The 500th Episode: A Look Back At My Favorite Moments and Guests on the Podcast

WOW! Today marks the 500th episode of the show, and I am beaming with pride. I took a journey back at the past episodes and the fantastic guests that have been on the show. Best selling authors, amazing speakers, leaders in the trenches (pun intended), and so many get topics. Today, I am honored to share with you the 500th episode of the podcast. Join me and walk down memory lane. I might share some key episodes that you have missed.

Don't miss an episode. Subscribe to Growth Think Tank.



The 500th Episode: The Transcript

Share the LOVE and TWEET about this episode.

 

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Five hundred episodes. I can’t believe it. Five hundred episodes of a podcast.

I remember sitting there discussing with one of my mentors about what should I name this podcast. It started out with me focusing on this concept of leaders in the trenches or the need to niche because I really do believe that companies should have real solid focus and a lot of people struggle to come up with that. The one question that came back from this mentor was.

You know in 10 years’ time and you look back which one of those names best describes who you are and what you’ve become. I let it sink in for a few minutes because I knew it didn’t deserve a quick answer and the name came up. Leaders in the trenches know you probably know this by now if you’re a regular listener but it’s no longer call leaders in the trenches because about six months ago I made a big change. But. All of it together really is about leaders in the trenches is about really interviewing people who were on the frontlines of business growth and really experts in what they’re doing.

Some of them are speaking about it some of them are bestsellers but all of the people I’ve interviewed I think are in the trenches. This is five hundred episodes and I’m really excited to share with you this special version of the show where I share some defining moments in some of the special interviews we’ve had. This is not going to be fancy I don’t have a bunch of guests coming in here I’m just going to kind of give you from my heart my take on some of the important things that happened over the years.

So 500 episodes is a tremendous amount of time to spend on any one thing I’ve been doing this for almost six years. And so when you think about that it really is an amazing run. I’m consistently put out content I’ve increased the flow because of demand I’ve turned down hundreds and hundreds of people every month. It’s amazing how many people I get to say no to and I’m not saying that you know kind of proud of that but there’s a lot of people that are trying to be on the show. And so we’re trying to create the best experience for you.

And I get to filter through my team and I have come up with some guidelines. Right now we’re only focused on leaders of the INC 500 these founders and CEOs have a special story to tell.

They are they really do represent growth think thinkers if you will but this really is going all the way back to the beginning. So I’m going to dive in here one of the things that I wanted to kind of go over with you is no.

Over the last five years,we’ve gotten an emendous amount of press and it’s exciting to do that because I share this with others. But we’ve been in ink magazines the 12 podcasts that will make you a better leader. We’ve been in Business Insider 100 podcast that will make you smarter and more successful. We’ve been an Entrepreneur Magazine 13 actual strategies from 13 entrepreneurial podcasts. The Huffington Post the seven best podcast. You should be listening to and in many many more.

You know that I’ll put a list of some of the media that we’ve had it here because I want you to be able to go to these articles maybe find some new podcasts if you’re looking for to expand where you are going. But hopefully,you’ll stay with me. I also want to remind you that before I get into this list of amazing interviews I want to express my commitment to you to continue to evolve this show to make it better fit who you are where you’re going.

And I want to tune into what’s going on in your life by serving you and I say this with a smile. I need you to give me a little bit of your time. If you would go to genehammett.com/survey I will have some questions there ready for you. I will also have a little bit of a carrot to dangle. I’m going to give my five hundred dollars I’ll get five hundred dollars five people that fill out the survey in the right way that you know not just kind of you know doing it the quick version but to really give me some depth answers.

And my team and I will help select those but you could be one of them. We don’t have you know millions of listeners so your input really does matter. I want to know some of the things about you know the kind of company you’re in the kind of role you have as leader. I also want to know some of your challenges. I also know how often you’re listening to the show and do you prefer the show to other simple questions. Your feedback will help us keep the show going and really tune in to what’s going on in your room.

All right. So just go to genehammett.com/survey. Let’s dive into this. I’m going to start with one of the interviews that you know this is not in any particular order. I have organized them. So this is just really just regular interviews. But there was a gentleman on the show episode number#22. And his name is Larry Winget. Larry is a pistol. You don’t know Mr. Winget he is so amazing. You know he is his brand of speaking and directness and humor is not for everyone.

