TOUGH TALKS – Executing With “Extreme Prejudice” (it’s not what you think) with Gary Weiss

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TEASER & INTRO

Hey everybody. Welcome back to Tough Talks, conversations on Mental Toughness, and I am your host, Chris Doris. Before I introduce our guest today, our one housekeeping item as usual, is if you are not getting the daily dose mental toughness tips in 30 seconds or less, delivered to your email inbox. Every single day of the year.

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LSTs christopher doris.com/lists. Name, email, boom, you get all the goods. Our guest today is an old friend named Gary Weiss, and I met Gary somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago and have enjoyed, you know, I, you know, fell in love. The dude as soon as I met him, you know, super cool guy. He’s got Philly roots.

That doesn’t hurt. Uh, we’ll, we’ll be exploring that at some point, maybe several points. And, uh, the trajectory of his career during the time that I’ve known him has been virtually vertical. You know, he, he’s, I mean, he’s a CEO now, you know, and, um, he’s, he was an, I think he was an SVP at a company. He’s spent his entire career, I think, in the SaaS industry, which is s a a s software as a service.

And, you know, he was like the senior vp, uh, a company called OpenText and like that goes way back before that, but I think that’s around when I met him. And then he was the c o O of the Chief, chief Operating Officer at a company called Aspen Technology. He was at Vector Solutions, he was a leader. And now he is, uh, the president and c e o Chief Executive Officer at a company called Career Certified, which is basically a school, right?

It’s a digital school. Um, you know, where they do career, CE career education. So, uh, I’m gonna ask him a lot about leadership, you know, um, because he’s a phenomenal leader. Some, you know, what’s a really great way of, um, like a cool, a really effective metric for I identifying someone as a phenomenal leader.

It’s unsolicited compliments on their posts on, especially, particularly on LinkedIn. And he gets tons of them. I, I just noticed That’s true. You know, someone will make a post. Uh, I’ve had several guests on tough talks where this is true for, you know, I researched them, of course on LinkedIn. It’s one of the places.

And I read their posts and I look at the comments. So people comment and say, Hey, I worked for you back at OpenText and so, so and so many years ago, I worked for you at Vector. I worked for you at Aspen Tech. You know, and, and you were one of the greatest, or the greatest leader I’ve ever worked for. You know, you always really made me feel safe.

And these are the kind of comments that great leaders elicit. And they’re, um, they’re unsolicited. And that’s, that’s Gary Weiss. Now I’m gonna ask him all about his leadership, about the company that he is working, you know, that he’s running, and, but also at the end, stay tuned. Okay. For the, at the very end, I’d learned something about Gary that is truly beautiful, Gary and his wife.

Uh, are doing something for the world, in the world that is spectacular, you know, so I, I’m gonna end we’ll, we’ll, we’ll end with that, so stay tuned for that. Very heartwarming. All right, without any further ado, let’s go find our boy. Gary, where are you, man? There he is, folks. There he is right over there.

Gary Weiss, my man. Good to have you. Good,

[00:06:31] Gary Weiss: good to be here,

[00:06:32] Chris Dorris: Chris. So I just, uh, shared every, with everybody, uh, your bio, which is remarkably impressive. Um, we go back a long way, man, and in fact, I think there’s only one person in, um, my corporate history that goes back further than you, one of all the people, Dave Canham.

[00:06:59] Gary Weiss: Wow.

[00:07:00] Chris Dorris: Okay. Because, uh, in fact, he’s the only reason I know you. Oh wow. Yeah, because Dave Cannon introduced me to John Hunter and you know, the rest of the story. Yeah. That’s great. Well, yeah, you and I go back a long ways, man, and I, and I, and uh, I shared with everybody that you’ve brought me along with you for the ride, and I really appreciate that, man.

And we have, we have a great history and I’m so happy for you and all the amazing success that you’ve created for yourself. And I just wanted to acknowledge straight away here, uh, a recent acknowledgement of yours that the, uh, in a, an industry poll, you were just nominated as one of the five best CEOs to watch in 2023.

That props, man. Thanks

[00:07:43] Gary Weiss: a lot. Thanks. How cool is

[00:07:44] Chris Dorris: that? Yeah,

[00:07:45] Gary Weiss: very cool. Very, very honored and

[00:07:47] Chris Dorris: privileged. So well, and I’m sure it’s for good reason. So let’s talk some psychology now since that’s what our podcast is about. I’ve only had a few, a handful, maybe, maybe of CEOs on the podcast before you. And as I was preparing for our conversation today, I realize there are a few questions that I had never asked before of a ceo, which is a little surprising to me.

So, um, I’m gonna drop the bombs on you, man. Go for it. Let’s roll. All right. Well, what, what would you say is the most important psychological skill of a CEO

[00:08:23] Gary Weiss: slash leader? Um, I think it’s really self-awareness. Um, when you think about it, it’s, it’s being aware not just of yourself, um, how you’re perceived by others and just have, knowing the, knowing the, um, dynamic of your team as well.

So, but being self-aware, you know, I, I think for my history, you know, the good CEOs, you know, have a good pulse of the company and a good pulse on how they react with their company and how they can motivate behavior on their teams and set them up in a, in the right way. So, But I think that some of the CEOs that maybe I’ve struggled with or seen that may have had struggles and didn’t last a long time are ones that come in with an agenda, their plan, their style, and they impose it.

And those that impose their style into an organization, regardless of what, regardless of whether the organization’s ready for or not, you know, seem to have a little more difficulty. And I think one of the big characteristics psychologically is just being very self-aware to what your organization’s going through, their culture, um, and how you can, um, also just really affect change and put them in a position to succeed and in the best position to be, you know, to, to get the most out of, out

[00:09:32] Chris Dorris: of this, what, what are some of the ways that you do that?

You know, I noticed on your, you share, you have a document, which is your leadership philosophy. Yes. I wanna get to some specifics of that in a bit, in a bit. Um, but the, the subtitle of your leadership philosophy is Enable and Empower. Right? Enable and Empower. What are some ways that, that you do

[00:09:56] Gary Weiss: that? Well, I think first you wanna do is, is you know, there’s different styles.

And I think first you gotta pick what, what are you comfortable with, and, you know, who’s your authentic self. And some styles are command and control. You may have heard of that, the command and control style where you basically call the play and your team is set up to execute your play. Um, that hasn’t been my style in the past.

Um, you know, I’m, I think that, um, you know, my, my style is definitely more, uh, Putting the empowerment into the team. Mm-hmm. Letting them make decisions. And I, I took a, I took a course, um, in a military course actually West Point that actually talked about Commander’s intent and about, you know, the styles about enabling empowerment.

And you’d be amazed that at West Point you would think that’s gotta be the most command and control. Yeah. Right. Um, right. Structure, uh, leadership structure. There is, but what they told us in general, spoke to us and said, you know, it’s not at all think about it, you may make a decision to take that hill or to, or to take that city in Iraq, but you don’t tell the field commanders how to do it.

They just know they have to do it because they have the situ situational awareness at the field to understand the context, the weather, the elements, what’s happening in real time, that they can make the best call dynamically. To take that hill and that imagine scenario that that general or the colonel at the field level in Iraq has to call up as general has to call the politician has to get to Washington and say, do you mind if I go right or I flank left?

Right. He would take right. The point was he said, we’re actually one of the most enabled, most, most, uh, decentralized decision making authorities you’d imagine because, and when thinks are command control, but it’s not really that we provide commander’s intent, then we prepare our teams on how to, how to execute that.

