Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Ron Higgs

Curt Anderson 0:01
Hey, let’s do this. Hey, happy Monday, everybody. Welcome to Manufacturing Monday motivation and what a beautiful day it is. You know what post Father’s Day Damon? How was your father’s day?

Damon Pistulka 0:11
It was awesome, Curt awesome day.

Curt Anderson 0:13
Would you do anything good.

Damon Pistulka 0:15
You know, we actually were the kids. We did Father’s Day last week and then with my wife’s family yesterday, so I was around a ton of family yesterday.

Curt Anderson 0:22
Oh, that’s awesome. I know your son took you to treated judo, your first major league baseball or his major league baseball game at Seattle Mariners last Sunday. Great. A weekend well get this. What a perfect timing for this one. So my daughter and I we go on this wonderful little hike. You know, I live in this great lake. And so we went to a state park. We did this great hike, and she takes me to a movie. What movie did she take me to?

Ron Higgs 0:49
Let me guess.

Curt Anderson 0:52
Well, guys, today, I want to do a little intro to our dear friend, our guest, man. Is this an honor and privilege my dear friend Ron Higgs, Ron, happy Monday, my friend. How are you doing?

Ron Higgs 1:04
I am great. Damon, thank you both for inviting me onto the show. This is gonna be a fun conversation. I always have fun when I’m chatting with either you guys. And now both of you. Wow, this is gonna be awesome. So

Curt Anderson 1:17
you know, Damon’s a little tough because you when you say like Top Gun movie, you know, you’re talking to a guy like Ron Higgs. He’s got that million dollar smile. He’s got Yeah, what good looks and then he was a neat, you know, God bless you. Ryan served our country proudly in the Navy, navy. aviator, you had a great career in manufacturing. All three Boeing. You’re a fractional CEO. You’re a practitioner on EOS. We have so much to discuss. I want to go back in time a little bit. Okay, now, I’m mistaken. You’re a jersey guy. Do I have that right?

Ron Higgs 1:47
Are you jersey? Yes, I am from New Jersey, Camden, New Jersey.

Curt Anderson 1:51
I remember that. I remember. You’re a jersey guy. So you and I met a while back. And so my first question for you today, Rod Higgs as that young man growing up in New Jersey, who was your hero growing up in Camden, New Jersey, that led you to this amazing, incredible, wonderful career who share with us one of the heroes that really kind of shaped your life as a young man growing up in New Jersey?

Ron Higgs 2:14
Well, you know that that’s tough to answer. And I tell you why I you know, I grew up in a single parent home. Right. And so we had, you know, we had the communities and people I think we’re a lot closer, you know, when I was growing up, but we have this family friend, you know, when you you have these family friends and you call them uncle they’re not related? Yeah, yeah. Right. So I have this uncle still guy, his name, right. He was just a, he was a great guy. He would help my mom with all sorts of stuff, right? I mean, she’s a single parent, you know, we’re friends with their family, his, I have a younger brother. I don’t have any older brothers. But his kids, his two boys were older than me. You know, it’d be even those are the guys that I looked up to kind of his older brothers, but my uncle still was the man. He was just the guy could do anything. He could fix anything. I mean, if if something caught on fire, you know, he would probably finish his sentence and look at me and goes, I’m gonna go put that fire out. Right? He was just that guy. It’s pretty awesome.

Curt Anderson 3:18
It’s fantastic. And what I love about that, you know, God bless uncle still. So shout out to your uncle still. And, you know, you know, on Father’s Day is not just about the fathers. You know, it’s the uncles, it’s those mentors, you know, folks that really helped shape your life. You know, as young people may be coaches, football coach, baseball coach, whatever that might have been. And there’s so many roles that you can play in that Father’s Day role. So man, thanks for sharing that. Ron. That was a great, great story. Yeah.

Ron Higgs 3:44
And I don’t you guys may know, I don’t have any kids in my own right. But I’ve been, I’ve been with my wife for a while, and she has to, and I like, I’d like to think I’ve had some impact on their lives.

