Leadership isn’t a static role. It’s a balancing act. In this heartfelt season finale of Love in Leadership, Laura and Mike reflect on the highs and challenges of leadership, personal growth, and building meaningful connections in business and life. From stories of transformative company retreats to candid reflections on maintaining work-life balance, this episode dives deep into the evolving roles leaders must play to keep organizations thriving. Whether you're leading a team, navigating a personal leadership journey, or simply seeking insight into workplace culture, this episode offers valuable takeaways to carry into the new year and beyond. Be sure to tune in for an inspiring discussion on vision, trust, and the importance of authentic relationships in leadership!
Leadership isn’t a static role. It’s a balancing act. In this heartfelt season finale of Love in Leadership, Laura and Mike reflect on the highs and challenges of leadership, personal growth, and building meaningful connections in business and life. From stories of transformative company retreats to candid reflections on maintaining work-life balance, this episode dives deep into the evolving roles leaders must play to keep organizations thriving.
Whether you're leading a team, navigating a personal leadership journey, or simply seeking insight into workplace culture, this episode offers valuable takeaways to carry into the new year and beyond. Be sure to tune in for an inspiring discussion on vision, trust, and the importance of authentic relationships in leadership!
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“It’s about finding something you're passionate about, understanding where your talents collide with that passion, [and] finding ways to grow and improve and move forward. That can happen
to anybody.” — Laura Eich [0:21:31]
“You need to be the leader your organization needs you to be today, tomorrow, this week, this month.” — @mikejmcfall [0:32:53]
“We have – brilliant minds that have eyes on what we need them to have eyes on, solutions in mind for how to solve things, and because of – poorly-formed connections or not connecting to the right place, – it gets lost in a game of translation or telephone.” — Laura Eich [0:40:07]
“If you really, truly can build a relationship with somebody, even if you've got different views on the world, – you can learn from them. And that's the point.” — @mikejmcfall [0:48:10]
RESOURCES:
[0:00:08] LE: Welcome to Love in Leadership, the podcast where we explore what happens if you bring a little or a lot of love into the workplace. My name is Laura Eich. I'm joined as always by the one and only Starlink guru, Mike McFall.
[0:00:18] MM: Oh, yeah.
[0:00:18] LE: Mike, how are you doing?
[0:00:21] MM: I'm good. I am. Yeah. It's snowing out. It's starting to feel like the holidays.
[0:00:27] LE: It sure does. Actually, I'm okay with snow up until December 25th. And then it can go away for the rest of the winter, that'd be fine. This is fine.
[0:00:37] MM: I agree. I agree with that.
[0:00:39] LE: Yeah. How's your week going?
[0:00:41] MM: You know, we're verging on the holidays, right? As you were talking about the other day, it's a lot of urgency around a lot of things to wrap up by year-end, and at the same time, a whole bunch of stuff you got to do to get ready for the holidays. And, oh my gosh, I can't wait for the break.
[0:00:58] LE: Right. All of that. All of the above. Is your present shopping done? Are you complete?
[0:01:04] MM: Yeah. You know, I'm 80 % there. I’ve got a lot of standard sort of traditional things that I do that are pretty easy that aren't done yet, but they're easy.
[0:01:15] LE: Interesting. I wonder what that means.
[0:01:16] MM: Well, I always get out of this certain candy.
[0:01:20] LE: Okay.
[0:01:20] MM: And so I know that. And I just have to go get that candy, right?
[0:01:23] LE: Got it. Okay.
[0:01:24] MM: That sort of stuff.
[0:01:24] LE: Don't worry. This will come out after their Christmas.
[0:01:26] MM: No. She knows now after 12 years that she gets that candy. It's chocolate-covered orange peels is the candy. Yeah.
[0:01:34] LE: Oh. They're actual orange peels?
[0:01:37] MM: Yeah, I don't really know. They're really good.
[0:01:39] LE: Okay.
[0:01:40] MM: But I don't know. They can't actually be orange peels, right?
[0:01:44] LE: I don't think this is good.
[0:01:45] MM: What's your favorite holiday tradition?
[0:01:47] LE: I'm a big Christmas Eve fan in particular. My family's tradition for a long time when I was growing up, we had a couple of stores. My parents were small business owners. And so we would take the food around to the different stores and celebrate with customers and it was a lot of fun. And now it's like I don't actually know what we'll do. We have a kid and we have to establish some new Christmas Eve traditions. And then we usually do church that night. And then we do Chinese takeout usually because I just think that Chinese food tastes better on Christmas Eve. I don't know why there's something about it.
And then going to look at Christmas lights. Driving around to just look at Christmas lights is sort of the magical thing when I was a kid. And I plan to do this with my child. It was like we all put on our PJs, and that felt so funny to put on your pajamas and then get in the car and go drive around and look at Christmas and stuff like that. It got very competitive where we were ranking and voting, of course, because my family can't help ourselves. Most of that. We don't obviously have the stores anymore to visit. But I think, still, the church, the Chinese, the Christmas lights, that's all part of the plan.
[0:02:56] MM: Sounds outstanding.
[0:02:56] LE: It'll be fun. What about you?
