Shownotes
In this episode, Joseph Lesser shares his journey to Regional Sales Director at Courser and the purpose-driven mindset that guides his leadership. Grounded in faith and shaped by mentorship, Joseph reflects on the shift from individual contributor to people leader and the lessons that helped him grow. He fosters a culture of trust, feedback, and accountability where team members feel seen, supported, and challenged.
Key Takeaways:
- Bold action and initiative can open doors that talent alone cannot
- A curious mindset fuels personal growth and drives long-term success
- Leading others requires shifting focus from performance to purpose
- Trust and feedback are the foundation of strong, connected teams
Chapters:
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 05:05 - A Bold Ask
- 08:19 - Growing Roles
- 14:43 - Faith and Conviction
- 22:42 - Grounded Leadership
Listen to our podcasts at:
https://www.shorecp.university/podcasts
There you will also find our other Everyday Heroes episodes, alongside our series Microcap Moments and Bigger. Stronger. Faster., highlighting the people and stories that make the microcap space unique.
Other ways to connect:
Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog
Shore University: https://www.shorecp.university/
Shore Capital Partners: https://www.shorecp.com/
Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog
This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the “Terms of Use” page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.
Transcripts
Speaking the truth in love, as it were, is a gift right to the other person, even if it doesn't always feel that way and receiving that from somebody else.
Joseph Lesser:The same thing, like I tell a lot of new members when they come onto my team that I say, listen, you're never gonna hurt my feelings or offend me by giving me critical feedback.
Joseph Lesser:What'll really frustrate me is if you just tell me what I want to hear, and then show up one day and say, Hey, I have all these issues, and let me run through this laundry list of things.
Joseph Lesser:And it's like, where did this come from?
Anderson Williams:Welcome to Everyday Heroes, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the people who are building our companies from the inside, every day, often out of the spotlight.
Anderson Williams:With this series, we wanna pull those heroes out of the shadows.
Anderson Williams:We want to hear their stories, we wanna share their stories.
Anderson Williams:We wanna understand what drives them, why they do what they do, how they might inspire and support others to become Everyday Heroes too.
Anderson Williams:In this episode I talk with Joseph Lesser Regional Sales Director with Courser.
Anderson Williams:Joseph was a part of PTG, the founding platform that partnered with Shore to create Courser.
Anderson Williams:He talks about that experience, his misconceptions and realities, and the longstanding and critical mentorship he's had with Reed Wilson, the founding CEO, including a great story of how and why Reed eventually hired Joseph.
Anderson Williams:Joseph shares his transition from individual sales leader to a leader of people, and how he has grown to meet that challenge, including relying deeply on his faith to define the kind of leader he wants to be and his team members deserve.
Anderson Williams:Before we dive into more of that, is there something just to get us started that we should know about you?
Anderson Williams:Anything new in your life, Joseph, that you wanna update us on?
Joseph Lesser:Yeah, absolutely.
Joseph Lesser:So we actually just had our second child about three weeks ago, so still in the very sleep deprived state.
Joseph Lesser:But feel very fortunate and very blessed to have him.
Joseph Lesser:So we have two boys under the age of four, so the rest of life is gonna be a wild adventure, I'm sure.
Anderson Williams:What has, being a dad of two boys taught you about a growing business and leading sales with a growing business?
Joseph Lesser:You know, it's actually funny.
Joseph Lesser:We've been to some classes on things where they've talked about different topics and a lot of the things that I've learned for parenting can actually be applied to the business world, which sounds terrible to say and don't mean that the way it sounds, but one of the things they talked about was.
Joseph Lesser:You know, if you always do things for your kids, you're sending the message.
Joseph Lesser:You don't have what it takes.
Joseph Lesser:You can't do this yourself.
Joseph Lesser:And I actually took that away and took that back to my mindset with my team of I really need to empower these folks.
Joseph Lesser:If I'm doing the thing for them, I'm inadvertently saying, Hey, I don't think you have what it takes, which is not true, right?
Joseph Lesser:And same with your kids.
