Surprise! Hallie is back!

In this episode, we catch up on Hallie’s experiences over the past year since her departure and what she has learned on her journey from Force Multiplier to entrepreneur. We explore the character traits that differentiate the two roles and the learning curve involved in pivoting between them.

We also reflect on the attempted assassination on Donald Trump and how to lead through turbulent times, considering the impact of media on the current state of political unrest in the U.S. and the need for unity and open communication. Our conversation highlights the significance of listening to different perspectives and finding common ground, both in personal relationships and in business.

View full show notes here.

Welcome to the 200 % Life Podcast, your weekly insights to spiritual growth and business success with Adam Hergenrauther and Halle Warren. Welcome back everybody. Well, this is not an old recording, even though you may hear a voice on here that a couple of weeks ago, actually, actually maybe like a month ago, I played, I was out on vacation, so I played an old recording and Halle was on it and they're like, well, Halle's back and whatnot. But now in real life,

actually back. Hallie is back. So welcome Hallie. Thank you. Back to the podcast. I know that we're super excited. Well, I'm super excited to have I'm excited too. Yes, we're both excited to be here. I actually think the not only businesses but like the podcast was the best when you and I were in our group, particularly early on in our

kind of building these things. know towards the end, you you wanted that break. So before you jump in though, you're saying, I was like checked out. wasn't as interesting. Tell me a little bit about your last year. Yeah, I can't believe it's coming up in a year. It was this time almost exactly a year ago where we had a conversation where I said, okay, I think I need to go, you know, take a little break, do my own thing.

So although I didn't leave till October. it was actually, I think it was like March. It was July. I looked back in the calendar. It was July 5th actually. So we were, yeah, I'm right. But I leave until October. yeah, so the first, I took a break. I the first like six months or so, you know, it the holidays. I did a bunch of stuff with my family. Kind of

I mean, it was really hard probably the first couple of months to even turn off and not like... Well, we were hearing them for the book launch too. that was like... book had just launched. And throughout leading up into that, there was a lot of work. That's true. It was just a ton going up into it. So wasn't like you were slowly fading away. mean, it was like you were gas pedal until basically the last moment. Yeah, that's true. And then I'm still obviously still promoting it afterwards.

But yeah, actually now I think about it, like, what? I definitely needed to, it took a while to, again, turn off, almost like it is when you're on vacation, right? The first day or two, I'm still thinking about work, thinking about all that stuff. And I think actually the first couple of months, I was still emailing you. You were. Occasionally. I would email Jenna a bit, but I would email you and be like, I just thought of this idea. Or I just couldn't help myself. Sorry. That's what you do. That's what made you great. Yeah, I couldn't help myself. But then kind of after the holidays, you know, I've just did a lot of like reflecting.

did some did a lot of like a lot of journaling.

And I already kind of knew what I was going to do next anyway, so that wasn't a big issue. I was planning on, which I did, coaching, training, building a course. So that's really what I did. reading a lot. And then about March, around March, I really started ramping back up, taking on more coaching clients, taking on a fractional chief of staff client, and working on developing the Force Multiplier Academy. And then, of course, we kind of partnered back together with Founder and Force Multiplier, which I'm very excited to be the owner of now. Thank you. And yeah, that's just

really growing quite a bit in the past few months. What did you learn about yourself?

I learned a lot. learned well the two probably a couple of main things I learned is one I I don't know if I really like being a solopreneur necessarily. I do love the freedom and flexibility, but I need more people in my life and working from home is not necessarily the most the best for me. I'm not as productive probably at home a couple of days a week. It's funny because you know when we were getting towards the end of our relationship from that capacity, it was very much like you wanted to be at home. Yeah. Well, it was like a two three schedule and that's great.

