Right there. That's really and I'd never come up with that on my own, had to do with the team.

Something that we as leaders always need to look at challenges, are we creating an atmosphere sphere where employees feel safe to tell us something's a bad idea.

Alrighty, folks. Welcome back to transacting value on Porter. I'm your host. And this interview in the month of August where we're covering generosity, justice, and tact, our 3 core values for the month is mister Phil Portman.

He's currently the CEO of a text company called Text DRIP. They're primarily responsible for automating your hustle, but I'm sure we'll dive into that here pretty soon.

Now Phil is also responsible for revolutionizing his workplace environment. Not coming up with ideas in an echo chamber, essentially honest communication and feedback, and what that has to do with being generous, being tactful.

How to treat your employees courteously in an environment where it's encouraged to maintain an active lifestyle and a healthy holistic approach to being able to work and then fully integrate your personal life.

Before we get to Phil and a little bit of his insight and perspective, if you're new to the podcast first off, let me say, welcome. If you're a continuing listener, welcome back.

And folks, without further ado, I'm Porter. I'm your host, and this is transacting value. Alright, Phil. How you doing, man? How's everything going? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me today, Porter.

Oh, yeah. Of course, dude. I really appreciate the opportunity. I understand, at least, stereotypically, the life of a CEO is pretty busy, and I imagine especially in evening trying to spend it with your family.

So I appreciate you taking some time out at the end of your workday to come talk to us, man.

Thank you very much. I love these conversations that give me plenty of energy, so I love them. Good. Yeah. Well, we'll see. By the end of this 1, you might be so mentally spent.

You take the rest of the night off. Who knows? But, no, I appreciate it nonetheless man. For the sake of relatability, especially because we haven't talked too much, more importantly for everybody listening.

Let's dive into you a little bit as personal as you wanna get. When it comes to you, now as an adult, what are your hobbies? How did you come up a text drip, just walk us through to perspective and how everything came about.

Yeah, absolutely. So 1 of 7 kids, I grew up poor. I remember you can ask David and my family. I was younger, I said, you know, I get older I'm going to be a millionaire. It was kind of my goal in the back of my head.

Early in my twenties, I thought, you know, harder I work, the more hours I put in, the more money I'm gonna make, you know, 80 hour weeks or 10 years or so, and I realized that that was not the answer.

I quit my corporate job, got into business myself, I was flipping houses, had some rental properties, then I sold all those off, started a restaurant delivery company franchise at 6 states sold at delivery dot com, and I ended up taking the tech side of my business, and we grew it into tech strip, argos automation, landline remover, and a few other products that we have.

Along the way, I've had some great, amazing people.

I've I've had some employees that followed me along the way over the years and and come with me on this journey, and I I have to say if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be where I'm at today.

I've had some really great success in my life and getting on podcasts like these and being able to talk about some of those things, I think is a good opportunity for anybody because I am not the smartest guy in the world.

I didn't do well in college. I tried for a couple years, would argue with my professors and didn't last very long, and I have no doubt that anybody out there can do what I've done and have the same success.

So that's why I really love getting on here and talking about some of those key attributes, some of those behaviors that I've implemented over the years, some of those viewpoints that I've learned over the years that have brought me success.

The amazing thing about them is they're they're not typically revolutionary, and if you pick up a book, you can find a lot of stuff that I talk about that's to give me the success right inside of them.

I didn't come from, you know, a background with a rich parents that fed me on a silver spoon.

I didn't win the lottery or any of that stuff, but yet I was able to find not only find success, but also a well balanced life spending time with my wife and 2 kids, and my youngest is autistic, so, you know, it required me to be home and help out my wife I have a pretty well balanced life where I'm not putting in the 80 hour weeks, and I'm still able to spend time with my family and seek success and build a company that I love.

And if we could only be so lucky.

Right? I think to a certain degree, being able to balance your work and personal life, almost is enough for anybody. But on top of that, being successful and feeling fulfilled, instead of just balancing. Tends to be a pretty large ask.

All too often, I think people get pulled into these jobs or work environments or even personal lives in some cases, where what happens to them or what happens around them in their circles is just what it is, you know, and you just start to accept it as the way in the routine.

But what was it that acted as a catalyst for you? You said to get out of the corporate environment and get out on your own and I mean, that's a scary move.

It is. Yeah. 1 was peer pressure. I had a a buddy of mine. He was a a partner in 1 of my first businesses, and he he man, you gotta quit your job.

Let's do this full time. Let's do this full time. He he put the pressure on me. So that was a positive peer pressure, you know, wasn't too bad. And the other thing was I had the dream job, I guess.