Anderson Williams:So tell us a little bit about what Courser is and what Courser does.
Anderson Williams:So we have a little bit of context for your work life.
Joseph Lesser:Absolutely.
Joseph Lesser:So we are a managed IT service provider or an MSP, and essentially what that means is we provide IT support and cybersecurity to small to mid-size businesses.
Joseph Lesser:And oftentimes that takes the form of their busy running their business, whatever that is.
Joseph Lesser:Whether it's a law firm or a CPA firm, or a manufacturing facility or a nonprofit or a healthcare facility or any number of other things, they're busy running their business and so they work with us so that we can handle the it.
Joseph Lesser:That way they don't have to worry about it because especially in the current landscape, which how cyber threats have evolved and everything else, it's a lot for somebody to try and manage themselves.
Joseph Lesser:And even if they have the expertise for it, usually their time is far more valuable spent elsewhere.
Joseph Lesser:And then there's also a piece of our business that is working with folks that have an internal IT team, but they either are looking for cost savings as opposed to having to build out this giant team to get all these different specializations and boxes checked.
Joseph Lesser:Or maybe it's a single individual and it's just more than they can handle by themselves, or they're extremely experienced and wanna do more strategic projects and initiatives and they don't wanna help Suzy connect to the printer, so.
Anderson Williams:So how did you get into that work?
Anderson Williams:You said you've been there five years.
Anderson Williams:Give us a little bit of background about how you got involved.
Joseph Lesser:Yeah, it's actually a bit of a funny story.
Joseph Lesser:I don't know if I have time to go into the whole story on this, but essentially I worked in several industries before this, and the one right before it was selling copiers, but a lot of copier companies have also gotten into the IT space.
Joseph Lesser:So I was very familiar with that.
Joseph Lesser:Although our CEO jokes that when I started, I didn't even know how to spell IT.
Joseph Lesser:So really I was part of the same executive level sales training that the CEO of our company and some of his team was a part of.
Joseph Lesser:And so I got to know him there and we had talked for several years about me coming to work for him and the stars had never just aligned quite right, but you know, third time was the charm.
Joseph Lesser:And got to come on board initially in a business development, pure hunting sales.
Anderson Williams:Joseph chuckled a bit as he started to answer that question, which suggested there was more to the story.
Anderson Williams:While he didn't offer the details, his boss and PTG, founder and Courser, CEO, Reed Wilson did.
Anderson Williams:Here's Reed's version of how Joseph joined him at PTG.
Reed Wilson:One of my favorite stories about Joseph is we were in a Sandler class.
Reed Wilson:We still use the Sandler methodology very heavily here at Courser and well before the Shore hold, the PTG business was using it.
Reed Wilson:And I actually met Joseph in a Sandler training class.
Reed Wilson:He was there every single week, and I remember looking at him thinking, God, this guy is young, like he is young.
Reed Wilson:And as a business kind of grew, you know, pre Joseph.
Reed Wilson:I was involved less and less, and Sandler and, and the sales teams went and, you know, candidly, I kind of forgot about him and I just remember this story.
Reed Wilson:I was on the vacation with my family.
Reed Wilson:I was, my daughter was super young.
Reed Wilson:We were playing in the sand, and my phone rang.
Reed Wilson:I didn't recognize the number and so I didn't answer it, and they left a voicemail.
Reed Wilson:And so I listened to the voicemail and the voicemail went just like this.
Reed Wilson:I'll never forget it.
Reed Wilson:"Hey, Reed, Joseph Lesser.
Reed Wilson:It's really important that we talk.
Reed Wilson:Call me back.
Reed Wilson:" I was scratching my head like, who is this guy that is calling me?
Reed Wilson:I vaguely remember his name, but I can't put a face with a name.
Reed Wilson:So I got a shell.
Reed Wilson:I, this is not a lie, like I remember this.
Reed Wilson:I got a shell and I wrote the number down in the sand and I called the guy back and I was like, Hey Joseph, it's Reed.
Reed Wilson:What's so important?