That was fine. I came in here Monday, Wednesdays usually, sometimes a Friday. Perfect. It's funny because as we progressed as business leaders in our world together, it was very much like it was like six days a week in the office and then it went to five and then it stayed at five for a while. Then after COVID, we adjusted. was, I think it was maybe three we started to and then I started pulling and then it was like two and then it was, we kind of just slowly filtered into that. And it's just funny that

of me though, isn't it? Where it's like you want the freedom and flexibility. 100%. But you also want like a routine and a schedule and being in people in the office. I miss having someone depend on me. Yeah. I guess, I mean, I don't know how to say it other than that, but like I think I do work better when I, I mean, for 13 years I was...

Depended on performing and being productive and at a high level producing for the greater for something bigger than myself and it is a little challenging to do it just for my own purpose because really I mean it's just for me and my family of course but like it's just for me and that it's just a mindset shift.

Also, I learned that, you I worked with entrepreneurs, you and other entrepreneurs for over a decade. And I really and closely and have felt so much ownership over everything that we did. It is not the same as actually being an entrepreneur and being fully responsible because you like I thought I got it, what it felt like. I didn't I didn't until I was doing that. That's actually fascinating. really? Yeah. Well, because, know, you think, my God, I was so stressed out. Not all the time.

a lot of the time right like being chief of staff and making sure that everyone was taken care of and you were taking care of involved with yeah there's inner inner peak it was there's a lot going on yes and just making sure things were done really well at a super high level and you know feeling responsible for everything.

But I wasn't, and that's the difference. I wasn't actually responsible at the end of the day, financially responsible. And that's kind of what I'm talking about. But also, at the end of day, if something happened, I could leave and go get another job. You were still stuck with the company. And now that's where I'm at.

and where you're really 100 % responsible. It is really different. And I'll say from a different perspective too, which is when you're building a company and you are financially responsible for you, there is a different, I wouldn't call it motivation, but there's a diff, you,

you grab deeper in the well and I think you're just a little bit more, you pay a little more attention to things, you're a little bit more involved than when it's not necessarily you responsible for things financially. I wouldn't say, I'm saying from my perspective, because from your perspective, you actually worked better that way when it was like that. For me, I actually work better when I am the sole responsible person for it. That's something that I've learned about myself, which is like, I need to be the person that

At the end of the day it falls on and if that's not there It's the same feeling that you have but just the opposite role Which again why a founder and force multiplier is such a powerful rule to come in together with but it's like now we had to have those both experiences to kind of actually be able to share that because It is like if I don't if I can't be I just remember this one time when I think I've shared this a long time ago But like I remember for some reason I was like in college and I was like man if we had to go to war or something It was one of those periods time. I was like, I wouldn't want my brother to do it. I think you could handle

Like it needs to be me and then it was like something needed to happen to our family like I needed to be the one doing it I needed to happen to me I could handle the pain of it. It was all it wasn't like a I never shared that with anybody but it's just more of this internal like let me handle it I will absorb it and then I'll deal with it. I'll handle it. But interestingly I feel the exact same way as that. Yeah, remember we talked about that. I remember we were in that office over there and you shared that with me. Yeah, so like

because you know you can handle it and you don't want other people to be burdened by it. I always felt that, I still feel that way. So then there's like that slight wrinkle then that comes in there when it's just that it's like you get the 99 .9 % but then it's like, okay, I do better when it's, when the.

entire rope falls with me, Versus, and then you're like, you're up to that point, but if it's the final straw, Not that you can't do it, it's just like, it's just I'm not motivated by it. That's, seems to Well, you know what it is, is you're also, you're motivated by propping somebody else up. That's right. And so when you're motivated, when you're propping yourself up, it's a different motivation. Right, and I'm not motivated by that at all. Exactly, and I enjoy the, that of like, enjoy having people,

basically prepare to prop me up so that then I can be the one to take the limelight or take the share the message, leave the charge. Or take the fallback from it and then handle it and deal with the outcome of what's there. And I want to do all of it except stand in the light. Yeah, which is exactly. And I don't really want to do any of that except for standing light in both cases, by the way, because when you stand in the light, you're when you're CEO, you're either it's going really well or it's not going well. And you have to, you know, I always go back one of the first Ironman ever did. One of the coaches said to me, it's like you have to manage