But the execution of it and how to do it comes down to them. And I’ve always believed that as well is that, you know, good teams are when you have a great management leadership structure, great CEO that can provide that type. Type of direction. But great teams are when the people hold themselves accountable and can make the decisions and act themselves.

Cuz you’re more nimble, you’re dynamic, you’re able to adapt to situations in the fly versus waiting for someone to tell you what to do. And so enable and power has been my philosophy as really it’s, it’s contr compare contrast to a more, you know, top down man control fish

[00:12:17] Chris Dorris: strategy. So that, that sounds like that requires some humility and a whole lot

[00:12:23] Gary Weiss: of trust.

A lot of trust. Um, you know, you have to have good team, good people. You’re as good as your team. And, uh, part of the first, most important part of the, of the approaches, you know, hire great leaders, um, and make sure you got them right. And they don’t have to be your people. They don’t have to be, it is just the right people, not your people.

The people who share that type of philosophy, that are able to be decisive, make decisions, not afraid of making mistakes, um, can take, take strategy and say, I know how to customize it and, and accomplish that through my own planning, my own building of a team and execution of that strategy. So, uh, it’s really, you know, critical thing for my history that’s been one of the areas that, you know, that I’ve, I’ve been probably a strength of mine is just understanding how to find the right people for the organization at the right time.

Trust your talent or get new talent, um, that, that is

[00:13:15] Chris Dorris: management. So who doesn’t wanna hire a players? Right? So, have you discovered, you know, there’s gotta be secrets okay. To successful hiring. Yeah. What, what’s something you’ve learned over time that helps you really discover if this person that you’re considering taking onto the team truly is?

Skilled in the way you’re describing an A player who takes like you, what do you ask them? How do you know a person’s willing to, has the ability and willingness, which are two different things to hold themselves accountable?

[00:13:48] Gary Weiss: Yeah, no, that’s great. Great question. Um, because there’s a lot of a players out there.

It doesn’t mean they’re gonna fit your culture or your company. So what I try to do is look for really two things. One is called will and skill. So will and skill. Do they have the will to achieve and do they have the skill to achieve, um, the skill part. You know, you can get, you can find a number of people that are straight as on the skill, but you know, what’s the, what’s their passion?

What are they trying to get out of this job? Like, where do they want to be? Are they using it as a stepping stone to something else? Is it, are they the end of their career or is it the beginning? Is this their moment? You know, I try to find people that this is their moment, this is their time

[00:14:24] Chris Dorris: to shine.

What do you mean? What do you mean this is, what do you mean by this? Is their

[00:14:27] Gary Weiss: moment? Well, in, in careers, some people might, you know, uh, this could be the second or third job at a certain level where they’re just maybe buying time for the next big opportunity. It could be someone who just took the job because they wanted to use it, get the title and use it to launch themselves.

Or it could be a leader that is saying, you know what, where I am in my life. My work-life balance, my abilities, my skill, my my will. This is the place I want to be. For all the reasons that are personal, that are, um, they can be financial professional. Um, but it really comes down to their passion. What’s in their heart, you know, mean why they’re, why they’re there, what’s their why?

I guess that’s really question. You ask that question, what’s their why? Yeah. I always ask that question. Uh, in, in a way. I may not come out and say, tell me what your why is. But I will get to the answer of when I answer, when I think about making them an offer, you know, I understand what their why is and it’s aligned with my why and what the, what the company’s, uh, objective is.

And if the why’s are aligned, then that’s a really big part of it, knowing who the right person is. Cuz sometimes they might be the right, they might be great, but their wises are just misaligned. And, and if they’re misaligned, it doesn’t really work out so well at the end. And, um, I’d rather find the right people versus the best people, if that makes sense.

Well that, oh,

[00:15:39] Chris Dorris: that’s interesting. That’s an interesting distinction. Well, okay. Please elaborate the right, just just to make sure everyone hear, hears the distinction that I’m asking about you. You just said I was about to move to another, another question, but I’m not, uh, because of that, you, you said it’s better to hire the right people versus the best people.

[00:15:59] Gary Weiss: Right. How get rather personal in our, in our company. Cause I don’t know who’s gonna watch it from, from my team, but when I was hiring my leadership team at this, I had the opportunity to hire the, hire the most sophisticated tenure veterans. The, you know, people have done this, been here, done that before and on paper it would look perfect.

Person’s great on paper. Okay. But, but when you dig into it on paper, Whether it was hunger or whether it was not the right time or I just was, you know, we’d be a stepping stone. I just felt that we not be the right person for us. And I actually settled, with, not settled, I should say, my choice. I actually opted for people, like for example, a three year, um, veteran in a certain skillset versus a 10 year veteran or opted for a person who was a vp, not an E V P in a certain thing because the step up job he was ready for, I knew he would put everything into it.

Where the e EVP might have been somebody who more coasted or had to build an infrastructure team, um, you know, a team would be more of a, uh, delegator. I was looking for the, the hungry. Um, this was their moment. They were up at bat for the first time. The spotlight was on them. They had enough skill, they had an incredible passion, they had a really strong life, and that’s who I brought into my team.

But on paper, it may not look like the, you know, the 10 year veteran, the B from Harvard, that, you know, I’m looking for the grit. The person that can, that can, that just, this is it. When they come home at night, they’re all their passions going to this as if this was the game they’ve been waiting for all their life.

Um, they’ve waited for game seven and this was it. And those are the people that are on my management team. And that’s why I, you know, phenomenal talent. And those are the kind of people you don’t provide command and control to. You don’t say do this. These are the people. You set them up and you let them go.

Do let them be the best selves that they can and give them the opportunity in the, in the framework to say, you know, here’s the goal. Here’s the hill we want to attack. Commander’s intent and we, you know, this is what I want to get done, and now you guys come up with a plan on how to do it and you know, with the plan, the people, the resources and let me know just so we’re aligned across the board.

And, uh, and that’s the kind of people we try to hire and that enables and empowers them to do it. So that,

[00:18:20] Chris Dorris: that’s what an interesting skill set that must be for you. And this could be a segue into the next question, but you used the word let, and I really love the word let in so many contexts in, in my industry because it’s an instruction that, uh, is consistent with human peak performance, right?

Yep. In, in studies, research studies with putting in golf. Yep. They get two populations of professional golfers. So these are like excellent, phenomenal athletes at sport. And one, uh, group is given the instruction, make as many of these 20 footers as you can. And the other was given the instruction, let these go in.

And that’s the group that made more. Let is also used like letting in, in instruction for meditation. Let the thought go, let it come and let it go. Let let. So it’s not forcing things right. Letting is not forcing as a Chinese principle called. Now here’s what’s interesting as I’m listening to you, uh, uh, for me is that, um, you are really, well you’re empowering, right?

You’re empowering your people to take charge, right? Right. Uh, is it difficult for you as the leader to at times, um, not think that you know better? Um,

[00:19:28] Gary Weiss: Um, I have to weigh that, you know, you have to weigh and balance it. I mean, there’s situations that, you know, I can see the path forward. And I can tell that there might be some resistance in change in, in something where one of the executives might say, well, you know, I’m not, I’ve never done that before, not comfortable doing that.

Um, and where I know better. Um, but I, I resist, I look at the whole picture. It is, is sometimes challenging, but I think of what’s the, yeah, if they can’t learn to get there, then they’re not gonna get done when I need ’em, get done the right way. So I’m not sure that’s a very great way of saying it, but I will, the answer is yes, I will resist, I’ll find a way to get to the outcome, but in a way that they were empowered to learn along the way and do it at a pace that they were comfortable with within the structure.