Some of his books would be the title Big Bro a pair how to stop being a victim and take back your life your business and your sanity. Another book is called it’s called work for a reason.

Your success is your own damn fault. Another one is your broke because you want to be how to stop getting by and start getting ahead. We could go on and on and on but you know Larry talked about a lot of different things on the show but I remember one thing that stood out to me you talked about commitment and he shared a story about you know in his life commitment is not something that you do sometimes. Commitment is something you do all the time. And I remember that and I’ll share this with a lot of people his story behind it was when I married my wife.

I’m not committed to her some of the time not just when I liked her. I’m committed to her all the time. You mentioned the same thing about his kids and if you have teenagers you know what I mean. It’s hard to be committed to them all the time but you have to be as a parent. That’s our job. And is it workers and as leaders. Those words are really I take to heart about this idea of commitment. Another concept that came out of that interview was a quote that I put into my book the trap of success which was make a decision and then make it the right decision.

This this really goes into helping people be more decisive about what they’re going to what their choices are in front of them but also how they show up to make it the right decision. How do they really play then. There’s many things I can tell you about how that’s been used but that’s one interview that really stands out. So just go to Larry we get you just type that in to that and look up leaders in the trenches or growththink tank. To find that. You can also one of the interviews I did was with a friend or actually two friends.

Adam Walker and Jeff Hilimire. Number #196 creating a life of significance takes courage and the story behind this is I really was excited to share what they have done something that just blew me away. 48 and 48 was just an idea that I think a lot of people thought was kind of crazy but they create 48 Web sites. For 48 nonprofits in 48 hours and it really is something that they didn’t do once they’ve done this multiple times across the country even into London and they’re going to take this globally and I really love this interview because these two gentlemen are friends of mine now and they just.

Absolutely have insight to how to create something bigger than themselves and how to give their skills to others and how to coordinate that in such a way that it’s actually benefited their businesses benefited their own leadership. And it has been a part of their legacy so that is a great interview. I also got a chance to interview Joe de Cena for #439 so it wasn’t that Fargo but pushing beyond your mental barriers in Joe is you’re not familiar with the name he is the originator or the founder of Spartan Races. He wrote the book Spartan up and we talked about the mental barriers that people often put him but in themselves so that’s a really fantastic interview.

I was excited to have that another set of interviews I had was Ryan Gill number #283.The courage to create a cult brand in Ryan is the former president of cult collective and now the CEO of Camino a new platform for really talented workers and maybe the future of work. And they also. Created the cult gathering. I also interviewed his business partner on this number. Chris Nealon at number 327. How did you find customer expectations to drive business and what I liked about these two not just because I spoke at their conference and not just because I spoke next up Bernie Brown one of my my heroes in this world of leadership but just amazing dude’s amazing kind of concepts that they how they think about the world.

It’s very different. It’s edgy. I absolutely love it. Their book fix break the addictions that are killing brands both and we’re part of that. But you know brands as we know it are addicted to advertising. And it really is kind of a Band-Aid to their product. And it really created a new way to look at it through customer expectations and when you can really tune into that. I’ve used this this concept inside my own work to help people understand what ownership is like and what really being inclusive is and we’ll give you the details because it’s just it’s not proprietary to me it’s just what I do with my clients and I just thought I’d say that’s one reason why I put them on this list.

They created incredible conference call the cult gathering I did speak at a couple of years ago and if you had a chance to go it’s fantastic it’s in Banff which is one of most beautiful places in the world. Another interview that I had recently very recently. So for 98 Angelo poli is about becoming an energetic and healthy leader. If you haven’t listened this episode go back to it. It’s just you know just a couple of episodes ago but I share my own weight loss journey with them and I say journey it was only about 35 40 days from the very beginning to where we actually did the interview.

I’ve continued to lose more weight since then hasn’t been that long ago but I’m on a tear to lose 30 pounds. I’ve had any trouble for for a long time and inside that episode was really some game changing information and I used their program to go get the details with Angelo number four ninety eight. This next set are friends and clients that have been on the show. One of my best friends in the world is Jason Swenk and Jason has created an amazing business for agency owners. He is an advisor and a mentor.

