Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Kon Apostolopoulos

Curt Anderson  00:01

Man, Damon. Happy Monday, dude.

Damon Pistulka  00:03

Ready to go this week, man.

Curt Anderson  00:07

Hey, look at Dan Biggers already. In waiting. Hey, do you see Dan was someone shaving his head over the weekend? Do you catch that? He was you know, Dan, can I do just do it man just be a man and didn’t. Alright, Damon, are you sitting down for this one? Are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:23

I’m ready.

Curt Anderson  00:24

Are you ready? Because guess what, here we go. We’ve got coach Kon in the house. Kon dude. It’s been so long overdue. Happy Monday. How are you my friend?

Kon Apostolopoulos  00:34

Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Happy Monday to you guys. Love being here. We are way overdue brother. We are way overdue.

Curt Anderson  00:41

Well, man, I I’ve oh my gosh, we got so much to talk about. I’m gonna you know what, Damon, I’m gonna be pulling punches. I’m gonna I’m just I’m going right for it. You’re ready. You go right in. We’re diving right? In the deep Ed man. There’s no like, you know. Okay. Kon. We have a ton of talk about Dude, you’re international author, speaker award winning coach, you’ve got a new book coming out, you had a book I was with you, brother. When you came out with your book during COVID. I became fast friends with you my admiration or respect for you off the charts. We have so much juicy things to talk about. My first question for you as a little guy growing up. You were a little guy growing up? Who was your hero? Who was your hero as a little guy growing up?

Kon Apostolopoulos  01:30

Who was my hero? Well, first of all, I had tremendous respect and love for my father. And little did I know at the time how much he had to overcome to accomplish what he did, and do what he did. And this is one of those really, really powerful rags to raising a family kind of story, the immigrant story, and I just had no idea man how much my father had to overcome to get there until growing up, I left and came back and reconnected with him as an adult. But I just loved my father. He was my inspiration, my role model in so many ways. And he’s influenced me in in many, many ways. I mean, my, my desire to help others my desire to be of service, my desire to work hard, and kind of put my head down and get things done. Not the flashy, but the substantive. That was what he was all about. All right,

Curt Anderson  02:27

not that flashy. No surprise whatsoever, kind of what was your father’s name, please.

Kon Apostolopoulos  02:32

His name is the equivalent of Michael in English of his name was Nicolas, which in Greek translates to Michael. Michael.

Curt Anderson  02:39

All right. Well, hey, big shout out to Michael Now were you born in Greece,

Kon Apostolopoulos  02:44

I was not. So mind. I’ve got that interesting, unique thing of being born to first generation immigrants in Australia. So my parents immigrated there, back in the 60s to basically look for a better life when the the country was inviting workers into their factories into a lot of their manufacturing plants. So my parents went there, they got married, and I was born there along with one of my sisters. But then, like many immigrants, they had that desire that pulled back to their homeland. So at some point, when I was still young, they went back. So I have all of my formative years and finished school, finished my college, my military service, started working all of that those experience were in Greece. So I relate a lot to Greece as being my homeland. But then I got to taste what it was like from my parents coming to the States, as a first generation immigrant myself, with my wife, my wife was from the US and we fell in love. We were working together, abroad, and we decided to get married, and we came to the States. This is a tremendous land of opportunity. And most people don’t even realize how good it is here. We complain about a lot of things, man, but unless you’ve lived and worked other places, I’ve traveled and worked on four different continents. I can guarantee you, this is still the land of opportunity.

Curt Anderson  03:59

Well, alright, man. We’re just getting things started, man. We got a few people dropping some hellos here, guys, Happy Monday to you, oh, you’re out there. drop us a note. Let us know that you’re here and boy, do yourself a favor, connect with Kon here on LinkedIn. He puts out all sorts of inspirational information. He’s coming out with a brand new book that we’re gonna be diving into. We’re gonna be talking about fresh business solutions. He does all sorts of workshops, speaking kind before we go there, dude, you’re talking about meeting your wife now when I became you know, as I met you, and again, just absolute love what you’ve got going on here and we’ve got another friend here. Evan from Cincinnati. Oh, Yvonne. I’m sorry, Yvonne. And Vaughn. Happy Monday to you. Thanks for joining us here. We got another friend here. So con, five years on Carnival Cruise. Do I have that correct? Well,

Kon Apostolopoulos  04:47

it felt that way was a little less than that. But it was close. It was close to that. So I brought out with my wife. We’re bringing out the brand new ships from the yards that they were built in Helsinki in Finland. Yeah, all the way out of the rappers and starting up their process starting up their routes, brand new ships. Now it’s funny, because 30 years later, my wife and I just went on a cruise in December back on Carnival, after 30 years since we worked there. And we went on what was considered, you know, a fairly large ship. And it just felt tiny compared to some of these others that are out. Yeah, I’m looking at going I can’t believe this. But we were serving at the time we those 70,000 tonnes of ship 2500 guests on board every week and 1000 crew. That seemed like a lot. Nowadays, you can double or triple that almost.

Curt Anderson  05:36

Yeah. Gosh, isn’t that crazy? So if we got a few more people dropping notes, we got Eric from Dallas, Eric, happy Monday. We’ve got Patrick in the house. Thank you for joining us, Patrick. Brian Fleming from Detroit’s here today. And Dan says I’ve proved that message. Kon, what was it like we were gonna be we’re gonna dive into inspiration, your leadership expertise? Before we go there? Just curious minds would love to know, what was it like being on a cruise ship? Just talk a little bit about you know, of the world the world you traveled? Let’s hear a little bit about that. Well,