[0:02:58] MM: Yeah, we just have certain moments. We go to Veta's mom for Christmas Eve dinner, and that's really cool. And then we're changing it up this year though. We used to go to somebody's house in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, or Christmas day, I mean, and we've switched that now where we're gonna go to my mom's on the 26th for that. And so we just get to hang out at the house all day. Yeah, because it was always weird at whatever, noon, one, two, like, "Okay, now we got to get our act together and we got to get ready and look nice and get out the door and go to dinner." It's just a lot of pressure. And so we're not going to do that. So I'm excited about that day opening the presents and then having the whole day to goof around.
[0:03:38] LE: That's really fun. Thankfully, we're hosting it this year, but everyone on the Eich side at least is coming to us for the afternoon and get yourself together and go out the door kind of thing. But they can fully come in their PJs still if they want. I just think Christmas Day means PJs to me.
[0:03:54] MM: Oh yeah. I agree. I agree. I agree.
[0:03:57] LE: Comfortable day.
[0:03:59] MM: The holidays are coming. This is the last episode of the podcast for this season. And when we started this, my requirement to get involved was that we do 100 episodes. And And then we decide if we want to do this thing or not, right? Because I find that so many people do podcasts and they do 10, 12, 15th, 30 episodes. And it's like, "No. You got to do a lot of these before you understand it as a –"
[0:04:29] LE: We still don't even know what we're doing.
[0:04:31] MM: No.
[0:04:32] LE: We're just showing off and talking to each other.
[0:04:35] MM: I am amazed that some of the people we've been able to pull. That feels really cool. So much of this, for me anyway, and I think for most people that do podcasts, it's really about the engagement with other people that's motivating and inspiring. And so being able to have conversations with the one we just did with Megan or Bernie.
[0:04:59] LE: Ari from Zingerman's. Tara Milburn.
[0:05:02] MM: Yeah. I know.
[0:05:04] LE: Alisha, though.
[0:05:04] LE: I know.
[0:05:05] MM: That was such a cool conversation. And so to me, I really started to feel that. The first season I think was a little – for me anyway, it wasn't that comfortable. A little glitchy for me. Whatever. But now I see this on my calendar coming up and I look at who we're going to be talking to and I'm like, "Oh, man. This is pretty awesome."
[0:05:25] LE: Yeah, super fun. It's gotten more comfortable. Like I said, I still don't know if we're good at this yet. I don't even know how one measures that. But it does seem like we're getting an interesting variety of people and like talking to some BIGGBY people, some non-BIGGBY people. Getting some different kinds of conversation. The conversation with Megan, obviously very fresh in our mind. But I don't think we've ever talked about the patriarchy before. That was new.
[0:05:53] MM: Yeah. Well, I think how we determine whether it's successful or not is before we started recording, I think you said something like it's been a difficult week, but you've really looked forward to these conversations. And it's like, "I think if you look at your calendar and you look down and you see the podcast is tomorrow or the interviews tomorrow at 10am and you're like excited about it, I think it's successful."
[0:06:18] LE: That's a good thing. For sure. For sure. Yeah, this is my time to like put down problem-solving mode, firefighting mode, and just get to talk to inspiring people. I think that's the big thing, is if I'll do this forever, as long as we just keep feeling inspired by these conversations, and this season for sure, I felt inspired by every single conversation that we had.
[0:06:41] MM: Yeah. Cool. And I've heard people say that they do the podcast for themselves because it's so amazing and invigorating and cool. I think that's the measure of success, right? If you're excited to do them, then it's going great.
[0:06:58] LE: It's also year-end. I didn't tell you I was gonna talk about this. Sorry you get no prep time. But it's also year-end. And I'm curious if you look back on the year, if you got some like lows and some highs.
[0:07:10] MM: Oh gosh.
[0:07:12] LE: If you're willing to go there.
[0:07:15] MM: You know, yeah, I do. Somehow, I have an affliction and I'm going to try to fight through that. Because somehow when I look back, it's very hard for me to spend any energy on the lows. And so I just had like four things popping in my brain about highs for this year instantly.
I may struggle with the lows. And I know it's always annoying when people are like, "Well, I don't –" but I do. I do have struggles for sure and I do have lows. But somehow, I just don't ever dwell on them. They just go away and you just keep plotting forward, right?
But I mean, I think the highs for me this year, our Lovejoy was a real big one. These things that happen are really – it's staggering. I mean, we've been envisioning a leadership retreat for our company, Bob and I have, in terms of – well, you have too with us. And it's been a long time. 10 years is really when we started to contemplate it. And so much of that is about having a place that we can bring people to and connect essentially.
But when these things come to fruition, like when I stepped out of my car and looked at that property for the first time, and you know the whole story, that moment, it wasn't being considered as a leadership retreat. It was simply a lake house for my family. And then all of a sudden it just unfolds right in front of you. And it's like that happens so often that you work on, you envision, you think about. When it becomes reality, you almost like pinch yourself. Like, "Is this real? Did this really just happen? And did I actually pull this off?" You know the details on LoveJoy. It was a complicated process to get that put together, right? And I had to be pretty aggressive in the way I did it and so on. But man, really a big high for me.
[0:09:28] LE: I don't know that we've ever dove into the part of this where this was both a personal dream and a professional dream of sorts sort of coming together. Yes, we've talked about having the leadership retreat, having a place we can go. But you also had a personal dream of having this lake house. Can you just talk about like how that vision collided?