He’s gotten many different kind of ways to work with him but let’s just say he’s a rock star in his industry. He’s been on the show a couple of times. He’s been someone that I helped advise in the very early days of his business literally from the struggling aspects of no where do I even begin. How do I start. Why why is this not working in and helping him kind of navigate some of those very difficult moments. The first time he got on stage he didn’t get any clients from it the second time the third time a fourth and the fifth time and I had a chance to to sit in his audience with him and give him some feedback on that coach him as as as I do and then very next time he created about 50000 dollars in new clients from one speech and he did that multiple times since then and he continues to do it because he’s very selective in where he speaks which is good.

But he’s also shares some of the insights behind that profitable niche. So Jason’s been on the show and I just had to highlight that. Also another client of mine is Ron Dodd. Ron tells his journey of going growing 400 percent in a year with me. I know that sounds like a lot. His company was pretty small. He had a small team but he exploded with growth because of some of the strategies we came up with and he executed on it and I guided him through it so I share this with you because it really is a great episode.

That’s number 2 0 7 with Ron Dodd. I also had Mike Parsky on there he is the CEO of dagger creating a growth culture. That interview is number 347. That was really a great place to share the journey of Mike. Mike has been a high performer in everything he’s ever done probably going back to his his middle school years or even before in this role of being the CEO of a new company that was the he wanted to grow fast and others were expecting to grow fast really was a challenge for him because he had to let go of some of the things as a high performer of doing it all himself and build the team around him and really create something that he’s proud of that that I’m proud of to be a part of and really serving the biggest brands in the world so that story is on number 347 with Mike capacity.

Now let’s look at some of the best selling author that have been on the show. I don’t have any favorite interviews like you don’t have favorite children but this one interview stands out for me. I say this because it really is something that blew me away when I had Seth Godin on the show. I was beside myself. That was the one interview that I was really hoping to to land in the early days. You may not know this about me but one of the the goals I set when I started this podcast was I want to interview and be connected to some of the sharpest minds in business.

And for me Seth Godin is on that list. And we talked about developing leaders with Seth Godin one of the quotes that he said in there and I still remember today is if your employees are expecting to be told what to do then you can always find someone cheaper to do it. Think about that if your employees are expecting to be told what to do. You can always find someone cheaper to do it because what we really need is we need people that are leaders that see an opportunity inside of our businesses and are able to take initiative toward that make decisions know take their opinions and move forward be able to to fail and pick themselves back up and keep going.

And this interview is all about that. So go to #331 with Seth Godin some of the great books that he has been a part of if you haven’t heard of this this gentleman is Purple Cow. Transform your business by being remarkable the depth. His first book I believe is Permission Marketing which he really was helping people understand that we should collect permission before we bombard people with a bunch of information. He’s also I think his latest book is This is marketing. He also wrote lynchpin tribes. We could go on and on.

He’s like eight time nine time best seller. He’s really an amazing person.

Glad to have him on the show. Well as we keep moving through this list I had a gentleman that I had sort of a man crush on for a long time. His name is Michael port. Michael has written many books. One of them is called Still the show. And I just really have admired Michael’s Journey.

He’s a good looking guy. He’s got no hair right now. But on the cover of one of his books he’s got you know beautiful hair and everything but he’s a you know I’m I’m certainly don’t have a man crush on him but I really do admire his intelligence. We talked about there’s nothing more valuable than understanding your target market. And he drove deep into that conversation on episode 64. I think back on the show to talk about performing.

You onstage how to steal the show with with Michael Porter. That was number #176. Inside that episode if you’re looking to do more public speaking we did kind of a machine gun approach to know how do you handle the first seven seconds how do you handle nervous jitters How do you get the audience to feel more emotion through the speech and a number of different questions if you want to be a better speaker make sure you tune into 176. Michael Porter. I also remember the first time I got an email from this gentleman that actually think it is through a friend but Michael Gerber I probably had the book back here.

Here is the e-mail. That book a lot of people have quoted minds minds got underlines and quotes and everything inside there. But Michael Gerber you’re really kind of organized this whole three idea of systematized your business. And it really is a powerful aspect. We talked about you don’t know how broke your mindset is. So it’s a very powerful interview where he goes into the thinking behind being an entrepreneur being a leader that you need to be and how you must continue to evolve as that leader that’s episode 88. Another great gentlemen become a friend of mine Mike McKellar.