Kon Apostolopoulos  06:11

let me put it this way time. And I’m changes when you’re working on cruise ship. It’s a very different experience, because you are literally on 24/7. Because at any given moment, somebody can come knocking on your door, even if you’re not scheduled and say, hey, somebody got sick, somebody’s got hurt. Somebody needs help. We need you out there. What are you going to do? I mean, just know where to go. It’s not when you can’t really call in like, Hey, I’m running late. I’ve got traffic, where are the stairwell going? Yeah. So you are basically there and you are on and time is changes things, the relationships that you have with people are so much more accentuated because you are in that 24/7 world. I mean, when my wife and I met, we talked about that extensively. You know, we started dating, we started seeing each other, but you know, the first six months felt like it was three years of being together because it’s not like on land where you Okay, I’ll see you next week, I’ll see you in a few days, your cabins are like two doors down. So it’s like, yeah, where you’re gonna go. So everything is compounded. And there is a different focus on things. So everything is accentuated, it’s like you’re living in this bubble. But at the same time, there are little things that you start losing track of time. And, you know, one week rolls into the next into the next into the next and you’re turning things around, and the faces, you know, you start losing track of that unless you pay attention unless you’re very mindful to stay in the moment, it’s very easy to lose track. But I can tell you, my contracts were nine and a half months long, and being in that kind of environment for that long, my friend. It really you start understanding what it’s like to feel that pressure and get into that cabin fever mode. By the end of the my contract towards the end, I have to be honest, man, I just, I just did not want to be around people beyond I just find some quiet spaces that just go and kind of relax a little bit. Because it was just too much. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  08:02

How about if we’re going to die, I’m going to segue into leadership from there any favorite places favorite spots, any any, you know, herring, uh, you know, terrifying events that occurred on your, on your excursions or anything like that.

Kon Apostolopoulos  08:18

I have to admit that, you know, we didn’t have I mean, there’s so many stories out there that go on about cruise ships and everything else, I have to admit, we were very, very fortunate. We experienced some amazing things. I mean, especially at a young age, you know, being able to go places where it may not normally on my, you know, checking account, I couldn’t afford to be there. And he’s going to places. So being able to work and travel. I mean, that is a tremendous education, going to places throughout the Caribbean, Eastern Western Caribbean, South America. And we being able to do that and coming from a country that is renowned for its tourism and hospitality from Greece, where, you know, for us, it’s one of our top industries. It was very much appreciating what was there, the similarities, but also the major differences between, you know, many of the beautifully natural places in the Caribbean versus a lot of the natural beauty that my homeland of Greece has. But there’s also a rich history as archaeology, there’s so many other things that go with it, and being able to compare and contrast and appreciate each one for what it was. It’s amazing man, and looking at what industry can do to a place. I mean, let’s let’s kind of bring it home a little bit to our audience here. When you think about the opportunities that an industry can bring to a place that otherwise would struggle from for its economic viability. When you bring in an industry that can employ people that can give them opportunities. That’s a tremendous boon. I mean, no matter what you say, there are, you know, companies are smart, they’re going to look for places where they can make money, but it’s also an opportunity for the communities that they go into to be able to pay partner with them. And as long as you can work with people there is a good whether you’re you’re negotiating from a place of trust, of mutual respect, of willingness to work together. So many good things can come out of that brother. Well, gosh, absolutely love

Curt Anderson  10:15

this. I hear we got David ray from Montreal, David, Happy Monday to you. Again. Look, I Curt Anderson, Coach Kon is looking to take the moniker hate con is Mr. Worldwide man. I have pulled no punches here on this stage. Ken, let’s get into this. So we’re talking to if you’re just joining us, boy, check out con on LinkedIn, he has a lot of exciting things going on. We’re gonna be talking about a new book that he’s just putting out this month. You guys heard it here. You’ve been? We’ve been talking about it, but we’ll see. Yeah, first. But con, when you’re on that cruise ship? And going through that early stage of your career? Were you starting to sense like that there was a calling? Or like, what what? Where did you find that inspiration of leadership of like, you know, really, that that this is going to be how you make the world a better place helping people be better leaders, wouldn’t it when your career did that start hitting you.

Kon Apostolopoulos  11:03

I have to admit, it was a lot earlier than that. In many ways, I’m a firstborn. And so many times firstborns are thrust into that kind of role, especially when they have younger siblings, with my father having to work many hours be, you know, sometimes he traveled between Greece and Australia to go and work for three to six months to make enough money to pay for our tickets to go join him. So I’d have to be from a very young age, I remember, like nine years old, or 10, my father attorney was saying, you know, you’re the man of the house. No, you have to help and take care. And so, at nine years old, I went into my local grocery store and asked if I could sweep floors, just to be able to help my family. Because, you know, sometimes you don’t realize how, how economically deprived the poor you might be until you leave the house. And so I look for those things. And I never forget my roots. I mean, my parents did the best that they could with what they had, with a third, fourth, fifth grade education, growing up in the end of the tail end of the Second World War in Greece, where the country was literally destroyed and had to come back from its ashes. I mean, these are, these are stories that I look at that. And it’s not about the fact that my father perhaps didn’t make, you know, millions of dollars of doing that. My father was somebody who taught me what class was, even with somebody who could barely write his name. And that had nothing to do with his education, or his income or anything else. It was his heart. And so it thrust me in a situation very early on to take on that leadership mantle and be responsible for others. I mean, I served in the military, I went into the military, which for Greeks, Greek males is, is a mandatory thing. And at the time, it was two years. Well, I served as a as a drill instructor as a sergeant. And so I had responsibility for platoon of men very early on, and being able to train people to protect them through those responsibilities. And throughout every part of my job. I’ve always gravitated towards leadership roles, not because I wanted to be in the spotlight, but because I felt the calling to serve and support others, and to improve things to make things better to always constantly look for, what can we tweak what we can we adjust? What can we even go against the grain and create some breakthrough results from this? I did it in the military. I did it in the private sector. I did it when I worked for companies that had 100,000 employees spread over 100 countries. And I did it for private companies. So my entire track record has been all about that. How can we make things better? How can we get the most? How can we win the hearts and minds of our people and get the most out of our systems and processes?

Damon Pistulka  13:43

Wow.

Curt Anderson  13:44

Okay, Damon, there’s our first chapter Mike with diamond coach con right there. So I will be off to Mike moment, man who’s that? Alright guys, if there’s a takeaway there, heart boy, just you know, talk about Kon’s father being such an inspiration in the heart that he showed. And kind I just love the humility that you’re talking here about just being that servant leader and, you know, getting my respect and admiration for you and our friendship. A couple of folks are dropping notes here and we’ve got Alan Happy Monday to my friend and boy, we’ve got a great conversation going on. Alan, thank you. David has a comment here. Well said when I was younger, my grandfather always told me I had a roof over my head shoes on my feet food in my stomach. I was rich. David, thank you, man. Your grandfather is a very wise man. Yvonne says the first child is always the right. Great comment there. Ken Alright, so let’s go in here. So guys, again, if you’re just popping in please connect with Coach Khan on LinkedIn, all sorts of great stuff. We’re gonna be diving in, got a great book and also you if you look when you connect with Khan, I want you to admire his headline here. helping organizations develop leaders that will make your business plans a reality. So guys, hang tight because we’re gonna be diving into this kind of what inspired you and your wife to come back to the states. So you’ve traveled all over, you know, you grew up in Greece, served in the military served out, you know, traveled the world wide. What brought you back to the States? And what was that like for you those first steps.

