Hello, this is Corey. Hey, before we get into today's episode, I want to share something with you. I've been very fortunate and blessed to see an uptick in my coaching business over these last few months, and it's because leaders need help. So if you're one of those leaders that has found yourself, kind of in a rut, the working from home is difficult, your priorities have been changed and even questioning your purpose and kind of what are you going after. You are not alone. I put together a webinar called the power of priorities and purpose. You can find it at my website, Corey M carlson.com. And there, there will be a tab on the left. Is this for you? Click on that, watch the webinar. It's about 20 minutes long. You'll learn the five capitals framework, which will help you with prioritization. You'll also learn a process to put together and think through a vision for your life. And so I wanted you to check that out as a kind of a blessing and a go forward to see if it helps get you moving. And if you want further information, then we can talk about a coaching program, but you will find absolute value in this webinar. So I encourage you to go check it out. Thank you very much and onto today's episode.
Welcome to the win at home first podcast. I'm your host, Corey Carlson. This podcast is where we talk about how successful business leaders win, not only at work, but also at home. On this podcast, we will go behind the scenes with great leaders to hear stories of how they win. Thank you for listening and on to today's episode.
(01:32): Hello, this is Corey. Today. We talk with Mike Hopkins. You learn more about him in a minute based executive of a huge company, plus has five kids, and we have a great conversation talking about the importance of prioritization and putting the right things in your calendar. First, we've talked about the intentionality that he had of raising his kids with Christ at the center and talking about identity ceremonies. We talk about the power of communication, both at work and home. It's an awesome episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did the conversation. Thanks. Hello. This is Corey Carlson. You're listening to the win at home first podcast today. I'm joined by Mike Hopkins. He's the COO of Paul Davis restoration. They have over 320 franchises, but he's also winning a home as well, where he's got five kids. He's married, he's strong in his faith. And so a perfect guest to help us learn how to win at work and went home while building a, a very successful career. So, Mike, thank you very much for joining me today.
(02:33): No, thanks. It's an honor to be on with you, Corey.
(02:35): What is that key trait that a leader needs to have in order to win at home? And when at work,
(02:43): You know, I would just use the word grounded. You know, for me that means that, you know, every day at the beginning very early before the sun is up, I'm getting time and reading my Bible and getting some time in prayer and praying about my day and, and praying for the people that I'm going to be in the orbit with. During that day, I think that's, that's crucial for me. And that also helps us remain humble in our walk. Right? Well, for me it does. And so that, that being grounded piece is, is vital to kicking off every day. And that's a daily event.
(03:14): It's good for your reading scripture. Do you do anything in particular that you find to be helpful? Where you're are you doing devotions? Are you going through a particular book?
(03:27): Yeah, thanks for asking. It depends on the season. Sometimes I'll go through a book of the Bible, but a lot of times what I've been doing most recently, that's been a lot of fun, particularly during this COVID season is I've got a group of guys that were doing Bible Bible app or plans together, and that's been real. It's been a really fun way to interact. Of course it would be better to be sitting in person with one another around the table and having a cup of coffee and discussing what we've been reading, but that's also a fun way to do it and also wonderful accountability to just stay on track with the reading plan that we're on. So I can, I can vary back and forth on that. Usually my morning though is not deep study. That's typically a devotional time. And then when I do deep study, that's at separate times, a couple of times a week
(04:06): Deep study, like at evening or later in the day
(04:10): Or Saturday mornings is more common for me while I'll use a Saturday morning for a couple of hours to dive into a book of the Bible. Most recently I was working through first Peter. So, you know, th that's, that's a little different than the devotional kickoff, but my morning time is usually an hour long or so getting myself, making sure that I'm square with the Lord and my feet are properly planted to move about my day.