everything was still expanding, right? People were investing, people were opening up different divisions in any industry that's out there. And that has led the charge. And then there was all this stimulus money to companies, to individuals, to corporations that got pumped into our trillions of dollars, that got pumped into our world and it created expansion, right? That's why we're dealing with inflation. That's why we're dealing with,

wage growth that grew so fast for periods of times and people could be able to, you know, you could quit and find seven other jobs during that, but it was a wild period of time, right? And then until now we're dealing with this contraction piece, right? Which is people are now settling back in, money has dried up, also individual personal savings account for the first time have actually drawn to basically a zero balance. So if you look at the major banks, 60 days ago it was reported that

the amount of money that's on average in somebody's savings account is actually pre COVID for the first time since COVID. That's why now you're seeing more people trying to get back in the workforce, but at the same time trying to see people get back in the workforce, what also is happening is companies are restricting. So companies are either, and I'm not saying that like, it's not a bad thing by the way. Unemployment rate is fine. It's ticking up, but yes, it's been, it's fine, but it's ticking up. So it just doesn't, it feels differently. It's not bad. It's not 11 % or even five. It's like 3 .4 %

Which is usually right around where it is. % is what it is. So it's like, it's still, it's just ticking up, which instead of ticking down, which is like I have seven job opportunities, it's ticking up, which means that you may have one or two or may not be the perfect job that you want. And people with their savings accounts kind of drawn back down to where they are, are now waking up and going,

It's almost like they didn't think the weekend at Bernie's would ever end. It was like it was going to continue to go on and now people have woken up in the summer, even though they're still spending, but you're seeing, on the other side, you're seeing credit card balances increase for the first time. So people are almost still from a consumer spending habit. You're seeing people spend, they want to, they build this habit. hasn't changed, but the financial situation has if it's changed, it's minimal and they're still thinking somehow it's going to be saved. And I think that can put some pressure onto our credit, which is why, again, I think,

the rates the way they are. I auto sales are really slow. know, house sales, which is the biggest driver, depending on the area that you're in, can be doing a really good market or it can be a challenging market. So I mean, I think you're gonna, it's gonna be really interesting to see how these kind of macroeconomics play out. for the first time, that's why we're seeing these continued trends of.

bad news, good news, right? Like it's bad news because, you know, it's people savings accounts are drained or consumer goods, but it's dropping inflation, which is important so that we can kind of get back down to that number. What will be really interesting and we'll kind of move on from this topic though is whether or not this 2 % inflation number is ever kind of be used as a benchmark anymore. There's a lot of actually conversation that the 2 % has been there. I don't know the origins of that where it came from, but for

many many many years it's been the kind of benchmark and now they're saying should it be three percent and so we're really not that far off from it and Jerome Powell actually said last conference he said the two we don't have to get back down the two percent as a baseline to start lowering rates or even like as like an identifier so basically he's leading into even maybe two percent is no longer the benchmark that we have for inflation maybe it's three percent maybe it's 2 .5 I don't know maybe it's 2 .25 I don't know something along those lines but it'll be interesting to see where that

number kind of shows up from. You know even as you're just talking about all like the different term I don't say it's turmoil but like you know global markets and interest rates and inflation and all of this I've read a couple months ago I read the book same as ever have you read that book it's by Morgan Houseul same guy who wrote the psychology of money super interesting book because same as ever same as ever because

we're talking about all these things that are happening in politics, which we'll talk more about, but it's