Um, if we’re gonna miss the number or missed something, that a deadline on something then will be more forceful. But I haven’t really had that problem before. Um, you know, one other thing just to add to what you said. Hmm. Um, you know, and if you now tie this all back together again to some of the training I’ve received from, from someone that I know who talked about people are in a better peak performance state when they’re above the old line versus below the line.

And in, in, imagine the scenario that your commanding colonel saying, I don’t trust you. I’m gonna tell you what to do. I’m gonna make the decision. You go execute. Then you, the, the pressure and the anxiety raises, they start performing a little below the old line because now they’re feeling the pressure of doing something.

And it wasn’t my idea. It was someone else’s idea. Um, I’m just doing what they said. It works out. It works out. It doesn, it doesn’t, but I’m gonna be held accountable and the anxiety starts turning. Now th now turn it around to, you know, we want to take that hill. What do you think? And how do you think we should do it?

That person then, you know, gets excited. They, they start doing critical thinking, analytical, they trusted me. Wow, I don’t wanna let ’em down. Let me go think of a plan on how, how to make this successful and become a reward. That person for trusting me to come up with a way to take that hill. And that person starts, you know, performing above the old line where they start getting really motivated, excited, I, I have a chance to prove myself and, and I’m empowered to do it.

And, um, you know, and, and I’m, he’s gonna, and I’m gonna build trust who does it to me again. And he keeps giving me more things. He keeps trusting me versus knowing me what to do. And that’s been, and that’s been a big part of my leadership style is, is that, and I, you know, owe you, owe a lot to you, Chris.

Cause I actually do use that and I’ve actually used that with people and I specifically, even though I haven’t sent everyone to their courses, um, I actually do speak about the old line and talk about, you know, being at a peak performance state and, uh, and so, so I, I, again, it uses opportunity on your podcast and thank you.

Not disinfecting impacting me, but also a lot of people in the industry and people that I, that, that I get to manage who may not know who you are. But somewhere along the way, they went home that night and said, I had a pretty good day. I made a difference today. And uh, and they’re in a good mood.

[00:22:19] Chris Dorris: That’s awesome, man.

And then for that, thank you for that acknowledgement. And for those of you who might not know, Gary right now is using very, very sophisticated mental toughness nomenclature. Okay. And when he, so when he refers to the O line, that means the observation line very succinctly. That simply means neutral.

There’s three ways we’re always interpreting reality, where, you know, low grade neutral or high grade, and all peak performances, human peak performance, uh, occurs above neutral. And that’s what he means by above the O line. And that simply means an elevated state, states like enthusiasm, states, like expertise and competence, right?

Total confidence, gratitude, and all those. So good stuff, man. So, uh, what would you say are the greatest mental challenges of your role as

[00:23:11] Gary Weiss: c e o? Mental challenges.

[00:23:16] Chris Dorris: Yeah. Psychological, specifically mental.

[00:23:21] Gary Weiss: Wow. Um, you know, I’ve been a ceo, this is my first CEO job. I’ve been doing this for, for over a year and a half now.

Um, you know, I came in. Very, uh, uh, organized. Um, you know, I’ve always been a planner and so I, I don’t, I usually, you know, come up with a plan. I align with folks, hire the right people, um, and we execute the plan. And right now we’ve been, we’ve done amazingly well. So the company is doing incredible and very happy.

I’m gonna ask

[00:23:48] Chris Dorris: you soon,

[00:23:49] Gary Weiss: collaborate upon that. I haven’t had a lot of, a lot of stress or anxiety with it. If you were to ask me would be the, just, you never know when you hire someone, when you hire a leader, you just never know. And I think that’s probably the number one thing, um, is, you know, are you making the right call?

I mean, hiring the three year person that hasn’t totally proved themself in the market and you believe is the right person, has the right, why is it really the right person? Um, and do they make, if I do this seven times with seven different people, how’s the dynamic of my leadership team gonna be? So that’s probably the thing I think about the most that I worry that’s outta my control.

So you can only, you can only do so much and then you, you make calculated decisions. You make the bets, you have them interview each other and then the next person that comes in. But at the end of the day, you don’t truly know how the dynamics gonna really work. Um, and so probably the anxiety is that, cause if, if it doesn’t work, then you got a really big problem.

How long your, I’m sorry. Sorry. So fortunately it has worked, but you know, part, man, I’ve done the diligence and you know, but I, I have to think there’s gotta be some luck because, um, you know, there’s gotta be some luck to it because it’s not, you’re not always gonna be perfect, but, um, mm-hmm. Fortunately we haven’t, I’ve, you know, been able to hire folks that, that work so well together that have each other’s back that, that, that subscribe to our common culture and, and our common outcome.

So it works. Um, so that would probably be one of the mental, um, if the insecurity I would have is that I, is my team the right team, um, or is there, you know, areas that I hire the right folks, but. I have. Um, the other part is I think if I give a two-part question is I think, you know, one of the things when I went into the ceo, you know, as a new ceo, I went into the role thinking.

I’ve seen a lot of CEOs hesitate, I’ve seen a lot of CEOs not be able to make decisions. Um, and you know, I was always a very decisive person. I’ve planned, I organized and, and my whole idea was when you have a plan, execute, execute with extreme prejudice. Don’t wait, go and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Oh, interesting.

[00:25:49] Chris Dorris: Did you say that again? Execute with Extreme Prejudice.

[00:25:53] Gary Weiss: Prejudice. You remember that movie with Nick Nolte? Extreme Prejudice, but I think

[00:25:56] Chris Dorris: I got that Pronou. I love Nick Nolte, but I don’t remember that one. Uh,

[00:26:00] Gary Weiss: go, we’ll look it up. I think it’s a Texas, I think it’s called, I think it’s called Extreme Prejudice.

Um, and advertiser in the movie I haven’t seen in 20 years. But it was a, it was a term that just, you know, you know, just committed to execution. And I always viewed it as extreme prejudice, which means you’re very aggressive in execution, but when you call the play, you execute. Because of that. I’ve seen a lot of CEOs or certain leaders in my, in my past that may not be familiar with certain areas of the business, and therefore they’re afraid to make decisions.

And I always found that as the most stifling, um, element to, to leadership is when you just can’t be decisive and you can’t make decisions. And so for us, um, it’s that. So now the anxiety is what if we made the wrong call? Um, you know, cause our decision is here’s the four things we’re going to do. What if they’re the wrong four things?

What if one of ’em was the wrong four things? Are you able to pick, are you able to catch yourself fast enough and adjust and course correct quickly enough that if you did make a mistake, you could, you know, could easily, you know? Correct. Correct it. Yeah. Cause if you’re gonna go fast and you run the play and the play’s gonna blow up, you don’t wanna wait for the end, for the play to be blown up.

You wanna actually, you know, be able to course correct. So that would be other anxiety, just those two things, the right people and your leadership team. And, you know, did you, did you call the right play? Because if you’re gonna run the play with extreme prejudice, then, then you. Better be a right. Hopefully it’s a right play.

And if there’s too many wrong plays, I won’t be the CO for very much longer. But you know what? That it’s, there’s risk take, it’s calculated, risk taking when you’re in this role. And I think it’s a better thing for culture that the company knows that you’re making calculated, uh, calculated risks. You’re executing on ’em, you’re not waiting.

I think life open, they just kind of become lethargic and kind of wait for someone to tell ’em what to do or you’re not doing things to make a difference. And, and, and we are. And I think it’s part of why, you know, our company is right now being really successful and our team is very motivated, um, highly engaged and, and uh, excited to, to really, you know, shape the market.