Reed Wilson:And his response was, it is really, I. Important that you hire me.
Reed Wilson:And I thought, wow.
Reed Wilson:Like, you know, that's a pretty gutsy move and I ended up hiring him and the rest is, is history.
Reed Wilson:But I think, you know, that to me just epitomizes kind of his willingness to try new things.
Reed Wilson:And you know, he won me over there and it was a very successful cold call.
Reed Wilson:But I just think that's a really good story of kind of how he thinks and how he operates.
Anderson Williams:I love this story so much.
Anderson Williams:It says something about both Joseph and Reed in the cold call, the courage and tenacity of Joseph and the openness, availability, and respect of Reed for this young man he didn't even remember at the time.
Anderson Williams:Clearly it worked out, and as this episode is celebrating Joseph five years later as an Everyday Hero at Courser, so I wanted to hear from Reed from his perspective after all these years, what has made Joseph so special to Courser and has proven him right in taking a chance on hiring him.
Reed Wilson:There's a lot.
Reed Wilson:I think that makes Joseph a hero.
Reed Wilson:I would say, if I had to pick one thing that makes Joseph a hero, it is just that he is incredibly curious.
Reed Wilson:He asks so many questions, and I think the best people ask lots and lots and lots of questions.
Reed Wilson:I think the best leaders give space for people to ask lots of questions.
Reed Wilson:But if I think about Joseph over his, I don't know, probably five years here, he has never, ever, ever lost kind of the thirst for learning.
Reed Wilson:And I think a great example of that is, you know, prior to us joining the Shore ecosystem, Joseph and I had a one-to-one scheduled every Friday.
Reed Wilson:'cause I was the CEO of that business and he reported to me.
Reed Wilson:And even post acquisition, you know, we're 40 months into our hold here.
Reed Wilson:Joseph no longer obviously reports directly to me, but he has been very, I'd say, adamant about keeping that time every Friday for us to spend a half an hour together.
Reed Wilson:And without question, he brings me a list of probably six or eight questions.
Reed Wilson:You know, things that he just wants to learn more about.
Reed Wilson:And to me that, you know, there's a lot that makes him a hero, but that would be kind of the underlying thing for me.
Anderson Williams:Curiosity, what a powerful characteristic.
Anderson Williams:And what I love about this story is that despite the growth of Courser, the evolving roles and responsibilities of both Joseph and Reed, it has been Joseph's curiosity that has compelled him to hold that 30 minutes per week with Reed sacred and for Reed to return the investment.
Anderson Williams:While he didn't speak directly to his own curiosity, Joseph shows us in this next segment how this attribute has compelled his career forward.
Anderson Williams:Give us a little bit about how things have changed since you started in that first role for you and for the company.
Anderson Williams:Really.
Joseph Lesser:Yeah, so it's really interesting because a lot has changed, but also not a lot has changed, and that's been very pleasantly surprising.
Joseph Lesser:So the biggest change has been just the growth opportunity.
Joseph Lesser:So when I started, like I said, I was doing new business development.
Joseph Lesser:I reported directly to our CEO and founder, and there was no room to go up.
Joseph Lesser:Like I came in as high up as you could go, and you know now as a regional sales director, it's really interesting because sort of the progression there was started out as solution specialist, which is that new business development hunter role.
Joseph Lesser:Then when we partnered with the team at Shore and Courser came into being, I moved into a director role, which like I said, had previously been what our CEO was doing.
Joseph Lesser:But as he took over responsibilities of being the CEO of the whole company, it was no longer realistic for him to also be the sales manager.
Joseph Lesser:And I will say that was a little bit like coming in right after, you know, Nick Saban or one of the great coaches of all time because we had an incredible organization and he had built an incredible team.
Joseph Lesser:And so it was, sometimes, I think it's easier to come in in a place where it's a mess and you're having to turn it around as opposed to coming anywhere.
Anderson Williams:It's easier to be the hero there.
Anderson Williams:Right?
Joseph Lesser:Exactly.
