From Employee #4 to CEO of a 300-Person MSP - Lessons in Extreme Ownership & Empowering People

[00:00:00] As you may know, it's my mission to interview 100 of the fastest growing and most interesting MSPs on the planet. What you may not know is I am distilling all of that knowledge into one battle-tested book. If you'd like early access to that book, make sure to click the link below. I challenge my team, my direct team, many times to do uncomfortable things because growth comes in uncomfortable situations.

[00:00:25] I personally and professionally challenge myself to do uncomfortable things even, and it's unfair for me to ask you to do something uncomfortable and to grow if I'm not doing the same. Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. And today I continue my mission to interview 100 of the most interesting and fastest growing MSPs on the planet.

[00:00:50] Today I get the pleasure of interviewing Joshua Skeens, who joined as employee number four at an MSP, and ultimately became the CEO of a 300-person MSP. Now, he unlocked for us how he had to become a different person at five employees or ten, at 30, 70, and 300 employees. If you want to learn the secret, spoiler, it's your people, then don't miss out on our conversation today. Well, let's dig right in.

[00:01:18] So Joshua, tell me how the heck you ended up in IT at all from kind of humble farm beginnings. Yeah, so happy to be here. I appreciate it, Damien. But, you know, I really didn't figure that I'd ever be an IT. I wanted to be a farmer. I grew up on a farm. And one day, I was 10 years older, I remember this very, in the front of my mind all the time, I remember sitting on a gate talking to my grandpa.

[00:01:46] My grandpa asked me, like, what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I said, a farmer. And he said, absolutely not. You will go to school and you will be something else. So it was right then and there that I knew, like, that's what I wouldn't be as a farmer. And it wasn't because he didn't want me to be a farmer. He just wanted me to have a former higher education and go to seek other things out outside of what you know, right?

[00:02:08] I mean, I feel like people, if you live in rural communities a lot of times and even urban communities, the people that you surround yourself with are what you know. That is the thing. And, you know, a lot of times we're not asked to go out and experience other things. So I'm grateful for the fact that my grandfather told me that one day. I said, no, you're not going to be a farmer. You're going to go experience other things. But I really want to be an architect is what I wanted to be. I love designing and creating things.

[00:02:35] And my parents said, hey, you've got to go to junior college first if that's what you want to be. We're not going to put you through eight years of engineering and design work. Most people think that an architecture degree is maybe four year degree and you're out. That's really not what it is at all. It's much longer, almost like being a doctor. So I made it successfully through two days at a junior college of being in computer-aided drafting. And my friends convinced me to drop out and go into computer programming because we were going to make computer games.

[00:03:05] That's not what it was. After I transferred over into computer programming, it was building websites and doing business programming and COBOL and many other languages that pretty much cease to exist these days. But I found a passion in it, loved it, graduated with an associate's degree when I was 19 years old, landed a job as a web developer, and worked at the largest independent baking and packing company in the United States for about a year and a half.

[00:03:34] And woke up one day at 20 and said, I can't do this for another 40 years. Went back to school and got a networking and cyber degree and landed at Cerdant, which at the time was four employees. That was the fifth employee, the husband and wife owned. And it was a startup cybersecurity company. But really what it was, was it was a startup managed firewall company. The owner at the time, he had this concept for, hey, firewall is this new thing.

[00:04:04] It's the technology that's coming out. This is 20 plus years ago. And businesses are going to need somebody to manage it. And he made a business out of it. And we grew that business from four to 70 people over the course of the next 16 years. And eventually, over the last six or seven, we turned it into a pure play cybersecurity company. We gave such excellent service that people were coming to us constantly saying, hey, we want you to do something more for us.

[00:04:34] And for years, we said no, because we only did this one thing. And eventually, I convinced the owner at the time, like, hey, like, let's stack on like one more service, like every six to 12 months. We started doing that. And the next thing you know, we became a pure play MSSP. And, you know, the rest was history. We, we grew that business to 70 people, exited that business in March of 2021.

[00:04:58] So logically, and for seven months, I was kind of running that business unit as the owner retired. I was the CTO and COO of CERDENT when it got acquired. And the CEO of logically at the time, I asked me to take over as the COO. I took over as the COO for 11 months and 11 months later, the PE company that owned logically came to me and said, hey, we'd like for you to take over as CEO and fast forward.

[00:05:27] So now I'm the CEO of logically been in enroll for almost 20 months now. Congratulations. Thanks. I don't know if it's congratulations or sorry. I mean, I had a full head of hair before I started this journey, but not so much anymore. But no, I appreciate that. It's been, it's been a great ride. I've learned a lot, met amazing people and learned so much to me, which to me is what it's about. Like you got to be consistently learning or you need to be doing something else. Yes.

[00:05:57] Yes. That's well said. So I want to go back and unpack. There's so many really interesting things there. So I admire, first of all, your, I don't know if you want to call it a midlife crisis, but you're like, I don't want to be a web developer. I'm going back to school. I'm going to do something else. And, and so I don't know. I think a lot of people, they, they feel like they're forced to pick and it's hard to know what you're in my experience want to do when you grow up, even when you're growing up.

[00:06:25] And especially when you're, you know, 19 or whatever age you were. And so, uh, what gave you the, uh, idea, courage, wisdom, whatever word to in a substitute there to say, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to switch tracks instead of try to either stick this out or, you know, go back to something more familiar or maybe like farming. Yeah. That's a good question. Um, I think it's, uh, you know, several things probably, but the funny thing is you said people don't know what they want to be when they grow up.

[00:06:54] Listen, like I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Right. I had this conversation with a 20 year old, uh, probably two months ago and they were concerned, like, Hey, I don't know what I want to be yet. You know, I'm going to college, but I said, don't worry about it. Like most people still do not know what they want to be. Right. Like, um, it's okay. It's okay to like go and try something and fail or not like it. And then try again. It's okay. As long as you're constantly trying. But, um, you know, I enjoyed the people that I worked with, but I was 19, 20 years old at the time.

[00:07:23] And I was working with people that were 45, 55, 60 years old. I had nothing in common with them. Made it very difficult in a working environment. Think, you know, 19 years ago, you're, you're in an office with everybody for 40, 50, 60 hours a week. And if you don't have commonality with people, it makes it really difficult specifically at that age. And I liked the work that I was doing, but I just knew in my brain, I could not do this for another 40 years. Like I could not get up every day and do this thing.

[00:07:51] Like I needed something more exciting, something more fulfilling at the time. I didn't know what that was. And I think like most of us, we believe that education is the way out. So it's like, if I go get this more education, like then I'll be able to get this greater thing. So that's what I just told myself, like, okay, like, I'm going to go do something different. I'm going to go finish a networking or a cyber degree and see if that leads me to another path, because I have this education aspect of it now. I like my viewpoint on that kind of changed now around the educational component.