I was making 6 figures. I was traveling around Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, at a company car, a corporate car, you know, I was living life. Right? Like the business life. But I was Face timing with my kids. During their young age, you know.

And we could go by and all of a sudden the kids crawling or walking or they're saying new words. Man, I'm missing out on all this stuff. My wife was there. She's stay at home mom, so she got to see all those things.

But I was like, this is the time other life that I'm missing all of these things, and I'd like to be around more. And being gone for weeks at a time and and living that, that was not a dream that I wanted to live. Yes.

It was peer pressure, but it was also you know, I kinda reached that breaking point where the only way up in the company I was in, with more hours, more travel, you know, more time away from my family, and I said, is this where I want to be in 05:10 years?

Do I want to you know, go back and my kids are graduated, and I go, well, you know what?

I made a lot of money over the years. And I don't want to take anything away from that. There's a lot of hard working families out there, and they're providing for their families and doing some amazing things.

But for me, that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't see a lot of my dad growing up, and I wanted to be a a present dad, you know, for my kids. Yeah.

I I remember carrying my box stuff out to my car, and I made this, like, commitment to the universe or whatever, and said, this is the last time I am ever gonna work for somebody else again. It's the last time I've ever gonna do it.

There were some scary times, honestly. I mean, there were times where I had I put everything on the line, and I said, I remember I had my interested baby in the backseat of my car driving going, I might have messed up.

You know, I I might have screwed up our future, you know.

But pulled through and got through it and and then I ended up working out in the end and I think having that commitment to myself, the universe, whatever you want to say, you know, just stating that out loud at that time was something that I reflect on, and I really think it helped get me through a lot of those really difficult times, because I made a prompt.

I made a commitment. I said, nope. There's no way back. You know? And and too often people make decisions and they think, well, I made the decision, I'm gonna go ahead and ah, it's not working out and go back.

But for me, the root word for decision or decide is to cut off. You cut off. You literally cut off the other option.

Sure. And if you and if you look at things like that and say, no, that's made this decision. This is the 1 I'm going with, which I did in that case, you pulled off the results because you're never gonna get success overnight.

Success is something that's compound. Right? You look at somebody like Warren Buffett and you say, well, that guy, you know, he's the most successful investor of all time.

Well, it depends on how you look at it. Mhmm. Right? Because throughout history, there has been investors who, for a short period of time, have had way more success than he has.

The difference with him is he's old. He's been doing it a really, really long time. And he continues to not make mistakes, and that's why he's had the success that that he's had.

So a lot of that stuff, you have to have the patience to go through it, and see it through to the end. You can't be varying off really quickly.

That's why I I think it's important that if you've done your research You've you've decided to go in a direction, you really got to stick with it for a term of time, and even through the turbulence, and that's really 1 of the key points that getting success in your life.

It's tricky, though, trying to know when that threshold is to say, hey, I tried to I gotta keep moving or keep pushing 1 direction or the other. You know? And I I think to what you said earlier, it wasn't what you were passionate about.

You know, because you you could argue from 1 perspective, you working in this corporate office, having all these perks and benefits to missing days or weeks of your kids growing up and of your family growing, that's just turbulence.

You gotta figure out how to balance it better. You can totally pull through.

By some accounts. And and I to a, I guess, comparable degree, there's a lot of that in the military as well. I'm still active Right? And so we hear it all the time. You sure you wanna get out? It's a tough world if you do.

You know, it's 30 days off a year. It's paid. Don't forget about your pension and health care benefits. Are you sure that's what you want. You know? Yeah. And and there's a lot of people facing the same dilemma.

In some cases, the opportunity to choose your family overwork is a luxury don't get me wrong, but when you afforded that decision as an opportunity to take it, that's scary in and of itself.

But to change your perspective like you brought up, and focus on it's gonna be tough, and managing your expectations, and finding a way to sort of reinvigorate your passion and feel more fulfilled to help get through those moments.

What did you do? Because you don't just wake up 1 morning and say, man, this is tough, I'm just gonna keep going.

You know, there's that drive, that ambition counts for something, but there's still gotta be tipping point where you just gotta, you know, bury your head in the sand and and drive forward. What was In brakes the stock. Right? And we it.

It's it. That's it. Yeah. 3 things that that I really do. And the first thing is, I set a very clear goal. I have written goals. And then at at home, I actually I have a whiteboard, and it's right where I work out in my basement.

So I have, like, my weightlifting goals, my work what what I'm doing, what what I wanna do for for all that. But I also have goals categorized in a different category.

Obviously financial goals, career goals. Mhmm. But then I also have family goals, relationship goals with my wife, artistic goals, I break those down, and I look at it from a 5 year plan.

