: You didn't say anything!

Kyle: Yeah, I just did it yesterday, so, a few hours at the dealership, because I and I didn't really buy it, I leased it, but they counted as the same thing.

Jeff: Same deal. And it went smoothly.

Kyle: Yeah, no issues. I'm pretty happy with the car and the turnout. It's never the funnest thing to do, but hey, works out.

Jeff: I mean, it's a great example of an industry where you would think it would improve. And in fact, they promise to improve it all the time, but it never improves. It's always still basically the same process, the finance guy and all that

Kyle: and I'm probably the easiest sale that a salesperson would ever make. Because it was literally, we, like, researched online, went and test drove it last week. So just showed up on the lot and was like, want to test drive this one. And then needed to like move some money things around just cause they didn't take, like, you could only put a thousand dollars on a credit card and they didn't take any other forms of payment besides like check.

So I don't even have a checking account really. So I had to get that sorted out and then came back and was just walked in and was like, okay, I want to lease that one. And, just make it happen.

Jeff: I wonder if that made it harder or easier on them in the terms of, it's like the lottery of who gets paid on your

Kyle: Yeah, and what's interesting about that, and I'm not even sure how they'll do it, is, cause like, knowing that they get paid off of the commissions and everything, when I test drove, I took the guy's card. But, it, he didn't even do anything to try to sell me on it. Like, literally, I was like, asking him questions just to try to have something to talk about during the test drive.

And he had no interest in trying to sell me on the car. And I had to ask him for his business card when we got out. He didn't even, like, think about giving it to me. But the only reason I asked for it is I know, like, it's good courtesy to get the same guy when I come back, and then we came back on his day off.

So it didn't matter anyway, and somebody else made the sale, but I don't know if they split that or what.

Jeff: Did you mention it? Did you mention the other, the test drive

Kyle: Yeah, like I, I went in and asked for him and then they tried to find him and said he was off. So,

Jeff: Yeah. Interesting. If anybody has insight onto how that's handled, I would love to know how that's handled. And, maybe Jason, who works with us, who spent some time as a marketing director of a test drive. Auto dealership could answer that question because it also just seems like what you described is the easiest way, but it, I bet it's fairly common now what you just described.

Kyle: yeah, I would guess so outside of maybe the pricing side of it. Like, I'd already ran all of the numbers so I knew exactly like putting down this month, or putting down this much and I'll get these monthly payments and everything. So there wasn't even like a conversation around price or anything.

Jeff: Well, and also, a lot of times people are trying to sell you on the idea of leasing over buying. And since you have done the cost benefit for your situation and knew all those numbers, even that is I would think that'd be a little bit awkward for them, like all the techniques they're thinking they have to use.

It's like, no, just got to do some paperwork and, uh, not screw it

Kyle: But they didn't even, like, try to push any of, like, the, like, extra insurance or any of that. Like, they just, they, like, I wasn't sold to at a single point any time during the process.

Jeff: Well, maybe you're just that guy. Now, maybe they just like read the room, this isn't going in anywhere, unlike years ago when Jennifer, my wife was negotiating for a car. Cause I'm not allowed to negotiate for cars and walks, we were buying like a.

Kyle: there.

Jeff: Well, more than I'm just terrible at it.

But you know, the car was worth low twenties, thousands. This was years ago and it was like a Chevy Tahoe, I think. And we she walked away out of a deal because they wouldn't come down. We'd done all the things you'd done. We were buying it, but we'd figured out all the numbers and the price difference, I believe was like 50 bucks.

And I literally left with the dealership, with the kids, And Jennifer stayed and then she called me, an hour later to say, ah, we can't make a, come to an agreement over a 50 difference

Kyle: it 50 a month, or was it

Jeff: No, total on a 20, 000 car. But Jennifer, it was a matter of

Kyle: Yeah,

Jeff: It might've been 150. It might've been 150, but I, it was very low.

Kyle: Respect.

Jeff: So anyway, and she ended up finding the, or we found the car for a little bit less later anyway, so I guess we were right.

Kyle: Yeah, she made it happen. All right.