(04:30): Yeah, it's good. I do get up early in the morning and do a study. That's actually, when I sometimes do my reading, like right now going through the book of acts, but what I've also love about those Bible app DeVos is like in the middle of the day, because they're so quick that you can just, you know, two o'clock, if I'm in a funk or I've kind of gone off track, I could go there, do a quick Divo quick verse. So man, those, those apps have different benefits for sure. Whether it's a deep dive or it's just a touch during the day to recalibrate.
(05:02): Absolutely. Yeah. I'm the same. Yeah. There's, there's definitely opportunities in the shorter ones to be able to do that. Yeah.
(05:08): So like you mentioned praying for people in the, so often we find our own prayers being selfish, where it's a, God do this for me, help my business today. Help me, me, me. And so when we change our perspective of brain for other people, how just gives us life, gives us energy. So I think that's neat that you brought that up.
(05:28): Yeah. It's an important part of my day. You know, I've got a group of folks that I pray for regularly and then of course whoever's on the calendar for that day too.
(05:35): Yep. That's great. Anything God's talking to you about specifically right now,
(05:40): You know, it's interesting in the midst of a, of a pandemic, it's been a, it's been a great year for us work-wise but I would say that what is really been neat is to can really consider Colossians three 23, that for, if we're doing all of our work, as, as if we're doing it on to him, it occurs to that. If that means being faithful moment, by moment, that's something that I've learned over the years, but has been brought to the surface again through this pandemic, really considering the fact that each day, each moment, each opportunity that I have to interact with someone in my day and or task that I'm working on is a unique opportunity to prove myself faithful doing the work as I'm doing it to him. And then the results are ultimately in his court. But if I've done everything that I can to be faithful there, that allows me to be patient with the process a little bit more.
(06:28): I like that there's a phrase I've been hearing a lot during COVID, especially as of late, but I control the inputs. God controls the impact. So great. And to, to your point where it is a, I got to do my job, I can't just sit on the couch. So I'm going to continue to do work or do what I've got to do to grow the coaching business, to sell more books, to have people listen to podcasts, but at the end of the day, I can only control so much. And so God does control the impact. And some days I have peace in that other days, I get frustrated that it's going at a certain pace versus another pace, you know, so, you know, I'm sure I'm sure. How does that relate to you as you think about you control the inputs, God controls the impact with even the speed of which Paul Davis has grown and the things that you've, you know, helped with the fertile soil. How's that look on your end
(07:18): On a, on a, on a spiritual level. It's absolutely, that's the facts, right? I mean, you know, when we look at, at the end of our days, what do we want to hear Jesus say, right. We want to hear well done. My good and faithful servant, right? He's not going to say great job. You did an awesome job that we are generating, you know, X amount of sales or you know, getting the team to accomplish a certain profit goal or a brand experience goal. Right. What he's going to say is, well done, my good and faithful servant. And that's that for me is the piece of it there. And on a very, on a very practical level with, with Paul Davis, particularly as this pandemic off, no one knew what was going to happen, right? So it was a matter of there of, Hey, how do we, how do we help our team be properly protected from it themselves, health wise?
(08:03): And also the paying attention very carefully to the fiscal health of their businesses. We did all the things that we could do that we knew how some into all of our resources that we could to make sure that teams were fit were physically healthy. And so protocols are put together cleaning procedures built, you know, how do, how do people remind people on using a P P a E the proper, proper way in, in their day? That's a lot of P's in one sentence. And and also then making sure that they've got a plan in place to keep their business healthy and moving forward and not running into cash issues and things like that moving forward. And we've had great success with that. We don't have a single franchisee who has been put out of business over the pandemic. So we're really grateful for that.
(08:45): Well, that's awesome. That's very good. And so what was the cadence when you were working with all those franchisees in the fact, was it almost all hands on deck? Let's talk once, week let's talk every other week. What was that? That cadence keep everybody in tune
(09:00): Right at, at Paul Davis, we have a really large support team. So it wouldn't just be me. We, in, in every market, we have someone called a regional business consultant and these guys and gals are trained to support the franchisees operationally. Really, they, they, they shepherd shoulder to shoulder alongside them on making sure they hit their goals. So there's a lot of support that happened there daily, but it literally that went to some offices. It was daily if there was an immediate need, but definitely moved to a weekly cadence. And we actually did a system-wide daily call on an update on what was happening with the pandemic as well, and things that they could do to update. And then did a, a weekly kind of crescendo if you want, we'll on a Friday to update on here's, here's where we are. Here's where it appears to be heading.