[0:09:50] MM: Yeah. For me personally, it's such a beautiful thing because I always wanted to spend a lot of time at the retreat center that we were creating. That was like a focus of mine. And I'm not really talking about like in the next five years. But when I'm like 75 years old, how amazing would it be to have that available and to have all of these people coming there as a retreat center, a leadership institute, and so on and so forth. And I don't have to do anything. I'm 75 years old. Everybody can kind of –
[0:10:37] LE: They will come to you.
[0:10:39] MM: And I get to be there, and I get to be a part of it, and I get to hang out with cool people.
[0:10:43] LE: Be the wise man.
[0:10:44] MM: Right. Right. But I never thought of that. And oh, by the way, I wanted the lake house. I've always wanted a lake house. I grew up on a lake and I've always wanted to have that in my life. Yeah, when those things came together, it was like, "This is the way this is supposed to be. And I remember I was sitting, I've got this one little corner in the lake house piece and it's hard to – there's two houses, right? The one house is going to be the leadership center. The other house is going to be the lake house. And at moments, I certainly hope it'll all be leadership retreat center and whatever.
Anyway, so there's this little corner that looks out through these big, beautiful windows that look out over the lake. It's got a little fireplace next to it, potbelly stove. And I was sitting there and I was in my favorite reading chair that I've put there. And one of my kids came up to me and was kind of just hanging out with me. And I said, "I'm pretty sure this is where I'm going to die. Right here." What a feeling. What a feeling.
But it's really meaningful – and the thing about that story too that's so incredible is, when all that came together, it's borderline crazy what we pulled off over the summer. And I called Bob and I said, "Before I do this, I need you to come. I need you to come see it." Because, I mean, it's half his risk, right? And so it was crazy. Because I needed to close on it, right? And I needed to close quickly. And so he found a moment. He drove two and a half hours. He had 45 minutes. And we were there, we went for a quick walk around it. We kind of looked at it. And then he had a two-and-a-half-hour drive back.
And so at the end of it, I said, "So?" And then he stopped. He's like, "No, no, no, no, no. Grand slam home run." And you know, when Bob gets sports analogies right –
[0:12:42] LE: When Bob uses a sports analogy, it's special.
[0:12:44] MM: And when he gets them right, the home run, the grand slam home run, I was like, "Oh, you got that right." And so just to have that level of support. And I knew it was going to go that way. I didn't feel right doing it without having that moment with him. But yeah, that was incredible. How about you? Give me one. Give me a highlight.
[0:13:06] LE: Oh, I mean, the biggest highlight I think this year has been the opportunities that I've been given, stepping into an expanded role, a new role, getting the chance to support a different area of our company, that could be the high. That also could be the low. But the high I think is that so far, it's kind of working. It's working out well. I'm really enjoying the work. I'm really enjoying the opportunities to make some things better that I do not like sitting in a mental space of being concerned or frustrated or whatever about a process in our company or how something is going without having the chance to solve it. I love the problem-solving.
And so this has been wildly satisfying this year to just dig in with people and help solve some of the problems. We haven't solved all of them. There will always be more. That's just how the world works. But it's been so gratifying and satisfying. And thus far, also not overwhelming. Because I think we've all been concerned a couple of times if I am going to be upending my boat kind of thing. So far, it has not overwhelmed me. I've still been able to maintain relative balance. Be there with my kid, which is it's all connected. The ability to work from home, the ability to pop out and get a little – I call them power snuggles in between meetings with Charlie and even seeing our home come together this year. It's been a crazy year.
My life this year, if you had described it to me two years ago, I would have been confused about who you were talking about because it's just a completely different world but completely in line with what I've hoped for my future, our future as a family, and everything that's being realized out here, where we live. We love where we live, other than the Starlink problems. I don't need to explain all this. This is not interesting.
But we live in a very funny piece of property that's deep into a nature preserve. And so there's also a very long driveway. And currently, there is a car stuck on our driveway because there is no public help. And so I love that. I find that whimsical and fun as long as it's not me that's stuck. But there's currently some delivery truck that's stuck at our bridge that goes over the creek that goes through the orchard to get to our house and stuff like that. Don't worry. The neighbors all have trucks that can help them out, which is great.
Basically, I loved my life this year. And the whole year has been a series of of highs, challenges, but highs. It's true where when I think of the lows, they're not that low. They're usually just challenges that were low. And then now they're better than ever.
[0:15:53] MM: Yeah, I think just riffing off that, I look at your life today. And I've known you for a long time and we've worked very, very closely for a long time. How you've evolved over the last 5 to 7 to 10 years, it's truly remarkable. And you're so young, you're so talented. And I don't think of you that way. If you put yourself out in the context of the world in terms of the level of responsibility you have and what you're handling, it's pretty extraordinary, right? And probably my low is that it doesn't feel like people in our organization understand how important something like your story is to the organization. And I just wish everybody could feel and, I guess, believe in a way that stories like yours are why we exist. And I want that for everybody, you know?
In your circumstance, similar to my circumstance, is really unusual. Someone that comes into the organization today isn't going to have the same kinds of unique opportunities that we have had and so on, because we were so small when you started, and certainly when I started.
[0:17:31] LE: Certainly when you started.
[0:17:32] MM: Yeah. Your story is – and I know all the details of it. Not all. I don't know everything, but I know so many of the details in terms of kind of where you were a decade ago and then like where you are today. And so it's a hard feeling when you care so deeply about having organization impact people in a certain way and you feel so strongly about that in a positive way and then you feel people don't believe you. And it doesn't happen all the time.