And then the cycles but yeah, it is really it's really interesting because for us maybe in our gender like this generation it feels like between kovat and The global conflicts that are happening in the world and all of these things but it's like well if you just look back at You 2008 then you look back at the night, know early 1990 2001 when Terrorism like there's you you know what? It really kind of boils down to and side note of this but it's it goes down

there's gonna be these

things are going to happen every day in life and whether we like them or dislike them. to me, and we're going to go down this path for now, but spirituality or personal growth is just about handling life. Like you can, it's like whether it's you have a family issue and then maybe your family's doing amazing, then you have a business issue and then maybe your business and family are doing well. But then also you have a health issue. I found in like, in my life, if I watched like the, kind of the personal mind chatter, it's like, wow, this is going really well. This is going really well, but that's going to happen. What happens

here and it's like it always finds an angle to try to like bring in some level of suffering that's there and so going back to all this and I know we did an episode a couple weeks ago that we got an email on that asked about how to continue to just handle situations and really my framework I was just working with a CEO last week and the entire message I gave to him and his team was

learn to just handle the reality. This was right after, and this will lead us into this, I'm gonna talk to you about this, but this will lead, was Monday, right after the attempted assassination. And they're like, we came in, people are in frantic mode, they feel like the world's kind of, and it was like, was definitely blown up. Exactly, exactly right. And it was like, well, it's like, well, can you handle your employees doing this right now?

And he's like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you seem wound up to me, but if you can't handle this right now, how are you going to serve your employees? And it was a reframe for him. And I actually just talked to him this morning and they said,

All of the words he used was we seasoned this over the entire week of just, I handle this? That was the mantra that I gave to them was just like, can I handle this? I can handle this, I can handle this. And it's like, so whatever kind of comes your way, it's just you handling the situation. It doesn't mean it's morally right. It doesn't mean it's the what you want. It doesn't mean that you get what you want. It doesn't mean you don't get what you want. It purely just means there's a situation happening.

And if I can't handle, that's exactly right. If I can't handle this and the situation's already happened, then I'm no good to the situation. So that's really like the message to all leaders, and everybody's a leader, but specifically like in business right now, if you're leading, if you can't handle a turbulent time or a contraction period, then you're no good being in your responsible role because you need to be able to handle that and lead people through that.

And when you say in handling it, what comes to mind for me is like that maintaining, like staying neutral. Is that what you mean? You have to deal with the situation. You have to deal with employees. But emotionally neutral. Exactly. take action. It's really about, I'm not going to take a mental position before I actually deal with the situation. So like the mental position would be like, my God, we're screwed if this happens. Or how could the world do this? Or with this law, we're fucked, it's over. Or you know, like.

you know, all of if my kid were to not get into this college, like, I don't know what I would do in my whole 12 years has been a rate, like, you're just, that's just a, you've created a mental imagery position. What else are you living in the future? exactly. That's I'm hasn't happened. happened. Instead of like stopping going,

Well that feels really weird. That feels completely different when this situation's happening. How best can I actually jump in here and handle the situation? Right? I mean it's like the easiest analogy and I've used this before but it's like if you're a doctor and you can't handle a sight of blood then you're really no good being a doctor. By the way, if you're a parent,

and you can't handle your six year old freaking out in a grocery store, then you're probably no good being a parent, right? I mean, if you're a business leader and you can't handle your employees having a challenging moment or challenging time or discomfort or whatever it is, then you're not leading your company properly. Because think about how many years we worked together when there's so many challenges, right? Whether ends up, your name ends up on a front page of a paper and you gotta work through that challenge or whatever it is. go, not saying that you don't experience it

you don't feel it, you don't put away your emotions, but you go, wow, this feels really tough. Okay, I can experience that. Now how do I go handle that? And by the way, if we all did that, we actually come to resolutions much faster because what we're doing and when we don't do that is you get...

You get disturbed, Instantaneously, your energy's off, right? However you want to call it. You just know like something happens. You get an email, you get a phone call, you know, somebody walks in your office and quits, whatever it is, and all of a you're hit. And now you're disturbed. If you go out there and now make it from your personal side, you're now actually damaging the situation. And then you're no good at actually leading. I'm not saying you get thrown out because people are out doing this way every way. It's just do you do better? Like you actually did something a long time ago.

back, I think I learned a little bit from there, but I used to send you an email being like, go fire that person, whatever it was, it was like a shot from like, I was emotionally charged and I would send an email about an action and you realized that I usually then thought about it and then reversed the action that I had. So you actually stopped sending that for at least 24 hours until it came back around.