(09:43): Here's what you can do to ensure that your people are healthy and your businesses healthy. In addition to that, we put together multiple teams of people who worked on different streams that needed to be repaired even on, on how we actually do work in the field on a daily basis. We do, we do restoration work. So basically we're, we're an emergency room for a home or a building that something bad happens. We come put it back together. Well, I would say nobody really wants to go there, right. But everybody wants good, good care when they arrive. And so there was a lot of things that had to pivot there to make sure that the people are people in the field are our key folks in the field are healthy. And then we're doing, we're producing in a safe way that keeps customers safe too. So it literally was a date hour by hour, but daily cadence that Christina gave opportunity for all owners to be involved.
(10:30): All of our, our team members were involved in their, in their area of subject matter expertise. So it was definitely an all hands on deck. And, and now everyone's moving along pretty, pretty crisply at it, but there it was you know, I think some people, I think the, the pandemic brought out some interesting things because some folks were especially bored because they didn't have things to do. And then some people were wildly busy and that was us. So because our teams do clean for COVID as well. So not only are we being careful and making sure businesses were properly geared up, but we were doing COVID cleaning also. Well, number of jobs. Yes. But they're much smaller than our normal work. So it, it, it, you know, it still was a struggle to if, for a little while there to just start help our franchisees get sales back up to where they need to be. Even though they were very busy job sizes, much smaller on COVID cleaning, then, you know, doing cleaning up a house after you know, kitchen, fire, or flood or a broken pipe, things like that.
(11:29): Going back to the communication piece, I love how you guys have Paul Davis believe in that statement. There is no such thing as over-communication where you guys can daily. I mean, that's incredible to have daily communications where I will work with a lot of leaders now where they're almost too timid, too scared to bother people at home or to interact with them that, and so just teaching people, coaching them to say, Hey, we've got to communicate. Cause without where there's a void of communication, people will fill with gossip, negativity, doubt, wandering all types of things. So it's neat that you guys were there able to, to fill that void.
(12:11): That's so true. And, and you know, it, it, it's a lot of work it's tiring. And one of our philosophies is that basically communicate 10 X. And so basically when you're tired of talking about something means that that's probably about when everyone around you is getting it. So keep going, right. Especially on important things like this, right? I mean, literally people's lives are physically at stake with, with pandemics like this and their, and their businesses, which they have a lot invested in are at stake as well. So we take that very seriously. If, if our franchisees aren't succeeding, then we're not succeeding as a brand.
(12:45): Yup. Last name Mike, you've been with ball Davis for a lot of your career. And in the process did that with, with the growing family, with five kids and a healthy marriage. How did you as a leader, find yourself balancing the time of work and all the demands, and you traveled a lot, you had to help launch some of these sites, but then your intention, when you were home, how were you able to, to manage that? And what would you help tell our listeners as they're building their careers? And some of them you know, different stages of how age the kids are.
(13:22): Yeah, it's interesting because before I started with Paul Davis, my wife and I owned a company that had just over a hundred employees. And so we learned early there how to really properly prioritize. And I would say this and, and it flies in the face of what some people might talk about, but I actually don't believe in life balance, I believe in and properly prioritize moments. And I think you and I have discussed that before. And what I mean by that basically is, is that yes, it's at the end of a day or a week, we need to look at the whole and say, how do we do loving all the key important people in our lives? First, the Lord, then our wives and our kids or spouses, I should say it depends on who's listening. Right? And for me, that, that comes down to very much setting aside the time, really setting aside the time for most important things.