[00:27:59] Chris Dorris: And we’re gonna get to some of that. I want you give me like, this is fun. Create the state. Don’t wait, don’t wait. Oh, that’s exactly, that’s coincidence.

[00:28:06] Gary Weiss: I have to, I have to get myself one of those coffee mugs.

[00:28:09] Chris Dorris: Oh, you’ll be getting one. So, um, We had referenced earlier your leadership philosophy in enabling and empowering, and there’s a bunch of bullet points or a couple that, uh, I really wanted to ask you about, but one you already beat me to it.

It’s commander’s intent. Right. And that’s the, that’s empowerment. Well, I don’t know. I put words in your mouth. It’s trusting. Yeah. Trusting that you’ve chosen the right people and trusting their ability to execute

[00:28:36] Gary Weiss: as commander’s intent is that is it came from that West Point art where you basically provide the intent.

You don’t tell ’em how, but you tell ’em why. You tell ’em what we’re gonna do and here’s why we’re gonna do

[00:28:46] Chris Dorris: Well, I like that a lot. Let’s slow that down. Slow that down. Yeah. There’s one of those deals.

[00:28:51] Gary Weiss: S intent is, is the why is is really the why and what And the what

[00:28:56] Chris Dorris: and, and not the,

[00:28:58] Gary Weiss: not the how. Not the how.

You hire your team. Good team to figure out the how.

[00:29:05] Chris Dorris: Yeah. Micromanagers can’t do that.

[00:29:08] Gary Weiss: No, they can’t. They they, they, they tell them the how

[00:29:11] Chris Dorris: do you ever get feed? Yeah, they do. Right? And they impose that. Right. Impose the how well do you ever get, you know, you strike me as somebody that’s really excellent at trusting and empowering people to discover, uh, or, or to trust their own.

How, do you ever get feedback on wishing that like people will say, I wish you would give me more guidance. Um,

[00:29:34] Gary Weiss: no, not really. Cuz the people I hire are not those people. Like, I, I, if I, that makes sense. When I talk, when I speak to folks, whether it’s manager or they say I’m great, just tell me what to do. Um, you know, those aren’t, those don’t fit within an enable and empowerment environment.

They fit really well in a, in a command and control environment. And I know companies that they would be perfect for. Um, some of the biggest software companies in, in the, in the world, you know, employ that kind of, um, philosophy cuz they wanna make sure everyone’s exactly on the same page. So everything funnels up to, you know, a single person who then puts out the plans and everyone has to just execute the plans.

Don’t tell me ask questions, just do this. And I don’t hire those, those are generally people. I don’t, I don’t hire in my leadership team. Now, we might have people below my leadership team because, you know, one of the managers, you know, it, it, it, this is for me and my executive leadership team, my senior leadership team.

But for some of the folks in the field, we just, you know, it is execute with extreme prejudice. Here’s the plan. We’ve vetted this out, you know, deliver your number. Pipeline development, lead development. They might not tell ’em how to do it, but, you know, give ’em the tools, et cetera. But for my leaders, I’m looking not like I, if a leader came to me and said, this is nice, but, you know, I, I don’t, yeah, I just better if you just tell me what to do.

That’s probably a good time to find another leader in my team. So Roger

[00:30:54] Chris Dorris: that. Well, another thing that pops for me in studying your leadership philosophy is the phrase, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Can you please elaborate on that for us?

[00:31:05] Gary Weiss: Yeah. I mean, it is know, you see a lot of folks and leadership, you know, again, these are philosophies that I’ve, I’ve, I’ve left and I want my team to understand that it’s okay to make a mistake.

Um, it’s okay. Um, and that some folks, you know, want the whole plan to be tidied up. Perfect. They know the outcome and by the time they get to that point of the probability being what they think is a hundred percent, the market’s already passed ’em, the time’s already passed ’em, the competitor competition’s already passed them.

Um, I’d rather them do 10 things and get seven right. Than one thing and get one. Right. Well,

[00:31:37] Chris Dorris: you’re saying so many wonderful things that I wanna make sure I get.

[00:31:42] Gary Weiss: Sorry, but my Philadelphia fast

[00:31:44] Chris Dorris: talking voice. And then, you know what? I was gonna wait till the end. I wish that that red cap behind you was a little bit more visible because I’m loving it very much.

You may, some of you who are watching this, not just listening, you might have noticed a similarity

[00:31:58] Gary Weiss: here. Yes. You have a good connection here, Chris. Yes, it

[00:32:02] Chris Dorris: is. And that’s a wonderful connection. Did you ever have, uh, I’ll hold, I will hold that off to the, to the end. That’ll be fine. Make sure I made, it’s gonna be a cheese steak thing, so just,

[00:32:13] Gary Weiss: just see.

Um, I’m not so if it’s, if it is cheese whiz or not, I’m not cheese whiz.

[00:32:21] Chris Dorris: No, I mean No, no, but it’s not, she, see, that’s bullshit. That’s for tourists. Okay. It’s, I’m not, I’m not serious. Nobody’s no one, no one that I’ve ever known ever from Philly prefers the wizz. Oh, really? Over, over. Well, I don’t know anybody who prefers the Wiz over like American or Prolong.

I don’t know. I I like the regular stuff. That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I meant if I didn’t say it right. I meant, I don’t know anyone from Philly who likes

[00:32:52] Gary Weiss: they promote it all the time as the thing that’s the standard, you know? It’s, yeah. It’s, it’s,

[00:32:57] Chris Dorris: it’s tourism. It’s Right. Yeah. It’s Pats and Gino’s.

That’s, you know what? Yeah. So, uh, you’d rather someone try 10 things and, and succeed at seven than, and one, what do you mean what one in one is a hundred. Is a hundred. Man, you’re about a thousand there.

[00:33:16] Gary Weiss: Right? Well then, but think of it as I got seven things done versus one thing done. So it’s Oh, I see

[00:33:22] Chris Dorris: what you’re saying.

Ok. I was afraid I got, man, I love that. I’m glad we slowed that down.

[00:33:30] Gary Weiss: Yes, it’d say, you know, some, a lot of people are afraid to make mistakes. Um, they’re afraid to do things. They’re afraid to make mistakes. And I think one of the, one of the, um, elements of a really high performing team is you’re not afraid to try things.

You’re not afraid to act. You’re not afraid to innovate. You’re not afraid to fail. Uh, you heard some of the good innovation leaders that have said that, you know, try things, um, make mistakes. It’s okay. Um, not, not sure Elon Musk blow up a loads of ships to figure out how to make it work. That’s probably a little expensive way to do it.

Um, but the point of it is, is that there’s the mo the market’s moving fast, is moving fast. We’ve been, I’ve been doing this for, you know, three decades now and I was talking to someone earlier today and you know, when I started it wasn’t the internet, which just kind of bizarre to think about. When I started business, there was the mainframe.

Uh, now we have the cloud distributed processing, et cetera. If I waited for things to happen to be perfect. So there was a, a known defacto standard and everything. I’d be behind the curve on everything. Just be learning from what’s been proven. But the market’s changed at such a rapid pace. The evolution of our, of the industry of it has changed so rapidly that, that it’s all about calculated bets.

You know what’s gonna work, you know, what problems are gonna be solved, be are required to be solved tomorrow, you know, where’s the pump gonna be? Um, versus where it’s been. And I mean, does someone teach me how you execute against something that already has been so I, you know, to push the envelope, um, into try to solve customer problems and outcomes?