Kon Apostolopoulos  15:11

So when my wife and I got married, we got married in Greece, and we were planning on kind of starting our initial steps there, I have to admit that, you know, not even comparing it to now, 30 years later, but my English even at the time was better than my wife’s Greek. And so, you know, it was one of those things where I felt, again, I wanted her to be comfortable, I wanted her to be happy, I wanted her to be in a good place. And so our decision was that, you know, we still don’t have anything definitive here in Greece to kind of transition into the economy was not the greatest. I mean, it was pre, a lot of the the rough, you know, austerity measures. But still, it wasn’t a great opportunity. And, you know, we were at a time where it felt it felt right to come to the States, and really look for that next level, that next transition and seek those opportunities out. And so I told him, I said, you know, if we can’t be close to my family, might as well come be close to yours. And at the time, most of our family, almost all of it was here, located in Denver, Colorado. So this is where we planted our roots and built our home. And this has been our place for the last 30 years, almost. I mean, so we’ve been we’ve been here since 1996. And really, really, I’ve come to appreciate this beautiful state that I live in this beautiful country that I live in, and the place where I call home. And so to me, you know, I’ve traveled throughout the US with my work, and, and I’ve been very blessed. And I’ve seen many, many beautiful places. But still, I put Colorado right up there. Nice. There.

Curt Anderson  16:47

All right, cool. So let’s start diving in. So you get come back to the states, you get sold. And then let’s start diving into your career. And I looked for as you described this, I’d love to kind of tie in like these leadership moments that you started seeing, whether good bad, the ugly, were there opportunities for improvement, or maybe mentors, that you came in along the way, we’re like, boy, I really want to follow this woman, this guy, and I like what they’re doing. So let’s go through a little bit of like your career tied in with your leadership journey, in your in your younger days?

Kon Apostolopoulos  17:16

Well, when I came to the States, I mean, there was a lot of questions about what will what would I do. And so when I started out one of the, you know, back in those days, I still picked up a newspaper, opened it up and was looking for job openings. And I came here we arrived just before Christmas 96. And I had the responsibility of making sure that I did my part for our family with my wife and making sure that I was out there hustling, looking for my next job? Well, for many reasons, I wasn’t going to keep doing what I was doing prior to that. So I was looking for something different, I was looking for a change. And in the current environment, I found a job opening in a call center of all things. And they were it was a travel agency, basically. But a membership travel agency back in those days, if you remember, the big call centers, or big cube farms, and having all of these different subscription services, for shopping, and for travel, and for all these different things back in the day before the age of the internet, and everything else that now we have all of that. So I started off actually as a phone rep and started off doing that. But the fascinating thing for me was, as I look back on those opportunities, you know, there’s, there’s an expression that Steve Jobs has that addressed him is that you cannot connect the dots. Unless you look backwards, you can’t really connect them looking forward, you can say oh, you want that I want to go here, there there. But life has its way of taking you where you need to be. So connecting the dots backwards, that position being on the phones forced me to improve my English and my communication skills, my ability to really be more in a service and sales environment, be able to support clients one on one, to really listen to what people were saying, because you couldn’t really see them, or you could do is hear them being able to recognize the cues. And for the first time in my life in my career, I was in an environment where the company was really investing in its people. So I didn’t leave any opportunity to get certified to get licensed to get any sort of furthering my education and my growth. Well, in the first few months, I was there I had very, very good success. Whether it’s because the way that I approached things maybe a little bit differently than others, maybe because I was willing to listen. But an opportunity came up for a supervisory role. And everybody around me said, yeah, they’re never gonna hire somebody who’s only been here three months, man, come on. But the thing is that people forget that when you are in your career, and when you’re moving from one place to the other, you’re not starting from zero. You’re starting from experience. So I had a lot of transferable skills that I brought to the table. And so I interviewed and to everybody’s surprise I got the supervisory job. And so now I’m a leader of a team. I’m not just a high performer, but I’m a leader of high performers. And I’m trying to create that high performing team. And then another eight months later came by, and an opportunity for a training executive came up somebody who was going to oversee the training functions in a dozen call centers. Again, people around me naysayers, crabs in a bucket, we call that now collusion of mass mediocrity. Were trying to bring me down, say, hi, come on, man that was going to accept you there. You don’t have the skills, you haven’t been around here long enough. You just got promoted? Well, I applied for the job. And because of my background, because of what they saw on me, they gave me the chance. And so now I’m overseeing the training departments for 12 Different call centers, having, you know, contact center directors, being my clients serving with them working with corporate, and my career took off from this over the next few years. Basically, I got to that point where I went from somebody at an entry level, we rode the wave of the company growing, this is a company that became 100,000 employees bit over 100 countries in the world in the time of mergers and acquisitions in the late 90s, and early 2000s. And then ultimately, I came to the point where through my certifications through the investment that they made me, I was paying the company back in spades. And so at some point, they had prepared me I went through my six sigma training, a green belt, my black belt, and they basically had me working as an in house consultant. So it was one of those things where, you know, Thursday, I would get a call, and it would be, you know, Monday, you’re in London. Okay, what’s the problem, we don’t know it, most people go fix it. And it was one of those kinds of things where people would say, Go fix the problem. If it involves people process, organizational setup, go fix it. And so I developed my expertise, cutting my teeth in a situation, even in the business division that I supported, we have 14 different operating companies, you can’t buy that kind of experience. And so many of the things that some of my other counterparts learned through working for them, you know, the big four consulting firms at the time, whether it was Accenture, now, Anderson, back then, you know, McKinsey and CO, many of the others, you know, all of those big companies, were basically having their people do the same thing. I just happened to be in house. And so you know, when you can show, as a consultant, an in house consultant, that has to prove himself that much more, that you are making a difference in the millions of dollars for your company, millions, and our dollar savings, that’s a great way to be able to develop the kind of resume and the kind of experience that then you can take forward. But inevitably, you know, now we’re talking post 911, the travel industry has taken a hit, it’s been one of those situations where now the environment has changed, things are starting to shut down. It’s post Enron where the wall street markets, were not willing to have companies that were too big to fail. And so this behemoth basically had to be segmented. And it was broken off into four different companies. One was the Wingate one when you get but the big hotel groups that basically had all of the different brands, eight or 910 brands than it was the car rental company, the Avis Budget Group, then it was a lot of the travel distribution that had not only the the travel membership groups, but it also had the online reservations at the time and other factors. And then they had a real estate branch. You know, century 21, Coldwell bankers, I mean, these are big, big, major brands that everybody knows. And so all of that kind of disperse. And at the time, you know, we got to the mid, you know, the first 2005. And all of a sudden, you know, we’re at a point where I had a conversation with my boss, and she says, Look, everybody’s either moving to Jersey, or we have to let them go, because we’re restructuring. And you know, in talking with my wife, we weren’t prepared to move to Jersey, as beautiful as it may be in certain places. That’s not where we were, we still have family here. That wasn’t the right thing. And I had already spent, you know, quite a few years with the company. And I figured it was time for a change. And so then I just took my all of that experience and everything else and started working for what I consider a 30 year old startup, a company that in the in the hospitality and restaurant sector, that has multiple brands, multiple vertical verticals throughout North America is the old Chicago rock bottom Chophouse brands that may be in many of your locations as well. And at the time, you know, it was still privately held. And it was a company that had people there. The tenure was amazing. My boss was basically the original hostess in the first restaurant. The SVP of the brand was the first kitchen manager. So these were people that grew up and built a brand from scratch. And so there was so much to learn from them and being able to bring a lot of the discipline and the structure and the methodologies from it. My corporate days from working from a fortune 100 company into an environment where this company was growing by leaps and bounds and had about 200 units throughout North America, mostly corporate, but also starting to franchise, you know, there’s a lot to learn there and help them. So that’s where I stepped in and started building all of the leadership development programs really enhanced the corporate university, built for the first time succession planning methodologies and techniques to really be able to spot and develop all of the top talent that we had hidden in our ranks. And so that for another, you know, eight, six years or so, seven years became my next thing. But again, life has other plans. You know, remember that little thing that happened in 2000? What was it 2008 With that great recession that we talked about the shutdown? Well, guess what that did the restaurant companies. So so at the time, you know, we we bootstrapped it. We we, you know, pulled up our sleeves, and we all dug in there. And we made it through. So through the work that we were doing that we were able to kind of keep, you know, the loan sharks and the bankers at bay, and got through that, and we made it all the way till 2011. And at that point, again, the senior leadership team, the founders of the company, were getting up there. I mean, they will probably most of them were in their eighth decade of life. So they were like, okay, at some point, we got to call it good. And so they decided to put the company up for sale, it got bought up by a hedge fund out of New York, and along with some other purchases that they did, they made some other mergers and machinations and all of a sudden most of us here at the corporate offices found ourselves reorg through no fault of our own. And so that’s when you know, I got into this last chapter of my life basically where I became an accidental entrepreneur my friend.