Joseph Lesser:Exactly.
Joseph Lesser:But so I moved into that director role, which was totally new, not something that had been on the radar before.
Joseph Lesser:And then a year later moved into a regional sales director role, which again, was a position that didn't even exist.
Joseph Lesser:And something that wasn't even on my radar.
Joseph Lesser:It's not like I sat there five years prior and said, in my five year plan, I want to be a regional sales director.
Joseph Lesser:So, long story short, a lot has changed internally as it relates to growth and responsibilities and everything else, but not a lot has changed as it relates to service to our customers.
Anderson Williams:Well, when you go back to that time when you first knew that PTG was gonna partner with Shore and private equity, did you have concerns at the time?
Anderson Williams:Just do you remember any concerns about private equity coming into the fold?
Joseph Lesser:I remember exactly where I was, exactly how I felt.
Joseph Lesser:Yes, I thousand percent had concerns because with previous companies, I had been through acquisitions on both sides, both where you're being the one acquired and where you're doing the acquisition.
Joseph Lesser:And in all of those cases I had seen where it was new group comes in and old people are.
Joseph Lesser:Go oftentimes for no reason whatsoever, just, you know, cutting costs, cutting heads, et cetera.
Joseph Lesser:So, yes, was very nervous expected everything's about to change.
Joseph Lesser:I have this great company, this great organization, we have great customers, and all of it is gonna change.
Joseph Lesser:And so that's why I was saying it was a very pleasant surprise that really the bulk of the changes were highly positive in nature.
Anderson Williams:Really, as you were describing, your pretty rapid growth since that time and new opportunities out in front of you that you hadn't necessarily even thought of.
Anderson Williams:You know, growing companies create opportunities for growing people.
Joseph Lesser:Right.
Anderson Williams:How have you grown?
Anderson Williams:I mean, it's one thing to be a high performer in a growing company.
Anderson Williams:It's another thing to be able to move to director as quickly as you did, and then to your regional role as quickly as you did.
Anderson Williams:How have you made sure the company didn't just outgrow you, where they hired somebody in for a director or they hired somebody in for the regional role, but rather built on what you were doing.
Joseph Lesser:So I think there's a handful of things that go into that one, and there's certainly times where it makes sense to say no to an opportunity, but I think one of the things was not saying no to any opportunities to develop myself personally and grow, even if it meant more work in the short term.
Joseph Lesser:And interestingly enough.
Joseph Lesser:When the idea of a regional sales director, for example, was being molded around, my initial reaction was, ah, I don't know if I'm ready for that.
Joseph Lesser:I don't know if I wanna do that, et cetera.
Joseph Lesser:But when the time came, I said, this is a great opportunity.
Joseph Lesser:I can't say no to this opportunity and I'm very thankful that I didn't.
Joseph Lesser:But I think a lot of times in a really fast growing company, it requires a lot of hard work and a lot of personal investment.
Joseph Lesser:And so I think realizing that it's not a one for one trade.
Joseph Lesser:It's not like I'm gonna do this one thing and I'm immediately gonna see this result, but it's constantly putting in a number of different inputs.
Joseph Lesser:And so for me, that looks like number one, I've been very fortunate from day one at PTG and now Courser to have a phenomenal mentor in Reed Wilson.
Joseph Lesser:And then when we had our CRO, Jim Patterman come in, he was also extremely instrumental in my transition into leadership because I had moved into a director role about two months before he came on board, and it was incredible having him come into the mix and be able to have somebody there who is helping guide and shape that.
Joseph Lesser:As well as I also have an outside mentor, who is experienced in sales management, and I had had several mentors prior who were mentors at the sales rep level.
Joseph Lesser:So I would say mentors is a big piece of it.
Joseph Lesser:The other is, you know, I read several books.
Joseph Lesser:So one is called Making the Climb and we're a part of a like I said, executive level sales training called Sandler Training, and this was written by one of a Sandler trainer, and it was specifically how do you make the jump from being an individual contributing sales rep to a leader?
Joseph Lesser:I think it was him in this book.