So we've been talking about just kind of what we want this podcast to be. If anyone's been listening from the start, know that we've had these conversations a few times. And where we've landed is really just like, what do we want to talk about that we think is interesting and that we've got a passion in and the thing we kind of landed on is this idea of like calm companies, calm organizations, calm teams Meaning, the word calm, C A L M, and just a company, an organization, whatever that might be that kind of defaults to an easygoing way of work.

Jeff: Yeah. And I would just add that, of course, we run a marketing company and and, explore other ventures as well. But I think that it will influence. Sort of the lens with which we look at this through and how we're doing the experimentation around these ideas,

Kyle: Right. And Just the idea of, like, your work being the thing you do to kind of create the life that you want, so that's useful for, like, it's through a lens of marketing, because that's the work that we know, but it's useful for kind of any sort of really office job or desk job, anything like that for just what you do in your day to day life.

Jeff: Yeah,

Kyle: So I wanted to start with just for you, like kind of, I think it's interesting because I joined this company working for you about five years ago, and I feel like we both kind of landed on this desire for a calm way of work at, like, similar points in time, but very different points in our lives.

So I'm curious for you, just what's like the appeal of a Calm Company and what got you kind of started thinking down that route? What experiences have you had in the past of either other Calm Companies that you've ran? Or, if companies you ran in the past weren't how does that compare for you?

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I guess I would start by saying that it had never occurred to me that things could be more calm. I think especially in the agency business, but I've also lived startup life and some other roles. The assumption is it's turn and burn. Like, that's been most of my career.

Like that's what a good day's work is, like wearing yourself out. And I would like to think that it was something beyond this, but I really think a lot of it has to do with just the idea that I. Got older and the things that were fun, right, that I found rewarding Or less so, the adrenaline rush of the business became less fun.

And then combine that with, I just got better at my job and didn't need to go adrenaline hit to, to run the business. So I think it's kind of a combination of those things. And I think a lot of it was driven by that. I also think there are other dynamics in the market. As our world has changed you really start feeling like, or at least I really start feeling like, finesse and wisdom and these other things matter a lot more.

Like, making the right decisions is a lot more important than doing lots of stuff.

Kyle: Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up kind of the skill piece of it that I wonder how much of it comes from like literal skill of you can do that work better or that it's more of a knowledge of what the right work is to be focusing your time on. But,

Jeff: it's more the latter, to be clear. Like, that's really what I'm trying to say. Mostly, although I also got better at things, it was still mostly just more awareness of what the levers that I could pull to have, a given impact were

Kyle: but part of that getting better comes with just the experience of knowing what not to do and what's a waste of time.

Jeff: yeah, I mean, I think it's that, plus I think it's a mindset. I mean, I think if I look at you you've, obviously you did have time you're quite a bit younger than me, but you're also you've been working and creating and building since you were quite young. So you have, plenty of time under the belt, so to

Kyle: Yeah, I was trying to think of it yesterday and I'm already like 13 years into my career or something like that.

Jeff: And I think for me at year 13, I was not as sophisticated. I was like, not as sophisticated of thinking about how I work as you grew up thinking or whenever that change happened for you. But so that's where I'm going is it's partly the experience, but it's also partly a mindset.

Good and trying to have mastery. I mean, this sounds silly, but in so many businesses and even in my work life, general being a generalist is a lot of the value I bring. So what does it mean to master being a generalist? Right? So in your case, you also I'm, you tell me if you think I'm wrong or you can, I'm phrasing it as a statement, but it's really a question.

Like, you set out to master some certain skills more intentionally younger than I did. So maybe you had more of a sense of mastery. So you, your brain could get to this place sooner than I did.

Kyle: I definitely think I have focused on mastery, but very few of those skills have been that useful in my career. I have mastered a lot of useless talents, I would say, over time. And I find it

Jeff: but I wonder if,

Kyle: Oh, go ahead.

Jeff: Oh, good. I was going to say, I wonder if that even just that mindset is what I'm taught is the thing, whether or not it's not about the actual skill, but like the mindset to get better, you even learn how to master things or at least look like you master things.

Kyle: because a lot of my mentality, like, I think that comes down to a love of efficiency, that I want to do things as right as possible, as quickly as possible, and not waste time and energy on other things. And I think that might kind of come across as mastery in some ways, because I just don't want to waste my time.

Jeff: You're just lazy.