So, yeah, things can change. But if you're looking farther out at the horizon, Right? Like, you're you're steering your shift. You gotta stare out at the drive, and you gotta start there in a long distance.

Right? You can't look at every little wave that's coming up. You got to have a 5 year goal. And I think that's really where it starts. You know, a lot of people they're hattling along, but they don't have any map in front Right?

Where are you heading? What what point are you heading towards? Right? So first and foremost, having a 5 year goal, and don't just focus on 1 thing.

Focus on being a full and complete person. Hey, y'all. It's Juules here with the B and The Bear creations. We specialize in custom tumblers, t shirts, car decals, and anything else you can think of.

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Remember September thirtieth International Podcast Day, a day long celebration of the power of podcasts. First and foremost, having a 5 year goal and don't just focus on 1 thing. Focus on being a full and complete person.

You know, what what do you wanna do for your family? What does it look like from your friends and your your family's day? Would you like to increase the communication with some other loved ones Maybe that's a goal that you have.

Right? So then when you look the 5 year goal that you have, the person that you want to be in 5 years, it becomes a little bit easier to make some of those decisions, and the immediate.

And so when I talked about going through this stock, if you will, and and kinda sticking to the plan, I'm really talking about the 5 year plan.

Because you're going to do little variations to get to that 5 year plan, but you want to you want to base your decisions on, is it where you want to go.

Right? Are these things aligning with my values? Are they aligning with the direction that I want to head in my life? Because 1 of the key things that becomes not only the good decisions that you make, but the bad ones that you avoid.

You'll find that when you start becoming successful in business, every person you know comes to you with some kind of business idea that they want to launch.

Right? Something like that? Yeah. Or some kind of money making scheme or something like that. Right? So it starts with saying that it's clear defined goals. And then the second component that I wanna talk about is healthy habits.

They say, you know, the habits to make it demand or whatever that quote is, but your habits really are what you become. And if you get every day and you get home and you crack open a beer and turn on Netflix, That's who you become.

If you are looking at social media on your phone all throughout the day, and you really enjoy that and embrace that, that's what you become.

Whereas, if you can create habits like reading every day, and I'll tell you that some of the most successful people I talk to, every single 1 of them has 1 thing in common. Yep. They read every single day. Yeah.

They wanna learn about money, they read books on money. They wanna learn about people, they read books on people, they wanna read about podcasting, public speaking, whatever it is, there's a book out there for it, and they read it.

They're continuously reading. But the reading isn't like, hey, I'm gonna read a book this week.

It's just part of what they do. You brush your teeth, you read a book. Right? You go into bed, before you go to bed, you read a book. It's part of a habit. It's something they're doing every day.

And it's the same thing they say about working out. Right? You can't say, hey, I wanna start working out. I wanna get healthy. You don't want to start working out. Right? It's just part of what you do.

It's a habit. It's something you do every single day. It's what you build into your routine. And the interesting thing about habits is the better you get at building them into your lifestyle, the more productive you become.

We've all seen those people, and it's like, man, how's that person getting all this stuff done? Like, they're running a business. They got the, you know, a podcast going on. They're traveling all over the world with their family.

Somehow they had time to write a book, like, oh my god. How are they doing all this stuff? Right? It's all these little habits. They're just writing that book maybe 10:30 minutes a day.

But over the course of a year or 2, they have a book. Mhmm. Right? And so these are massive things that they're doing. They're not massively deciding to write a book, closing them into some place, and 2 months later they got a book.

No. They're building it into little small routines. So the first 1 was setting clear goals, the second 1 was habits, and the third 1 is arrogant confidence.

And I specifically say arrogant confidence, because to be successful in life and to move forward with those plans and those things when when your friends and your family are saying, what are you doing?

Like, you had a great job. Why did you leave it? Why are you off trying to start your own business you have to have this level of confidence, and you have to tell yourself I'm gonna pull through.

And you have to tell your employees. Right? We've got this. We can do this. And the level of confidence has to go beyond what you think is normal, and it's almost an arrogant level of confidence to push you through.

So you may say, hey, this is arrogant, this is above what I can do, but that's the level of confidence that you really need to achieve your dreams.

That's tough. Did you ever see the video? It was on a swartz and Edgar, and he was on a podcast. And these guys were talking to him and they said, what's your thing? Arnold said, don't know. I I get up in the morning.

I go to the gym. I go I go work out. And they're like, you're you're in your seventies. You still go work out and he said, what? Yes. Is just part of what I do. You know, I -- Oh, yeah. -- I went to bed last night.

I'm gonna go to bed again tonight. Know, I had breakfast yesterday. I'm gonna have breakfast again today. I worked out yesterday. I'm gonna work out again today to your habits piece, but that's what it takes, consistency.