You just have to thinking ahead as to, you know, again, where things are, which means try things because you’re not gonna learn unless you try things and you might learn from your mistakes. I, last thing I’ll say on this as AI comes out, you know, I worked for a company, you actually presented at that company, um, you know, we are building out an AI platform that would help.

Predict when your machine would fail. I dunno if you remember the company I’m talking about. Mm-hmm. Yes. And I went to a customer site one day and I, I, I told him this product and guy said, how much is doable? Pilot? I said, it’s a million dollars. He said, you know, took the CEO said, come over here. And he said, write him a check for a million dollars.

I was like, wow. That was the easiest sale I’ve ever had. It was like, you know, within an hour. And I couldn’t help but ask him, um, okay, you know, what are your goals? He goes, show me what you got. I said, that’s it. He goes, yeah. He goes, I’m gonna buy five of them from five of you. And I’m, and I’m, I’m gonna choose one of you.

And I’m expecting four of you to fail and I’m expecting money to succeed and I as may have spent 5 million, but I just found out my AI solution for the future. Save you. Versus waiting two years and doing RFPs, RFIs testing being perfect. My management’s gonna ask me what my digital strategy is, and I’m gonna be testing things forever.

Heck with it. I’m just gonna go test five things and you guys show me what, what’s the best thing? And I’m gonna make a decision and I’m gonna make that decision in six months. And guess what? I’ll have a digital strategy with a solution. It’ll cost me 5 million, but the cost of not doing it for two years is a lot more than 5 million.

Brilliant. Think about

[00:36:35] Chris Dorris: that. Yeah, no, that’s brilliant.

[00:36:37] Gary Weiss: Yeah. That’s what’s happening in the market.

[00:36:39] Chris Dorris: You know,

I’m convinced that one of the most powerful, perhaps the most important or powerful move. That a, that a business leader can make is to do whatever it takes to create an environment where people feel safe to do what you’re saying, right. To, to, to, to get creative, to take a risk. So they’re not playing on in football.

The terms prevent defense, which is all about avoiding, screwing up. And you guys, we haven’t talked about it yet, we will in a minute. Uh, you have a lot to you, you right now, you’re killing it. Okay. Just that we’ll get to the details of that. You’ll share that with us, but you’re killing it. And that, and, and when you’re killing it, that’s when people tend to go into, let’s not screw this up.

[00:37:24] Gary Weiss: Yep,

[00:37:25] Chris Dorris: yep. Exactly. All right. So what do you do in your culture to keep people on offense?

[00:37:36] Gary Weiss: Yeah, no, good, good question. Um, first thing I would say is planning. Laying the heck outta the business, um, is where do you wanna be three to five years from now? If you hear that in interviews, you hear that in conversations and forward meetings.

But what we do now and what I do, my job right now, I look at my job as about, it’s about two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, how do I create value for the company? Um, you know, because in the, in the moment today, what am I gonna do to affect the year? Yell at some salespeople to make more sales calls.

Tell spend more marketing money. I mean, product delivery is not gonna happen in a day. I mean, there’s, there’s always so much you can affect in the real time. You know, that’s the extreme fed prejudice execution. If you put your team in a position to succeed, they’ll, they’ll execute it. I focus on the future, uh, which is now I want my leaders to.

So for all my planning meetings, my PBRs quarterly visit reviews, people I’m not familiar with, and all my meetings, they’re always about, You know, what’d you learn? You know, what’s your outlook? And then what are you gonna do two, three years from now? Like where, where’s the market going from market perspective, a product perspective, a go to market perspective, um, an operating model perspective to make sure we scale our systems, support future growth.

Like the things I’m investing in right now in the company are not about this year. They’re about the fact that we’re probably gonna do a lot of m and a mergers and acquisitions and that, how am I gonna load them, these new companies into my platform? So better build the platform now so it’s ready in the future.

So a lot of the key initiatives we have today are not for today. They’re actually to execute on today to make everyone’s life a lot better. Two years from now, three years from now, four years from now. And so far it’s worked out. In fact, um, last year I picked, I picked four things. I said, we’re gonna poke, focus the company in four main things.

That’s it. Four things. That’s all brand. Define our brand. Define who we are so people know who we are. Two is just build one platform for the business. One tech-ed platform that can unify support any career. At the time, we only had one career real estate to support any career. We never did add another career, 15 years.

Uh, number three was create an operating model that could support it. We had Excel spreadsheets, manual processes, tools, people writing checks outta their office. Um, you know, not nothing automated, nothing digitized. But if we do, what I think we’re gonna do in our plan, we’re gonna execute with extreme prejudice, then we are going to need systems that could support it.

And then finally, m and a, you know, someone to actually do it. We’ve never done it before, so we went ahead and built the systems. Put in the model, built the platform, and in a really tough environment. Last year we actually acquired three companies and added seven more careers. Um, and good thing we did that because now the seven careers have a platform to go to, a model to integrate with.

And, uh, and, and we’re executing within, within a new brand to allow them to still promote their own brands door umbrella. So if you have to think ahead, and so what do I make them do is I make them think ahead. But that’s part of the CEO’s job is also where do you, where’s the, where’s the puck going and how do you wanna get there?

And what do you need to support the company to get there? So I, I live a lot in the future, so I live a lot in kind of the, the, the horizons, the variety, the, you know, the,

[00:40:45] Chris Dorris: the variety. That’s fun. That, that, that can be fun, right? It’s fun. I mean, there’s a lot of people that spend their lives living in the future in fear.

Yeah. You’re, you’re spending an enthusiastic creativity and optimism, determination and focus. That’s, that’s, that’s just damn fun. What’s the language like though? Like when, when someone makes a mistake. Okay. Right. Going back to safety, keeping people on offense, you guys are killing it. You’re gonna give us some more detail on that in a minute, but what, what?

Like, what’s, what’s, what’s the language in your culture? What’s said? You know, when someone

[00:41:21] Gary Weiss: screws up. Um, wow. Um, hopefully we haven’t put em in a position to be on an island that there aren’t, there aren’t. I would never put in a position that the companies was at risk or the assets were at risk. That, that if they’re taking a risk, I’m aware of the backup plan and the bar and the guardrails, I should say better word.

So there won’t be a situation that somebody will screw up so badly that’ll be materially impactful to our business. Okay. Um, so most of the decisions that they will make, and if they, if it fails, um, they’re so minor that they can be overcome with other things or can be adjusted for. So, and you know, and that’s part of, I think as a ceo, you want to put your people’s decision to make decisions, but there are big things that you need to, um, you to stay on top of and just, uh, and you’re just, you’re monitoring progress, your milestones, they get behind.

You have options. You’re always thinking about the options and, and the bar and the guardrails to make sure not there’s nothing catastrophic that can happen. I’m trying to think. Something screwed up. Um, Well, we had, we had a situ, well, there was a situation, and I’m trying to think, uh, this was one of those fearful moments that in, in somewhere in my past, I won’t tell when it was, um, we had a, we had a, uh, busiest day of our, of our company.

Of the company. And the servers didn’t work properly that day on the busiest sales day of the year. Perfect. And, uh, and that was unexpected and that was catastrophic then that was high risk, catastrophic. Um, imagine if you don’t know the cause, you don’t know why, but you can’t produce you, you can’t take orders.

Yeah. And it’s the busiest sales day of the year. Mm. Uh, what do you do? And you know, here, you know, I, the team rallied, got together. They started, um, root causing, identifying what could possibly try to eliminate things. And together, within about, you know, about six hours, they figured out how to stand up a server to let least existing customers come in.