Kyle: I'm very lazy. Like,

Jeff: Yeah, and I actually think lazy is a competitive advantage if you compare that with the other side of it, right? Like the efficiency and the work ethic to gain that efficiency.

Kyle: mixture of laziness and perfectionism works out surprisingly well. And I find it interesting, in kind of your background, backstory you come from two different Industries that are some of the least calm industries because you Ran an agency in the past before reynolds and myers and agencies are like renowned for their crunch for their weekend hours for their evenings like that's just an accepted part of Working at an agency is that you don't get any time off and then you had a VC funded, Y Combinator backed startup, and that's, Hustle Culture Central.

So how much does that kind of reflect what you want from your life now, your experiences, and those kind of opposites?

Jeff: Well, I don't know if I'm going to answer what you're asking, but Because I, let me, I think the biggest thing is that, I was a self taught entrepreneur from a young age, and then I went to YCY Combinator, the startup accelerator. And like you said, did the startup thing, got funding and had to that life.

And in that world, to be honest, I had this mirror. I don't know if that's the right word or phrase, but, I was gonna say a mirror held up to me by looking or watching other people and realizing that a lot of the people that I looked up to and who were actually getting results were not necessarily running at the frenetic pace that I was and that my founder, co founder was or so I think, those, my interest is mostly in starting new things, adding value, being useful, and I think that's why I've enjoyed and loved those portions of my career.

But in terms of thinking about calm company, I think it's when I think of a friend of mine who runs a company that I met at Y Combinator, and he runs a, well, now there's, he has a few employees, but for years he ran it as a one person company and was just, playing his own game. And I think of him all the time and he was, and he's just, it was kind of slow and steady wins the race.

And he has won the race. He has what you'd call a lifestyle business now, but it's exactly what he wants, and it's a technology company

Kyle: And that's one thing that I think is so fascinating, is that I think a lot of people create like a false dichotomy between Like success, especially like financial success and a calm company being kind of opposed that it's you can make a choice between, having a good lifestyle, making enough money to survive off of all of those things, or really more like enough money to thrive with, or you can have a calm way of living about your work and not make work the central tenet of your entire life, and that's a choice between the two, but I don't think that's really a true choice.

I think that it's completely possible to have both, and there's plenty of examples of people who do that type of work.

Jeff: a hundred percent, but we're also social creatures. And I know in the time when I was going through startup land, it was the mid 2010s or teens and, the zeitgeist was really around this hustle culture, it was the start of that and you start doing what I call managing by ink magazine cover, the magazine ink where you're thinking, what did those people do?

What are they being celebrated for? I need to do those things. And you get external with how you think about running your business or running your career. And really that makes zero sense. So. Like, yeah, I think that choice now I see that choice is totally false. Now. I also don't buy into it like that.

It's all sunshine and rainbows and you won't have to ever have long hours if you're trying to start a new company or do these things. Like there may be times that, it's necessary, but I think through consistency and discipline you can, a lot of those things can really become less pronounced than what sort of the popular culture tells us needs to be.

Kyle: Yeah, like it would be great to dive into that, like, kind of definition from your side of what you think of when you think of What a calm company is, but I did want to say just one thing from my background that I think is worth saying is that this kind of notion of a calm way of working is actually pretty new for me as well, because I came from the non profit arts world, which may not seem like the most breakneck world.

world, but I came into the industry very much where it was like, we need to find new models for how you run non profits, how you make them survive. Cause it was like post the 2008 recession. So arts were kind of decimated in that time. And most organizations were looking towards like Silicon Valley for how do we do this better?

So it was very much taking that hustle culture into account. So like, I actually decided to switch careers after my wife basically sat me down for an intervention of, hey, like, you're so burnt out and so unhappy because I was working 80 hours a week. And like, I love my job. I love the people I worked with, but I was just completely wearing myself down with work that just never stopped and worrying about cash flow and all of those types of things.

And that's when I really started to like take a look at what could this be because I came up very much in the like Zuckerberg hustle image of that's how you make a career for yourself is by just working as hard as possible as long as possible.

Jeff: Yeah. So at that point, did you start like thinking, Oh, I could actually design something new if I'm starting over, it can be anything I want. Did it, did you get to that thought?