But I will tell you, I had an amazing conversation this morning. I called a franchise owner. And his name's Matthew Lawrence. And he celebrated his one-year anniversary yesterday. And I just called him to check in, say hi, whatever, you know. And his experience in his first – it was experience with this store that's a year old hasn't been great. And he started to express all of that and I was just listening. And we have those conversations. I know you have them, I have them. There's franchise owners for sure that the business is a struggle.
So then I said to him, "Okay, Matthew, give me a scale of one to 10. 10, this business is perfect. You are so happy with it. One being you want to jump off a bridge. Where are we on that?" And there's this bit of a pause and I'm waiting for a three or a four or whatever. And he goes, "Oh, man, I'm an eight." And I'm like, "Oh, eight. Oh, okay." He goes, "I love this company, man. I love this company." And I was like, "Oh, it's so good to hear." I do think that there's a fair amount of people in our world that understand it's hard. What we're doing is hard, right? We don't get it right all the time. But boy, are we trying, you know?
[0:19:29] LE: I think it is replicatable. The thing replicatable? Replicable? Yep. Okay, replicatable. Thanks. I think it is. I have great hope that it's not just that you or I experienced something so unique that it can't happen again. Because I think lots of people have pieces of this. And I think we see it happen where, for my story, barista, to home, office, to starting a new team, joining the leadership team when I was probably deeply underqualified, blah-blah-blah-blah. Maybe not exactly that way will happen again.
But I think that when people can know, can be aware of their passions, what they're passionate about doing, aware of where those passions overlap with what they're talented at with like a little sprinkling of some encouragement at the right times and some solid coaching and being coachable and being open to that feedback. And then like a willingness and a determination to keep moving forward all in the right environment, that's where I just think of it like a plant that can thrive in the right environment. It's been given all the right things. It's been shown the right opportunities. Planted in enough sun or whatever. I shouldn't probably use a gardening metaphor because I can't grow anything. But these are fake sunflowers behind me if you didn't look at them. And so, yeah, I think it is replicable and I think it is happening.
I actually do think we have people. I think of Caitlin. Caitlin Tierney has been from a barista to a very influential leader in our company. And she's been coachable and she's taking things as they come. And Alicia, who we had on this season. I mean, I could start listing people and then I'll feel bad who I'm not listing. But there's a lot of people, I think, thankfully, who they've found – for a long time I just kept saying I'm in the right place at the right time. But I think it is actually more than that. I think it is about finding something you're passionate about, understanding where your talents collide with that passion, finding ways to grow and improve and move forward. And I think that can happen to anybody. Our franchise owners, our baristas, our home office staff, our ARs, I think that opportunity is available to anyone. They just have to keep their eye on it.
Generally, I mean, we're big fans of visioning. I think it always starts with that. When I've described my future, this life that we have this year, did not picture exactly like this. And yet if I go back to my moonshot guidebooks of years past, it's like mostly this. I've always said I want to love where I lived because I'm such a homebody. I want to live in a beautiful place. I want to feel I'm on vacation at home and things – all of that has come true. At some point, I wrote down that I was going to have a kid in there because I wanted grandkids. So Charlie showed up.
[0:22:32] MM: I remember. I remember that. Yeah.
[0:22:34] LE: All that.
[0:22:35] MM: I remember you being very angry about that.
[0:22:38] LE: I was so mad. I was so mad. I threw my book on the ground when I realized I wanted grandkids, which means I had to have a kid. And like, "Oh, best thing that's ever happened to me."
[0:22:49] MM: Yep. Yep. No doubt about that.
[0:22:51] LE: Being so mad about that.
[0:22:53] MM: Oh, gosh. Okay. So you don't get to skate away without – I gave a high, LoveJoy. I gave a low, something centered around a level of – yeah, I don't want to restate it because it's a downer. Okay, what is your low?
[0:23:06] LE: It's sort of wrapped in the high. There has been a lot of uncertainty. There's been days where it is overwhelming. There's been sweet Jodi Latuszek, also former guest of the show. The other day was like, "We're not ruining you, are we?" And she was worried about me, which I so appreciate. It's been heavy. There's been a lot of heaviness kind of thing. Yeah. And that's okay. Again, it's led to all of these really wonderful, really satisfying things and feeling I'm thriving in my work and things like that. But yeah, it's been heavy.
There's been times. There's been times when husband is like, "I need you to stop working now," and those kinds of things. I don't like when I'm invading family time with work and stuff. Maintaining that balance is actually what's been the challenge and the sometimes low and sometimes overwhelming, but not at the moment.
[0:24:05] MM: It sounds about right.
[0:24:05] LE: Yeah. That'll probably continue. What do you hope for in 2025? We've done some looking back. What do you hope for, not just for this podcast? Though I would also be curious because I think we’ve got some dreams for the podcast, but also for just life in general and what highs we'd like to make higher and that kind of thing.
[0:24:27] MM: Well, I feel really, really good about a lot of the work that I'm in the middle of right now and I want to continue that work. And so, so much of that has to do with reconnecting to the company and reconnecting in ways that I think are really important. And a lot of that has to do with conversations like I had this morning with Matthew, right? Really truly understanding and knowing what the heck is going on out there.