[00:08:21] But what I did was I said, Hey, I didn't want to, I, I was luckily wise beyond my years that then at the time. And I didn't completely pump the situation. And what I mean by that is I went to my boss at the time and said, Hey, this is what I'm thinking. I'd still like to be an intern or work part-time. And they allowed me, I worked one and a half days a week. I think I work like 15, you know, hours a week while I was there, drove back and forth and finished my degree.

[00:08:49] I ended up not going back to work there because I landed at CERTA. Cause they wanted me to come back to work when I finished my degree, but they wanted me to be a programmer again. I didn't want to be a programmer. So that's how I landed at CERTA. So to me, it was just, you know, just looking back and just really looking inside saying, can I do this for another 40 years? Just not ask anybody that, like, if you can't do this until what you believe is your retirement age, then what you're doing now is not for you.

[00:09:15] And you need to be immediately thinking about how do I get to something else? Not waiting. Time is not infinite. We only have so much of it. Um, so you need to be thinking immediately about what can I change and how can I get to where I need to get to as quickly as possible. Really practical advice there. That is wise for a 19 year old, uh, in my, in my experience, it might be wise for somebody my age. This episode is brought to you by Cervosity.

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[00:10:04] Now, naively, I set off to build a better mousetrap and build a better backup product until finally I realized it's all about the people and the process. So you have a choice to make. Do nothing and bury your head in the sand or level up your processes. Now you can do that by either hiring Cervosity, where we'll take all the workload of managing backups off of your plate and test your backups daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.

[00:10:28] Or you can keep the, the tech stack you have in place, your existing backup into your provider and steal my 18 years of knowledge and download that process and add that to your operational maturity today. How, how did you, so it's a really amazing story, but unpack how you went from employee number four or something like that to, uh, you know, let's stop with just start on with the 70 employees.

[00:10:57] Like, um, that sounds really cool. And I think you said 16 years and I find too many folks are like, Oh, I expect that 18 months in, or, you know, they expect too much of themselves. So how did that actually happen? Yeah, it's, um, you know, it's a different way now. Right. You know, I feel like COVID changed a lot of that and nothing against people that change jobs every couple of years to each of their own. Right.

[00:11:19] But in many, in many ways, I feel like I'm somewhat living the American dream, which is in many ways to me is somebody starts at the most entry level job there probably is. Think of somebody bagging groceries. And next thing you know, they, they own or run the grocery store one day. Right. Like, to me, that's what has happened to me is that I started off as an entry level employee. You know, technically employee number two, when it came from supporting customers, I, I was hired to be a security analyst. I read security logs all day long. That's what I did.

[00:11:48] Nine, nine plus hours a day. And I drove an hour and a half one way every day for this job. When people apply right now, cybersecurity being so hot, I think they think it's going to be amazing when they start. And right. And so right there, that's already a good, good dose of reality. Yeah. I mean, I have this, I have this conversation with employees today and I've had it many times of they get two, three, four, six weeks in and they're like, this isn't exciting. This isn't what I saw on TV or I thought that it was going to be.

[00:12:17] I'm just looking at logs all day long and there's many other jobs that we have. Right. But I'm just looking at like a stock analyst, you know, role and like, yeah, that's what this is. And they're like, but I want more action. Like, but technically you don't want more action because that means we have a lot of problems going on. So, yes, 99% of what you look at are false positives or not malicious, but you wouldn't want it to be any more than that because that means there is a major problem going on. Like you wouldn't want that. Yeah. But it's not, but that's, it's not exciting work sometimes to me.

[00:12:46] It is exciting because I love wading through information and looking for puzzle pieces and trying to put things together, but that's not for everyone. Um, but for me, how I feel like, you know, landed at certain in a very entry level role. And I was talking last week to somebody about how differently you onboard employees. Like I remember when I was hired, um, you know, looking back on it, not paid a whole lot. Right. But it said like, Hey, if you learn all of these things inside of 90 days, we'll give you a bump and you get to keep your job.

[00:13:16] But if you don't, you can't work here. So like that's extreme pressure that was put on you to learn all of these things and get these certifications. But, you know, it challenged me to step up and you kudos to the owner, the founder at the time. Cause he was like, I don't have time really to wait around. Like I need to see what these people are going to work out.

[00:13:34] And luckily I remember on day 67, he came to me and said, Hey, here's your paperwork. Like you're a full-time employee. Um, and that was a huge relief to me, but I got to where I got to at certain by constantly raising my hand and having initiative. And I'm an Uber response responsible. Um, I, I take, um, extreme ownership of stuff.

[00:13:56] And every time he said, Hey, I, we need to do this or we need to learn something else. I'd raise my hand. And it got to a point after we got so many employees, he's like, I need you to stop raising your hand because you can't be the only person that knows how to do this. Um, and we had a very real conversation one evening in his office where he said, I can't continue to put all of my eggs in one basket. Like you need to learn how to get other people to raise their hand. And I was like, huh, that's an interesting concept.

[00:14:23] And I felt like that was my first like foray into true leadership at a business perspective of, okay, I, I'm not a manager yet. I have no power over these people, but I need to learn how to influence them and get them to do things to better help the business and me. So somebody that can definitely relate to kind of being the tech and then trying to figure out what early leadership looks like. How did you start to, how did you start to crack that code?

[00:14:50] Um, making lots of people mad, right. You know, becoming a, becoming a manager at 23 years old and, and having, you know, love them to this day, but a founder owner who wasn't a manager, like that's not who he was. And he would tell you that he didn't manage people.

[00:15:07] So I learned how to manage people the hard way for the really first five, seven years of my career, which is you make mistakes, you pick yourself up and say, okay, that didn't work. What am I doing wrong? Reading books, like trying to do whatever you could. And, um, and really, I mean, it was that, I think it's the early management mindset of people that, Hey, everybody can just be managed exactly the same way.

[00:15:32] And that's not the case. We all have different personalities. We all need to be talked to differently. We all want different types of appreciation. You know, when we do things wrong, we need different types of feedback and kind of weaving that around. Um, that's when I really started to take shape from a leadership perspective. I felt like is when I understood clearly that every single employee, although time consuming, it would take me managing them differently than each other.

[00:16:02] And, uh, once I did that, I felt like I got much, much better at my job, but also when I was able to clearly articulate why we were doing things and where we were going from a vision perspective.

[00:16:16] And I get comments on that sometimes that like, um, that's something that I I'm really good at. And, uh, I feel like I've just been blessed with it naturally probably is I know where I'm going in my mind and I can clearly articulate that to you of why we're going there, how we're going to get there and why it's important. I love that. Um, clarity that not most, I feel like most people struggle to give.