And within another 12 hours, even though we didn’t solve the problem, they found an alternative solution to stand up the server farms in such a way that everything would, could go back to production. So we were really down two days of what, when it started, and there’s no end in sight and you don’t know what you gonna do and you don’t have a solution for it.

You’re scary. It’s, uh, it’s frightening. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s company changing. Some companies can’t imagine someone getting attack or ransomware. You know, whatcha gonna do what if they decide what they don’t turn you back on. Like, what are you gonna do? Um, so, and things like that can happen and, uh, you know, there’s things that are outta your control and you try to do as much.

You, you try to have as much controlled consequences and controlled environments as you possibly can, but there’s always the unknown. I guess maybe to answer one of your questions, what the biggest fear I have is that the unknown is the unexpected. It’s the thing that you did prepare for, that he did everything he could, but.

Something happened, um, that was outta your control that nobody could force foresee. And then what do you do when that happens? Cuz things are going to happen. Um, and I think as a C E O, it’s, you know, that was great. We all were measured. There was no panic. It was calmness. Um, I would probably pretty nervous about it, but, um, the outcome could not have any better.

I, you know, I, I, you know, I was certain that this was gonna take a lot longer to resolve and I, I had set expectations with others about that, and turns out it was only a two day, two day event, which was, that’s case scenario of all. So, Hmm. Yeah.

[00:44:53] Chris Dorris: So you could, you could easily make the argument that mental toughness is about Yeah.

The ability to respond rapidly with grace, mastery, enthusiasm, creative genius in moments, well in catastrophic moments. The time where you’re not getting what

[00:45:12] Gary Weiss: you want. I have a security background as you know, from my, my history and uh, part one of the major principles in security is that things are gonna happen.

Mm-hmm. And it’s your ability to detect and your ability to respond and how you narrow the gap between detection and response. That’s basically, that’s principle number one in security. Um, think about that. Mm-hmm. And can you detect an attack and how fast you can respond to attack And if you can get that as close to real time as you can, but respond intelligently

[00:45:38] Chris Dorris: though.

Right. And know that’s implied. Right. So, but that’s the word. That’s

[00:45:42] Gary Weiss: interesting cause you’re detection response, bridge the gap. So detect fast, figure it out, and then respond quickly. And so in securities, there are more technologies and there are companies that actually do this now. Back then when we, when the, when the, that industry was invented in security event management, that was the whole goal was how do you detect and respond, but in real life, not security, that’s really even as co it’s.

Can you understand? Have your situational awareness and when something happens, can you calmly detect it, understand it, and respond to it quickly? Um, and you know, so I think as a co that’s the big thing is, you know, keep your calm, keep your composure. You asked about mental skills. Always be calm, cool, data-based, fact-based.

Um, don’t be emotional. Don’t freak out cuz they’re all looking at you. So don’t freak anybody out. Don’t panic, don’t yell, don’t scream. Solve the problem. Call 13. Don’t guess at it. Solve it and just figure it out what the root causes are. And, and, you know, that’s probably your best shot of, of bridging the gap between detection and response.

[00:46:43] Chris Dorris: And, and you know, my favorite, well one of my favorite words in all of that is response. Another way of, uh, defining mental toughness is response dash ability. Mm-hmm. Ability to choose a useful response as opposed to being reactionary.

[00:46:59] Gary Weiss: Now think about that scenario in a command and control environment.

What do you think happens in the command and control environment where you haven’t empowered and enabled your people to think,

[00:47:09] Chris Dorris: oh man, wow. Yeah. Right. I love that sentence. You Yes. Right. We empower our people to think.

[00:47:17] Gary Weiss: Yeah. And then they can solve some of the problems they feel empowered to. They don’t wait for the CEO to figure it all out for them.

You know, you guys, you set me up. So you figure it out here. They feel accountable, responsible, empowered, enabled, and they come up with the solutions and you know, this is what happened and we, I don’t need to tell them to dig up for the root cause. And, you know, they just acted and they got together. They communicated, we collaborated.

But, you know, I was on the calls with during this, this, in this situation and, and during the calls and the situation, there wasn’t me telling them what to do. It was me listening to this. Great. Everyone’s had opinions of, of where, where to look and, and what options we had and scenario planning. And we can do this option, but here are the pros and cons and.

And we got to the end, end result because they were thinkers. They felt empowered, enabled. They didn’t defer it. They didn’t say, not my problem. They said, I’m accountable. This is my problem. This is our problem. And you know, Let’s figure this out. And uh, and it, it’s a good thing. This culture is really well equipped for that type of volatile environment, that type of volatility.

Um, and that where you have to make decisions on the fly dynamic environments. I mean, having people be able to make the decisions and act and think cuz they have the situation. Like they know the stuff better than I do. Um, and if I’m silly, I think I understand systems and technology better than they do.

I hire them to be experts in this area. Yeah. Now put them in the position to do, use that talent expertise to help figure out problems. Then I got a really powerful team. And that’s, that’s kind of what we have.

[00:48:45] Chris Dorris: Yeah. You know, what’s another variable that makes it a lot easier? Easier? It doesn’t guarantee it, but it makes it so much easier to be able to respond rapidly with mastery, especially when stuff’s not going Your way is a great track record is a track record of recent bad asee, which word on the street.

Is that you have. So if you would indulge us, maybe you could just go on a little positive rant here and tell us all about the things that you’re super, uh, proud of in recent history and excited about for the near future.

[00:49:29] Gary Weiss: Uh, career certified. Career certified. Um, Well, you know, it’s not easy to do what we are doing.

Um, you know, we’ve gone from a monolithic, um, company that was the leaders in real estate education. Um, and, you know, we had an a, a aspirational vision to diversify portfolio and become a leader in multi vertical career education, which means that any career, um, compliance driven, if you wanna be an architect, if you wanna be an engineer, if you wanna be an appraiser, a home inspector, a mortgage loan officer, you know, these are, these are all careers that you require to take education.

Pass the courses, prepare you for the exam, and then pass the exam. We did this for realtors only, but the aspiration was what if someone did this for all careers on a single platform? So, you know, it, it’s, you know, you, you on paper, you say, okay, change the brand, change the platform, change the model, buy some company.

I mean, it had a lot to be done, especially last year, which was like the worst year in real estate, as you know, with mortgage rates going through the roof. And even in doing so, um, we pulled it off. And so I’m so psyched. What I’m most excited about is, is that, you know, one, we, you know, our market, a lot of people have actually shrunk.

Last year went down and we went up. Uh, in fact, in the last three years, the company is quadrupled. So quadrupled. Four times companies quadruple in three years during some volatile times. As you, as you, you know, between Covid. Yeah, COVID. And we’ve had a, you know, a pretty tough economy last year and that time we transformed the entire company from the C Shop, which I’m still getting lucky enough to wear their Vest to Career certified, which is the name of the company which we set up to actually be able to, you know, provide a really career education to, in a certification type manner, to various careers.

What I’m excited about the future is I think we have an incredible opportunity to just build on what we’ve done, expand our careers, to continue to build one platform to tie that into really a career life cycle management type platform where a user doesn’t, a customer isn’t just gonna get the value from.

Taking the test, passing the exam, getting certified, keeping up with their, keeping up with their certification, but truly being a career partner where you provide information and, and really a lifelong experience with us as a school versus just passing your test, getting your certification. So the end of the day, you know, our, our whole point is to help, help our users to make, help them help people make their purpose attainable.