Joseph Lesser:There was another book I read that was really instrumental that I'll mention as well.
Joseph Lesser:One of them said the only thing that sales manager and sales rep have in common is the word sales.
Joseph Lesser:And I remember when I read that thinking that's probably an exaggeration.
Joseph Lesser:That can't really be true.
Joseph Lesser:But then after making the transition, that is very accurate.
Joseph Lesser:The other book that was really instrumental was a book called The First Time Sales Manager by Mike Weinberg.
Joseph Lesser:And so I think both of those combined with the mentorship were extremely helpful.
Joseph Lesser:And then I was fortunate to get nominated to go to the Shore Leadership Academy.
Joseph Lesser:Learned a ton from that.
Joseph Lesser:I'm sure my team is tired of hearing me talk about that and provide insights from it, and I'm sure there's other avenues as well, but I think the biggest thing was just looking for those opportunities, not being afraid to ask questions and dive in whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Anderson Williams:I love that insight of the sales manager versus the sales rep, but it's little moments like that where the world crystallizes a little bit when you realize that distinction, and I think it's really profound.
Anderson Williams:And so I want to talk a little bit about that shift for you, because I read this on your LinkedIn profile and I want to ask you about this perspective.
Anderson Williams:You have on your profile, "My passion is helping other people. I discovered early in my career that when I help a business succeed, I'm helping an entire group of people live better lives."
Anderson Williams:Will you talk more about that mindset and where it comes from for you and how that has played into your ability to shift from that sales rep to that sales manager role.
Joseph Lesser:Yeah, my faith is something that's very integral to who I am.
Joseph Lesser:And interestingly enough, something that some people know about me, not everyone knows about me, was going through college, I was actually on a path where I was planning to become a youth minister and I was working on a business degree.
Joseph Lesser:'cause I'd always enjoyed sales and that was the backup plan as it were.
Joseph Lesser:And through, you know, something we could certainly talk about over a cup of coffee sometime it felt like some doors closed and it made sense for me to move into the sales function.
Joseph Lesser:But the reason why I bring all of that up, the faith that I have is really around this idea that my job or goal in life or purpose, purpose is a good word for it, is to basically bring glory to God and also to love others, right?
Joseph Lesser:And so what that looks like to me, and when I think about loving my neighbor, it's helping them reach their full potential, helping them be successful and live a better life.
Joseph Lesser:And so really that's what drives that.
Joseph Lesser:Like that's the big why behind it, but interestingly enough, you know, one of the things for why I wanted to get into management.
Joseph Lesser:I had seen the impact that it had on my entire life when I had a good manager and the impact when I had a bad manager.
Joseph Lesser:And so for me, I was like, you know, when I look out there and when I think about the stories I hear from people, I'm making up percentages here, but it seems like maybe 20% of managers are really good.
Joseph Lesser:But the impact that they have on those employees' lives is really profound, and I wanted to be a part of that.
Joseph Lesser:I wanted to be that type of manager.
Joseph Lesser:And my hope is that I have done that.
Joseph Lesser:So I hope if you talk to my team that they would agree with that.
Joseph Lesser:And it's similar to my wife and I were talking the other day.
Joseph Lesser:I was getting a little bit emotional thinking about as we had our second child, and just thinking about that this little baby is one day going to be a full grown adult who's going to impact hundreds if not thousands of other lives.
Joseph Lesser:And it's really incredible, the opportunity as a parent that now instead of just the people that I'm able to impact day to day, I'm gonna be able to indirectly impact hundreds, if not thousands of lives through our two sons.
Joseph Lesser:And I view it very similarly with our team.
Joseph Lesser:I want them to look back and say, I'm better from having been a part of this team?
Anderson Williams:Well, I think it's really profound.
Anderson Williams:I think the clarity that your faith brings to you about your purpose on the planet and working through others and enabling others opportunity is exactly what faith is for, right?
Anderson Williams:And it plays out at work.
Anderson Williams:It plays out with your kids, it plays out wherever you take it because it's not situational.