[00:16:41] Uh, so how did it feel after all those years to build that company up and get to the point where they were exiting it? And I have some people that would be amazing, you know, look what I've helped build, but you know, it was, you didn't, you didn't own it, I think. Right. So how did that, some people be like, um, what's my future? Like, you know, are they, am I looking for a job now? I'm kind of curious what, what range of emotions are you going through when, when it was being sold?

[00:17:10] Yeah. Um, extremely stressful, a high anxiety for me. Um, a great learning lesson for me that has been helped me navigate these same waters for our own employees and then employees of other businesses that I've talked to and helped other MSPs through this journey of acquisition. Really? Um, I'm not a founder owner.

[00:17:34] You know, I didn't get the big payout when the business was sold. I like the founder owner does and kudos to them because they take all the risks. Right. So I want to make sure that is known, but like you're just an employee. And a lot of times it is like the big fish in a small pond, just becoming a fish in a very large pond. Right. And that's really difficult for a lot of employees.

[00:17:56] And, um, you know, we, we went through, thankfully, um, our founder owner was very transparent for about two and a half years that he was ready to retire. And this is what was going to happen. And, you know, everybody understood, but it doesn't make it, it makes it easier, but not that much easier. And, uh, just a lot of uncertainty, anxiety, stress, uh, about what was going to happen because, you know, no offense, but like for 15, 16 years, I was the guy.

[00:18:22] Like, um, and now like I show up in another business and, you know, I'm not the guy, I'm just another guy. I'm just another employee. And, um, I just go back to talking to several mentors that I've, I've had. And that was just, you know, you, you got to where you got through for a reason. Don't change that thing. Right. Like keep doing that thing and just keep adding on it. So that's what I decided to do.

[00:18:50] I decided to buckle down and just continue to be me and drive the business forward and grow and raise my hand, you know, aspects of the business that I didn't know about. I wanted to know this, you know, ask questions, don't question, right. But ask questions so you can learn and understand. And within three conversations of meeting the new CEO of Logic Leader, like, Hey, we want you to be the COO. Like we think that we, you'd be the perfect person to put all these businesses together.

[00:19:16] And about seven, eight months into that journey, you know, started having conversations where, you know, our board PE at the time was like, Hey, like we were seriously contemplating about like, would you take over as CEO? Right. Like we feel like maybe your leadership will be right for where we're going. So, um, very stressful time for me. Um, and you can ask my wife, um, just wasn't sure what I was going to do.

[00:19:41] I wasn't sure if I was going to pivot and do something, do something else at that point in time or, or what, but just try to continue to stay true to who I was. And that was somebody who wanted to learn. I want to have responsibility of everything that's underneath of me and anything that I can touch. And I want to help people and make an impact. And I felt like if I continue to deliver on those things that eventually like your star will shine bright enough to where somebody recognizes it. Right.

[00:20:08] So like, don't let those outside things like an acquisition dim your star, right? There is always abundant opportunity for everyone. So what did it feel like to go from the big fish? As you said, maybe CTO at Tron where you have 72, I mean, it sounds like in less than a year. Yeah. You were now seven months. Yeah. Yeah. Of a 300 personal organization and you hadn't been a CEO of a 70 person.

[00:20:38] So how, how did that feel? Um, you sort of imposter syndrome going on there or million percent imposter syndrome. Um, almost extreme burnout. Um, you thought the anxiety was bad, like not knowing what you're going to be. And then you're handed, you know, you know, 75% of the organization as a CEO of a really large org reports into you.

[00:21:03] And you have, you're basically at that point in time, operationally running 12 different businesses. Um, 70, 80 hour work weeks. Um, if not more, um, it was like, it was really close to borderline professional burnout. Like, Hey, I need to go do something else. Hmm. And the reason why is because I was still trying to run 200 plus employees. Like I had always managed 70. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:32] And I just woke up one day and I said, I can't do this anymore. If I'm going to be successful, I have to change. And I just started writing out a list of the things that I could no longer do myself and who could help me. And I started making a list and I worked on that list for about two days. And then this went into action. I said, okay, this is what we're going to do. This is the timeline. I need help. This is what it's going to look like. And over the course of the next three months, it was amazing to see how people responded by feeling empowered.

[00:22:02] And they were like, awesome. Like I get to do something cool too. And I get to elevate my game rather than, I feel like as leaders, many times we're worried to go ask somebody to do something else or potentially something more because you believe that it might be a burden.

[00:22:21] When really, when you go to those people, most times, not all times, if it's done the right way, they will feel empowered and they will be thankful for the fact that you respect them and you believe in them enough to give them said opportunity to rise up. And that's what I did because I knew I couldn't survive being the COO and trying to continue to manage the business like I had with 70 for 300. I just couldn't do it.

[00:22:46] And over the course of the next three months, so much was taken off my shoulders. The pressure, the anxieties, the 80 plus hour work weeks, like it just all subsided. And it was just really that reflection point of like, I'm failing because I'm still trying to manage the old way and the old way won't work. So I've got one of two choices. I either change or I go do something else.

[00:23:08] And I felt like I'd be, I felt like, like my journey wasn't finished and I'd be letting too many people down if I just said, hey guys, this isn't for me. And I walked away. That's amazing advice. I found we're probably always, or I'm always not letting go of enough. The bottleneck. Struggling to figure out how do I do more without working more or working more and not realizing it.

[00:23:36] So what was, what was it that caused that shift in you mindset and all the other things that allowed you to spend those two days and say, I'm going to get clear. I'm going to hand off a lot of this responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of things. I just like, I'm a pretty healthy guy, but like my health was just deteriorating, like not like sleeping well at all. Just didn't feel well. Like I could just tell it.

[00:24:02] And I've got a, I've got a great and amazing wife and, you know, she had mentioned several times where like, she'll let me go long, work long hours, do long things. But after a while, she'll start to pull it back in and remind me, right? Like, hey, you got to take care of yourself. And I could just feel it. Um, and I recognize that probably one of my greatest strengths, I would say is I'm, I'm hyper self-aware. Um, and I could just tell that the success that I wanted out of the business wasn't happening. It was, and it was happening because I was trying to manage it the wrong way.

[00:24:33] Um, so that's my health. Um, and you know, just the fact that like, you know, I have a, I have a little baby girl, she's two years old now. And like it, that changes your perspective of things, right? Like, Hey, like I need to be around long term. I need to go spend more time and things like that. So I just said, okay, like if I'm going to make this thing successful, I've got to change. And, uh, just sat down for a couple of days and said, I'm going to commit time to making this happen and make it real. And I would challenge people to do that.