What’s their why? Hmm. Wanna help, why come true? And at a high level, you know, why do we all work? Um, you know, we work, yes, we like to work, but we kind of need to work to provide, get independence for our families to put food in the table, to, uh, you know, to help them go to school, to provide them college, you know, to provide them the, the, the resource to do that.

Wouldn’t it be great if we can provide that and just do it in a career they want to be in, they can be successful in their career, have fun in their career, be successful, and be able to also, A lot of their purpose to be more than just monetary, but also something very fulfilling to them that they want to do.

Like we, you and I have talked about, it’d be great if you have people that don’t do jobs cause they have to do it cause they want to do it. Hmm. Um, they don’t, they don’t wake up in the day being say, I have to go to work today, but I, I clearly can’t wait to start today. Some of the lessons that I, I’ve seen on some of, on, on some of the messages that you put out in, in, in, uh, in a daily dose.

But they’re, they’re really good. And, um, and they’re, I mean, they’re great and they’re really helpful, but those are the, by the way, those are the, not just, you help them with their lives and careers, but you’re helping ’em be successful too. Because again, they’re, these are people that are gonna be in peak performance states when they work because they’re in a good mood and they’re in a great place and they’re trying to make a difference every day.

And. And I think we can do that. And so we’ve got great aspirations for our company. You know, I, I think that, you know, quadrupling in three years is nice, but let’s keep it going and, uh, I think we can keep doing it and excited to do

[00:53:26] Chris Dorris: it. Well, congratulations on your incredible success of, uh, and I’m excited to, to watch that continue.

Uh, and the last thing that I, I wanted to ask you about is, you know, you, you just, I mean, we’ve been talking about empowering people and serving people the whole time. And, um, you and your wife are doing, and this is obviously we’re switching from professional to personal world, but you, you, you made me aware recently of something that I was not aware of.

I’ve always enjoyed you as a person. I, I was, as soon as I met you, I’m like, this dude’s cool. Uh, before I even knew you were from Philly, From Wilmington. That helps, by the way. That helps a lot. But, but for those of you who dunno, so Gary’s actually from Wilmington, Delaware, which is, and I’m from South Jersey.

That’s all we call tri-state area. New York is not part of the tri-state area saying, uh, Delaware, uh, pe Eastern Pennsylvania and, and south Jersey or the tri-state area. But it’s all Philadelphia country, which is why he is got the Phillies cap down there. You’re actually right there. Where I was born, I was born in Sarasota.

Do you know that? I did not know that. I was born in Sarasota and I, my first year I was adopted. In my first year of my life, I really, we lived in Clearwater Beach. I that clear. Clearwater. Clearwater. And then, and then we moved up to the Phil area. I mean, it was destined. Yeah. Wasn’t even a choice. Wasn’t a choice, but, um, no, but tell us what’s going on.

So you are a foster parenting.

[00:55:00] Gary Weiss: We were helping out. We, um, we ran into a situation, uh, and, uh, we were never looking to be a foster. We had four kids of our own mm-hmm. And one special needs. And as they get older, we ran across a family that, um, that took two kids in and from just kids. Their parents were both in jail and, uh, and they had nowhere to go.

And so, in the foster system for everyone to know is that, you know, we, you know, imagine what happens when parents are lugged away or something. They, they, they basically get taken out of whatever the environment was and put in a safe environment in the middle of the night. Like we have jailhouse, maybe you know, it, it, there’s nowhere to go.

So there were some emergency foster type situations that the kids would go to knock on the door from someone at three in the morning and the kids go sleep there that night. And there was a family that saw these two kids and just said, I’m not putting them back in the system. These kids had been through hell and the kids were at the time, about five years old and about two years old.

They’ve been through hell, never knew their parents, just been abused house to house to house. And finally police came into one and took, took the person away, and kids now have no home, no family, never had a parent. And we’ve never been involved in this. But we saw what this other family was doing. And we said, wow, you’re amazing.

I can’t believe you’re doing this. If you ever need any help, let us know. Yeah. We’re happy to help out. I mean, for what you guys did well, they needed the help. And uh, and they started re leaning on us and, and saying, we’re just so tired. It’s a lot taking, these kids have been traumatized. I mean, they’re traumatized.

It’s not a normal kid. I mean, these kids are, they’ve never been trained and anything. They’ve never how to read. Imagine that they’ve, wow. These are, these are traumatized kids that have been abused and, and given nothing. And they’re, and, and it’s hard to find parents that are able to take in damaged or troubled kids.

They look at as damaged kids. Well, you know, many kids there are out there. Like in my county alone in Hillsborough County, there’s about 150 families that are, that have raised their hand, that are beautiful people that said, we’re gonna help out, give something back to the community. There’s over 2000 kids looking for parents.

2000. Just

[00:56:57] Chris Dorris: there, just there. Just in your county?

[00:56:59] Gary Weiss: Yeah, just in my county. My county’s really, it’s not the best for, for Foster. Um, and, uh, there are other counties to do better, but ours, Rob. But you know, you have the saying that I tell my, I tell my team this in business, you know, if not you, then who you know, if not us, then who?

And, uh, and so my wife and I, you know, told the family like, Hey, you need any help, let us know. Well, they’re coming to the end of their, they, they couldn’t really do it much more. And so they, um, asked us, you know, what are we doing? We weren’t gonna let this, these kids or this kids, you know, there’s two of ’em, you know, well the brother went to one family.

We said, we’ll help out with the other family. So we’re in the situation that we’re helping this one, um, this child. But it’s been two years now. And we’re hopefully at the end of it where we think praying that we think we may have found a foster to adopt family full-time. Like this. Foster is a temporary until you find someone to adopt.

So we think we’re hopeful if som in a very good mood today, cuz we’re in a very, we’re close, we think we’ve the perfect family who this individual will complete them. And, and the, the person itself, my wife’s a two teacher, uh, was a teacher, so she helped tutor her, taught her, brought her swimming lessons.

We’ve exposed What’s your wife’s name? Jodi’s. Jodi. She Jodi. Absolutely. She’s about Jodi. You see that little picture? Yes. Um, so Jodi’s great and she taught the, taught the girl. And now she says, she reads, she can’t, she can’t get enough books. We take her to Barnes Noble and reading is letter to confidence.

Confidence letter to better social skills, respectable skills. She plays with her kids. It’s amazing the amount of, uh, uh, this kid is in fact the other, she went, we take her to a camp. 30 kids at camp, one kid’s shy, sits by herself. It’s this person that goes over and says, okay, come play with us. This is the person who has no parents, the person who’s never been raised, never been taught anything.

And it’s a great thing. And it’s just a, I guess, you know, I would just dunno if there’s listeners out there that can, that wanted to help out with the foster system, it’s one that now has become meaningful to us. Because, I mean, if not you, then who? I mean, who’s going, I mean, these kids are great kids, or, I mean, it wasn’t their fault.

People look at ’em like, well, it’s their fault. Look at them or Look, they have no matters. How, how are they supposed to figure it out? I mean, they don’t have a bed. They don’t have a room. They don’t

[00:59:11] Chris Dorris: have a, how would you describe how, how you feel, how it feels? Let’s just say that the family, right? That, that you’re communicating, that’s considering adopting, um, let’s just say that that goes through like today.