He has written many books. He’s written clockwork which is a fantastic book on systems prophet first is about how do you treat your money inside your book. The pumpkin plan which is like an overall strategy for growth and his next book coming out is called Fix this next. And I love Mike’s work. His humor is is really top notch. He makes me laugh maybe it maybe doesn’t make you laugh but I really do appreciate that. His episode is number 353 that some of these defining moments really. I’m getting a little caught up here because it’s such a long journey I’ve had with some amazing people.

Another best selling author I’ve had is Bob Berg. That book is the go giver. He is a co-author with John David Mann. I recently included a a article for a magazine Inside this interview talking about the go giver. And I didn’t give him credit but he is such an amazing person and such a gentle heart and wants to make sure people are giving to others. And people have quoted this book to me and suggests this book to me over and over again. So the title of that episode is money is an echo of value and you can go get that at episode 1 1 4.

So one 14. Finally wrapping up the best selling authors and I did have others in there I know there was probably eleven maybe fifteen best selling authors Greg McEwan came on the show blew me away with his idea of essentialism that’s the name of his book but we called narrowing it down to the essential because there’s a lot of distraction in our world as a lot of. US trying to figure out what do we do next. And he had a very simple plan behind that I included it into a free guide if you want to get it absolutely free just go to Jean Hemet dot com port slash productivity and you can get that free guide if you don’t that’s not working whatever just limit e-mail Jean.

Jean Caricom. I want to remind you before we keep going on here I really would love for you to help me improve this show and really help me create you know kind of the experience I want as this continues to evolve. I want to serve you. I want to tune into YOUR needs. So we’ve got a survey. Just go to Jean Hemet dot com foresight survey. We’ll be selecting five people to get five hundred dollars as soon as we finish this survey process but take us back a little while but I’d love you to go and do that today.

Just go to Gene Hemmer dot com force I survey. If you’re listening it would really help me out. It’s cost you nothing. You could actually win money but it would help me create better content for you. Now let’s talk about some of the you know high caliber speakers. When I say this is their keynote speakers that really are playing a game at a different level than most of the people around them. The first one I will talk about is Sean Stephenson. Sean is as a powerhouse. He recently passed away.

I know that’s sad. He is in my book the trap of success. There’s an opening story in here I talk about you know thinking bigger and. He is someone who thinks bigger but he was only three foot tall. He had a rare disease it’s called brittle bone disease and so when he would sneeze as a child he would break bones and he he never got out of that. So he was literally like you know shorter than your waist high. But he had such a heart. He had such a soul that it was amazing to be with him I’ve saw him in person among a number of times.

And for him to be on the show to talk about thinking bigger just really love that episode. That’s number two to four. So you can find all about Sean Stephenson there. One of my buddies was on the show. He is you know playing the game at a new level Ryan Justice Hughes episode number to 10. We talked about leading through change adaptation and innovation are necessary in today’s world. He does research with you know Fortune 1000 brands and takes that research and gives it back to them and in very unique powerful ways as a speaker.

One of my best articles I’ve written over the last five years has being writing for major publications is this one I wrote. Managers are a dying breed. Here’s what you must have instead. And that really is a play to we must go beyond just being managers of numbers and processes and of people and be leaders be leaders of processes be leaders of the number to be leaders of the people those that can lead will really drive a new path forward. Whereas managers tend to monkey with the small iterations in between. We need both in our businesses but we’re having a really serious deficit in leadership.

So Ryan SS number two 10 powerful speaker this next gentleman maybe you’ve heard this name before but less brown less is such a an amazing speaker. He is one of the most powerful speakers I’ve ever seen creating connection and significance through speaking. He talks about you know how do you actually do this over and over again. He shares with you some of the specific strategies behind it that’s episode number 248. One of the interesting stories here is how he actually became to be on my show. I still remember it. I’m recording this at Christmas time and it was about the same time a few years ago when I wasn’t feeling well.

Really was kind of in bed and had my laptop in front of me probably shouldn’t had the laptop but I was kind of checking out and I got a message slot into my d M’s on Facebook and it was a listener of the show just like you. And we were having a conversation back and forth so if you’ve never had a conversation me and you want to I will chat with anyone. I will take some time with you to get to know you. All you have to do is reach out to somebody email Gina Jean have a dot com or get into Facebook with me or linked them to me a message.