Kyle: I don't like, cause it's interesting because I was always really interested in like how you worked, like the project management side, the communication side, all of those things, but I never really thought a ton about. Just it's like work's place in your life. And what's interesting, because like when I started working at Reynolds Myers, I was worried at first because I knew that kind of hustle culture, crunch culture that came with agencies.

But I, talking with you, I didn't, think that was going to be the case, and I was right about that, so a bit of a risk of, like, just that trust there. But then it was really the first time in my life that I started working, like, eight hour days in an office, five days a week. So it was, like, the least freedom that I had at the start, but it was also, like, the most calm that I was, because when I left work, I was done for the day.

And that's what got me just kind of started thinking about it, that it was a. lifestyle that I was pretty opposed to from like the start of my career that actually was making me a lot happier. So that's what got me really just started thinking about that piece. But then there was still plenty of things that that I would say that R& M just kind of ran the generic, this is how companies function that seemed like it could be done differently.

And you gave me like a place to explore that really.

Jeff: yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, because I think even at that point, we you came into my life and it was through a mutual, an introduction from a mutual friend. And I think I was also at a very open place at that time, right? Like, like you said, this wasn't my first rodeo. I knew that there could be better ways.

And I was at the beginning of my journey of separating time or, your butt in a seat. From value creation, right? In my mind.

Kyle: Yeah, because they're running an agency, there's a, like, very meaningful connection between literal time and money because in those days, R& M was charging by the hour, so

Jeff: yeah, and traditionally that's how everybody, that's how agencies sell, right? They sell their capacity and their time. And I would say now, I guess through your work, which I will get into in later episodes, I think, and we've talked about some of the things in the past episodes. But through your work of helping us.

I say helping, but really leading the reek and jigger of how Reynolds Myers R& M works. I self radicalized on that concept of that separation of time and value to a degree now that I see almost no correlation. And in my mind, if this company, if everybody only worked three days a week, I don't really care as long as it gets the rewards for the teammates and colleagues that they need, like the mathematics work.

And we do that by creating the value that our clients need. And now that's where my brain a hundred percent is like, obviously work still takes some time. I see so little correlation between time and value creation. So I don't know. I don't know where I was going with that. But.

Kyle: Yeah, because I think it would be easy to, like, assume that I converted you in some way and, like, convinced you of that, but I've never really set out to convince you that's the way it is. I really think we kind of both started exploring it about the same time independently and just kind of landed at the same place.

Jeff: yeah. And frankly, though, you had the bandwidth and the propensity to do the work on it, to put the time to, which, I have had done theoretically, but never put pen to paper in a way to get, to move the needle on that, which you did, so. I'm very grateful for that part of it.

Kyle: So, let's

Jeff: And I just want to say, like, I don't know if, I mean, I think RNM could be classified as a calm company, obviously we still have moments, but the vast majority, it's pretty calm, but you know, it is important to realize that it's a sort of the classic process, not an event.

Kyle: Because like from a client's perspective, the way that we're a calm company is actually just being so far ahead and planned for things that emergencies don't come up. It's not that if an emergent, like I a client had an SSL issue out of nowhere last week. So on Friday I jumped in at 7 p.

m. to get it fixed, but. That's not the norm, that's not the expectation, so it's not a big inconvenience when it happens every now and then.

Jeff: Right.

Kyle: So I wanted to talk a little bit about just kind of your definition, my definition of Calm Company. Because, like, I'm trying to Remember, I believe, like, that the terminology of Calm Company really came from, like, Ran Fishkin when he was starting SparkToro.

I think that's kind of, the first one who really coined the idea of a calm company. I might be wrong there, but part of what he was coming from was, like VC backed versus not and how you get your funding and who kind of pressures you in your work. But, he, SparkToro is still like a three person company that, works some shorter hours than most companies, but they kind of, their goal is to compete in that more VC funded tech space.

So, I think that's where kind of the terminology started, but what's your definition? How do you think of it? Like, how does the way that you run Reynolds and Myers kind of correlate with how you think of calm companies?

Jeff: Well, I think it starts with the benefit or the outcome I'm seeking, which is creating tremendous value with sustainability. And so that's what we're trying to do and how we do that. I think is by right sizing or balancing. I hate to say balance, cause I think that's even not quite right, but balancing the needs of the people doing the work, in our case, the Reynolds and Myers team with the needs of the people were doing the work for our clients.