[00:25:03] I challenge my team all the time. Like the day will fill up your day. If you let it do that, you've got to schedule time. If you're going to be strategic and get out in front of stuff and, and not a lot of people do that. Yes. Yes. And then in my experience, if I, if I did that, it happens for a season or happens once. And then the, all the other things creep back in, you know, maybe, maybe I do get a little more strategic and I, you know, I put this time, but then everything, then reality sets back in.

[00:25:31] And, and I'm all of a sudden in that pot boiling again, you know, and I'm seeming to be sometimes the last one to know, uh, how do you help your team understand when that's happening to them or what, when they may be at risk of burning themselves out? Yeah. So I, uh, I'm a big believer in one-on-ones, not just to have one-on-ones for the sake of having one-on-ones, but I meet with my direct reports, uh, every single week.

[00:25:59] Um, you know, we, I travel quite a bit, so sometimes they do get pushed, but it won't go more than two weeks. And I talk to every single one of them every week for sure. Um, but I remind them consistently like, Hey, like you have to be blocking time, go to a coffee shop, block your calendar, whatever you got to do, go for a walk. But think strategically about like how my business unit's doing. Could it be better? What would I do differently? Things like that. I'm constantly challenging to do that.

[00:26:27] And I challenge them to set calendar reminders, to do it themselves. I mean, you know, there's studies out there that show, you know, anything new, you got to be at least seven, told seven times for it to stick. And every 90 days, you got to be reminded of that. So, so if there's studies that tell us that, why don't you just leverage your calendar to remind you on those timeframes that you need that, right? You know, we need to stop trying to challenge ourselves to be so smart that we just remember it. Why not just use some automation, right? To remind us to be strategic or remind us that we need to do X, Y, Z.

[00:26:57] And I, I challenge them to do that as well. But we talk about strategy quite a bit. And we also talk about, are they empowering their team members to have the ability to grow and do more? And it's tricky because there is almost like a societal thing now, whether it's right or wrong, you know, that's, you know, for me to judge. Like a lot of times when you ask somebody to do more or take on a new challenge, there's this like mind thing of, well, do I need to pay them more?

[00:27:27] Mm-hmm. And most leaders, managers will not, that I've seen, ask somebody to do something more without saying, hey, I need to give them a little bit of extra money. Right? I think there's always a time and place for that. But also you need to be able to challenge your employees and your leaders and frontline employees to do a little bit more for that growth.

[00:27:51] And if they do and they're successful, then sure, like let's compensate people and compensate them for their true value, if not more. But there is a mental barrier, I feel, feel like today of people almost fearful of asking somebody to do something differently or a little bit more because of, because of that. Yeah.

[00:28:11] That's an interesting point because sometimes just the opportunity to grow and have that responsibility may be something that you're blessing them with and is the next stage of their career growth that they would be excited to do. And it doesn't seem like we have to correlate that with change in title or role or comp or any of those other kind of hard aspects. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm probably a little bit weird, but I've been in the industry for 20 plus years. I've literally never once asked for a raise. Never once.

[00:28:41] Yeah. That is, I'm sure you're an outlier. There's no doubt. I'm sure. And I'm a super transparent guy too. And I, you know, we have town hall every month and I talk to all the employees and I always, I'm very acquainted with everybody. Like if you're in any job, whether that's logically or any other place you work, if you're solely there for the pay, then that job is not the job for you because there is always some place willing to pay you more money.

[00:29:11] And as soon as you left and went to that job, you could turn right around and probably get another job that would pay you more money. So I'm just very clear with them all the time. Hey, like we're going to compensate people fairly and do the best that we can. But if your mental mindset in any job, whether you work for me or anyone else is that, hey, I'm solely going to be there to make the most money possible. Then you should just always be looking for a new job. It's going to be difficult to find your home because there's always somebody willing to pay you more money. You mentioned the mindset.

[00:29:41] How have you figured out how to not only change your mindset so quickly, because again, going from CTO 70 to CEO 300 has to be more than one leap in mindset there. And I find that, you know, most people don't even get that opportunity, but even just a role or two change. Sometimes there's a different season in the business and it's hard to get your arms around what you need to do.

[00:30:10] How did you figure that out? Or how do you teach your team to know how to come at it from a different angle or attack their mindset? That's a great question. You know, I've been very fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it, by having opportunity all around me. I feel like sometimes the hard work and effort makes the opportunity appear right. I don't think rarely ever do lazy people see a lot of opportunity.

[00:30:40] So there's probably something to the words that hard work equals opportunity in many ways. But to me, again, being I'm super adaptable, agile guy, I'm very self-aware. And boy, I'm hyper competitive. So, like, I love to win. So I want to work for great, successful companies.

[00:31:05] And I'm not bashful about expressing my thoughts and ideas and concerns about things. The odd thing about that, though, is, like, I'm not shy to do that, but I will almost always be the last person to speak in meetings many times early in my career. Even my boss, even, you know, previous CEO, logically, like, hey, like, I need you to speak up more. Like, I need you to talk more in meetings.

[00:31:30] But to me, like, I'm sitting there just consuming all of this information and being ready to then express my thoughts about, like, the conversation or what I believe in things like that. I've been told many times, like, my words carry a lot. And sometimes, you know, that can overshadow or cause people to not give their true thoughts on something. I never want that to happen.

[00:31:56] You know, that's never my approach or meaning whenever I speak, but, you know, it just happens to be my personality. But I wanted to be hyper successful in any role that I'm in. And to me, that means I just have to go to work. And I go to work by learning, reading, looking at what others do, looking at what the industry is doing, digging in in all aspects of the business. I get into details. I try. I do not micromanage. It's not what I want to do.

[00:32:24] But it's interesting because our CFO now at Logically, he's been with us for a really long time, longer than I've actually been with the business. But he always says, he's like, man, you know this business way better than anybody. Like, he was like, it's just interesting to see how you look at the numbers and how you dig into data and things like that. To me, that's important. Like, if you expect me to be the leader of the organization, I should be the one that knows the most about it. Now, I don't think that everybody has that thought about it.

[00:32:53] I think that I should have exceptional people that are smarter than me that work for me and work with me. And I have that right now in my team. I'm so very thankful for that. But I will not let anybody know more about the business than I do. Or what's going on in our vertical and space, right? Like, I want to know as much as possible and gather that information. So long way of answering your question there. But to me, it was just go to work. Like, start learning.

[00:33:20] Like, what does it mean from being a CTO to being a COO? Like, what does that mean? Right? And I mean, I would literally spend hours Googling and researching. Like, okay, like, what do CEOs of Fortune 500 companies do? What does their day look like? Where are they spending their time? Like, I wanted to know all that information. So then I could conceptually build in my brain. Okay, this is what my framework is going to look like for my day, for my week, for my month. Right? And then I did the same thing when I became CEO.