And I think that I'm not ashamed to say that we transitioned leadership to John. And Bob and I did – oh God, I can't even say the word. We did kind of back away in an attempt to give John the latitude and responsibility to run the company. And I think there's some real big misfires in doing it that way, the way we did it. And I don't think we should have. I think there was probably a way that we were trying to create right now to continue to be inspiring and be inspired by the relationships we have with the franchise owners and give John the latitude to run the business. And that was this initiative right now where I'm getting more involved. And I'm attending the meetings and I'm reconnecting essentially. It feels amazing.
[0:25:56] LE: Good. I was going to ask how it feels.
[0:25:59] MM: Oh gosh, it feels amazing, right? I'm so proud. And I spend a lot of my life now living in a space of how proud – I'm proud of what we've done and what we're doing, right? And so I want to just keep that, figuring that, and I want to do things in my way. I don't want to try to be something that I'm supposed to be. I just want to be me.
You know what? At the end of the day, think that's enough, right? For example, I have got this new initiative that Carolyn and I have created, which is I go to stores or I have a conversation with Matthew this morning and I've bought Beanie Baby Frogs. If this wasn't a podcast, I'd pull it up in front of the camera, right? And so these Beanie Baby Frogs are the cutest things ever.
And then I was like, "Well –" because I wanted to send something to them, right? To say thank you or whatever. And then I was like, "Well, if a frog just shows up, that's a little weird." So I created this, which is a little card, a laminated card. Says, "Why a frog?" This is the reason. Frogs are extraordinarily adaptive. They will survive and thrive. Frogs are one of the most diverse species on earth. Frogs are a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Frogs are often symbols of transformation, fertility, and good luck.
Okay. This card is going to go in the box with the frog, and then I'll write a note like on a postcard or whatever, and I'll throw it in there. I'll package it up and I'll mail it to them. That's fun to me. It's a fun little thing. And as you know, I can't do button-down corporate, like, "This is the way I'm supposed to be." You know? I can't. I can't do that. I feel really good about this reconnecting.
[0:27:46] LE: It also looked like that frog was very similar to someone's hockey team.
[0:27:52] MM: Yeah.
[0:27:52] LE: Yeah.
[0:27:54] MM: I coach the Bullfrogs.
[0:27:55] LE: Yeah, one of your kiddo's hockey teams.
[0:27:58] MM: No, just one. And so that's the logo for the Bullfrogs. And so I'm going, "I wanna continue this." And then the other thing that I'm like crazy excited about is the developments that are occurring inside of the hockey program for me. And I've really been leaning into this concept of holy smokes. I know what I'm excited about on my calendar and I know what I'm not excited about on my calendar.
When I have a meeting coming up with something in relation to hockey or the program that these guys are working so hard to develop. And I shouldn't say guys because there are extraordinary women involved in this, Peggy, and Michelle, and Deb. Someone told me we now have the largest by far, the largest girl's program in Michigan. But I see these hockey meetings or conversations on my calendar and I'm like so fired up. And that's what you got to pursue. It's a passion thing. And so I'm really excited about where this is headed. And there's opportunities here that are absolutely mind-blowing, you know?
We're in a conversation, and I don't know where it's all going to go, but we're in a conversation. This is the first time I'm saying it publicly. We may be partnering with the NHL to develop a program that they think is essential. It's absolutely what I want to do. I mean, they're gonna make the decision in January as to whether they're gonna get behind it. I'm like, "How did that happen? How am I having a conversation with the folks at the NHL?" And I don't know exactly where it's all going. And I've got to temper my enthusiasm because I don't know. But I'm really looking forward to that too.
[0:29:45] LE: It's still cool. A couple of weeks ago when we were all in a room and you were like, "I got to take this call. It's the NHL." I was like, "Well, that's very exciting. And yes, you do have to take that call. Go ahead."
[0:29:58] MM: Yeah. The people that I'm talking to and working with. And yeah, I always feel the need to temper it or whatever. But they're really good people and we seem to be aligned in terms of how we think youth athletics is unhealthy and kind of what youth athletics needs. These are some of the smartest people out there in relation to the game and in relation to athletics and they're like, "Oh." They're so aligned with what we're trying to do. It's like, "Oh my gosh." Anyway, I'm super like – I get all tingly, you know?
[0:30:39] LE: Yeah. I didn't know you were gonna drop that on the pod. That's great.
[0:30:44] MM: Well, we'll see. I don't see any reason why we can't talk about it. I mean, it's happening and we're in it. It might not happen. But at the same time, I just think of the influence we can have could just be incredible, you know?
[0:30:59] LE: Speaking of influence, I do want to pop back to the concept you were talking about, which is this journey. You've been on a path.
[0:31:09] MM: I don't use that anymore because you guys made fun of me.
[0:31:10] LE: I know you don't and you still could.
[0:31:12] MM: Nope, never again.
[0:31:14] LE: If you ever give Mike feedback about overusing a phrase, he will cut it out of his life forever and you will feel horrible guilt for the rest of time. Mike, you've been on this journey and I've sort of watched it from where I sit. And it's true, when we established EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system is how our company was going to run. You took on this mantle of visionary. We put John in place as integrator, which meant he was supposed to really be in the day-to-day. Visionary is really supposed to be responsible for some really, really high-level sort of purposefully unattached to the day-to-day work.
And now you're working on coming just back in a little bit closer. But for the sake of someone listening to this call who's probably going through some similar journey as you, what are you thinking there? You say maybe we shouldn't have pulled so far out. But how do you make sure you don't, I don't now, get too far in? And like how do you stay – because we still need a visionary, right? We still need this person focused on the future of the company. Where things are headed. Really, these tone-setting conversations related to our culture. And who we want to connect with and things like that? How are you working through that and knowing when you're when you're in too deep with something and when you're not?