And not with everything, Right, or maybe until we had a conversation until to ask you all my questions. exactly. Which then I usually work through it because then at that point, I was actually back to what your point was, back to a neutral state. And all that really means, it's not a big term, it just means that I can sit here and handle the energy of the room.

That's all you're doing. That's all that it means. You don't have to go make this spiritual or personal or anything. It's just I can handle the energy in the room and therefore I can say wouldn't that be a great way to be able like yes the energy feels off but can I handle it? That's it. That's the simple nature of it all. Let me ask you a question. Where were you when the attempted assassination happened?

Because don't you, this will go down, I think this is one of those iconic moments where. Well I think so too, I think the last attempted assassination was. Reagan? Reagan, but then I was hearing some stories too about, on a president anyway, but then there was those attempted assassinations on those other political leaders at the baseball field that I think happened in between those two time periods. But as far as the president goes, Reagan which.

was not my lifetime. It was my lifetime. Yeah, but I was very young. 79 or 80? no, I wasn't born yet. right, so for my, generation really, like, yes, this is a huge, a huge thing. So, yeah, I was just out in our back, beautiful day, going out to our backyard. My husband, Bill, had just come back from a two -day training

crowd control, interestingly enough, on crowd control and crisis situations at large during

large events, it was kind of interesting. He's cleaning his gun out on our back deck. What is it? yeah, he's a state trooper. So yeah, he's cleaning his gun on the back deck. It's beautiful. And I'm just like, hey, what's going on? And he's like, did you just see what happened? said, you know, I was like, no. And then for the next four hours, I'm watching the news. And yeah, honestly, whether you agree in the politics of Trump or not,

for me, like it was, which I generally don't agree with everything that he stands for. I do believe in like our country and I believe in peaceful elections. I like that was one of those things I'm still thinking about, but like probably for like 24 hours, I was really like.

I don't want to say affected, we just talked about not being affected by things, but really it was definitely on my mind, why did it happen, how did it happen? This is not what our country, in my opinion, our country stands for. So, yeah. Why do you think it got to the point where, I again, guess throughout history there's been assassination attempts and assassinations throughout history. Do you think the media has played a lot into that?

Yeah. I mean, I don't see how it couldn't. And I don't know enough about the guy who attempted the assassination to make any comments on that. But in general, think that's a huge problem or a huge impetus for so much of the political unrest is the media. You know, what I found fascinating for me is was shockingly, I was just coming off of the crossfield.

I say that because I mean, people have literally been in lacrosse tournaments for the last eight out 10 weeks and it's been amazing. I was coming, it was like, again, like 6 '10, 6 '11, so was shortly right after that and I just walked off and I was in a parking lot and somebody's like.

Trump just got hit with bullet, because it was so new. The information was flying, like he hit by bullet. I was like, well, did he die? And no, he stood up. So I pulled out my phone right away, right? I started watching the video. But there's a couple of points that I think is worth.

that I just wanted to share and get down because I was interesting. I walked over and I started chatting with few different people and they're like, that's crazy no matter what your politics are, nobody needs to die. But then there was somebody else that I knew that was kind of in the corner. I showed them the video and literally their response was, I wish you would have died.

And it was just took me the complete wrong way. And some of you, don't agree with a lot of things he does, nor do I agree with what a lot of stuff Biden's doing. So put political agendas aside for this stuff. I was like, this is still a human being. then it really got me. Former president of our country. And what does that say about our country to the rest of the world? And it's like, got me thinking like, know, obviously we end up finding a lot of these people that obviously try to go and assassinate people aren't mentally stable because that's why they do that. And so when they hear words of like, you know, we got to put them in the

We gotta go fight. We gotta do different things like that. Does somebody take that out from both sides. Absolutely. 100%. That's why I'm not making a... It's not a side judgment here. But also I think this is a great example for leaders that are running businesses, right? It's like, know, can... The rhetoric that can go on out there can be construed in such different ways from different people, especially if you have a big business for what you're saying. That's why clarity is so important on these things. And for me, you know, it's obviously