[00:33:49] I'm like, okay, like, I don't know what being CEO means. Right? Like, are there things that I don't know? And I'm sure there's still things that I don't know that maybe I should or shouldn't be doing. But I'm constantly learning and evolving that way. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful relationship with learning and hunger there. That drive. Give us some of the inside secrets there. How do you, because you're extremely quick at adapting. Like you said, you're agile, which I think is very, very accurate there.

[00:34:21] So a lot of, like you said, you've never been a CEO. Before that, you've never been a CEO or exactly that role. So was it Google searches? I mean, tactically, practically, how do you actually break down? Because again, you didn't know what the day in life looked like. So there's a lot of people that go, oh, I want to observe that person doing it for years. Or I want to do some other way. But, you know, you were faced with a really short time period to, you know, come up to speed to ultimately become the CEO.

[00:34:51] Yeah. But for me, it is what's the destination? Where are we trying to go? Right. And then I'm going to work myself backwards. Like if I, because there's different timelines, right? Depending on where you're at in business, it could be like, hey, we're in build and expansion mode. Like you kind of have this vision out there where you're going, but then like you're kind of just creating it on the fly. And I'd worked it for an entrepreneur organization for years. And like, that's what we did. Like kind of knew where we were going, but we're kind of just like trying to build a great company.

[00:35:21] But this one, like we knew, like when you get to this scale, you set hard budget numbers every year and you work backwards. And that's what I did. Like, okay, like I know that we want to grow by this number. I know that means this much revenue. I know this is what our EBITDA needs to be. I know where our gross margin needs to be. And I just started digging into every single one of those numbers and said, are we hitting those numbers or not hitting those numbers?

[00:35:44] And then just reversed myself all the way back to those chains as fast as humanly possible to say, hey, like we need to go impact service delivery in this area because we're not hitting this metric. Hey, we need to go impact sales in this area because we're not hitting this metric. And what are the activities that are going to lead us to successful outcomes, right? So sometimes you have the fortunate ability to start from scratch and just go. In this role, it was kind of already built in some way.

[00:36:14] So now it's like, okay, I go to my PE sponsor and go, what's the destination? What is the destination that you want to get to? And then now I'm going to work backwards. And just constantly looking at the map the whole time. I talk to my team about that a lot, right? Like, you know where you're going and you have a map. And we're not using GPS. It's not wages and calling it out on our cell phone telling us to turn right and turn left. But you have the map, right?

[00:36:39] Like, we got to keep making sure we go back to the map every week, every two weeks, every month to make sure we're still in the right course. Because if not, you know, a couple degrees off, you know, it could be catastrophic. So speaking of that, what I've heard from you come out time and time again, and when we were talking before this is, it's about the people.

[00:37:06] Tell me, one of the things you were telling me was, one of the things you're super passionate about, is like hiring that really early rock star engineer. Tell me about what that means to you. Yeah, I think it's probably because it's me in some ways, right? Taking a chance on somebody and then like letting them grow and continue to move up through the business, whether that's with us or with somebody else, right? Like, I tell our employees all the time, like, I've got two jobs here.

[00:37:33] And one of that is to develop you so much personally and professionally that you can go get a job anywhere and they will be ecstatic to have you there, right? Like, I never want an employee to leave. They go work for you. And then you call me weekly and be like, why did you ever let me hire this person, right? Like, I don't want that situation. I want you to be like, this is the greatest hire ever, right? Right. The second thing is I want to build a culture where people just don't want to leave.

[00:38:01] And that puts you in conflict as an employee of like, hey, I've got this great opportunity, but I love the place that I work. So I don't know what to do, right? And I've had a lot of those conversations with employees. And there's been dozens of times where I've told the employee, go try it. Like, I think you should try this opportunity. Like, I don't wait to leave, but I think that it's right for you personally and professionally to go try this. And worst case is you don't like it. It doesn't work out. You can come back. And we've had lots of employees come back. We've had lots of employees go on and be uber successful. And to me, that's amazing.

[00:38:30] But personal and professional development is super critical and key to me. Like, I just love seeing people have opportunity to grow and people to transform their lives, honestly, right? I feel like we all have a responsibility to see other people prosper. And we can't make that a reality for everyone. I know that. And you can't take that burden and challenge on for everyone. And I've learned that the hard way, you know, several times.

[00:39:01] But to me, it is really about the people. We're a people business. And it's about relationships. It's about making sure that your employees are taken care of to the best of the ability. Because if you take care of your employees, you develop them personally and professionally, your customer is going to be taken care of. Like, it takes care of itself, right? You know, we all know the thing, you know, customer always comes first. It's really the employee comes first.

[00:39:30] Like, take care of your employees and they'll take care of your customers, right? Because if you take care of your customers, they're not always going to take care of your employees. I can tell you that firsthand. So, make sure you take care of your employees and try to develop them and make them a better version of themselves. Challenge them to be a better version of themselves. I challenge my team, my direct team, many times to do uncomfortable things because growth comes in uncomfortable situations. Even at our levels, we need to be challenged sometimes to do uncomfortable things.

[00:40:00] I personally and professionally challenge myself to do uncomfortable things, even. Because I know that leads to growth and it's unfair for me to ask you to do something uncomfortable and to grow if I'm not doing the same. So, I'm constantly doing that as well. But, yeah, to me, you know, Damien, it comes all down to people. Mm-hmm. We were discussing this before, I think, and I know somebody was having trouble getting there on time.

[00:40:29] And I think you dug in and you found a really good reason why. Do you mind sharing? Like, that's a great moment where you could just say, hey, this person's showing up late. You know, we've notified them X times and then follow a policy and then, you know, they're no longer there. And so there was one where I think you ended up making some changes to accommodate. But is that one you mind sharing? Yeah, absolutely. And I've talked about this before. My team knows it.

[00:40:57] But I felt like it's probably when I did realize, like, man, like, I've, you know, I might finally have this leadership thing, right? Like, I, you know, I think sometimes you have this light bulb moment. But remember, we had this really good employee. And this was, you know, pre-COVID. So, we were all in office all the time together. And everybody, you know, in those situations, you know, it's like everybody knows everybody. You know, their spouses and their kids and everything. And all of a sudden, he was just coming to work late all the time. And he'd always been an amazing employee.