Curt Anderson 3:58
Ron, I’m sure you’ve impacted 1000s of lives. So let’s dig into this. So as a young man, you go into the Navy. Talk a little bit and you were a naval aviator. And Ryan, just you know, so your ears are always ringing and ironically right in your backyard. So I did a LinkedIn workshop at Temple University last week, just last Wednesday, and every single workshop Damon you know, this every LinkedIn workshop we do, whose profile do I always feature? Line Higgs, man, I know you checked you wouldn’t change that band around me. But your old banner. You had that fighter jet? Yeah. We mean it yourself. fighter jet. Yeah. So cool to share a little bit like what does what was the decision process of going into the service and then you made it a career. Talk a little bit about your career

Ron Higgs 4:44
there? Let me I’ll have to go back up just a little bit. Right, because you can, you know, Camden, New Jersey home, you know, there’s a lot of people who I grew up with, who were sort of in the bad things right. And so I you know, I stepped down that road briefly, and turned around and went, nah, this isn’t really what I want to do. And believe it or not, you know, I watched a lot of TV, my mom like work two jobs, right? So the TV was the babysitter for me and my brother. And I was a Star Trek geek, right? So I looked at this, I was like, I want to go into space. I want to become an astronaut. You know, all of this stuff. So I actually credit the library system with winning me in the right direction. Because I used to have my mom dropped me off at the library on Saturday. Yeah, the mall, the library was across the street from the mall, right? So I would go spend a few minutes in a mall after the library, but I would use the library to go, Hey, let me figure out how I can what I want to do. I like airplanes. Right, cool. And then I saw this picture of the airplane flying off of the ship and I went Now that’s cool, right? I mean, anybody can land an airplane on the ground. So let me find out about when I go to the library, and I’d read atlases and encyclopedias, I would literally just pick up an encyclopedia, open it, whichever one T, then I’d look up countries, I’d look, I’d look up the country, then I go get an atlas and figure out where the country is, and all this stuff. And I go, man, how can I go visit all these places? How can I do this? Right? It was like the Navy. Boom, right? So that’s where I decided and then I also wanted to be an astronaut. So I did the research and figured out what that path was, Oh, hey, I can go to the Naval Academy, I could join the Navy, I could become a test pilot. And I could you know, that I could be an astronaut. And that’s, that’s sort of where it started. Now, I was lucky enough to be one of those people that things came easily, easily to me in school, especially math. Right. So I was, you know, I did well, I was lucky enough to do well in school. And that opened the doors to take me sort of where I wanted to go.

Curt Anderson 6:53
That’s awesome. So when you slide into the Navy, when you when you go to the Navy, like what, you know, walk us through that process of like, what did it take for you to become that, you know, naval aviator? Well, I

Ron Higgs 7:04
will say, so getting to the Naval Academy, again, just go into Naval Academy, you need a congressional appointment to go to the Naval Academy. So it kind of starts with okay, hey, I have to go through this process. And wow, in figuring out what you need to do, you need a balance of sports, academics, community service, all sorts of stuff. And I look now at the the people who go in, it’s like, wow, I’m amazed I got in, right. So, so I go through the Naval Academy, right, and then going through the Naval Academy, you know, you they just don’t hand out slots to wherever you want to go, you kind of have to earn what it is you want to go go do. So at some point, you have to figure out, oh, do I want to be a Marine, I want to fly planes. Do I want to drive submarines, I want to drive ships, you know, whatever. So you get to do that. So I you know, I chose aviation, I went to flight training, and ended up in a squadron. I did all that I applied to the US Naval Test Pilot School, and luckily got accepted there. And I went through Test Pilot School, and then I was lucky. And then I did some flight testing, then I was lucky enough to be asked to come back to be a flight instructor at Test Pilot School. So that was pretty cool. That and I got to fly throughout my time in Test Pilot School, both as a student and instructor I got to fly. I don’t 30 or so different types of aircraft, a glider, you know, to have if you’re familiar to Havilland Beaver, which propeller airplane that you know, on aeroplanes on floats and you know, high performance jets F six teams, and I actually got to fly a for an evaluation exercise. I got the fly a B 25. Oh, real B 25. Me no kidding. That was probably the highlight of my career. I mean, in spite of, you know, getting to fly FAA teams for DNS, and all sorts of things like that. But that B 25 flight, that was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Yeah, that’s incredible. So that was the path to become an astronaut. And I actually applied to so my couple of my friends, my colleagues, people who I shared offices with, I have been through the astronaut program, some of them are still astronauts right now. And spending time on the space station. I was in Test Pilot School with Scott and Mark Kelly, whose names you probably remember. Sonny Williams is a classmate of mine. She is the lady with the most time in space. She spent a long time on the space station. And these were people that I shared offices with. So I put in my application. And I got accepted by the Navy as a national astronaut candidate to the Navy said, Hey, we’re gonna send her on to NASA is one of our candidates. And then I got from NASA and I got medically disqualified for NASA. So it was, you know, it was heart wrenching moment for me at the time but if I think back to where I started, right as a kid watching Star Trek to the point where I still have now I have a rejection letter from NASA. For this thing. I mean, I think, I think I got as close as I possibly could. And to no fault of my own couldn’t, y’all wasn’t able to move forward with that.