If you have incremental changes in your life, for better or worse. Eventually, that's the direction you're gonna go. You know? The the ship steering analogy you brought up. Right?

Like, when you're when you're learning how to drive, I suppose big city kids aside because they may not ever need to, but But when you're learning how to drive, if you look in front of the car, you're gonna hit the lines every time.

If you look down the road, you're They stay straight, you know, riding a bicycle, same philosophy, riding a motorcycle, same philosophy, going through life, same philosophy, you know, there's a lot of natch concepts I think that can carry us through.

Being able to get what you deserve, right, requires a little bit of vision and a little bit of depth of, I guess, critical thought.

But it also requires distance in in what you're paying attention to. Until your point earlier, it's not always negative thing, distance.

Right? You saw your kids growing up and you can't be there. Physical distance on deployments. It's all the same sort of thing, but sometimes, distance can be a good thing when you use it to look 5 years down the road.

And say, where do I wanna go? Who do I wanna be? What sort of character do I wanna embody? You know? Or example of a little success. That's part of your plan where you wanna be in life, but absolutely.

And we're talking about, you know, gravitating towards money and finances and working out and things like that, but You know, healthy habits can be anything that you want to get better at.

You know? An example is me and my wife. I want to be a great husband to my wife. Yeah. We've been married now 13 years. Oh. And anybody who's been married for a while knows that marriages work.

And you need to put in the time and the effort to make it work. And in order for me to become a better husband, I have to build healthy habits around being a good husband.

And those could be things as small as you know, picking up after myself or sliding in my chair when I'm done eating because my wife hates it.

Right? Or, you know, could be just getting her flowers every couple weeks and making that part of my habit because it's helpful, or scheduling a dinner date where somebody washes the kids and we get to go out, things like that.

Those are habits that are just as healthy for your long term health as working out or reading books or anything else.

And I think that contributes to a lot, right, especially if you're married, but in any sort of relationship, dating, or or family unit, biological, or otherwise, that know, the the people you surround yourself with, as you learn how to talk and how to communicate openly and honestly, just like in a workplace, it gives you a lot more opportunity to decrease your stress.

You know, you're not worried about work and your performance and performance anxiety or anything in between that you can focus on actually accomplishing your goals too.

You know, surrounding yourself with people like in your capacity with employees or with family, or a high school with friends or whatever makes a huge difference too. So I I wanna ask you about the employee piece real quick.

You mentioned something earlier off the air about honest conversations and feedback. And just for the sake of clarity here, does this mean that you've got employees telling you, Phil, look, that's a bad idea. We we No.

We shouldn't do that. You know, like, honest, like, what you're doing is wrong or honest, like, based on these metrics, I've got proof as to why. You know what I like, feedback as people or feedback as empirical data? Yeah. So yeah.

Obviously, there's there's a certain level of respect that I think anybody needs to have with coworkers and that, but I've been in a situation where, you know, especially when you own your own company or your lawns, you often forget about your title.

Right? You forget about the position that you hold with people. And I was in a situation years ago, you know, I just gotten into management girl, and I was not getting the feedback.

I had a bunch of yes people around me, and I've had ideas all flat in my face. And I said, well, that was a bad idea. Yeah. How come nobody told me that was a bad idea.

You know? Yeah. And it was because I had a bunch of yes men or yes women around me that were just telling me what I wanted a year. So now in in my current environment and my business, it's successful because of the diversity of thought.

That I have with my team. And I challenged the way that I communicate, I challenged the way I ask questions with the people that that that around me constantly, and I still make mistakes.

I had an example the other day where I felt like I took over a conversation too much. Me and 1 of my employees were having a conversation about something, and honestly, it wasn't even work related.

And I kinda bulldozed the conversation and I apologize to him afterwards and made a commitment that I'll I'll try not to do that.

But it's important for me to get that feedback because like I told you earlier in the conversation, I'm not the smartest guy in the world.

Sure. I've got some really amazing people working for my team. And last week, we identified problem needed a solution for it.

And it was something it was 1 of those problems that was keeping me up at night. 1 of my goals were problems. Sure enough, the next day, Nicole, 1 of my employees came up with a brilliant idea.

I heard another 1 of my employees discussed it. They said, this is what we should do. That said, that. Right there, that's brilliant. There you go. Right? And I had never come up with that on my own, had to do with the team.

Something that we as leaders always need to look at challenge is are we creating an atmosphere where employees feel safe to tell us something's a bad idea or to give us feedback on something?

Once again, within respect. But in order to build that kind of safe environment, you have to honor your work, because I had a boss a long time ago tell me, you know, it takes a thousand atta boys to make up for an o shit.