Now we're recording this it's been you know, what a week in a couple days at this point So it's like there's a lot more information that's kind of shown up there and It's just like are both sides like creating these agendas or people that are somewhat mentally unstable or mentally unstable that end up taking this completely out of context for what it was and and go and obviously do these different things or do we need to have like a different way of campaigning do we I'm not gonna go down this entire path right now, but like How is that? I'm not gonna even blame

individuals for like, you know, using a word out of context, because we all do that in certain sets. And I know like when people like when Joe Biden, because the democrats or the Republicans are saying, well, Joe Biden said, go put Trump in a bullseye. And I'm pretty I don't know, but I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to go put him in actual literal bullseye. Right. His response was, well, it's not a crosshair. as well bullseye. it's again, and I'm not I'm not saying this right. And by the way, Republicans have also done this. do. Republicans have also done this. Yeah. So let's just give

both of them a pass on using a little rhetoric. There's also just this general like campaign.

that's being run against candidates that is all about how evil people are instead of actually about their policies or the agendas that I think is where it comes from. And so to me, this seems like an opportunity for unity for either side, whoever gets elected or even during these next 106 days before the election is what we can do to actually create unity as an organization.

because really the president of United States is running the largest organization in the world. And that to me is what it is, but it's also a great lesson. thought about this from a business perspective, which is in terms of chaos, which there can be in your business or it can be peaceful, unity, leadership.

open communication, more clarity on things so people have this and not pushing these personal agendas through of being able to have more clarity into the description of what you're doing in the picture is just such an important lesson we can take away from that. Right, and I mean I'm just thinking like different presidents or different administrations obviously have different ideas of how

create the best organizations, the best country. And so I think sometimes therein lies the challenge and or the difference of let's say when you're running your own company where you.

It is generally not like, well, that's not entirely true. Now I'm thinking about it because I'm like, because you owned the company. So in that case, of course, you were running it with your vision. But if you have a public traded company or something like that where you have rotating CEOs, CEOs have visions. The division may change. Right. that's right. And like a new company sells, a new CEO comes in. New presidents have different visions. That's the entire agenda that they bring. And they fire all the people that are not on that agenda. Just like you would imagine Elon Musk having to buy Twitter and not being able to fire anybody. Right.

in the Biden administration, I don't know if it's still the same, but I read an article, I don't know, 60 days ago that he hadn't fired one person, which to me is baffling because in a basically a four year period of time in that large of an organization, somebody would be fired, right? it's like, Whether for poor performance or not aligning with vision. we're not talking about a person of like whether they're good person or not. And that was what that my comment was with that person back. felt I was like, wow, this is like, this

you when you say that, like you understand you're basically saying somebody should die, right? Because you don't believe in the way they structure of things. And I get it that policies on both ends affect people in real time. that, look, like you could also go live in other parts of the world and like...

You're under dictatorship or tyranny and like it's a whole different where the transfer of power happens through Yes, that's in through killing and it doesn't mean that like again. This is why I go back to The lessons learned from this is just like how do you learn how to handle? Reality handle the new situations because they're gonna come in your life. It's never gonna be the way you want it to There's always gonna be things that show up. Yeah, and I was so good I just go back to the thing I was we were talking about the media because

I almost like, yeah, it's so easy to blame the media and I'm listen, I don't think they help. It helps in social media doesn't help this. But then I think that's almost giving away too much of your own personal power. It's like, why don't you like, can you handle it? Can you handle all of the conflicting information that's happening on media on the media? Can you do enough research like worth thinking intelligent humans? can take the various pieces of information and come to our own conclusions, not what someone else is telling us. So I don't want

blame the media, right? We have to take some responsibility too for how we interpret it. Are we doing our own research? Are we actually, I mean how many people, I'm sure it's pretty much nobody and myself included, actually go read any of the policies? Or are we just listening?

to somebody's biased interpretation of what the policy actually is. So one of the things that I like to do, I should have said earlier, I like to actually listen to people who take the complete opposite opinion on something so I can actually listen. Because I will be listening. It's being a contrarian. Exactly. Yes. It's my favorite Cody Sanchez contrarian thinking. that's her whole, the point is, let's listen to both But isn't that what you do in business? If you're a good leader, That's what I'm saying. That's the whole point of, you're supposed to come into a meeting and

People are not supposed to agree.