And so that's, whatever those needs might be, in the real world, they look like. A lot of times flexibility, proactivity, planning discipline, all these sorts of things. But it's really about having that goal and starting to think about this idea that, a company, does a company ever have to end?

Do I have to end, like stop working, and in order to do that's what I mean by sustainability,

Kyle: yeah,

Jeff: So I don't know that it's not very precise, but that's where I go.

Kyle: And it's just kind of the concept of businesses burning bright and fast and then burning out and you're trying to, like, get as much profit from it as possible during that time, whereas, the other side would be a business that can just keep going, stay profitable, that doesn't wear you out to where you need to get out of it.

Yeah,

Jeff: but I guess built into that is taking the long view, right? Understanding that, that we're, everybody's better off, what you said, the kind of the burning out thing, where they flash I think the traditional VC back model absolutely encourages that.

Kyle: it's the only way that you can even survive financially as a founder of a VC company is if work for nothing for three or four years until you get an exit. And then you either exit or fail.

Jeff: Yeah. And also, there's other dynamics, in Boise, where we're based, our startup scene is thriving, but relatively small. And there's a lot of what I call zombie companies, because the founders who are starting these companies, their alternative is to go get a job, for 65, 000 as a, product manager somewhere. Maybe a little bit more, but in California, the founders who are starting companies are turning around, turning down 450, 000 a year, job opportunities. And so there's a much bigger urgency. So that, so then what happens is places like Boise look to San Francisco and there's actually completely dynamic, different dynamics, but we look at their startup scene and assume we should be like that scene or business I'm using startup, even as a broader business scene.

And. And it just doesn't make sense.

Kyle: And I think it's interesting how you mention like the balance for like Reynolds Myers being a service company, the balance between like clients and employees. But that does kind of imply that there's a tension between those two. And like there might be at times, but I think a lot of times those two things actually work together, that the better life is for the employees, the better life is for the clients.

Jeff: I would rarely say that clients are, have like pushed me to be uncalm

but I would say I've pushed myself and pushed others to be uncalm based on my assumptions about the clients.

Kyle: Yeah, and part of my point is that working, like, as a client working with an agency that runs in this calm way, it also makes your life a lot calmer because the ways that you communicate are a lot more Yeah. structured and planned. It's not a ton of, just back and forth emails and marketing emergencies all the time.

So there's benefits on both sides outside of just the value creation.

Jeff: Yeah, but I also think, That's not. Those sometimes you're talking about breaking habits for people. It's not always easy. Like the way you describe it is as like a positive. And I, of course, I believe it's a positive, but a lot of times it doesn't feel like a positive when a client isn't used to those, isn't used to our structure, for example, but so what was your definition?

Kyle: like, I think of it as the main goal for me in all of my work is to be able to provide value without having to do it manually. needing to tie, like, myself down in terms of, like, time and my place in time to be able to kind of do my best work at the time when my best work can be done and have it be planned out in such a way that it's, always ahead of schedule of whenever anybody needs it by, and just kind of putting myself in the place to do my best work without it being something that takes up all of my time and my day.

Jeff: So that was my problem with my phrasing of the word balance, using up because it's not really about balance. What you described is not balance. It's just like right sized and right timed for you.

Kyle: Exactly.

Jeff: So it's not about like, like, I don't think the, even the idea of like, it's about working less is the right way to think about it.

It's about working right.

Kyle: yeah and, I think it, the reason that it comes down to working less most of the time when it's done well is because we waste so much time, doing nonsense in our work days most of the time. Right.

Jeff: And I think that's where we get, I'm start, when I start talking and start thinking about things, I have to break up the philosophical from the tangible, because philosophically it has nothing like time is not really relevant in real world. Managing a calm company. Thinking about your use of time is absolutely critical.

Kyle: Like, we've talked before about the idea of like, performative performative work and all the things that go around the real value creation. And that's for me, personally, the thing that I've tried to remove as much as possible from my life is anything that becomes that performative, just being seen, being like, in every meeting, you can get into all of those types of things.

I've tried to take that out of my life. As much as possible.