Curt Anderson  26:54

Yeah. Okay, man, lots unpack that we got a few comments I’m gonna go back and circle back to Dan bigger says mean people actually talk to each other on the phone. Yes, stand back in prehistoric times. People actually. Got on Cleo. Good morning. Happy Monday to you. Dave says what an incredible story Eric has been here Eric I couldn’t agree with you more A wise man once told me you should listen twice as hard as you speak I guess that’s why we have two years and Alright Is anyone keeping track of those mic drops? I lost count Dave i i should get like a little marker and like you know, tag them as we go along. Dan bigger says a 2007 killed the company I worked for and Yvonne says good leadership, create great followers to reach their goals. Let’s keep this party rollin con. So you decide to plant your own flag you get your I love that you’re the accidental entrepreneur freshpet solutions get if you guys are just joining us, man. We’re here with Coach Khan. This is this is what we’ve been waiting for. Because now we’re going to dive in now. masterclass. Start right now. So kind of let’s dive in you have you So dude, I was with you. When you wrote your first book. I believe it was your first book, right? Seven keys to navigating a crisis. So you talked about like, hey, that little thing that happened in 2008 Well, apparently little something happened in 2020 I’m not sure right.

Kon Apostolopoulos  28:17

Yep. This little thing that kind of impact everybody in the world.

Curt Anderson  28:22

Absolutely. So alright, so you had you’re working on your second book called The engagement blueprint? COMM. Let’s go there. What are some you know, without giving away the secret sauce, our friends in the crowd here they need to go out and buy your book. And by the way, guys, out there. Thank you for joining us. drop a note in the chat box. Let us know that you’re out there. This is a great opportunity to connect with each other it is I’ll tell you there are just top notch people here today. Connect with each other. And I really encourage you I invite you welcome you connect with our dear friend coach Khan. You’re going to thank us later for that one. Kind of let’s dive in. Let’s start giving us a little little leadership lesson little leadership masterclass. What are some things? You know, we target a lot of smaller companies, manufacturers, small entrepreneurs, what are some leadership tips that you would like to share with some of the folks here today?