Anderson Williams:It's deeper than that.
Anderson Williams:I think it's really beautiful to hear you describe that, and I'll say that to your point of your team.
Anderson Williams:I will quote your Everyday Hero nomination now that said that you, in your annual engagement survey of your team got a hundred percent positive rating, which was the highest among all Courser managers.
Joseph Lesser:Yeah, that was incredible to hear.
Joseph Lesser:You know, I've had several successes in my career, but that's gotta be up there as in my personal opinion, one of the biggest.
Anderson Williams:For sure.
Anderson Williams:So now the hard question, how do you do it?
Joseph Lesser:Well, you know, I think there are so many different things that go into that, so I'm sure that I'm going to miss some things.
Joseph Lesser:I think number one, I've been fortunate.
Joseph Lesser:I have a great team.
Joseph Lesser:I've been able to build a great team.
Joseph Lesser:There have been some other folks that were already on the team prior who have helped continue to make it a phenomenal team.
Joseph Lesser:I think, like I mentioned before, I've been fortunate to have a lot of great mentors and at the end of the day, if you think about it, with a survey like that, if the organization was terrible, it wouldn't matter how I could be the greatest manager in the world and it wouldn't matter, right?
Joseph Lesser:You're still not gonna get those scores.
Joseph Lesser:So I think it says a lot about the team, a lot about the organization, but I think without knowing for sure, my gut says a big part of it is my team knows that I genuinely care about them as people and want what's best for them.
Joseph Lesser:And I think they also know.
Joseph Lesser:I hope they know this.
Joseph Lesser:'cause I try and say it a lot.
Joseph Lesser:I really, really, really value their feedback and input.
Joseph Lesser:And so I tell 'em all the time, I may not be able to solve every problem, but please bring it to me.
Joseph Lesser:Like, tell me what it is.
Joseph Lesser:'cause if I don't know about it, I can't solve it.
Joseph Lesser:And I've told them this, I've made them this promise and I've, you know, thus far been able to back it up.
Joseph Lesser:I've, I'm never going to.
Joseph Lesser:Get upset with you for bringing a problem.
Joseph Lesser:I know a lot of organizations, people may have had bad experiences in the past and they're worried of like, Hey, if I bring this up, they're gonna be like, oh, this person's just a complainer, or whatever it may be.
Joseph Lesser:But really my belief has always been that it takes a lot of courage and guts for somebody to come to their manager and share feedback.
Joseph Lesser:And so it's not an easy thing to get.
Joseph Lesser:So I fight really, really, really hard to try and get them to share that as well as I also try and regularly do anonymous surveys through like Microsoft Forms.
Joseph Lesser:And then I think a big piece of that, and again, going back to being authentic and the team knowing that I care about them and that I trust them, is like I will share that with them.
Joseph Lesser:Like we'll go through it in a meeting and I'll say like, here was this question and here's a pie chart of the responses.
Joseph Lesser:And so, you know, in my mind I don't wanna hide anything.
Joseph Lesser:So if they all gave me terrible reviews on something or great reviews on something, I want them to know.
Joseph Lesser:Obviously I don't share the written response feedback for fear that it might lose some of the anonymity.
Joseph Lesser:But the anonymous feedback, yes, is all shared.
Joseph Lesser:I think that's the big thing.
Joseph Lesser:I think the other thing is I don't tend to sugarcoat things, but I'm also not the kind of person that would come out and just be aggressive or say something mean or in a rude way.
Joseph Lesser:But I will be very direct with somebody and I, as much as it makes me uncomfortable, and as much as I would rather overlook it or not bring it up, I've learned that, you know, if something's happened twice or certainly three times, now you have a pattern.
Joseph Lesser:And it's way better to address that now, as opposed to letting fear win the day and you put that off and then it comes back to bite you down the road for both you and that individual.
Joseph Lesser:So several things there.
Joseph Lesser:Like I said, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that I've forgotten.
Joseph Lesser:It'd be interesting if you asked my team that same question.