Jeff: Yeah. And the thing is there's like individual performative work, but really like there's this whole performative company thing. Where, I mean, everything from build, making, or, building out fancy offices before you have any customers, I, I just met with a founder this week and he was great guy, but you know, he's very focused on culture.

And I was like, well, how big is your team? He's like, well, it's me and my. I'm like, well, culture, you're not at the culture stage, in my view, you're in the sell something stage so you can learn something stage, and and so that was the conversation, but I felt like he got a little bit sucked in to some of this, like, what the other, what do real companies do, quote, unquote, air quotes, and I think, You could apply that not just startups, service businesses, manufacturing businesses,

Kyle: Yeah, and

Jeff: many manufacturing companies?

Kyle: form of marketing. Like, I was talking yesterday with somebody who is like, kind of a minor internet celebrity, and he's in the midst of starting a business and kind of there's a whole backstory to it, but A lot of eyes are on him right now and kind of starting out this business.

And what we're talking about is very much that, like, he feels so much pressure to be doing every sort of marketing that you can be doing, and that he's doing something wrong because he doesn't have kind of the time and bandwidth to do, every possible channel for his company. And that is very much that performative side of marketing, that it's not about.

The results of it, it's about, like, feeling like that's just something you need to be doing to not be bad at your job.

Jeff: Yep. And usually self imposed even more than your advisors or clients or whoever,

Kyle: you, almost entirely internal, and you might get external reinforcement, but it's because you put yourself kind of in that mindset of thinking about it in that way.

Jeff: Yeah. And as I'm sitting here thinking about this definition of calm companies, I'm just, I keep coming back to this thought that is woo and I'm not a particularly woo person and, but like, it's really like bringing mindfulness. To work, no more, just like if you're doing a workout or trying to find, doing your meditation practice or whatever.

Kyle: Bit less woo, even though it means exactly the same thing, is intentional.

Jeff: yeah,

Kyle: behind your work.

Jeff: Yeah. And then the outcome ends up being, Just more a little more peace in your life now I do think there's shadows to all this because what you know What pushes the other way of working is usually a scarcity mindset or fear. So you do have to address those issues I don't want to go all the way down that today.

We don't have time for that. But I you know, I do think That part of human psychology is really important to understand that it's these evolutionarily important Aspects that we have or features we have of like the scarcity mindset that really drives us away from this calmness. And that's why you need to be intentional or mindful and, to make things, good things happen for yourself.

Kyle: because I think that's a really important part of it, because that's something else that, when I was talking to the minor internet celebrity like, because he's kind of in the public eye right now, there's this feeling of, like, there's a lot of opportunity, so I need to scale what I'm doing in order to kind of take that opportunity.

But the reality of a sustainable company is that you always want capacity. If you grow yourself to have more capacity than you have opportunity, that's a, death knell of the company.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think, I was going to say this earlier that one of the things that, that fights against calm companies is just this idea of perpetual growth. Or not even just growth, but like at a some defined rate, 20 percent a year, 30 percent a year, that are really not these rates that are not really not really realistic or common, but and then, again, a startup, when you're starting with a low denominator, you're starting with one customer, doubling just means you had two customers, right?

You now have two

Kyle: Right.

Jeff: And, but the challenge is that you. You start applying that way of thinking, Oh, they had a hundred percent growth this year,

Kyle: Yeah. Like you, you make things exponential and you can only have exponential growth one or two times before that becomes

Jeff: There you go. There you go. And yet it gets built into our mindset that's somehow the norm, because again, that's what the person on the cover of ink magazine says they're

Kyle: Yeah, and it ties directly into the scarcity mindset because I think a lot of that comes from, like, we have this opportunity right now. Like, if you do good work, usually more opportunities come from that good work. So then if it's, we need to grow to embrace that opportunity because that opportunity might not be here tomorrow.

And that's actually the kind of false dichotomy in their thinking is that opportunity doesn't by its nature just disappear if you don't grab it right away.

Jeff: Yep. But, I'm sitting here thinking about how you started this conversation with this question, what's the appeal of a comp company? Like why are we doing this? And I have to say that one unexpected answer to that is I do think it made me better at lead at leading people at running a company.