But the best way is to squad email me and I’d love to talk to you. But this one interview was one kind of conversation was went back and forth. Was talking about maybe I should be a speaker because my Godfather says I should be a speaker. And I was like oh well.

Who’s your godfather. She goes less brown and I said this is the last brown or is this just like some random less brown. And she’s like well he’s a professional speaker.

Do you know of him and I’m like Well absolutely because I’m less brown is is an icon in this industry and really has some very powerful thoughts and he can engage an audience in emotions more than anyone I’ve ever seen. So less was was you know was her godfather and I said I’d love to have him on my show and she’s like OK let me see if I can make that happen. But 20 30 minutes later I wasn’t feeling any better.

And a message comes back and she goes What’s your cell phone. And I said well why. She goes Well I’m going to. He wants to talk to you right now. He’s got some time. And so he wants to call you. So I sent her my cellphone number and less brown literally calls me. We spent the next like an hour and a half talking about my life and about what’s going on in his life and what’s really going on. Fantastic conversation. Again I was not feeling well but I I was so excited and asked him to be on the show and he’s like yeah let’s set that up.

And I said What do you do this next week or you know in the new year and he goes What are you doing tomorrow. And I was like I’m going to be interviewing you if you’re ready let’s do it. So that’s that interview if you want to be a speaker. That’s a fantastic place to start. So another interview with a buddy of mine Jay Baer talk triggers is a book that he has how to get clients for free really.

He’s the co-author of that book but Jay Baer is a world class speaker world class human and really admire what he’s done. He is in the hall of fame is a professional speaker and just some of the things he’s done in the team he’s put together around him really is something to admire. So talk triggers is that interview number 278 Eric wall is some that name you probably never heard of. You might have seen this video where he talks about disruption. He talks about. How what you see may not be what is actually there and he is a renowned graffiti artist.

He was able to in a speech engage the audience in real content but also be speaking in between some of these moments and he takes you know really just a few minutes to. Paint this amazing picture that doesn’t look like much and you’re trying to figure out what maybe what it is and it looks like an abstract but the reality is he steps back and talks about disruption for unit few minutes and it goes and turns over the picture and you realize it’s a picture of Steve Jobs or it’s a picture of someone else famous a lion or something like that.

It’s just an amazing kind of way of really making a difference and die. Eric was on the show and I really admire having won the show so that was number two 61. The next few are some solo episodes I created. Here’s the funny thing about this. A lot of people. Really appreciate the solo episodes. I’ve had some great interviews but most of my solo episodes are shorter. This one’s a little bit longer because it’s episode 500. And if you haven’t already done this survey Williams reminds you one more time.

I’m trying to tune in to your needs as a listener. Go to Jean Hemet AECOM force slash survey and you can help me. Create content just for you. And if you’re one of the five people that win we’re gonna give away 500 dollars or all of those people so make sure you do that. And that would really help us out. Sell episodes. The first one I think I did was how to stand out. Maybe it wasn’t the first one but I used to talk on stages a lot about this I don’t talk much about this anymore but you know how to truly stand out inside your business.

And I walk through the six principles of truly standing out. I remember some of them I kind of made a riff off of you know music are you making music or noise. Well it depends on who you’re talking to and hopefully your music your brand is so specific that you’re tuning into the people and they they hear his music and others hear his noise. Another solo episode I did was number 99. Your truth versus the truth. This was me trying to help you understand that you have some limiting beliefs some blind spots just because you believe it to be true.

You can look around in the world and you can see the evidence in your data in the stories and you you believe that is the truth. But you have to realize that’s your truth and the truth could be completely different you could be wrong. I know it’s kind of hard for me to say this to you and break it to you but you don’t have everything right. If you think you do you’re going to miss out on a.

Charities as leaders and as you know parents as husbands. So you’ve got to be willing to look at your truths and be able to really determine where you could grow and where you have blind spots. So that’s that episode number #99.