Joseph Lesser:I'd be curious to hear their answer and I may have to ask 'em now, so.
Anderson Williams:Your nomination specifically mentioned, your listening and your feedback sessions and some of the things that you've described there.
Anderson Williams:I'm just curious your thoughts, I can't help but think about your conversation about both your faith and that sense of purpose.
Anderson Williams:You know, a lot of new managers in particular, and certainly young managers, your a young manager, would find it really difficult to hear hard feedback on their own performance and find it difficult to give someone else hard feedback out of empathy or a sense of caring, but you've been able to do that, and I wonder to what degree you attribute that to that sense of purpose.
Anderson Williams:That sense of purpose is bigger than the short term discomfort of receiving difficult feedback or giving difficult feedback.
Anderson Williams:It just is on my mind as I listen to you.
Joseph Lesser:I think to your point, yes, it does tie back to that deeper purpose and why, and you don't have much of a relationship if you can't say the hard true things.
Joseph Lesser:I remember something that you shared in the Leadership Academy that I think applies there as well is trust is something that's built up over time and the time to build trust is not when you need to withdraw something from the bank of trust, as it were.
Joseph Lesser:So you need a lot of trust already to be able to have that conversation or to receive that feedback.
Joseph Lesser:Because what I think was really hard early on, though, I think now is in the culture of our team, is this idea of you sharing critical feedback with me is not going to hurt you.
Joseph Lesser:It's not going to impact you negatively or the way that I view you.
Joseph Lesser:It's actually, like I said, I view it as a huge asset because I know that feedback is out there and it exists.
Joseph Lesser:And if I don't know it, then I'm blind to it and potentially I'm going to run into a brick wall 'cause of it.
Joseph Lesser:That could have been avoided.
Anderson Williams:To wrap up, I asked Joseph what was the best advice he's ever received and he referenced a quote from a book he'd read somewhere along the way that brought him back to the depth and roots of his faith.
Joseph Lesser:Whatever you let validate, you can also invalidate you.
Joseph Lesser:And so I think, you know, going back to what I said at the beginning of faith being really critical and important to me is, you know, at the end of the day, the only thing that I can or should let validate me that I know for certain won't ever invalidate me is my father God.
Joseph Lesser:Right.
Joseph Lesser:Like so trusting that what he says about me and who he says I am is more powerful than what anybody else thinks about me or says about me, because otherwise I'm just gonna be up and down with the waves, right?
Joseph Lesser:So when I'm doing really well and having a lot of success, I'm gonna be like, wow, Joseph's, you know, really valuable and is this great person?
Joseph Lesser:And then when I'm having a bad day and I'm not being the parent that I should be, or I've you know, lost the big deal or had the major failure at work.
Joseph Lesser:Having that view prevents a lot of that up and down.
Anderson Williams:Joseph Lesser is an Everyday Hero whose superpower is his faith.
Anderson Williams:Through it, he has found deep purpose in leading and developing opportunities for others to learn, grow, and find their own career success.
Anderson Williams:Joseph has leaned on his faith to find balance and even out the highs and lows that come with rapid personal growth, life changes, and a hard charging career.
Anderson Williams:If you enjoyed this episode, check out our other Everyday Heroes at
Anderson Williams:www.shorecp.university/podcasts.
Anderson Williams:There you
Anderson Williams:will also find episodes from our Microcap Moments as well as Bigger.
Anderson Williams:Stronger.
Anderson Williams:Faster.
Anderson Williams:series.
Anderson Williams:Each highlighting the people and stories that make the lower middle market space unique.
Anderson Williams:This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners and recorded in the Andrew Malone Podcast Studio with story and narration by Anderson Williams.
Anderson Williams:Recording and editing by Austin Johnson.
Anderson Williams:Editing by Reel Audiobooks.
Anderson Williams:Sound design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.
Anderson Williams:Special thanks to Joseph Lesser and Reed Wilson.
Anderson Williams:This podcast is the Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC.
Anderson Williams:None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security.
Anderson Williams:See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.