(14:11): So for instance on, on a small scale, looking into 2021, our family vacations are already on my calendar for 2021. Awesome. Right. Not necessarily where we are going yet, but the, the, the time is blocked out. So that, that first things are first my, the dates with my wife. Matter of fact, it is realized into next year, they're not on there yet, but through this year, they're on my calendar, right? So that nothing gets in the way of that, because there are many, many things now COVID has slowed some of that down. There's less dinner meetings and less travel and things like that. But even before that, I put the most important things on the calendar. First, if there's a big event coming up with the kids, that's a big thing. So I, you know, prioritizing what's most important first. And then I would also say, you know, that going back to that piece of being grounded for the day, it's also a really focused effort during the day.
(14:56): To me, that's a, that's a part of that faithfulness that we talked about earlier, you know, what am I doing with my day? If I have 10 minutes extra in my day or time a call finishes 10 minutes early, what am I doing with that time? I heard a friend of mine once, once told me that's called procrastination. And so that's a big part of it. So I'm, I'm very scheduled. My calendar is if it's very scheduled out, I know exactly what I'm doing throughout my day. And and therefore when I know that those things are accomplished for the day as well, it's you know, feel comfortable to set that phone down, put the email away, you know, close the door to my office. And this COVID season close the door to my office and head out there and be fully engaged with the family when I'm there.
(15:38): And and that means, you know, no, no cell phones at the table. That means, you know, honestly, I, I don't check my phone in the evening check emails in the evening. And if there's a text or a phone call, that's urgent, I might pick that up. But certainly not during any big events. And I don't get very many of those calls during the, during the day. So really, I think for me, it's about making a plan and making sure that when I make the plan, I schedule the most important people in my life first. And that's my family.
(16:05): Yup. That's good. I've people have asked me before. Yeah. I, you make it to all the games for your kids. And how do you do these it's because it's in my calendar. I mean, same thing like you, as I put it in the calendar, and then let's say, it's, you know, it's a Tuesday night. If someone says let's meet on Tuesday, I'm like, no, I can meet Wednesday. I can't meet Tuesday and where other people are doing it the other way around. So I think that's neat that you brought that up and also phones as well were part of a time management process. I've been going through a lot lately. I'm really in 2020 is just the dependency on the phone. I too am not checking my emails or social media anymore at night. And I tell you the freedom that I had has been incredible because you just think you've got to look well, what's going to happen.
(16:50): And it's a control issue. We think we're much more important than we really are. We think that we are needed. Like someone's got to get ahold of, you know, Mike for you and obviously Corey for me. And it's just like, but it's not necessary. And so I've now looking at my email late in the morning, allow me to be more intentional in my quiet time, my writing and business development. And then I can get into the mail and it is, it's been so free in that way. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. What are you doing with that extra 10 minutes, but when a meeting gets over,
(17:23): You know, it's interesting, a lot of time, what I do with that is I take that time to celebrate someone. That's I love seeing people win. That's one of the, one of the most important things in me and in living and doing what I do. I I've, there's a ministry that I love called CBMC and a Christian businessman's connection. And there's also a Christian business women's connections as well. The slogan, if you will, is meeting, meeting business people, right. Where they are to help them become who God designed them to be. And that actually for years has been my position as well, but needing people, right? So whoever that is, and and, and I do believe, of course, in the business world, what gets measured gets done, but what gets celebrated gets accelerated. And so one sure. Fire way to, to breathe life into someone is to catch them doing something good.
(18:12): And so one of really a neat thing in my world is I have lots of people around me that helped me with this, because for instance, I may have a franchisee or a regional business consultant, or one of our VPs or one of our other C-suite folks send me over, Hey, here's a really neat story that happened in my business today. And I'll go, that's great. You know, make sure you send me their contact information. I'll just pick up the phone and call that person and say, Hey, I heard you did a great job on the Smith project. You know, they had this going on in that going, and they specifically mentioned to you, I want to tell you thanks because our folks that are in the field are the ones that really represent us well. And they're the ones that really are the, our brand. And so I love just taking an opportunity once twice, three times a day. Typically it will be, I would say six to a dozen, half a dozen to a dozen times a week, getting the opportunity to get particularly one of our field texts on the phone.