And frankly doing my job and understanding my industry and the business and business, bigger picture business, much better than I ever have because I've taken this mindset. And that's a super, like from a personal growth standpoint, I think that is an underrated category, category or item of the appeal of

Kyle: Yeah. And it, don't think it can be understated how important it is just the recognition of, businesses are ran by humans. Humans have emotions. We like to kind of pretend like it's just this Like, oh, you gotta earn your way up, but it's very similar to retirement if you're, like, working through a corporate culture of it's just like, yeah, your life needs to be shit for 20 years, and then you get to have five years as the boss where you make everybody else's life shit, and then you get to retire.

Jeff: That's not the way it works.

Kyle: I think it is the way it works for most people, but that's, I think, the thing that it doesn't have to work that way, I don't think.

Jeff: Well, even in that cat in that description, not everybody has the opportunity to quote, make it to the

Kyle: Yeah, like, most people don't. They just get the 20 years of being shat on and not the benefit of it. A

Jeff: Yep. So that, I think that's also an argument to think about, even if you don't run a company or don't have control, I mean, of a company, if you're just either running your department or your own career. I think the principles that we'll be talking about still can be beneficial even if you don't have all the control.

Kyle: big part of, like, calmness in the workplace is really a matter of, like, understanding what you have control over and what you don't and focusing on the things you do have control over and what you can do. And, a lot of our listeners that we focus on in the past is usually leader roles, so they at least have a little bit more power over their own lives and the lives of other people.

the people that work under them than other people do. So, it's even more important for them to kind of take that intentional step.

Jeff: Yep.

Kyle: last thing I wanted to kind of talk about in this introductory piece is we've mentioned retirement a few times and you and I have talked a lot about kind of is that something that interests us?

Could we ever stop working? All of those. And I'm curious just kind of Legacy, and, like, legacy isn't really the right word, but just as you're thinking about, like, the longevity of Reynolds and Myers, and just your life in general, and, like, running calm companies, whether it's this or something else in the future as well, just how that ties in to just kind of your, like, life plan, because one reason I think it's interesting for us to be discussing this is that we both have Like, we're at different stages in our lives with different kind of plans for how calmness works into our kind of future.

Jeff: Yeah. And I also just add that, I'm a relatively recent empty nester. So two kids raised up and away at college. And I think that weighs heavily in this conversation for me, because that's a very much like a milestone moment from, just being really busy with That life, kid raising to not to be much less busy.

Right. Which, puts you on reflect, reflection. And I've also, been fortunate enough to have some economic wins, selling businesses and such so that work, can be optional. And, but all that said, the option I choose is to work forever, but I don't know what that really means yet.

The idea I feel like we're missing a word in the English language between can retire and retirement. Retirement, sounds like you're, the cliche of golf or whatever. And I still want to make stuff, even if over time I want to be focused more on using my brains than my hands.

Cause that's where I think I add the most value these days. So I guess my answer to that is in some ways, the calm, the pursuit of a calm company really for me was driven to say, how can I work? and be functional useful for as long as possible, and I need, in my mind, I need space to learn and think and to leave in lean into all that.

And so, I mean, that's basically how I'm thinking about it. I don't really have an interest in retiring and I don't, and even the commercial, I'm still interested in the commercial world, I still like business and capitalism and free markets. I have a friend who's a little couple of years older than me and he's getting ready to retire a couple more years.

I think his plan is, but he's an artist. And he's, so he's starting to work on bringing that back after years of not, using his fine art skills. He's bringing that back to his life and he's going to, and so, I don't really have something that pulls me towards that in that way.

I feel like I want to keep doing what I'm doing, but just a little more calmly and more sustainably.

Kyle: And I think the other piece to what you're saying to Put some words into your mouth, I guess, is that you approached it from that you've had some successes in your life, so you've got, some financial stability, but that's not to say that you are running R& M in a calm way. Because you're okay with making less money, like, I would say just in our conversations that it's almost like you're just betting on the longevity that is a better financial kind of situation than, just trying to grow right now and sell or anything like that.

That if you can keep it going for 20 years, then that's actually a better situation financially.

Jeff: I mean, maybe I don't, I think about it as the reason I bring up the money stuff is more than to say that I have options and the option still is the option I choose is still to work and, I feel like it's more around separating, making money, not the main driver in my

Kyle: And my point just being that Someone shouldn't take from that you are running this as like a charity that,

Jeff: Oh yeah,

Kyle: profitable or anything like that because of how you run it.