Mhmm. Yeah. And, you know, it's the same thing with this. You know, once you Rupperman somebody or something like that for giving you some honest feedback, that person will never tell you another word again.

And so, you know, building that trust, encouraging that feedback, and listening to it, and not taking it personally is incredibly important for any leader.

Not taking it personally is probably the hardest part, I think, of what you just brought up because you don't always understand how people intend something to mean.

Right? Like, you can only control how you interpret what people say or do, but not how they say what they say.

And -- Yeah. -- and sometimes, oftentimes, that can get misinterpreted. Yeah. So you bring up a good point. There's a book called the 4 agreement. Uh-huh. And it's a it's a Tom Brady, and it says it's is Montra, the Thom Brady mantra.

You can look up the 4 agreements to kinda read on it, but a couple of key points that it talks about is, you know, not talking behind people's back and that sort of thing.

But it also talks about how other people's view of you or whatever, that's their own perception, and it has nothing to do with you.

Right? That came in point, I had a a business partner years ago, and this guy would accuse me of all sorts of things, all sorts of terrible things.

You know, everyone has their point where they're gonna take advantage of somebody and they're gonna screw him over and I was appalled by this guy.

Like, what is he talking about? I remember -- Yeah. -- thinking to myself like, am I really that type of person, so I'm this guy's telling me it must be true. Sure. But, you know, you look at it later on and you're like, no.

It was 100 percent him. And everyone distanced themselves from this guy and and moved away, and he suffered a business as a result of it, But that was his reality that was projecting on everyone else around him.

Sure. And that really nailed whole home some of those points that I was reading in that book.

That you're going to have people from all sorts of different backgrounds, beliefs, and views, and if you take personally what they think or say about you, gonna be a rough uphill battle and the book actually called the your version of hell -- Yeah.

-- when you worry about those. Things. And I know it's an easy thing to say on this podcast.

It's a much harder thing to actually do. Sure. But if you can practice it just like a habit, of kind of just letting, you know, letting it roll off you and move on, you get better and better and better with it at time.

And you just got to understand that that is that person's view in perception of you. It's not your reality. Yeah. There is a a line there. Right?

Like, you can't live in denial either. Sometimes people are giving you honest feedback that applies you and how you're acting. But but, yeah, I see what you're getting at for sure. It it definitely requires a a bit of objectivity.

Right? You can only control how you feel and how you respond to situations and comments. And and not what other people bring up, but that's sort of how teams even figure out how to work together.

You know? There's a lot of give and take in that regard. Before we get much further into this, so let's take a break for a couple minutes, and we'll be right back on transacting value.

Folks, I'm Porter, host of the transacting value podcast. You're being personally invited to increase empathy worldwide through shared values. Hey. But why do you say it like that? That's not what we talked about.

No, it's not. Why do you call it an invitation? Look, guys, there are people around the world who have listened to our conversations with guests. And they've trusted us to build perspective over different topics through shared values.

The least we can do is invite them out to hear more of content that they enjoy while still reminding them that season 1 and season 2 of the podcast are still listed under the old name as DYT the podcast.

Alright. That makes sense, Porter. Just tell them that if they go to YouTube and search survival dad y t, they can find all the old videos in playlist.

Along with season 1 and season 2 8, Or if they want to hear some of the other interviews from those seasons that they can still find them everywhere their favorite podcasts are streamed. I'll just do it.

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Welcome back to transacting value. Again, I'm Porter. I'm your host sitting here with Phil Portman. And what we were talking about was good ways, beneficial ways, productive ways, proactive ways, teams can learn to work together.

And Phil, first of all, before we get into anything else, welcome back. Thank you. Yeah. No problem. 1 of the things we were talking about earlier was how honest conversations and honest feedback can help teams work together.

Right? And a team might be at work, a team might be in the family, a team might just be you in your head, talking to yourself to sort through things. But honest feedback makes the difference.

If Having big talk type conversations around the world, different languages, culturally specific aspects and nuances here, if that's what it takes to learn how to have honest feedback, where people just talk, it doesn't have to be divisive just because you disagree.

Being able to accept what people say and their opinions, and in some cases their validity helps encourage that process.

Phil, you brought up a point off the air, we were talking about Maslow's hierarchy. Right? That that pyramid that talks about people's needs, physiological, self actualization, and things in the middle there.

But You said you've got sort of a philosophy of how that applies to different environments, you know, in a workplace or or in a family or whatever with honest feedback and avoiding echo chambers and whatnot.

What does Mazzle's hierarchy have to do with anything as you see it? Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, if you and Mazzle's hierarchy, kind of 1 of those psychology terms that you would learn about in college.