Kon Apostolopoulos  29:05

Okay, so let’s kind of bring it to the content now of the new book. So it’s connected threads, a little bit of a maze. So when I wrote the first book, I wrote it with my dear friend, Dr. Ilya Grigoris. And at the time in 2020, and mid March, as you remember, everything shut down. And we had a lot of questions about what the hell’s gonna happen next. So when you do the kind of work that I do, where I, I speak for a living, I present for a living, I consult for a living and everything is shut down. You don’t know what your next check is gonna come from. I mean, everybody was canceling because they didn’t know what was doing. Everybody was being sent home. And that’s when we wrote the first book in a span of 45 days. Why? Because we needed to get that message out. We needed to help people. So the seven keys to navigating a crisis. It is a basically a field guide a blueprint, if you will, a roadmap to help people deal with the unexpected change in their life. It’s sometimes it’s the crisis that you have. It’s called the pandemic, sometimes it’s losing your job. Sometimes it’s a change. You know, you get a divorce, whatever it is things happen in our lives that we don’t expect. We don’t plan for it. But how do you handle it? So that itself was a roadmap. Now I spent the next two years working with my clients, either coaching them individually and how to deal with things individually. But then the second year, you know, when not by now we’re talking about 2022. And when to use past that original piece, and the world has changed, and now they’re asking me, What do I do next? How do I now take my team and help my team from that? So we took the same seven keys and expanded them to the organizational level and helped now organizations and leaders of teams do that. But now we’re in 2023. So already, I’m getting the questions. What’s next? We’re tired of this thing. We need to start moving beyond that. We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Where do we go from here? Well, while everybody was focused on the big headlines that said, another 50 million people quit their jobs and the great resignation, I’m looking at it because my job is to look below that below the headlines into the source into the root cause of things. And so I’m tracking the results. And for the first time, in over a decade, the employee engagement numbers take a turn for the worse, they’re going down instead of up in the US, we had a steady incline of the engagement numbers, people were getting more and more engaged with work. And now for all of a sudden, even though superficially, it seemed like things were okay, when you dug a little bit deeper in the trends and the numbers and the data, you could see that things were changing. And not just that engagement was no longer growing, but instead was going down. For the first time now we’re seeing a spike in disengagement in people that are actually disengaged and sabotaging things. So think about it this way. When I tell people, okay, let’s take global numbers, because we have people that are across the globe right here. When Gallup studies, they say basically, that you have one in five, about 20% 21% of your people are engaged in work, which means they are there, they’re they’re giving their best, that discretionary effort that they’re giving, they are committing to you their heart, their mind, their soul, they’re working, they’re the ones that are asked the questions, looking for how to make things better, leading events, stepping up to the plate, then, if you’re in a boat, that’s the person that’s rowing like crazy. There are another three people that are just along for the ride, they’re floating down river every now and again, they’ll dip their paddle in, they’ll help a little bit, they’ll do something. But for the most part, they’re collecting a paycheck and kind of enjoying the ride. And then you have that one person, that one disengaged, that 90%, the one and five, that’s in the back of the boat, poking holes in your boat, trying to sink that thing, because they are pissed off at you at their environment, because their needs are not getting met. And by golly, if they’re not happy, nobody’s going to be happy. They’re spreading the poison the cancer throughout your organization. They’re the ones that are constantly bad mouthing it, it’s awesome them look at how they’re treating us. This is bullshit, let’s go somewhere else. I can’t believe that my friend went there. And they treat him so much. These are the people that are spreading that poison in your organization. And for even small operations. I mean, I did some back of the napkin, math, if I will, Kurt, when these studies come out and say you know what, it’s about a third of the annual salary of a person 34,000. For every 10,000 You pay somebody is lost productivity for these disengaged people. Let’s do simple math here. Back to the mat mat napkin math that I did here on my notepad while I was waiting, let’s assume that an average worker at an entry level or somewhere on a basic level, let’s say $30,000 annually, right? If that’s $30,000 annually, the amount of lost productivity per worker is about $10,000 for your company. Now, let’s say that your company, let’s say it’s a medium sized operation that has maybe 100 workers that on average make 30,000 a year that $10,000 in lost productivity per disengaged employee, if it’s 90% is $190,000. You tell me if you’re a business owner and entrepreneur, and you’re bleeding $190,000 a year? Are you going to pay attention to that or not?

Curt Anderson  34:20

That That’s a staggering number. Is it? It kind of like just hit you right in the face? Right? Yeah. And

Kon Apostolopoulos  34:26

these are just averages Curt. In most cases, it’ll be higher than that. So the need to write a book about how do we solve that problem for leaders? Because to me, there’s books out there to talk about engagement and mindfulness and finding happiness at work. I wrote it from the perspective of as a leader, what can you do to build the kind of culture the kind of environment that’s gonna foster that level of commitment that you need from people and the level of performance that you need to be competitive? If you’re going to win today, you need as many of those people on your side as possible

Curt Anderson  35:01

All right. Dave Chrysler, that was like drop the mic number 11. I think a couple comments or con. Dan bigger has your original book. I have your I bought your original book and read it absolutely loved it. I have it. I have it on my Kindle. Patrick has a question here. I haven’t read it yet. So I’m going to read out loud for folks Damon with for our friends on catching us on podcast later, I thought, yo, they can’t see it. So I’m going to read it. Has there ever been a moment in the beginning of your career, when you are in doubt of what you were doing? Or was the need to hustle simply bigger, and you had to bite on your lips? And then realize that by dealing different with the customers than most because of actually listening would open up the first door? How do you like that question?

Kon Apostolopoulos  35:44

Wow, that’s an interesting one to unpack. There’s an expression I think most of us are familiar with. It’s called necessity is a mother of invention. Okay, and so when you don’t have a choice, you have to for John, you know, Homer when he wrote the Trojan, but the story about the Trojan War, the Iliad, he talked about how the Greeks landed outside on the coasts of Troy and burnt their ships, their leaders burnt their ships in order to take away the excuses. When you have no excuse or no fallback plan, you have to move forward, you don’t have a choice. For me, in many cases, and I’ll take probably the most recent example. I mentioned to you when I got reordered out of my job in 2000, elevens, late 2011. That summer, I lost my mother. So I had been through a series of interviews where people have looked at me, they said, you know, we’d love your background, we’d love your story. We’d love your personality, or what we think you can bring to the table. But we don’t think we can afford you. Which is another way of saying ageism. Yeah, yeah. So. So I was without a job running out of my severance package. And I lost my mom. So I had an opportunity flying back from Greece that summer. And on the spur of the moment, you know, I listened to this little voice inside me, that prompted me to make a call to somebody that I had actually interviewed with. And this was one of the few people that I actually believed in when he said, I really want to work with you. But I just can’t afford you. Because a year from now, somebody’s going to come back and offer you what you’re really worth. And I’ll be back looking for your position to fill your position. But I really want to work with you. So I picked up the phone and called him. And that was the start of a relationship with him where he was willing to pay me as a consultant. And that launched my business who I once the first contract, I won. And it kept me almost full time busy helping them. It was a community college, and I helped oversee two of their grant funded projects, building a process that then they could use to manage projects and manage that kind of work going forward and training their people. So they had the skills to be able to deliver on those projects going forward. So that was my first client and that helped me launch my my no basically business freshman solutions.