Yeah. How’s that feel for

[00:59:27] Gary Weiss: you? Oh, amazing. Probably better than anything. Just, uh, I mean, we’re, we’re kind of consumed with it in the last few days, but you’re right. I mean, we, we stay up at night thinking about it. Unlike making a number and a quarter, I mean, this is a kid’s life, so the Yeah, we’re, we’re at this point that yeah, we’re already feel good because we know she’s on the right track to good things are gonna happen, one where the good things are gonna happen to this child.

And also we know that we’re never gonna let the bad thing happen to this child. So we, you know, we make sure that, you know, this kid will never be in the system. This kid will never be on her own again, ever and never. And, and you can tell she knows it and she trusts us, and therefore it’s changed her entire stability and her personality that she just feels good.

Wow. That’s gotta be so spectacular. There’s nothing more happen. I mean, we, you know, there’s nothing more, you know, just rewarding honestly than, I mean, there’s a lot of causes out there, but I think as you get older, You wanna start thinking about your legacy, what can you get back? And I think one day, you know, I’m I’ll hopefully, you know, make it to the end and I can look back and, and this little girl will be probably half my age at that point, and I can look back and say, you know, I had some impact in this child’s life.

And then the family that she then raises and, you know, we all, we all, we’re all gonna move on one day and you know, it’s what you leave behind. And this to me is very rewarding. It came out of accident. Um, but, uh, maybe, maybe. No, but we, but we love her. And it’s been, it’s been rewarding for me and my wife and my kids.

They all love her. That’s so this kid knows that she’s got a home, but it’s, uh, or, or will have, will have a stable life now. And I think she, and she, I think she feels it too. So it’s making

[01:01:02] Chris Dorris: a big difference. Well go way to go. Gary and Jody. Uh, I don’t, I don’t suspect that people who tuned in today were anticipating hearing this last part.

But if people who are hearing this are interested in exploring this as a possibility and a way of, you know, making a contribution, having part, if they, as somebody, anyone wants to feel a part of the same level of reward and they’re sitting here listening, I didn’t expect this to come up in this podcast.

How about I even learn more about that? What, what, what do you tell ’em? So what did,

[01:01:32] Gary Weiss: what do you do? Anyone out here listening is go to your county. So whatever county you’re in, just Google, um, foster care network in your county. It will Google pop up something, children’s Home Network in Hillsborough County, for example, where I live.

Um, but it will come up. There is an infrastructure in the county of which includes caseworkers, guardian items. There’s attorneys, there’s presidents, and they basically keep the inventory of lists of all the foster kits. And if you basically you, you would submit applications, get fingerprinted. Do they wanna make sure you’re, you know, you’re a safe environment for them.

Mm-hmm. They’re interested and you don’t have to make a commitment. So what happens is that you can agree to just be a temporary foster parent, which means what happens when the kids take it from a home? Just, just keep ’em for a day or two, to give ’em some sta stability for at least the trauma of where they just came from.

You can agree to foster temporarily, which means you’ll keep ’em until you find a foster to adopt family. Or you can say, we will foster, but we might wanna adopt the child as well. But there’s always a need for adults, um, safe adults who want to help these kids give a chance. It’s just, just give ’em stability.

They’re like, you’re not looking to train them, teach ’em, raise them. It’s just stability. They just need, you know, think about when you were a kid. What would’ve been like if mom and dad weren’t around? You know, how, how horrible would that been when you have a bad night’s sleep or a dream and there’s no one to talk to?

Um, you know, it’s just no. And you don’t know who cares about you and where are you gonna sleep the next night? And you’re a kid. This isn’t the kid’s fault. And, uh, so if any you can, wants to contribute, I can tell you it’s incredibly rewarding for my wife and I. It’s a, it’s, it’s a lot. And, uh, but fortunately we’re gonna end up, I think, in a really, really happy ending, um, of this, this situation.

And it’ll probably not be more rewarding in our life. One of the most rewarding things we’ve done in our life.

[01:03:20] Chris Dorris: So, way to go, man. So beautiful. All right. Is there a, was there, or is there a, um, are there any good cheese steak joints down there in Tampa?

[01:03:29] Gary Weiss: You know we have this place. I like West Shore. This West Shore pizza, which is opened up.

It’s a Philly place that opened up down here. That right on. I think the cheese steaks are great. It’s natural. It’s cut up. You get chicken Philly, you get cheese, you get the steak. I like to happen like the chicken phillies, the chickens that I know I a little healthier, but,

[01:03:47] Chris Dorris: um, gonna edit that out. Micah, can we edit that out?

Well,

[01:03:51] Gary Weiss: Clearwater here. Clearwater is the home of the Phillies, as you know. Yes. For spring training. Right. And they actually have a lot of cheesecake places, uh, cheese cheesecake places over in, in Clearwater as well. I haven’t been to ’em, but yeah, I actually not, I’m not the biggest cheese steak. I actually like the hoes.

[01:04:06] Chris Dorris: I’ll ride to that. Amen to that

[01:04:08] Gary Weiss: man. People ask you what’s their, you know, hogie and a sub. Like, if you’re not from Philly, you don’t understand that. But yes,

[01:04:14] Chris Dorris: we don’t use, we just don’t have subs. It’s a hogie ho. Yeah, man. Well, that’s cool. People might be a little bit confused, but you, you know, you, even though you’ve been away from Philadelphia area for so long, you are still a diehard Sixers.

In Philly’s fan. You have converted to Lightning and the Bucks, but we still got you on baseball and hoops, so that’s nice

[01:04:34] Gary Weiss: to know. Not be a baseball and hoop, but you can see from the background, um, you know, go bolts and

[01:04:38] Chris Dorris: go bucks. Amen. Hey, this has been awesome. Thank you. Uh, you know, Gary, I guess I just gotta tell you, man, I’m really, I’ve known you for a long time and I, uh, I’m proud of you as a human and as a leader and as a, as a man.

You know, I have had the privilege of being in touch with you and for the duration, being able to, not the duration, but for the last more than 10 years and watching you excel and accelerate. And, uh, and be great and be amazing. So, congratulations brother. Uh, I’m really excited for you and thank you,

[01:05:11] Gary Weiss: grateful and thanks for your partnership and all the training you’ve provided to me and other peers in the industry that have taken a lot of your, uh, teachings and insights to make us all a lot better what we do.

So thank you.

[01:05:23] Chris Dorris: Beautiful. Thanks brother. I appreciate you, man. Take care. You know, I’ve, I’ve always, you know how you say I, I get a really good vibe from, from her or from that guy. I’ve always gotten such a great vibe from, from Gary Weiss and, um, I’m really so excited for his success and this company is really, truly killing it.

This is public information. He didn’t say the details, but I’ll just let you know when he said that they quadrupled in size. That was from 20 million to 80 million in three years. That’s amazing. But not surprising, you know, it’s incredible leadership. The will and the self-awareness, the will and the skill, not the same thing.

Hiring the right person versus the best one. These are some really cool distinctions, you know, execute with extreme prejudice did not understand what he meant by that at first. And it’s decisiveness, uh, being, not being afraid of being wrong, staying offensive minded. Uh, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.

We are, we empower our people to think it’s good stuff. So, uh, and then of course, what he and, and his wife Jodi, are doing for the world on a personal level at home, is nothing true of angelic. So, I don’t know if you caught it, but he said if you had any interest, you know, in, in participating on, on any level from minuscule to massive, then you can just Google, just go Google, uh, foster care in.

Blank, your county. So I live in Maricopa County, so I would Google Foster Care in Maricopa County, and you can make, uh, any level of contribution that’s that’s comfortable for you, if that’s something that you’re interested in. All right, folks. Until next time, thank you for tuning in to Tough Talks and Great Miracles.