But, you know, if you look at the at the way that it operates with the the pyramid, at the bottom of it, it has health and wellness things like food, water, sleep.

And you think about, well, why is that important? Well, if you're not eating healthy, if you're not getting enough water, if you're not sleeping, and and you're not performing at your best, you're not your best version of yourself.

Alright. Well, we get those things down, and we move up to the next 1. The next 1 is security And that's things like security of employment, your housing, monetary security, things like that.

And that's a lot of things that the workplace offers. If you have employees, let's say, they're they're afraid of losing their job constantly.

I mean, they're afraid of turnover. I used to have a company I worked for, and they seemed like every 6 months, they were rechanging the position, restructuring the organization, and we have to reapply for our job.

Right? How productive do you think that management team was -- Yeah. -- knowing that they were gonna have to find it maybe a potentially a new job in 6 months. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're constantly thinking about those sort of things.

In the monetary part, you know, with with my employees, we we I would always talk about not only the money coming in, but something that is probably even more important is the money that's going out.

So we actually had a webinar and all my employees, and we had a lot of our customers on there as well, and it was on money management.

And the idea behind it is if I can create employees that can afford to leave, quit, it fired, whatever, because they've got a decent savings.

They got 6 months savings. They're doing well. Those are employees that are gonna give me honest feedback.

Oh, sure. That's not most counterintuitive. Right? At the same point, time, if those are employees like we do something where we pay for their continuing education, and pay for books, and that sort of thing inside our organization.

If that employee is valuable enough, that another another company is gonna scoop them up, they're gonna have no problem getting a job, but now we get to level of confidence that they have.

Right? They're gonna give me once again that feedback. They're gonna take risks. They're gonna have that ideation, and they're gonna work at the top level of the pyramid because they've met those base needs.

And so I I think when you're when you're operating your business and your company out of fear, you have a fear based philosophy be of, oh my god. These are my company guarded secrets.

Oh, these employees, I'm never gonna find somebody like this again. I can't afford them to go anywhere else. I'm gonna know, keep all this close to myself, your business is gonna go nowhere but down.

But if you look at some of the philosophy, I want my employees to be the best versions of themselves. I want them to take this job or leave it. You will create such a loyal base for 1.

But also, they're they're gonna operate at the top of that pyramid with creative thought, with creative ideas. They're gonna get promoted from inside the company, which I'm gonna tell you is much cheaper than acquisition.

Right? When you got to try to find somebody for a job set outside of the organization, it could cost you a heck of a lot more money than it is just promoting that person.

And they're gonna have a real passion connection to the organization. And that's what's kinda gone me well over the years.

Is having that philosophy that I'm gonna help build those base needs and help them become the best version of themselves both inside and outside of the organization. And you know what?

Even if they end up getting a job outside, had a guy working for me, and he was going to medical school, and he went on to become a nurse. And and fantastic for him. That was what his long term 5 year goal was, was to become a nurse.

I'm not gonna hold him back to that, but the entire time he was working for me, he was the best version of himself. Because he knew I knew what his vision was, and I'm gonna help support him along the way.

Nice. And that's what we really need to do with bosses and leaders and entrepreneurs to make sure we're porting our employees if we wanna get that best version. Well, that's sort of the point.

Right? As entrepreneurs, don't get me wrong, pushing out a product or a service to to have revenue and you know, whatever build a business is obviously the textbook definition at least of of entrepreneurship in some circles.

But but as an entrepreneur, being somebody that starts essentially from nothing and builds up. If your goal is a cause, like, for example, making people better versions of themselves or helping enable them to become that on their own.

Like you said, loyalty goes a long as difficult as it can be managing different personality traits and and workplace cultures in that process It obviously doesn't fix everything, but it definitely goes a long way.

Yeah. No. But you you bring up a good point. I I don't think it's just entrepreneurship. Right? Me being an entrepreneur, that's naturally where I go.

But, you know, even being a a friend or a family member or anything like that. Yep. I'll have conversations with my friends about smoking. Sure. Right? I'll have you know, I'm I'm there.

Hey. Let's let's go let's go try out for a marathon, you know, or something like that or to start preparing for, you know, or start working out, you know, hey, and have those kind of conversations in the reading.

My sister was just over my house yesterday, and we were talking about books. And what she's reading. And and, you know, I I actually brought up that poor agreement.

And she's she was excited I'm word for word. Oh my god. It's amazing, you know. Yeah. But that's the type of people that that we wanna be. Right? Are the ones that are bringing up those around us and making them battery people.

You know? And it's inspiring. If you look at things from that effort, going back to what we talked about before, where brushing off some of those people's perceptions of you -- Uh-huh.