Damon Pistulka  38:09

Okay, awesome. Just the floor of the accidental entrepreneur. The

Curt Anderson  38:14

little moment of silence right there. I mean, just in Patrick, thank you guys. Drop your questions in boy, I see. I think there might be another question. Drop your questions again, connect with Khan here on LinkedIn, you’re just killing the gold nuggets here just coming left and right. Patrick, thank you for that awesome question. And I you know, I think Kon how you tacked it, there’s so many there’s so I’m sorry. I’m like my vocabulary, so many nuggets to unpack right there. You know, the humility, the the persistence that you showed, and the belief that this person had in you to take a chance, and how you guys kickstart that relationship and how it catapulted your accidental entrepreneur career. Very inspiring. I want to grab a couple of comments here, haven’t read these that Dan says a spike happened because some leaders just don’t get it. They don’t use their teams that they hired to do their jobs. A leader doesn’t always have all the answers and are scared to admit it. Yvonne has a great comment here. It’s so true. I’ve been through this in the restaurant business. And I’m going to skip down to I want to get down to David had a question here. I don’t know if it should be about finding happiness in the workplace, but better said fulfillment. People get to work, they should ask themselves the question. How can I be useful today? Can any comment on that statement there?

Kon Apostolopoulos  39:34

He’s absolutely right. Because it’s easy to misconstrue employee happiness with employee engagement. I’ve known a lot of employees that were very happy, very happily going about their day taking advantage of every opportunity they have and having a wonderful time but really don’t give me two thoughts about your client and how to move the business forward. What was the last time you went into a store, coffee shop or retail store somewhere? And there are people that are engaged. And there are people that really are looking at their phones texting their friends, they’re happy as could be talking in the back sharing inside jokes and not paying any attention to the customer. Yeah, so employee happiness and employee engagement are not the same. Neither is satisfaction for that matter. employee satisfaction is also something different. I mean, a lot of times people try to measure employee satisfaction. I mean, if people did, you know, during the Great resignation, when people were shifting and migrating in packs and droves, that was satisfied where they were, but we’re still looking for whatever else was out there. So they can, they can pad their bank accounts and look for something else. So the fulfillment that Dave talks about is truly what we’re trying to get to, that level of fulfillment only comes when you fulfill certain parts, and I talked about it in the book, there are what I’ve identified as four main drivers of engagement. So these four drivers of engagement, if you as a leader can satisfy those drivers of engagement, you will have people that will give you their commitment, and they will work hard for you.

Curt Anderson  41:05

Okay, do we so I want to do a spoiler alert con? Are you going to give it a certain should we give them a sliver of

Kon Apostolopoulos  41:13

that? Let’s hear we should I think we should, I mean, because these are not, these are not just employee engagement drivers, these are human engagement drivers, they apply to your kids, they apply to your partner they apply to your neighbor, they applied to everybody around us, because they speak to our human nature. So this is the point where I invite people to take out a piece of paper and write it down because it’s very simple. And guess what? It’s not about the money. So the first key driver that we all seek to satisfy is the need to feel valued. We all want to feel valued. We all strive for that. So from that perspective, how do you make people feel valued? Well, you make sure that you appreciate them. You you say thank you, thank you go so far, you create an environment where people feel safe, safe to express themselves feel safe to voice their opinion about things, safe to come up with ideas, and even physically safe. I mean, the physical, mental, emotional, psychological safety is paramount. You don’t have that you don’t have a business. If people know, but nobody wants to go into an environment, they get abused or threatened every day. Yeah. So if you can’t do that, you’re not even going to talk about engagement, you’re talking about survival at that point. So safety, acceptance, people want to know that they’re accepted for who they are, they bring themselves to work. So that’s a big part of feeling valued. People want to feel respected. And in the book, I talk about two different kinds of respect. There is owed respect that we have for each other because we’re human beings, we’re professionals were people that comes natural, that’s automatic, that should be a given. You don’t go around disrespecting people, nobody’s better than anybody else. Just because you have a title doesn’t make you better than anybody else. So the old respect that we have each other, but then you can add on to that the earned respect the respect that you get, because you perform well, because you’re contributing to the team because you’re doing those things that needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. And ultimately, that gratitude, appreciation and attention, how many times have you sat down with a leader, your supervisor, and all he or she can do is look at their computer or their phone or their tablet or something else, and you feel like an afterthought. That’s not making people feel valued. So help people feel valued, do the simple things that will help people feel valued, tell them, Don’t assume that they know, show it to them through your actions, because that will make it matter even more than your words. So feeling valued is the starting point. But that’s not where it ends. Because from there, you can transition then into feeling connected. We all want to feel connected. We want to feel connected to our teammates, we all want to feel connected to the organization that we work with. We want to feel connected to our goals and how they fulfill the organization’s goals. I mean, I’ll give you a simple example ticket outside of the work room for anybody that’s volunteered their time and worked with a volunteer group. You see that passion that people bring to that cause and it has nothing to do with money, because they’re not getting paid. They’re volunteering, but they worked twice as hard. Then if they weren’t getting paid, because their heart’s in it, they’re committed to it. They’re connected to the cause. Look at the last time you guys went to a sporting event with the people around you, you’re connected to them because they’re wearing the same damn Jersey you are and they’re supporting the same cause and group and team you are. How much connected Do you feel there? You see a friend that you grew up with or you see somebody that went to the same school that you did automatic connection. So help people connect to the more connected they are to your team, to you to the organization to the goals, the more they’re going to give from themselves. More than gonna stay around and fight through things. And then let’s take it to the next piece, which is people want to feel that they’re contributing, so they have a need to feel productive. People want to feel productive, they want to feel like the time that I’m putting into this amounts to something. If you feel like no matter what you do, it’s not going to make a difference. Are you really going to work that hard? No, you don’t care. You look around and you PC people that are depressing. Well, what difference does it make a beaten down, I got nothing to offer, it’s not going to change anything, I’m just here to collect a paycheck. But when you can show people how they can be productive, how they can make a difference, how they fit into the bigger picture, how their simple job, that widget that they produce, fits into the bigger piece. I mean, I interviewed people from all walks of life leaders that I have tremendous respect for, that have a global footprint or work in a very unique situation. And this is part of what they all said, you know, when people can understand how they contribute, they can see that connection, you can connect the dots with them, they will give you their best. And then ultimately, that fourth driver is that people need to feel supported, so they can learn and grow. Stagnation is not a good thing. Water is is a life force. But the difference between a swamp and a river is the flow. When you look at things, and you see their stagnation, a swamp is not the kind of energy that you want. You want that flowing river that’s going to continuously create that pipeline of talent that grows that that that forward motion that you want in your organization. So when people don’t understand that, even this thing, the simple thing that you’re asking me to do has a purpose for it, it’s going to help me in some way. Remember the example that I gave you, being on the phone helped me understand and listen to people better. Every little piece that we do when you are in the moment, when you look at that, and you as a leader can connect the dots for people and show them. I’m asking you to do this not because it’s too good for me to do or I’m too good for to do this. And this is something you should be doing as my subject. No, I’m asking you to do this, because this is part of your growth, part of your ability to grow in order, you need to master this, to move to that next level, because you and I are partnering to get you there, even for those mature workers that you have that are well positioned, Kurt. David, you’ve seen those people that are around organizations that are well positioned, they’re happy in what they’re doing, they’re satisfied, they have no intention of going further. Even with those people, they can still continue to learn and grow in other ways. Maybe they can become the next mentor, maybe they can become that specialist. Or maybe you can put it in an area an adjunct to where they are to kind of challenge them a little bit differently. Yeah, but you challenge you have to challenge them, you have to continue to help these people go. So help people feel valued, help them feel connected, help them feel productive, and help them feel supported. So they can learn and grow. You hit those markers. You’re going to have an engaged high performing team.