By the way, if you walk into a meeting, everyone just agrees, then like either people are just agreeing with you because they're a yes person or, you know, one in 10 ,000 chance that everyone happens to be in agreeance with what you're doing. But there should always be pushback. There should always be that. like, so it happens in business. But why is it that when we get into politics, that we can't just have a look, if somebody you want to call independent, democratic or Republican, like sure, people have different views of how money should flow or how, how intervention government should play into different programs that are out there. Everyone has different

And so what you believe in your heart, that person, other person believes the complete opposite doesn't mean you're right and they're wrong. The whole point of actually having a democracy is that there takes bits of pieces of both of that. And you come together with those things to make decisions that benefit in what you want to call the middle and like whatever it is, but like other different people's perspectives and opinions. And I think that's part of, you

whether you're running a household with kids or you're running a leadership team, is that you may have a really good idea, and I'm not saying you're taking away from their vision, I'm saying you're working towards your vision and then ideas of how to get there or ways to kind of stop this come in. So it's like, think we just all need to take a step back and just reassess how we do this. Somebody asked me this, I went into a monologue with them on a bike ride, and I said, look.

You or me, we're not gonna call the president up or the cabinet members or the vice president and just all of a sudden.

influence their ways. But what we can do, and so instead of yelling at our TV screen or getting all upset with our co -worker because they don't believe the way we believe. Or going on Twitter. Or going on Twitter take it to the, yeah exactly. Why don't we all pause and just kind of look on to the people closest to us and see how we can create some sort of democracy, I use the word democracy in politics, some sort of harmony or peace if you will, or just or a normal conversation with them and giving them the space to be able to do this. Because if you can't do that, how would you expect our leaders

to start doing it. So if all of us can start showing up that way, just our immediate like maybe your kids don't want to play sports, maybe your kids really do want to play sports and you've never played sports, maybe your kids want to do something different, maybe your partner has a different perspective than you do, can you sit down and actually listen to them? So I think there's so much that we can do in our individual circles that then can help spread out and increase our ability to kind of unite. And I think that's how you actually start uniting is that we all have to look around of who are our immediate seven, eight, ten people, three people,

that we communicate with the most and how do I bring some sort of semblance to that so that we can feel united that way? Because it's gonna start there. Yeah and like asking like truly listening to other people asking them questions under... I how many times do you and disagree with things by the way? A lot of a lot. yes that's what I mean. But we always but there was always understanding. Exactly. Regardless. And I'm not saying I didn't get

Charged up sometimes when you disagree I did but then I was like, okay, I'm feeling charged up

Therefore, let me kind of work through this and we would talk through it and I could tell you many times, I could see you and you get charged up when I had a different response to different things. But then you do work through those things and then you ultimately come together and then you make a decision and you move forward with it. Do you think it's different when we're talking about politics or especially the election? Do you think it's different because the stakes are much higher? I mean, they're much higher. At least from our perspective, it's not a life or death business that we're running.

I could argue, I could make an argument that would say that the stakes are higher when you're, like if you lose your job or if your company goes under and you lose all your money.

And yes, I could also make the other argument that there are laws, certain laws that really have affecting people's lives. can really affect people's laws. Yeah. Yeah. mean, by the way, there's laws that have come into the real estate industry that really affect our lives. Yeah. So like, I'm just, and so again, and yes. Right. It's all relative. Yes. I mean, everything is relative. So my point is, yes, the short answer is do we magnify some of the other governing laws? Absolutely. and that, and that can, that can be real. That can be real. That's we're not denying that.