[00:41:26] And even still, he's coming to work late. He's still doing great work. But, you know, we take care of customers. Phones come on at 8. Phones start ringing. Like, you're letting your team down. Like, if you're not sitting there ready to work on your work. And I talked to the managers. And they had said, yeah, you know, we've been talking to him. We've been talking to him. And he keeps saying, yeah, I'll come to work on time. I'll get better at it. I'll come to work on time. And I was working late one evening. And I knew that he was working late as well. And I just popped over to his cube and just said, hey, man, like, what's going on?

[00:41:56] And he immediately, you know, said, hey, you know, I know I'm sorry. I've been, you know, being late and, like, all that. And I said, no, no, that's not what I'm asking. Like, what's going on with you? Like, what's truly going on? And he started to cry. And he said that, you know, his wife had lost her job. And they're going through a tough situation. And now he needed to, they were without transportation. And now he needed to take the child to daycare, which was 45 minutes out of his way, to then come back 45 minutes plus another 35 minutes to come to work.

[00:42:26] And he just couldn't make it work. Like, he just could not make the commute work. And I said, I get it. But not a problem. I said, what if we change the work hours? Like, he said, what if you started an hour later, worked an hour longer? Would that work for you? And he was like, I can do that. And I go, if it works for you, it works for us. And he was like, oh, my God, thank you so much. He's never late again a day ever working there. But it's just like that transition of, like, the managers weren't necessarily doing anything wrong. They were just digging on, like, why are you late?

[00:42:55] Why are you late? Why are you late? When many times, just ask what's going on with the person, right? All of us always have something going on. Whether we want to admit it or not, or even actually want it to be happening, we all have something going on. And just be real. Talk to the person and understand. Have some empathy. And see how you can help that person. And many times, it will lead you to an underlying problem that can be solved.

[00:43:26] And I just felt like once I had that conversation, went back to the manager, there was like, I never even thought about, like, asking him, like, what was going on? Like, why didn't he tell us? Like, because it's personal. He probably didn't just, he probably felt like it would be an excuse, right? But I can tell you the next day, he started at 9 and moved his schedule from 8 to 5 to 9 to 6, and he was never late again.

[00:43:50] Yeah, that's, and what's amazing is asking the question, having a real conversation, and then, you know, a lot of businesses could make that change. And it might even be for the better for the business, and certainly better for the individual. You just have to have the courage to have those conversations. I know I've been guilty of assuming, oh, you know, they've given up, they're not coming in, you know, whatever it is.

[00:44:13] You know, even when it's not late, but just if it were about being late, that they must have given up or, you know, they need to do it instead of digging and asking the questions that help me understand their world. Yeah, it's difficult, though. So, like, unless you're intentional about having those conversations, it's difficult because specifically in MSP and MSFP, it is controlled chaos many times, right? Like, it's challenging.

[00:44:40] And as a manager, as a leader, many times you can get focused just on the metrics and the KPIs, and that's it. You know, why is she or he performing or not performing, and that's it, when many times the reason why they're not performing has a little to nothing to do with work. It has to do with some other factor that we need to dig into and understand better. Tell me about your, it seems like your intention with your wording you use with your team and gratitude.

[00:45:12] It's huge to me, right? We all like to be appreciated, whether you, you know, say you do or you don't. I can tell you 100% fact that we all like to be appreciated. But to me, it's challenging in our environment that a lot of times people don't get appreciated. I mean, when's the last time that a customer called in to tell our engineer that they just like them and thanks for doing a great job, right? It doesn't happen.

[00:45:40] What's happening is they're getting and filling calls or service tickets from people that are having challenges, they have problems, and they're asking us to solve those. And those are tense situations sometimes. And that's difficult.

[00:45:54] So to me, it's important that if they're not getting shown appreciation, they're not getting shown gratefulness from those interactions, that we as leaders are making sure that we show our appreciation to them and show them that we are grateful for the efforts that they put in each day. Because it brightens your day. It makes being at work that much better.

[00:46:20] And we spend most of our wakeful hours with the people that we work for, right? And work with. So I spend and put a lot of people, specifically everybody that directly reports to me and then other leaders, you know, trickle it on down through too, through the five appreciations languages. We do that. It's a little quiz. And it'll tell you how people like to be appreciated or they don't like to be appreciated. And I started that probably eight, nine years ago.

[00:46:47] And it has a big impact of knowing, does somebody like words of encouragement? Do they like gifts? Do they like a pat on the back? Maybe they don't like public, you know, words of appreciation. You might not like being told in a group of your peers that you did an amazing job. It might actually make you feel bad. But what you might like is a handwritten note on your desk privately to read by yourself.

[00:47:23] Mm-hmm. So, like, if you don't like gifts, but I keep giving you gift cards, you'll be like, I don't really like this $25 gift card you keep giving me. Like, why do you keep giving me this gift card? It means nothing to me. When you might just like me to pick up the phone and call you and say, hey, man, I've been looking at your CSAT scores and you're crushing it. And these customers keep writing great things about you. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. Keep it up. Like, that might mean more to you than $25.

[00:47:51] So, to me, it's super important that you understand that. How do I get to that level of understanding? Is there a book or a framework you recommend? Yeah, there is a book called The Five Appreciation Languages. It's based off of The Five Love Languages, almost the same thing. But there is one for the workplace called The Five Appreciation Languages. I recommend it for all leaders to read it. Okay.

[00:48:13] Specifically, like, if you want to really get into showing appreciation and gratitude for your employees, which I would implore everybody to do. Right? I know some people don't believe in it, but I can tell you 100% believe in it. I've seen it work. But I would definitely recommend that read. And then you can take the quiz online. If you buy the book, the quiz is free. It takes, like, 15, 20 minutes to take the quiz. Or you can buy code, too, which is about $15 a code.

[00:48:41] So, I mean, it's really short money to have a great outcome. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I found that if you understand somebody's love language, you can speak in a language that, you know, is for them. And so I didn't realize this. And I think this could be amazing because I think so often, like you said, like you could be showing appreciation, which is you're trying to tell them how much you care.

[00:49:05] But if you're not doing it in their language or their style of appreciation, it could actually be doing harm instead of good. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I've seen this impact. Because we used to have a Friday morning stand-up every Friday morning when we worked at Sheridan. And I would show appreciation for a couple people. And, like, we would be there and I would call them out in the group, right? And there might only be 10 employees of us at the time or 15. I'd call them out.

[00:49:30] And I noticed this one employee, like, he didn't receive it very well. And you're like, man, like, what's going on? Like, I'm thanking you for all this stuff. And then years later, we go through this process. He takes this thing. And the thing that he rates the worst of, like, absolutely do not do is call me out in front of my team members for doing a good job. And it dawned on me. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I know now why he never received this very well.