Another one is number #233 will be the choice not just a choice. So that really is to about you know how do you create that that was a I gave that speech you know I don’t know. Probably 50 times. Love that speech. And I talked about that for years that you can get some something there. What are the newer pieces to this. And it’s Number #340 where getting the team to take ownership. This was where really was starting this research with Inc. 5000 founders and CEOs and I really was going deep into this and the data came back and said we don’t want people to take responsibility we want them take ownership.And it changed my world because I started talking about it more and more to the show through my speeches through whom just the work I do to help companies grow.

And it resonated. It was it was something that really caught on and it’s actually been the most powerful thing inside of the last probably five or six years that I’ve been talking about is how to increase the sense of ownership and how to lead in a way that inspires people to have that feeling of ownership. Do get the details there at episode #340. I also wrote an Inc article about it so you can you can actually go in there and talk about search for great leaders inspire their employees to take ownership.

And here’s how. So the next episode is about radical transparency how to build trust using radical transparency. Number #316 this comes from Ray Dahlia’s book Principles and it’s one of my top articles as well on ink the three steps Ray Dalio uses radical transparency to build a billion dollar company. Love that one another celeb persona is number #360. Getting out of firefighter mode and becoming a leader. I hear so many leaders that are just scrambling. They feel overwhelmed they show up to work and they never feel like they can get ahead.

And I know exactly how that feels. Sometimes it happens even today where you really pushing forward on some new projects and I feel this sense of overwhelming. And it’s really tough. But you’ve got to step back. You’ve got to slow down to speed up. You’ve got to figure out how to switch from being reactive to being proactive.

And that’s the key inside not only you at your personal growth as a leader but also your culture your team is how do you make those shifts go to 360 to find out about a compliment to that is number three 64 which is customer first or industry person. No I said that wrong customer first or employee first which is best for you. You’ve probably heard me say this before but fast-growth companies. When I asked him the question you know as a leader what’s more important your customers are employees. Fast growth companies nine out of 10 times it’s actually higher than that.

You want to get the exact numbers. We’ll say employees first they know how important it is to take care of the people that are taking care of the customers. They know how important it is for them to be the resource and really push them forward. So make sure you go to X episode 364 to get that one.

Now industry giants some of the times I had some really high flying people on this show I really am amazed about this. I had Howard B ha the former president of Starbucks of filling your soul with Howard Bihar. It’s on the desk. The Magic Cup the Magic Cup. Yes. A good book. It’s one of those fable type books so you can read it very quickly. When I was talking to Howard I just I got this gentle feeling about how he feels as a leader and how much caring is necessary and being a part of the Starbucks brand.

He shares about some of the key moments of their growth. I also had a frank Blake Number 345 on looking tracking this by the episode numbers. But. Leadership that activates the entrepreneurial mindset that the Home Depot. I didn’t who Frank like. Let me back up.

Frank Blake is the former CEO of Home Depot. He is one of the guys who led them out of the housing crisis of 2008 9. And I think he retired just 15. He lives here in Atlanta and he just an amazing leader who has made so much impact in the world because he trained under Jack Welch.

It’s really specific ideas around that. But I asked him a lot of questions around one of their core values as a company at Home Depot with Wharton like 30000 plus associates they don’t call them employees associates. You know why is entrepreneur mindset important there. And he said we need people to have the courage to stand up for the customer when the time is right. We need them to have the courage to make these decisions and share their opinions. And that’s the entrepreneur mindset.

Another great giant I’ve had on the show was Naveen Jain Discover Your Moonshot. This is episode number #335. This episode really did change me. It’s where I came up with the concept of I don’t have my stickers right here. You can show the back of my computer you would see that have these stickers go. I love Monday. And that came from that episode because it’s a moonshot. I truly do love Monday. I love moving my goals forward. I love the work I do. I love serving my clients and I think a lot of employees hate Mondays and they dread them.

What if we could shift this world so that they were so connected to their work. They feel that sense of ownership that they could actually love Mondays as much as we do as owners. Being Jane is a billionaire. I think he’s the billionaire I’ve had on the show. I don’t I didn’t. I don’t take financials but he’s known as a billionaire he’s got a couple of different brands out there one that’s really catching fire right now.

Viacom which is that gut health they run a lot of different things there whether you’re testing for your personal health but what I love about the interview was he talks about you.

What do you why do you need a moonshot and how do you get started with it. Because a lot of people have big dreams. He talks about specifically how to get started. I was really excited to have him on the show. That’s number 335 now. I’m going to keep going here.