Curt Anderson  48:20

Dude,

48:20

you’re doing

Curt Anderson  48:21

a master class, I want to go back and Patrick says thank you so much very inspiring. Dan bigger says my neck is hurting from shaking my head. Yeah, he’s surrounded with people that do indeed get it. So this is Oh my gosh. Dan’s got another comment. you’re nailing it. Coach Khan. This is all about leadership coaching others a Brian Fleming’s out there. How does leadership change with a remote team versus one in an office? Great comment on LinkedIn, that 35% Do you see that? That comment that headline? Damon is I think 35% of people remote are more likely to be let go or downsize than No. So Ken, what do you think about Brian our dear friend Brian’s question, how does leadership change with a remote team versus one in an office?

Kon Apostolopoulos  49:12

So here’s a little bit more insight into this. To me, as a leader, we need to evolve evolve. For many, many years, it’s been very stagnant. I work a lot, not just with executives, but I work a lot with emerging leaders, those people that are kind of in those middle ranks, that are still struggling to find that purpose and identity. I mean, when you think about it, even during the COVID days when everybody was all of a sudden automatically thrust remotely. What we found is when they measured engagement after that, the group that dropped engagement the most was healthcare workers because they got fried they got burned down. Yeah. The second most largest drop in engagement was from managers. The title the group of managers And they typically refer to people that are kind of in those middle ranks. Why? When when you are a manager and you come from a background, and typically a lot of that was from a production environment where you’re managing, you’re overseeing a lot of blue collar workers that have a very, very clear and specific production goals. When you look at our environment here that we’re talking about with with with manufacturing curtain, Damon, you know better than I do, it’s easier to measure how many widgets that I produced today, that’s something that I can measure I can I can look at that. So managers is very easy to say, Did you hit the mark or not. But when now when you are looking at those people that are remote, or in a hybrid environment, most of them are not your blue collar workers are people that have to work with their hands to produce something, these are mostly white collar workers that operate in a very different kind of an office environment, only their offices somewhere in their home, right? Well, managers that have not evolved or have not taken the time to understand that are struggling now. Because I can no longer see you I don’t know, if you’re producing How am I going to measure your productivity, by how many emails you read, or how many hours you were in a meeting or behind the computer, you can’t do that. Because the kind of work that we’re talking about requires different approach to things. When you’re in a creative place, when you have to spend time problem solving, thinking or be creative about solutioning things, you can’t put a tangible piece on that, I may have spent five hours to come up with a five minute solution. So doing that and trying to manage them with the old yardstick is ineffective. So now is what I call the leadership paradox. The leadership paradox is when you have to bring two seemingly opposite concepts and leadership and synthesize them in such a way that now you evolve the way that you manage things. So I’ll give you an example. If I have somebody that’s working from home, right, I can’t change the fact that they are in an environment where maybe they have a young child, maybe they have an elderly parent, maybe they have a distraction here or there, I can’t manage in the same way that if I had somebody sitting in an office next to me, so I have to understand that I have to have empathy for their situation, I have to understand that they may give me their work product at different times non traditional times, right, especially if the work is asynchronous, meaning that it can be done in isolation, without the collaboration of others, they can do it at any time it’s self paced, I have to manage them very different. So I have to first of all understand their situation. Not everybody is blessed to have a dedicated office space and a nanny to watch their kids. Yeah. So we have to be empathetic to that, at the other side of that we have to have tough love, we have to show them that there are clear boundaries and expectations about what I need, and to protect them as much as the organization from that. So empathy, tough love can be synthesized to produce one paradox, right? Another one could be I need to manage outcomes, probably more than outputs. If I’m measuring widgets, I’m measuring outputs, if I’m measuring results, did you get the job done? I’m measuring outcomes. So for a lot of these white collar workers, I have to focus on the outcomes with some indicators of outputs. Does that make sense? But that requires me as a leader to really break down the job and understand what can I reasonably expect from that person? If this amount of time? Or how long? Should it take them to do that? Or what am I expectations? Have I communicated that very, very clearly, all of these things will require a much more sophisticated and engaged way of managing people, you can no longer do that, when you are a lazy mid level manager. That’s just fat, dumb and happy and sitting there collecting a paycheck, you have to work for that. You have to look at that and say, You know what, I’m going to use high tech to create high touch, I can’t see you, but we can slack back and forth whenever you need me. I can set up one on one meetings for us to do exactly what we’re doing. The three of us are the opposite. I mean, we are very different points of the compass here. Yet we are sitting here in the same virtual room, being able to engage in a meaningful conversation, a very powerful conversation. You have to recreate those moments, because I can’t see you, Kurt, those five minutes that you and I walked out of the meeting room and down to the break room where I catch up and connect with you. And I say, hey, Kurt, how was your weekend? How’s the family doing what’s going on? Right? That moment, I have to recreate using the technology. But again, that creates a need for you to be very purposeful. So embrace that paradox and elevate your game because you know what, on the other side of that, there is a world of talent out there that you could bring onto your team. I mean, look at our friend, Dan bigger, who’s out here. He is in a beautiful part of this country working in a place where there’s no immediate employer within a walking distance of his home. He chooses to live here but he could be contributing so much to any organization as his knowledge that was willing To help him and support him that way, yeah, how much talent are you losing because they choose to work and live a certain way.