[00:49:58] And what he wanted was he wanted to have quality time with you. And he wanted to have an extra 30 minutes with you to discuss things and just debrief and things like that. And I tell people, even if you don't read the book, I can explain to you how to pick up on this very quickly. If you work with somebody, look at how they always show appreciation to you. Or do they want to spend an extra 15, 20 minutes talking to you? Talking about the weekend or whatever is going on.

[00:50:27] Do they want to give you – do they like bringing in donuts to the office? Do they like giving gift cards to people? Do they like writing handwritten notes and giving it to people? Whatever they like to do, it's most likely their number one or their number two appreciation language. Because you give – when you don't know how somebody wants to be appreciated, you naturally give your appreciation language back to somebody else. I love that. That is an amazing lesson right there in and of itself.

[00:50:57] How does appreciation or gratitude tie into your morning routine? So I get up every morning, work out every morning. And then one of the first things I do after – I have what's called a non-negotiable list. And my team knows this. And if I'm home, I'm not on the road. Number one on my non-negotiable list is I will work out. Number two is I will get my little baby girl up and get her ready for the day.

[00:51:24] So if that means that I have to push my first meeting to 830 because she decided to sleep in a little bit, that will happen. But I make sure that that happens. But then I get up, get to the office, and I come in, and I write down five things that are most impactful for me that day. And what I mean by that is like not business things, but like, you know, it might be like my wife, my daughter, my family, my health, my friends, my future, whatever that might be.

[00:51:51] I write those things down to see if they're in the line with, like, what I'm then going to tactically do. And then I just write out some appreciation thoughts in my mind. And I also go seek every single day something positive. We – human beings are naturally almost created in many ways, if you want to say, to seek out the negative and bring and consume more negative things.

[00:52:19] So unless you're constantly pouring positivity into your life and into others, you will be consumed by negative thoughts. And I've seen this in action. So every single day I go try to seek out some positivity, whether that's a quote. I always – my team jokes that I'm a sucker for a quote. And I share those quite frequently, several times a week with our team and our company. So I go seek that out.

[00:52:44] And then I try to make sure that every single day I'm telling somebody, whether it's at the company or a peer, somebody that, hey, man, just checking on you. Hope you're doing okay. I really appreciate, you know, you and the things that you've done for me and others. Yeah, that's amazing. I want to ask what your take is on PE. You do have a PE sponsor. You didn't originally – you've kind of ended up this way in an interesting – it's an interesting way to get there, right?

[00:53:13] You're not the – you weren't necessarily the – you were placed by the PE, but they didn't take out the management team and bring you in like you kind of were there from the beginning. On the other hand, you're not the – you weren't the original founder. So you have a really, I think, unique take on this and how it relates to kind of the current market. Yeah, PE is interesting, both good and bad, right?

[00:53:43] I do not think PE is evil. I've heard people say it before. I don't believe that. They are a financial institution in many ways that are there to make money. And I think that most business owners are there to make money. They didn't start a business because they just wanted to have a business. Like they have a goal in mind of making some amount of money. The PE companies want to make substantially more money than what typically a founder owner would want to make, right?

[00:54:10] And that's where you hear a lot of us that are platforms. We talk a lot about EBITDA, right? That word gets thrown out a lot. And many of these lifestyle businesses, they don't even look at EBITDA probably. I remember talking to my founder owner whenever we were looking to exit and they started having EBITDA conversations. And it was just like he knew what it was. I mean, he was a successful entrepreneur, had sold two businesses before, but we weren't running the business based off of EBITDA.

[00:54:38] And many of these platforms now and other MSPs are being forced to run their businesses off of EBITDA targets, which are good, to be honest with you, because it means that you're running a healthy operation.

[00:54:51] Something critical for founder owners that are thinking about selling, though, or taking PE sponsors is, like what you know today of how you run your business will be completely different once you sign on that dotted line. I can't tell you that it will be better or worse because that's up to them to decide. But the way you run your business will be forever changed once you sign on that dotted line.

[00:55:23] I know many founder owner led MSPs. And I'll give an example. Many of them will, in a very small situation, be able to just go out and say, hey, we're having what I believe to be a great month or a great quarter. Damon, here's an extra 2K. Love what you're doing and all that. And they'll do that for three or four or five or six or 10 employees. For the most part, that situation goes away. Once you're PE owned.

[00:55:52] Not because you can't do that. It's because you're financially driving the business by the numbers. And it makes it really hard to be an 18, 19, 20, 22% EBITDA company when you're doing those kinds of things as what would be considered a lifestyle business. I made it one of my missions to reach out to many of the original founders of the businesses that Logically had bought. I didn't get in touch with all of them. And some of them had kind of rode off in the sunset.

[00:56:21] But it's interesting to talk to many of them. And all of them would tell me, I don't know how I will be able to survive in your role because I never thought about EBITDA and how much money we were truly making. And it's interesting to hear them talk like that. Not surprising, though, because I had that conversation with other MSTs that are contemplating maybe taking on some PE money or some sponsorship. And they think about the same way. It's just a lifestyle business.

[00:56:49] It's like they enjoy being able to do those things for their businesses and have their own little bucket of money that they set aside for themselves and give back a community and things like that. Like that's still there from a PE perspective, but not in the ways it is when it's a founder owner led. And there's a lot of reporting that goes into this. Like you've got to know your numbers. Like, you know, they call me tonight. Like I better know what my numbers look like. I better know what my sales pipeline looks like. I better know what my bookings look like. Like all of that stuff.

[00:57:19] Like to me, that doesn't mean that it's bad to me. That's a that's an evolution of maturity. Right. Like you're taking what is like a small business and turning it into a midsize, low enterprise business. Like that's how we're trying to run these businesses at scale. It doesn't make it good or bad. There are many aspects about how we run the business now that I love. Like I love this.

[00:57:46] I would never want to go back to the way we were doing before. The ability to provide a better personal and professional life for so many people. Right. Like I was impacting 30, 40, 50 people at any given point in time. I can impact 300 plus people now. I can provide 30 services to a customer. And where before I could provide them five. I have buying power at scale. Right. Right.

[00:58:15] Where I'm not getting very good leverage and buying power from a certain vendor. But now that I have 50 plus thousand endpoints out there, they got to give me the best price. The challenges that come from it as well to being able to run an organization of this size. That's exciting to me. It would not be exciting to many founder owners. I can tell you that. If if that's not what you want out of your growth, it'll be difficult.

[00:58:46] So I I try to make sure when I when I talk to people, I educate them about my story. I educate them about what I've seen. And there are there are goods and bads. And my story is not the only story. There's several different stories out there. But it will not be the same as it was. And I've heard too many of them say, I would have never signed the paperwork if I would have known it would have been like this. And I'm like, man, you lose all control once you sign on that that dotted line. Unless you're doing a deal where you keep majority control and you're just taking some funding.