(19:03): Thanks. Great job. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you're enjoying it so far before we go back to the rest of this episode. I want to share with you my book when at home first, some of you have read it. So thank you very much for others of you. You have not. And I encourage if you're looking for a resource to help you with these times of your work is now in your home and your home is now in your work and what this looks like. This book is being helpful to many leaders like you whores magazine said it was one of seven books. Everyone on your team should read in the book is broken up into four different sections to help you versus about you. Understand who you are. The second is marriage in ideas and tips to help with your marriage. Third is parenting and the last is work. So these four different sections to help you recalibrate during this time and to help move forward. So if you are needing additional resource, I encourage you to check out my book went home first. It is available on Amazon, as well as audible and so on to the rest of the episode. Thank you very much.
(20:12): When you and I talked previously, we had a great discussion talking about intentionality with kids, where we are bringing God in the family. We always talked about identity. And I like to just share some of that with the listeners where, you know, my daughter is now 16, but when she was 13, we did a neat identity ceremony where we took basically Proverbs 31. We felt God aligned us to that where, and we've found five words that meant something to us. And we affirmed her in that it was a whole neat process and I've written about it before. So he could see it in listeners can see that in the book, but for you, you've done some neat identity ceremonies as well that I would love to, to hear about as you know, and listeners as well.
(20:58): Yeah. You know, we have a minute for a little bit of the backstory on that. Okay. Okay. So a friend of mine who I really respect a Christian business guy invited me to go hunting with his son and we were none of in-between things. And I think we were walking back to the cabin to go grab lunch. And he said to me, Hey, Mike, how are you intentionally raising your kids for the sake of Christ? What are you, what are you doing with it? How are we intentionally doing that? And I gave him some kind of answer that he didn't buy. It was, you know, I'm reading my Bible, we'll talk about scripture, we'll pray at dinner and do a few things like that. And you insure to talking about what they learned and, and he said, Hmm, that's good. It doesn't sound all that intentional to me.
(21:42): And I thought, Hmm, this is why I love talking with Christian business leaders, right? They they'll challenge you in a way that business leaders uniquely are trained to do. And I said, Tony, I appreciate that. I said, what do you suggest? And he suggested to me a book called raising a modern-day night. So the makeup of our family is that we have four boys, biological kiddos, and we have the blessing of Mariama who is a, we adopted three years ago. She's 13 from Sierra Leone, Africa. And then just this just a year ago, we added another daughter to our family because our oldest got married and Mackenzie is wonderful. But with our boys, I needed, I needed some help with the intentionality of how to raise them up in a bit of a system. And so what I learned there is, you know, we did a, what I would refer to in the, from, from the book raising a modern-day night called a page ceremony.
(22:31): And that, that was a weekend getaway with dad where we would do something special and go somewhere that they really would love to go with a neat note from mom saying, here's the next stage in your journey of life. But then I would have experienced with them. And we focused on at that time, going through passport to purity was the material that we used from family life. And boy did that create great discussion because it gave us a particularly their oldest. It was my first time doing that. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. So nor did my wife. And so there was a lot of learning to do on how to talk about, you know, young, you know, kids with body changes and peer pressure and agreement on dating. And what kind of questions do you have and all these sorts of things that are really going through a teenager's mind.
(23:17): And, and that event typically happened around when they were 13 depending on their maturity level, each one of the guys was a little different. I think with our oldest, I was a little early with our second. I was a little late with a third and fourth. I feel like we got it right at the right time. So we're blessed in that. So that was really neat. And then we also do a I don't think my, my next one, my youngest boy is welcome to COVID is doing school from home. Right. So I know he's not within earshot so I can share this. Cause some of this they don't know about. So then on the next one on the Squire weekend, what we do is we go away again, but we don't have really as much of an agenda because now we have this open dialogue about every, you know, all those topics I already mentioned.