[0:32:31] MM: I have no idea.
[0:32:32] LE: Okay, great.
[0:32:34] MM: That's it. That's the struggle of – I think it's a struggle of leadership if you're a leader. And because you have to know this idea, this concept that I spent a lot of time writing about in Grow is that you need to be the leader your organization needs you to be today, tomorrow, this week, this month. Maybe that's being removed and letting people work through things without your engagement. Or maybe that's, "Nope, I'm gonna micromanage the shit out of this thing," because that sometimes micromanagement or getting deeply involved in the weeds can be important in a moment, right? But that balance is really, really important. Figuring out that balance. And how I'm looking at my re-engagement is – gosh, I think right now it's about truly understanding where we are. That's it. That's the re-engagement.
[0:33:46] LE: That's your main goal is just getting your arms around where we're at as a company.
[0:33:50] MM: Yeah. Because in doing it in a very personal way.
[0:33:54] LE: Yeah.
[0:33:55] MM: I had a conversation with Vincent Cantu this week.
[0:34:01] LE: He's on our brains team. He's an IT guy.
[0:34:04] MM: It's really an inspiring conversation. If I didn't have that conversation with Vincent, I would not know what's going on for him, for his team. What he feels the team needs and so on. And so that's the quest I'm on. I don't want to mandate, dictate. But I do want to bring opportunities, right? I want to bring opportunities, something like LoveJoy, the BIGGBY Connect. I want to bring these opportunities and then everyone who's responsible for running the company decide-ish, decide. Because I do think there is a place for someone in my role to say, "No, we need a leadership institute. We need a retreat center."
And I believe that in the marrow of my bones. In this virtual world, we have got to create ways for people to connect. And even if that's twice a year in an overnight event at LoveJoy with your team where you can spend real quality time together, I believe we had. That's the million-dollar question that you ask, right? And I don't have any answer, but I do feel like that is the quest of the leaders to figure out for their team in that moment who they need to be in order to support the team and the organization in developing and growing. I feel like I'm doing a lot of talking.
[0:35:32] LE: Well, sometimes I utilize this as my opportunity to find out what's going on with you. So you might be – Here, I'll talk a little bit about my hopes and dreams for 2025. That was the question I posed. Yeah.
[0:35:45] MM: Right. Sure. Sure. Thank you.
[0:35:46] LE: That was on purpose. Yeah, my hopes for 2025. We have so much good in place, and it's just not all flowing together the way that it could be. It's sort of like an engine. This is a metaphor I shouldn't use.
[0:35:59] MM: Here we go.
[0:36:01] LE: I know. Like an engine that sounds a little rattly and maybe isn't getting the best gas mileage or something. That's about the extent of what I know about cars.
[0:36:10] MM: No. But can I add something?
[0:36:11] LE: Yeah.
[0:36:12] MM: I do believe it's a high-performing engine that's sounding a little rattly.
[0:36:16] LE: Yeah, that. We have all these like wonderful, shiny, great pieces. And my hope and dream for 2025 is that we just are – the engine is humming. That we can just get to a point where we're not realizing where the rattles are or the gaps are as much anymore. And maybe that's like a naive dream because the engine also keeps growing. This is the thing is we're always like building this plane as we fly it. Someone said recently we have upgraded from a plane to a spaceship and we're now building the spaceship as we fly into space kind of thing. And it's like, yeah, that's probably true. But there's things that like slow us all down and we know it. And there's work being done right now, which I love to stop, assess where it's slowing us down, which actually takes a great deal of discipline to say we're actually going to slow ourselves down more to solve this for the future and establish things, processes, systems. I know this is not sexy, but it's like just getting those things in place so that we can just be humming and stop finding little rattly points or take a hit on our gas mileage or whatever. That's my dream for 2025.
And we're so close and yet it always feels so far because there's just always another thing and another thing and another thing. But I think it's very possible. I would love personally to be at a point where I'm not having quite so many of those days where I walk out of my office somewhat shell-shocked at the end of the day and husband is like, "You okay?" This is a secret goal. I'd like people to stop feeling the need to check on me. That would be great. Because that always suggests to me that people can see that I'm a little frazzled or a little underwater. But I have a lot of hope for 2025.
I think our company is humming. That's the one thing is like, despite any of those little rattly things in the engine, growth is happening. It's our 30th birthday next year. I feel like we're hardly even talking about that. And it's a huge deal. We are 30, flirty, and thriving. I'm so excited. It's going to be like – we were just talking yesterday, Rita and I and a couple of other people, our chief marketing officer, about what we're going to do for the 30th birthday. It's going to be freaking awesome. It's going to be so fun.
[0:38:35] MM: Good. See, I have no idea. No idea.
[0:38:36] LE: Yep. You don't need to. Don't worry about it.
[0:38:38] MM: No. I know. I know. I know. Just put me in my clown suit and tell me where to go, right?
[0:38:42] LE: Yep. We'll send you out to the field on that day. That'd be great.
[0:38:46] MM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, let's spend a second though, right? Where do you see – and if this is too nuts and bolts for this podcast, but where do you see the opportunity?