[00:59:16] Once you sign on that dotted line, it's not your company anymore. It's their company. And you're just there as an operator. It's not I love it because it's not it's not a bad decision. It's just a one you should make very intentionally because there are very big differences, like you said. And it sounds like your mindset is I want to learn how to be CEO of a 300 person company, not affecting 70 or 50 people. And I look forward to those sort of things.

[00:59:45] And the truth is, even if you were, you know. Steve Jobs, when he was around, like when you get big enough, they're still reporting. There's still those sort of things out there. So even if you were one of the original founders or other things like that, you were going to end up with additional operational maturity if you achieve that scale. Yeah, I mean, I've run a 50 person business. I don't want to run a 50 person business again. Could I do it? Sure. I could probably do most of it with my eyes closed.

[01:00:13] I want to learn what it takes to run a thousand person organization. You know, that's what I want to do. Like, I want to learn what that is. That's not for everybody, though. And I understand that. I truly do. But I'll put it like this. I talked to an old employee of certain that moved on and they took another job and they're doing great, great things now. And we were talking a couple of months ago and they were like, man, I just wish we could go back to those days where there were eight of us. And I said, do you really? And he was like, yeah, man, I wish we could.

[01:00:42] I go, do you wish you were still making that money? And he said, absolutely not. And I go, then you don't wish that you were back there because you couldn't be in the same personal spot that you're in today if you were still in the same professional spot. It doesn't work. You can't do it. There has to be growth. And that growth means uncomfortableness, means challenges.

[01:01:06] Speaking of challenges, what's the biggest lesson you've learned in all your years of business? Man, biggest lesson. Life is more about how you treat people more than anything else. No matter what business you're in or what you do, life is about people.

[01:01:33] It's about relationships and how you make that person feel and how you impact them. Probably when you're younger, you don't understand that so much, right? Because you come into interaction with so many people.

[01:01:50] But now, man, it's so clear to me that life is just such how you treat people and how people walk away from conversations with you and how you're able to impact them, whether that's professionally or personally. That would probably be my biggest lesson. And I know that you'll never be able to reach everybody. And Josh would not be for everyone. I 100% understand that. But it is truly about leaving your mark on people. That's beautiful.

[01:02:21] What's one thing, if you could do over, you would go back and do differently or do over? Nothing. I know it's probably an odd answer. But I'm not big on regret, man. Because you start down the path of, hey, I would do this one thing. And then you start to play mental games of what ifs. And when the what ifs get in your brain, I think it can lead you in a really bad spot. To me, it's about reflection. Look back.

[01:02:51] It's okay to look back and reflect to make sure that you don't stumble over the same things again. It's okay to reflect back and have joy about the things that you've done and accomplished in the past. But if you go back and you want to go back there or you want to change things, it can lead you someplace really bad mentally. To me, I always give the advice of be more concerned with will the future version of you be proud of that version.

[01:03:21] That's the person that you can change. Like that's the person that you can impact is who will you be when you're 45? Who will you be when you're 50? Who will you be when you're 60 years old? Make sure those people are proud in that moment rather than trying to go back and fix something that you can't change. Well said. I agree with that 100%. What's a myth about this industry or the space that you'd like to bust? We're not just IT people.

[01:03:49] I think that a lot of times people will say, oh, you're an MSP. You're just solving IT problems. No. No, we're not. Like first and foremost, it's customer service. We do leverage smart people that know IT to solve IT challenges. But we're also solving real life complex business problems for people. We're allowing people's businesses to grow and scale and be efficient and drive more profits so they can then help their customers and their people.

[01:04:19] But many times I talk to people and they're like, oh, you're just another IT company. It's like, but we're not an IT company. Like we do so many more things. And if you think that we're just an IT company, like we're probably not the right fit for you. So that would probably be the biggest one for me. That's a great one. Joshua, what's something you're looking forward to given all the growth, all the changes, whether it's in your company, in the industry, just what's something you're looking forward to? Tomorrow, man.

[01:04:49] I plan for the future, but know that tomorrow is not promised. So I look forward to the rest of the day and I look forward to tomorrow. It's a blessing to be able to get up every single day. And I never used to think of it that way and challenge myself to change my mindset about that quite a bit. And every day that I get up is a great day, no matter what hits me in the face. It's better.

[01:05:17] My team knows, always say, I'm above dirt, right? I'm above dirt. Any day above dirt is a good day because I'd rather be above dirt than anything else. So I look forward to tomorrow and we'll plan for the future and just do whatever we can to make sure that future is bright. But I am going to soak up every single day. Definitely, definitely see that in you. This is probably a tough one, but what's the one book you would recommend?

[01:05:44] Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willnick, Leif Babin. My team reads that book. We read it annually. Love that book. Navy SEALs, it talks about so many stories of where you need to be able to take extreme ownership of the situation, understand, reflect what things that you could have done differently. Too many times in life, I've seen others and myself in previous aspects of my career place blame on others,

[01:06:14] not take full responsibility for things. And I feel like once you have a mindset of like, I truly could have done something differently to have impacted that situation, it'll change your life as a leader and as a manager. I think that really once you do that, I think it changes you personally too of, yes, I made a mistake and it's okay to make mistakes. We will all make mistakes, but spend some time unpacking how you could have done that differently. So you don't do it again. Right.

[01:06:45] And we don't do enough of that. I feel like, and I feel like we would be better off if more people did take some true ownership of situations. That's beautiful. That is amazing. For folks that would love to reach out to you or connect to you, what's the best way to find you? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm on LinkedIn. That's one of my uncomfortableness things right now.

[01:07:14] I get told a lot that, you know, from our marketing team and others that they want me on more podcasts. They want me more out there on LinkedIn, sharing thoughts and words. And it probably sounds like I'm rambling sometimes when I'm posting stuff on LinkedIn, but I am trying to hold myself accountable to being more out there on LinkedIn. So you can hit me up on LinkedIn. I'll try to get back to you as quickly as possible. Or you can email me too, if you want to, Joshua.Schemes at Logically.com. But feel free to message me.

[01:07:43] Happy to help people out however I can. Review resumes. Help you out trying to find a job. Give you advice about running your business, operations, anything. Happy to help however I can. That's an amazing gift. You've been through such a journey. So if you guys don't take your Joshua's opportunity, you're probably missing out on some extreme ownership and extreme feedback there. So make sure to take Joshua up on that.

[01:08:13] From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Joshua. This has been a tremendous gift. And I just couldn't thank you enough for being on MSP Mindset today. Yeah, thank you so much, man. I enjoy our conversations and really grateful to be on here. And hopefully it impacts at least one person.