(24:00): And we found that to be very true. But then what I do is I gather a group of men. And if it was you know, from Mariama Kristen and my wife will do that with her with women together. And we typically have, have had anywhere from six to 11, 12, maybe it was one of them, men come, I prepare, I have them prepare and be thinking about the concept that in particular, in first Corinthians 13, we see that we put childish ways behind us, and now we're becoming a man. And so at that stage is their senior year. So our youngest boy, Mike Jr is getting ready. We'll be doing this with him fairly soon. I'm not sure how to navigate it with COVID yet, but we'll figure that out. And at the end of the weekend, I surprised him at a dinner where he doesn't know that these men are going to be there and they all come prepared to talk to him about things like why I'm proud of you.
(24:50): What I appreciate about you, what are some things that you, the man sharing wish they had done differently during the season and what are some things that they would encourage my son to do and pay attention to during the season as well? That's been incredibly valuable. And then we do, I do a, a knighting ceremony or a manhood ceremony with our boys at this point, because they've all expressed the desire to be married is undoing that just before and or with our oldest at his bachelor party. So that's been a pretty special deal. And I'm really thankful for, to my friend, Tony for, for giving me that, that input.
(25:30): Yeah, that's neat. I love that didn't, I, I, myself took notes just to think through some things with our oldest, when I said, when she was 13, we kind of did a hybrid of a lot of those things that you mentioned. And almost like all in one and we'll, we'll look to spread it out, but those five words we got out of Proverbs 31, we assigned to men in my life. And then my wife did women in her life that we wanted them to write it. What did that letter award mean to them such as generosity? What does that mean in them and how would they share that with a 13 year old girl? And it was so neat. And then we had some of them show up at our house and talk about those words, read the letters. And it was so powerful.
(26:15): And so we are very grateful. We did it. And another reason we're grateful for Mike and you mentioned too, it is an open dialogue is there's been this open dialogue that we now have that I don't think we ever would've got. So I'm grateful for that moment. And there's things that happened the night when we basically, we had her write those five words on a bronze mirror and having melt much like in the Bible verse where it talks about exit 38, eight, where the women had a hand over their bronze mirrors so that they could be melted. So this idea that, Hey, women's beauty is great, but it can't come before God. And these bronze mirrors are melted for the wash basins of the tabernacle. So it was really cool. But when we did that, that, that whole ceremony, she probably won't remember everything about that night, but my, my hope and my prayer is that down the road, maybe a tough time.
(27:09): She'll remember that night, she'll remember that she had an army of, of men and women around her, that her parents support her. And then most of all, she's a beloved daughter. So in your scenario, your, your, your, your kids, your boys, that they may not remember every piece of those weekends, but there's this foundational element that they now have going forward when they are having a tough time of school, tough time and career, tough time marriage that they'll remember that they were a beloved son, that they were anointed by you through this process. And that's amazing. Yeah.
(27:44): And what you just shared there. I mean, I, you know, we're trying to figure out this daughter thing, it's going well, it's going well, but I'm really, that's a very inspirational and edifying process you had there. What it's amazing. And I, I know that at the, at the end of the day, you, you described that very well. Not only is there a body of believers around you who are here, you know, cheering for you and alongside you, but you've got a mom and dad who love you and you ultimately, you've got a God, a God that loves you and, and endears you as your, as a daughter and what a powerful, that's a great message. And she, and I know she's going to remember our boys, our older guys talk, still speak very highly of even the first event how special that was. Yeah.