[0:38:58] LE: It's the connections. It's almost always in the connections between teams, people, groups that have been assigned a thing to solve, that kind of thing. These connections. This might get too nuts and boltsy. We'll find out. Tell me if this is really boring. But our area representatives, they are this super powerful group of people that we have in the markets. They know what's going on with our stores better than the home office usually does because they're in more places and they have more eyes and everything. And we have some connection points, but I bet we need a whole bunch more.
And then we have these committees. We've got committees working that have a specific area of focus. We've got an innovation committee, and a technology committee, and an operations committee. Oh, Tony Di Pietro is calling me. We don't have time for that.
[0:39:41] MM: Oh, put him on speaker for God's sake. Come on. It's Tony.
[0:39:46] LE: It's fine. Well, because I think he wants to talk about a very practical legal thing, and I don't think that would be great for this podcast. Yeah, we've got all these committees, but the committees are sort of floating out there and not well-connected to what I think they should be connected to, which is our Franchise Advisory Council. And our Franchise Advisory Council is this really powerful influential people. It's like we have all of these brilliant minds that have eyes on what we need them to have eyes on, solutions in mind for how to solve the things, and because of the either poorly-formed connections, or not connecting to the right place, or however it is, is we just don't – get lost in this game of translation or telephone.
And I think if we could just get those connections right, about half of the problems would go away because we would know about things quicker. We'd be able to make some decisions faster because there are certain things that we need to just get a read on from a franchise owner, or from an area representative, or from a home office team member. And I think it would just speed. That's usually where we run into the hitches. We'll be in a meeting and we're like, "Oh, we don't have the right people in this meeting because we need a franchise owner. We need a couple of franchise owners or whatever the thing is." So then we have to set up another meeting. Because of schedules, then it's another month.
[0:41:05] MM: Two weeks, yeah.
[0:41:06] LE: Yeah. So that's the thing. It's like these connections just need to be enhanced, strengthened. And I think if we can do that, we can do so much so much faster.
[0:41:18] MM: It is my theory that these connections happen more efficiently, more effectively when we have strong relationships with each other. And you can put structures in place. But if you don't have the stronger relationships between the parties, then communications always going to be a little bit off and you can make the connections. But if you're not getting authentic engagement, if you don't have trust where people can actually bring the stuff to the table, it's not just structural. It's not just systematic, right?
And so, making sure that when you reach out to an FAC member or you have a meeting, they feel comfortable bringing the real stuff, and that the group absorbs the real stuff in a healthy way. But you only do that when you've got trust. And the only way you end up with trust is by building the relationships. And so that to me – and that is one of your superpowers. I do believe it's why you're going to thrive in this role is that you know that inherently. Inherently.
[0:42:36] LE: I love people.
[0:42:38] MM: Right. That to me, I think you are – dart just hit the middle of the dartboard, the bullseye, which is we have to facilitate an environment where people are communicating. And big piece of that structural, but also building the relationships in a way that when you engage, you're getting the authentic, the genuine feedback.
[0:42:59] LE: Yeah, totally agree. That's why I love starting a meeting with something like lows and highs or some other kind of personal check-in. I think I freaked the FAC out at our first meeting together when I was like, "We're gonna spend our first basically two hours just telling each other about each other."
[0:43:13] MM: Yeah, that was cool.
[0:43:14] LE: Yeah, we have to do it. Because you have to have some – as soon as you have some personal stake in another person's life, you care more, it gives you the chance to feel a little bit safer to say your thing. I think that's exactly it, is it has to be real connection.
[0:43:29] MM: Well, and to bring this conversation full circle into the point of this podcast is that's what Love in Leadership is, are those relationships. And that people know, they genuinely know that you care. And that's what we're trying to demonstrate to the world is how critical and how important it is that people know and understand. Because we do care. But if you care and people don't know you care, it doesn't matter, right?
[0:44:05] LE: Yeah. And I think it's interesting, and maybe this actually does come back to what I hope for Season 3 of the podcast. I almost said 2. Season 3 of the podcast is I think how that care is shown is different depending on the flavor or the environment of an organization. And I'd love to find even more flavors out there. Because I think when we're talking to people, they're generally agreeing to come on our podcast because they have a genuine care for people. People don't say yes to the Love in Leadership podcast if they don't like the word love or leadership. There's at least like a baseline expectation there.
And while I would love to have some folks who want to like call us out on being full of it or call us out on our crap, I think we're finding that there are more people who just have a different version of the same thing and like unpacking – I think how Tara Milburn talked about how she runs Ethical Swag and like some of the things that they put at a high value as far as it doesn't matter where you live and it doesn't matter – certain things about you doesn't matter as long as you have these things that matter to you and things like that.
I'm just excited for the next season because I think we'll have more of those. And I think as we as we talk to people, we get new ideas from them, new connections from them for other people, we might be able to talk to. I'm excited for the next round because it feels like we have two seasons to compare. And I think this season went a little broader and I think the next season will go that much broader and we're just going to keep getting bigger, more unique, more diverse perspectives on how people are executing care in the workplace, which that's why we're here.
[0:45:49] MM: I won't name a name because I don't know if he would be comfortable with it. But when I was in my podcast circuit moment, I was doing a lot of interviews and it was almost a daily occurrence there for about six months. And I went to a live radio show and it was a very, very conservative host. I walked in and there was Trump stuff everywhere. And I know of him. I know of him, right? Okay, so maybe Trump isn't my affiliation, right? Like, whatever.