Jesse Metzler was really an amazing guest to have on the show and he talks about why normal is broken and that episode number 369. Jesse Metzler is the co-founder of marquee jets. They sold it to Warren Buffett. He also worked with Zico water and sold that to Coca-Cola. He’s had many other successes along the journey. He’s is an zing entrepreneur but he really does believe normal is broken and I love the way he thinks. And that episode is very powerful really excited to have him in the show. By the way one of my other heroes in this world is Sara Blakely I love her.

Her honesty and quirkiness and that are why they’re married. Sara Blakely and Jessi Esler so great episode number #369. I had Brian’s got a more hiring those with the honored spirit. Brian is the founder of 1 800 Got Junk and that brand just exploded and really is a great story about why you want to hire people with an Octomom spirit. That episode number two 93 and also had Horst Schulze say no I’ve got his book here.

Right there. So excellence wins had a chance to have lunch with Horst and he just amazing. He’s the co-founder of Ritz Carlton and it really is something that I. Was just blown away by his view of the world. He actually met with one of my small groups of founders and leaders of fast-growth companies that we raced Porsches. He came in and answered some questions about the courage to give feedback so make sure you tune into episode number three ninety one. All right let’s wrap this up with the Inc 500 leaders.

Ben writes been on the show twice one was lessons of growth. From the fastest growing company number 375 velocity global is his company they grew just an. Astronomical blistering pace and they hit fourth on the list. It was over like thirty five thousand percent in three years. They will continue to grow but not as fast because of the way they started was just a very small amount and they grew to millions. And that’s how they get to there. I talked to him recently about a number #442 with how to hire the best employees and why that’s important.

Inside the group not just because of the performance of individual parts but the performance of the overall team and the standards of the team. So that’s a great interview. I also interviewed Jan Bednar is his number like tween 9 on the list in 2018. The importance of a nimble culture he shares a great story around Thanksgiving about how the company was able to rise together they have a business very dependent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and so they really needed to.

Rise up at this specific time. It really is a great interview a number for Ford for Brad Griffith was a special interview improved collaboration of your team. We talked about a rallying cry and what that is and why that really is important. I love this concept. It really is about how do you align people together to one goal. How do you create objectives and key results beyond that so that over six months everyone is completely aligned that one goal? So that’s Brad Griffith. That’s number four for seven. David Friedman was on the show he’s the number one I think is a co-founder of Friedman.

Actually David’s treatment at free star. They grew thirty six thousand six hundred eighty percent last year and 2019 list. They took about growth with an ownership culture and I wrote about it in ink so you can find that too. Just recently why top company on Inc 5000 this year focused on its company culture to grow quickly finally wrapping this up with Jeremy Doak. Getting your culture to embrace failure. No #478 really a great interview on you about. Innovation inside their business is not something that is just happening. It is very intentional and they embrace failure to do that.

Now,this has been a fantastic journey here to get to where we are. I see all this with a humble heart. If you are listening to this right now you are dedicated to telling you you deserve something special so make sure that you tell me in your survey that you listened to this last piece and then I told you the keyword. Which is VIP. To put that somewhere in that survey you’re listening in here I want to know who my VIP is are my very important people they’re listening to this show deep into it.

If you’re you if you’re gonna go to do that survey that a gene has become for such survey and put in there somewhere VIP where I know exactly who it is I’m not telling everyone else this trick. This is it. So you’re the only ones that know that if you put the VIP in there you have a very special chance at those five hundred dollars you’re going to be given away. So if you go to Gene hemming dot com ports and survey you’ll be able to do that. I’m going to sign this up quickly.

Hopefully,you are enjoying the show you referred it to others. Do you want us to continue growing? Make sure you fill out the survey Gene chemical imports Ash survey as always lead with courage.

We’ll see you next time. Thanks for being a part of Inc 500 I can’t wait to keep going.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

 

The 500th Episode

Resources 

A QUICK FAVOR

And lastly, please leave a rating and review for the Growth Think Tank on iTunes (or Stitcher) – it will help us in many ways, but it also inspires us to keep doing what we are doing here. Thank you in advance!

If you want more from us check out more interviews:

Transformational Leadership
Productivity Tips
Best Selling Author Interviews