Jeff: Actually, you can talk to members of our team and how we talk about the economics of our business. It's, I would say it's actually kind of the opposite. We start, back to that intentionality portion. We really look at like, is the work we're, are we doing the right work to create the most value so everybody can get compensated, justly.

So yeah, I don't know. I guess for me, and to be honest, like the Academic, I don't know if that's the right word, exercise of running a business again seems separate to me than my personal life, but that's how I look at things, I mean, in other words, I have a job to do, which is run a profitable, valuable, useful company.

And that's my job that I'm going to do, whether, whatever the circumstances are. Yeah.

Kyle: on my side, like, I I would say that I do have a pretty selfish, like, mentality towards the idea because I'm really focused on what's the life I want to live. And, the. reason that I push for these things is two sided, that A, I think that it's like, it's how I do my best work, and from talking with colleagues, everything like that, it seems like I'm not that different, that most people do their best work in that way.

So there's benefit for you as the owner of the agency for that, but also for me, it's just the life I wanna live and being able to shape the place I work to that is obviously great and I really apply that towards my whole life. Like that's kind of my goal right now is to figure out how to create a sustainable life that.

can kind of just continue in this way. So, obviously I've got like a great situation right now working at a calm company, but who knows what happens and, what type of economic crisis is there are or whatever and where my life's going to be. So I'm trying to set myself up to where I can live this way.

No matter what. And so how I look at that as a little bit different than you, because of the stages we're at in our life of like more of like a portfolio way of how do I get in multiple like forms of income that aren't time based and all of those things into my life.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think we actually share that. I just did that work before I started this, before I realized calm.

Kyle: for that purpose.

Jeff: well, my drip, you have to, my favorite word since I learned it in first grade is options, the word options and optionality. And so I, I was, that's the way I thought about it. My whole life was, how do I create more optionality in my life?

And, I've gotten fortunate economically, but it was never the economics that ever have really driven me other than to the degree that they could help give me options. It could help give me options.

Kyle: That it's that stability that lets you kind of live the life that leads to the most happiness for you at that time.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think I, the nice thing is you learn along the way when you have that mindset, what does bring you happiness? I didn't, I didn't necessarily know That, running a calm company could actually also contribute to that during that time, I was working towards that stuff.

So I had to come to that realization on how that could fit into my life. But other concepts that are related like minimalism and mindfulness and these things have been in my life for a long time. And I think that's what sort of made it easy to transition or to add this into the deck of cards,

Kyle: and it's also going back to some of what we were talking about of the scarcity mindset. It gives you, like, the time for experimentation and taking risks as well, that. Some of the changes that have been made to Reynolds and Myers over the last few years people could easily see as being, like, a big risk and we'll talk about some of, like, the specific things that have been done, but if you didn't have those kind of options, if it was all eggs in one basket, it would be hard to kind of do that experimentation that is really necessary to. mold a company that can like work at its kind of best without everybody being tied to time and 80 hour weeks.

Jeff: Yeah. And in fairness, in the early days of the company it didn't feel that way. Right. We were hustling 70 hours a week and but we did some things to lay the groundwork that allowed us to get to where we are today. So I look forward to the conversation about that part, like about the pre work or the early stage work that can really set you up.

I think for success along this

Kyle: Yeah. And part of what we want to do with this kind of new format and focus is focus on like, there are businesses that I am actively working on trying to start up to run in that calm company way. So we'll be able to talk about them and kind of. real time of what works, what doesn't on making that happen and where that hustle is necessary and where you can skip it.

Jeff: Nice. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to

Kyle: Awesome. So in future episodes, we'll be a little bit more topic focused and cover, things that are going on recently in real time, all of that, but it was great to be able to just chat with you about This bigger concept today and what we're going to be diving into in the rest of these episodes.

Jeff: Yeah. And I just think the conversation can be focused around, calm companies, but that's a huge topic. So we're going to look at it from lots of different angles and things that won't even seem like we're talking about calm companies in a lot of ways, yeah,

Kyle: Well, it was great chatting with you, Jeff. Hope you have a great weekend.

Jeff: thanks Kyle for making this happen.

Kyle: Talk to you later.

Jeff: All right. Bye.