And so I walk in and I sit down and I was being really aware of a bias that I might have going into that interview and I was really trying to like make sure that that was gone, right? And it's never gone, but you can manage it, you know? And so I go in and I have this interview with this guy and it was a mind-blowingly good interview. The guy's been a journalist for 30 years. I mean it was a top-notch interview.
And so I ended up sticking around for a couple of hours afterward hanging out with him and just listening, watch him do his live show, which is super intense and cool, right? And so we get to the end of that. And he's like, "Man, I'd love to hang out more." And so we set up a time. And he came to the office and I gave him the whole tour. And then we sat down and we were talking. And I think that was actually two different moments because, yeah, it took us like hours.
Anyway, he goes, "Mike, I want to learn more about the stakeholder capitalism thing." And I think we were calling it conscious capitalism at that point. And so I said, "Sure." And I took 20 minutes and I just unfolded the whole thing right in front of him. And it was a really powerful experience because he was emotional, right? And he's like, "Isn't that what everybody wants?" Right?
[0:47:48] LE: I think so.
[0:47:50] MM: And I was like, "Yeah, man. That's what we're talking about here." And then we started to work on this really dynamic event where it was going to be – anyway, you remember it, right? And unfortunately, COVID canceled that whole thing that we were creating, and then we never really circled back to do it. But it's like, yeah, if you really, truly can build a relationship with somebody, even if you've got really different views on the world and so on, you can learn from them. And that's the point.
[0:48:24] LE: Yeah. Real relationships are what break down tropes and biases and expand your perception of people to being a lot more open and stuff. Yeah, that's amazing.
[0:48:34] MM: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.
[0:48:36] LE: Okay. Any other hopes and dreams for 2025 for the podcast? I think we have to start wrapping soon, unfortunately, because I have to go to the bathroom. Yeah.
[0:48:47] MM: No. I mean, hopes and dreams for the podcast. I just want to get a little bit better and I don't even know what that means. I feel much more comfortable doing this today than I did when we started. I do feel like it's getting better. And I think, yes, I would like to try to bring in some different perspectives and have those conversations, and learn, and at the same time continue to talk to people that were – it's one of my concerns about this podcast, and I've voiced this before, is if we only talk to people that are inside of our little bubble, that's not –
[0:49:24] LE: Yeah, we're not learning then.
[0:49:25] MM: Right.
[0:49:26] LE: Yeah. What do we think about doing more live shows? That was one thing we did this season for the first time.
[0:49:30] MM: I don't know. I don't know. Was it good? Was it effective? I don't know. I mean, I think –
[0:49:34] LE: You didn't listen to it, did you?
[0:49:36] MM: No, don't call me out. I don't listen to them, you know? And, yeah, thank you for that. But I did go back and I went back and listened to Rick's interview, not the full thing, yesterday after we got done. And yeah, I don't know. I'll go back and listen to it. And then I think that we can evaluate. It'd be nice to have people weigh in too and say, "No, the live podcast wasn't good." Or, "Yeah, I really enjoyed it," or whatever.
[0:50:02] LE: Yeah, it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell if people loved it or thought it was weird or awkward. I think we had a lot of fun when we were there.
[0:50:11] MM: Oh, it was great in the moment.
[0:50:12] LE: BIGGBY Nation Summit. And maybe it's like a once a year, just a BIGGBY Nation Summit it kind of thing. I don't think we're exactly – some of the podcasts I listened to that do live, the shows, because they're like funny.
[0:50:23] MM: Yeah, I know. Yeah.
[0:50:25] LE: We're not funny.
[0:50:27] MM: I worry about that.
[0:50:28] LE: Yeah. We're not like a comedy act. So we'll see.
[0:50:32] MM: No.
[0:50:33] LE: Maybe someone will message us and say, "Yes, more live shows." Or maybe no one's listening anymore because it's an hour plus into this conversation. Who knows?
[0:50:43] MM: Well, that's the thing though. Who knows? Who cares? At the end of the day –
[0:50:48] LE: We're enjoying it.
[0:50:49] MM: Yeah. Oh gosh.
[0:50:52] LE: I think Jeremy usually listens to the end. I love him for that.
[0:50:55] MM: Does he? Yeah. That sounds like Jeremy.
[0:50:56] LE: Yeah. Because he's the one who's pointed out when we've gotten a little silly in our outro.
[0:51:00] MM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:51:02] LE: It's our little Easter eggs at the end. All right. Well, we will call this good for the day. Good for season two. This is the wrap on season two. I do know we have a little bit of a hope for a maybe season two bonus ep coming in a couple of months with little scheduling conflicts that we had. But I look forward to when we start getting season three back on the calendar because I really do love this time.
[0:51:22] MM: Yeah, me too.
[0:51:23] LE: Awesome. Okay, dear listener, to make sure you don't miss an episode of Love in Leadership, be sure to hit that follow button wherever you find podcasts. While you're there, do us a solid, leave us a rating or review. And to follow along with Mike and I as we explore the world, follow us on our social channels @lifeyoulovelab and @MikeJMcFall. If you have an idea for a guest you think we should connect with, please email lifelab@biggby.com. And to learn more about BIGGBY Coffee's purpose of supporting you in building a life you love, check out biggy.com. Love you, Mike.
[0:51:53] MM: Love you too, Laura.
[0:51:55] LE: And we love you listeners for who you are. We'll see you next time.
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