-- that really are not true. The opposite is true. If you can have really great perceptions and people around you and help promote them and influence that positivity, they'll rise up with you.

And unfortunately, some of those people you got to let go if they're not or keep a keep a little bit of a distance from, so they're not going to be a positive once on your life.

But I think you'll find over time that if you help bring other people up and yet, focus on the positivity.

You focus on the healthy habits. You focus on on helping them move up that Mazda hierarchy pyramid. Mhmm. You're gonna have a a great base around you, family, and friends that help support you.

Yeah. Yeah. And and not to get too, I guess, metaphysical here, but, like, even on a cellular level as they bump into each other, they divide and just help each other grow.

Right? And so as people, it's just an inadvertent sort of correlation as humans. Right? The more positive you are, your character, your reputation, it sort of just speaks for itself because you can't try to fix everybody.

Be people don't like that. Right. It's like Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen that what is that called? It's not about the nail, that video on YouTube. I expect you'll get a good chuckle out of it.

Yeah. But go on YouTube, it's not about the nail. It's relationship advice. Right. But the the point being that you can't fix everything and you shouldn't really try either. You gotta give people enough leeway to make own mistakes.

But in its own right, that's a positive impact too, you know, being willing to establish environments and being able to establish environments where people make mistakes and learn from them without wrecking their careers or tanking their lives, and that's that's difficult.

Before we get too much further though, we talked about workplace culture And in my opinion, it's the the founder's values that formulate the culture.

But it's the culture that really guides an overall strategy or or it should And so what we're talking about workplace culture, I'm curious about some of your personal values.

So I'd like to get into this last segment real quick. We're calling developing character developing character. Now here's how it works. 3 questions. The extended answers and the application is totally up to you. Past present and future.

Alright? 20 years apart in between each 1. So if we talk the first question, how do you now see your value system from 20 years ago? A different person than I was today, and I'll tell you from a from a few standpoint.

So that kid years ago that said, hey, I want to, you know, be a millionaire when I grow up. Was focused on making money by any means necessary. And I'd say honestly, that includes wine.

At the time. Mhmm. And we call it sales back then. Right? But, you know, I think a lot of that stuff you know, played on my values. And the problem with lines, even if it's in sales, is it's slippery slope.

Right? The more you do it, the more you do it. Yeah. Not just in your workplace but outside as well. And I I remember you know, you you tell tell little little white lies.

Right? These little little things, and then they'd get worse and worse. And I honestly, I'd come home and I'd find myself doing the same thing. If you guys haven't picked this up yet, I'm a reader.

There's a book called Line And and it talks about how we do that. Especially we do that in the U. S. We tell all these little white lies and make up excuses and reasons on why we do them.

Because we want to avoid the truth. And the fact of the matter is the truth is usually a little bit more uncomfortable at the top, but long term there are benefits.

And I remember back when I was in my sales days, you know, a long long time ago early on, I'd I'd leave that work environment, I'd come home and I'd be talking to a friend, and I would lie to And I was like, why did I do that?

What was the purpose? There was literally no purpose for that. I think 1 time it was about a food item or something.

That. Why would I why would I lie about that? Yeah. You know, it just became such stuck in nature of me. And it it it it's still something I'm bringing up, like, 20 years later here on this podcast because it it bugged me so much.

And I said, I don't like that feeling. It sits with you forever. Yeah. You know? And and it and it would it would manifest in ways. I'd had acid reflux really bad back then.

You know, I'd have anxiety trouble sweeping. Where are these things coming from? Right? And it's these little white lies that you're telling these little these little things that There's no purpose to them, but they eat away your soul.

And so I'd say, you know, that was a primary difference from me years ago. I would rather face the music with just a lie. Yep. I screwed up. If they're not a lie, I'm with screw. Yep. I screwed up.

This is it, you know, and face the harsh harsh truth right then and there, and then hold on to to a lie. I think that'd be the first and foremost. The other part with the money that we talked about early on that changed as well.

Money is kind of a byproduct of what I do, I I found after working those 80 hours and all that stuff, I want to do this to myself that I really wanted to do things that I enjoyed.

And 1 of the things that I wrote down on my whiteboard when I was planning out my goals is I said I wanna be an inventor.

And I know it's 20. Right? Not like the top Edison type inventor. I wanted to make things that aren't solved problems.

And it's software, it's not physical stuff. But that's what I'm doing nowadays. I'm I'm finding problems, solving them, and then as a byproduct, I figured out a way to make money at and I I really, really love doing it.

Nice. And it's and it gave me an opportunity to do other things I love doing, like, these podcasts and talking to people.