But so can't like your individual, if you happen to lose your job, that can be really real, because then you lose your house or whatever it is. And that can come from politics, if you will, and that can also come. That's why we've allowed peaceful protesting or democracy so that you do go fight for, know, I say we're fight, not literally fighting. Like you actually do go and put energy towards a cause that's meaningful to you.

And then the other person is going to put meaningful time and energy to the cause that's meaning to them and their complete opposite. That's right. But that's what we do. Yes. then so then you come together because what really could affect your life could really not affect somebody else's life. So that's why it is really challenging. But there's never a situation where all risks are off the table. You're giving me that example because I was asking you about from like a little bit of from like Bill's perspective.

And he didn't obviously, he can't, he's not sharing much, like it's like, cause from his perspective, like when Obama came here, sure that's the work. Cause I thought that was kind of fascinating about keeping the window open and the door like you can't protect everything. yeah. Like when they were, cause this, secret service was obviously here in Vermont when Obama came, that was on his campaign, I believe, right? It was before he was president. So what's it before? I think it was when his reelection maybe. Yeah. Cause I remember the air force one flew in. think.

So yeah, he was just on an ancillary detail, like helping out the Secret Service.

And listen, Burlington has what, 40 ,000 people in it? So we're talking about a really small city, but in Vermont's the biggest city. there's, you know, maybe buildings that are five or six stories high. It sounds so crazy. And so they're, you know, checking out the route that Obama's going to be taking. And, you know, Bill said he noticed that all of the dorms, because they were driving down through the UVM campus, all the door, all the windows were closed, except there's one window that was wide open. And he wasn't entirely, the Secret Service

disclose everything. he wasn't entirely sure where Obama's route was going to go. But it was close enough to the route where he was like, he told somebody he's like, there's this window, it's wide open. And they were just like, yeah, we can't, we cannot close down this entire city for this one thing. So like, it's like it's risk assessment. It's like risk mitigation, but you also know that there's going you can't plan for every single risk.

Which is interesting, because mean, to Bill, maybe that was a huge deal, big enough to note. then to them, were like, if you see something moving, then let us know. But otherwise, we can't close down the whole city. Similar in business, right? You can't get rid of every risk. risk, you just look at what are the ones that are going to have.

Majorly affect the organization or could or what policies could majorly affect and that's where lobbying comes in, right? It's like then you go and you either use your money to help fund lobbying so they think it by the way help us on every side So it's not like people are immune to any of this. So How it's been great. Yeah, thanks for being back here. We're super excited to do this I think for me today one of the kind of like the thing that I continue to feel like is important, which is just look at your own

kind of people that are year around and then start creating again some sort of coherence, creating conversations that are there. Because if you can't even do that, none of us are really helping the situation. So the biggest help to me, what I think people can do is go out there and actually have a wonderful conversation or even a conversation with somebody that disagrees with you and see you can start there and see if can create that peace. What about you?

big take, my big take. I don't know if you want it whatever. Yeah, yeah. Well, just the only other thing I was thinking about the whole disagreeing, and this goes back to the politics thing, that, because Ray Dally always talks about disagree and commit.

And I think that's a really great way to run an organization where you can have those dialogues. You can understand other, where people are coming from. You can completely disagree, but at end of the day, so a decision needs to be made. Somebody says, this is the path that we're going down and collectively as an organization, you're committing because you're part of the company. You, there's a greater vision that you believe in. Maybe it's democracy, maybe it's America. and so, and that's somewhat how I view the presidency is that sure. Have I loved every president we've had over the years? No.

I've often disagreed with what they stand for, but I do personally commit to the idea of an American democracy. agree and I commit to once the president is chosen, that the people have chosen, that's our president. should be some, in my opinion, some respect given and no assassination attempts. And in business too, right? Yeah. mean, everyone should disagree and then once you agree, you should all commit. Yeah. Powerful way.