(28:25): Yep. That's good. And really, for any listener listening and Mike, I know you'd agree with this is it's never too late. No, where I I've, I've done a talk on this numerous times before, and there'll be people in the audience. Like I wish I would have done it. I know that people still need to hear from the earthly father or mother, you know, how, how we view them and, and those affirmations. So it's never too late. And so that's good stuff. Well, great discussion. Didn't plan on going down that path, that long with you, but it is cool. And it's neat to hear you do that. You have very neat with quarantine changing things up in all of our lives. Mike, what have you added into your life? Whether it's perspective, whether it's schedule that you are keeping
(29:12): On the personal level, it's get up and move around, you know you know being very intentional about scheduling time to get out and walk even just in the middle of the day to get up and move, right. On the, beyond the other things that we've already talked about, the second thing is with the team members and the folks that I'm working with, anybody actually, I'm prayerfully getting more engaged in the opening of conversations and checking in on people. So if I have a, a 45 minute meeting with someone, for instance, I might spend the first 15 minutes checking in on them and their family and seeing how they're doing, just showing a genuine interest in what's going on with them and checking in because a lot of folks are feeling very, very isolated during the season. Even if you've got family at home, you know, we're not in, we're not in a regular routine, we don't do our regular things. And so that piece of it kind of goes along with what we talked about earlier, meeting people, right, where they are. So where are they? Do we know? Don't, don't just jump. Don't just, I I'm I'm I typically don't do this anyway, but I'm especially cognizant of not jumping in too fast into the purpose and outcome and agenda for the meeting that we're jumping into getting into, but also, Hey, how, how are you, how are your family? How's your family are important people in your life doing
(30:25): That's good relationships before results. You definitely, you definitely are a great example of doing that in school. What are you most excited about in the next 30 days?
(30:37): Time with family over the holidays, you'd think that, you know, with COVID, you, you, you you've got enough of it, but we do have one guy still away at college. Everybody else is doing school remote, you know, in home virtually, but to having everybody home at once, it'd be great. It would be a I'm disappointed that we can't do, you know, Thanksgiving with everyone, but I also think it will be sort of a special deal to just be us as well. W we we're excited to get that opportunity to get, you know, a special time with family over the holiday. That for me is the thing I'm most looking forward to.
(31:09): Yeah, that's cool. What are you reading right now?
(31:14): Other than, other than
(31:14): The Bible,
(31:17): I've got three things going on right now, finishing up visioneering by Andy Stanley really have enjoyed that book. And then reading again what is the gospel by Greg Gilbert short little book, just a reminder on what is the gospel and that's sort of what I'm picking up just here and there. And from a work perspective, I'm rereading a book called traction by Gino way.
(31:41): I love the traction and all the EOS and just that whole idea. Now it really helps small businesses a lot. And just thinking through, so being COO, are you more the implementer versus the division?
(31:55): R R ha. I am definitely an implementer by nature. Yes. I like to get things done.
(32:02): Yeah.
(32:03): But from a visionary perspective, I'm there too. And that's the blessing of having a great team. Right. We've got great folks running operations on a daily basis, VP of operations. And then I've got a really neat creative guy get to get to work alongside who is a director of strategic initiatives of EPS strategic initiative initiatives. Who's a very creative guy who loves to implement. So yeah. But yeah, I'm a little bit of a blend of two, but in the actual role itself, yeah. I'm making sure the business is running.
(32:31): So someone's got to do right now. Yeah, that's good. We, we we, we use a lot of kind of traction. There's some other things similar to that as we work with clients and help them get strategic, because so many people are in the business all the time, they were actually working kind of on the business and thinking, well, what are those rocks down the road? And, and, and all those long-term plans. Right. So that's great. Right. Well, thank you very much for your time. I would love to continue talking, but I know you've got a business to run. So what are the best way for people to get ahold of you? Mike?
(33:04): They could easily reach out to me is very simple. It's just mike.Hopkins@pauldavisdotcadotcomandgetmikedothopkinsatpauldavis.com where you can find me on LinkedIn as well. That's a great way. And then we can connect by phone from their message a little bit, and we'll get connected, be happy to connect with anyone who's interested.
(33:21): Awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time and your wisdom today, Mike,
(33:25): Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Corey.
(33:29): I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. When at home first, I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@ corymcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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