So those are kinda wide swing of Phil Portman 20 years ago to Phil Portman today. Sure. And so then you today, let's say, question number 2, How if you had to sort of distill out to maybe 3 values that you hold now?

What would you choose? Yeah. Absolutely. So honesty integrity is is important. It's it's a foundation of communication. Mhmm.

Okay? So much so that I was outside flat out as as as much as I promote job security. And I I love having employees know that they can stick with me and work me for the rest of their career if they want and and have a future with me.

1 thing I do not put up with, and I've had to let go of people in the past for, is lying. It's a foundation for communication. If you're talking to somebody, you don't know if what they're telling you is real or not -- Yeah.

-- we have no no basis or, you know, communication. So, you know, honesty and integrity is is 1 of the is 1 of the the most important components that I could possibly think of, you know, for anybody.

You know, another value and belief that I hold true to myself is leaving the world a better place than I was when I left and when I entered it.

That extends to a lot of decisions that I make in my life, how I raise my children, how I help promote people within my organization, right, kind of take a stop that whole you know, short term, let's make sure they stick with this company.

No. I want them to be best versions of themselves. That's starting their own company and moving on, doing other things. If it's going to help lead this world a better place than when I entered it, well, I'm doing something right.

So those are core beliefs to me, and then the last 1 is family. Family is incredibly important to me. And if you talk to anybody in my organization, they know I talk about it all the time as well.

I love my family. I love spending time with my family. And they come first in every decision that I make. When I sold my last business, we sold off the office, I was happy to get rid of it, and it was actually right before COVID.

I tell you it was 1 of the coolest things during COVID. I know there's some terrible things going on during COVID, but for us being able to eat lunch together is family, you know, have my kids and my wife there, not eating lunch.

It would be no problem back to work. And, you know, that's going to park and going for walks together and just spending time together with It's really an amazing thing.

You know, we we do events, company parties, birthday parties, and things like that. Everyone's invited to them, we all have our families there.

And it's just it's a really cool experience, and I I can't think of anything more important to me than than saying, like, 9 kinda interweave it with everything I do including my business.

Families aren't always the ones you're born into either. Maybe it's just the circle of friends you've custom designed, but Yeah. Definitely makes a big difference. My third question for you, Phil, you 20 years from now.

K? How do you view your values shifting? Well, that's what I put me at. 20 years now, because we're on what, 60 That's a good question. I I don't I don't think the family one's really gonna change.

I'm leaving the world better better than when I entered it. I think that's gonna be more important as I as I get older and and and the truth component, I don't really see that. Maybe smelling the roses a little bit.

And and taking time, I I I'd like to start spending a little more time traveling to see in the world. I've talked about that with my wife, and I don't know if it's 60 it'd be a little bit too young for me or not.

I don't know, but maybe slowing down. But, you know, 1 thing that people never talk about is find something you love to do, you'll never work a day in your life. Yeah. Oh, yes. That's that's true.

But the problem is when you do something you love to do, it can become an addiction just like anything else. And you have to set limits on that, make sure that you're -- that you have -- that you still balance any plans.

And so that's something I I definitely see right now. And I think as I get older, I'd like to shift the balance a little bit more to seeing the world and and slowing down maybe a little bit.

Yeah, man. And it doesn't all have to change either. Maybe it just becomes exponentially more impactful, whatever it is, you know, compared to now too. That could be a thing.

Travel's gonna be a blast especially when you're 60 because nobody can tell you, you know, you're not too short to go on this ride or you gotta be this age anywhere or whatever restrictions, you can do what you want.

You know? People see senior citizens and they're like, oh, excuse me.

You can take my seat. You're like, oh, that's great. Finally, I really appreciate it, man. I I don't wanna take up too much of your time. I know you gotta get back to your family. But I really do appreciate the opportunity.

You give me some time so we can sit down and talk a little and I can pick your brain. If anybody else wants to get in touch with you, either for text drip or just as a person, what are some ways people can get in touch with you?

Absolutely. I'm all over social media. If you look up Phil Portman, PHILP0RTMAN. You'll find me on there. Or you can go to phil portman dot com. You've got the success is podcast, and you can link up to it from phil portman dot com.

Email me or message me from the website as well if you have any thoughts or you want to bounce any ideas off me, and I love talking to people that want to embrace life, and I love talking about success, Yeah.

Feel free to reach out to me on social media or feel foreman dot com. You can follow my podcast there as well. Sweet. Alright, dude.

Yeah. I appreciate it. And for all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Special thanks to all of our podcast sponsors, namely to be in the bear creations and Keystone Farmers market, and obviously anchor for their leadership.

But aside from that, with everybody listening, that wraps us up on this particular interview, guys, I'm Porter. I'm your host, and that was transacting value.