Damon Pistulka  55:10

This just gets me man, because I am just I fight it so much, because people do not understand that that person could be across the country across the globe. They could be your superstar. If you do it right. And we are missing out on so much because we’re sitting here today still thinking, well, they have to come in the office, right? It’s like, Why? Why I can get better if if my talent pool in that geography where I can actually have somebody come in the office is poor. Why do I put up with that? Right? There is no absolute

Kon Apostolopoulos  55:45

reason. The only reason why you insist on that is because it’s easier for you.

Curt Anderson  55:51

Right? It’s honestly, that’s a moment of silence right there. Yeah, it’s easier for you like that. Alright, kind let’s, I know, this was phenomenal. This was like a 20 out of 10. I want to recap a couple things, you know. So first off, thank you. Anybody out there, please, like catch them, share this, catch the rewind button, go back and like just play this. I’m gonna like, I want to listen to this over and over. You don’t want to be the swamp compared to the river. That is just pure gold right there. We can’t I’m not gonna repeat them. You need to go out and get Ken’s book. He laid out the four tips, the four steps, the four strategies for you to be a rockstar leader. We’ve got a new book coming out from Dr. Firm die from Coach con, the engagement blueprint, it’s gonna be coming out in February. Con, let’s again, I like dude, I could keep you I told you before we went live, we’re gonna go four or five hours and I know that we could good Right? Can let’s go here any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with folks about you know, boy, can you really get me fired up? You got me juiced any last parting thoughts that you want to share with folks?

Kon Apostolopoulos  57:14

Let me let me kind of finish up with this, this this kind of statement here. I mean, culture, culture is the way we do things. If you don’t like the culture, change the way you do things. It’s as simple as that. And when you have people around you that are constantly looking and saying, Well, you know what, maybe I should go here do the or even if you’re thinking that yourself, understand that the grass is not always greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it. Pay attention to it, cultivate it, do the things that you need to do, and your garden will blossom. The grass will be green right where you’re standing. You don’t have to go find it somewhere else make it happen for you. If you’re the leader make it happen with your team bring them on board invite them to partner with you to create the kind of place that you all want to be a part of

Curt Anderson  58:07

drop the mic number I lost track I don’t know how many I have I’m 55 years old I have never heard that that quote before the grass is greener where you water it man i guys if there was nothing else today, just getting that one right there was pure goat con this was just an absolute masterclass I cannot express my thanks my gratitude my respect my admiration my boy you name it boy. Just you are I’m you are a blessing. I feel iron sharpens iron dude from the day I met you I feel like you just make everybody around you a better person. You’re an amazing father. You’re amazing husband. I just I dude I love you. I just You are just I love that you’re in I love that you and I cross paths thanks to my buddy Damon Damon thank you for making this relationship happen. Damon takeaways your thoughts for today.

Damon Pistulka  59:02

Just thank you as as Kurt said, and like like usual I’ve got two or three pages of notes just from talking with you again, coach and you know, we didn’t even get to talk about and we’re gonna have to have you back to talk about your your work with the lady soccer and your other stuff, which is so cool as well. But, yeah, we get your book out and get going. I’m just excited to read it. I’m excited to talk about it again with you and C has been helping people but just thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today because it relates to Kurt said it always is just so enjoyable. Thank you.

Kon Apostolopoulos  59:38

Well thank you and you know as a as a special thank you not just to you guys but to our audience as well those that are going to listen to us even after the fact. What I’d like to do is I’m going to go back in the comments afterwards and answer any questions that people have but also, I’m going to put a link up in there. Right now I have an online assessment that people can take to kind of qualitatively from They’re prospective see where their team has strengths, and what drivers they need to focus on beyond that to kind of get there. It will also be an invitation to kind of draw, join our growing community, our MEP community that’s going to be getting a lot of these nuggets a lot of this information on an ongoing basis and be able to have a heads up on special offers regarding the book, additional interviews, long full length stuff with the people that the book, but also kind of get a heads up of when the books coming out just be part of the journey. I invite them not just to consume but to contribute my friend. Yes, absolutely.

Curt Anderson  1:00:32

Hey, how about one last comment here from Dan bigger I enjoyed this nice job gentleman. And in says, Coach con is the man simple is always better, just as bigger is always better. So there you go. Alright, guys, we’re gonna close things out. Man, I could I probably had 20 more questions for you kind. So yeah, we’re, we definitely have to do this again, my friend. After the book comes out, we need to have you back on. And so again, sending our just wishing you tremendous success with a book and just love the impact that you’re having on 1000s of lives. And just the change that you’re making, you know, and there’s a lot of bad things going on on the planet. And it’s just, you know, it’s wonderful having conversations like this, and just seeing a dude like you on how you’re just making the world a better place. Patrick says thank you so much for this interview. Patrick, thank you for joining us today. Again guys. Go back please replay this. Share it with folks hit the rewind button. Just this was pure pure gold. Go out and just be someone’s inspiration man just like Coach Kon came in Hey, you know what we’ve been hanging out for over an hour. How about a big round of applause here for Coach Kon guys. Everybody give a big roaring ovation for our coach con con hang out with us for one second. We’re gonna close things out. Damon we’re gonna be live in Austin, Texas this week. I’m not sure the time but we’re gonna be live coming to you from Austin, Texas. And we will keep you posted there. So guys, God bless you have an awesome amazing, incredible day. And, man, this was good. Thank you con. Thanks. All right. Oh my god.