Damon Pistulka 10:17
I just did. I’ve always I’ve, we’ve talked about this before. I’m just Labra gas, every time I think of this, when you think of you, as a kid, sitting in the library, figuring us out, plotting your path to become an astronaut, and then doing it man, that is just so incredibly cool. Lots of people fumble their way through, right? Well, the hell I didn’t know until I was in college was gonna do and you’re sitting here and saying, Hey, I’m going to be an astronaut. I want to visit these places I want to be I want to be I got to go through the Navy into a test pilot and it’s incredible, man. Well,

Ron Higgs 10:57
there’s a lot of luck involved in that too. I mean, my view so motto. And you know, like I said, I got as close as I could. The journey was great. And all those things that I’ve done, they’re they’re great places to be from, you know, the Naval Academy is a great place to be for US Naval Test Pilot School is a great place to be from and the relationships that I forged in the Navy and along the way, have been more meaningful than anything. So my best friend today is my plebe year roommate from the Naval Academy. So we’ve known each other for well let’s say more than 20 years

Curt Anderson 11:40
just a few so I’m dropping a note to Tom Cruise Ron because next the next top gun you need to be in it man just

Damon Pistulka 11:48
me advising him

Curt Anderson 11:49
that you need to be advising these guys right

Ron Higgs 11:51
I think I’m older than even the admirals that they that they had in the movie so yeah, you know my time has come and gone but it’s always cool to watch so I watched it and it was fantastic brought back a lot of memories you know to movie far fetched but entertaining and it was the flying scenes so phenomenal. So if you in fact my wife wants to go back and see it in IMAX because we didn’t see it. We saw the movies but now at night he wants to go back and see it not

Damon Pistulka 12:23
Yeah. So I got a question. I just never thought to ask you this before. So you’ve actually then passed out from G force is in a plane before haven’t Yeah,

Ron Higgs 12:33
I have not passed out I have taken up to nine I think nine and a half G’s and an F 16 and not and not passed out. So yeah, I have I’ve never passed out do the Chiefs I’ve come close I’ve got in I think they pretty accurately depicted this in the movie. First thing happens you get black and white vision then then it goes tunnel vision you tunnel vision so I had black and white and total vision but I’ve managed to get get myself out of it recovered. But you know what? I have the right body type for pulling G’s, right? I’m short and wide and wide shoulders and the tall lanky guys are the ones that are that have to work a little harder with the G’s, but I have the right of the right height.

Unknown Speaker 13:24
Nine and a half man.

Ron Higgs 13:26
Oh my god. Yeah, that was an adventure. I had a demo flight and an F 16 with a with an Air Force guy. And that airplane is capable of that. And he’s like, What do you want to do? It’s like, I want to pull nine G’s. He goes, really? I’m like, yeah. So that’s what we did. It was cool.

Curt Anderson 13:45
Do you miss it? Ron, do you miss?

Ron Higgs 13:47
A you know, sometimes I tell you after watching the movie Top Gun, you know, I’ve watched some of the Flying scenes. So they brought back a lot of memories. There was particularly the one where, you know, they showed him going off to catapult and the cameras sort of facing backwards. And I remember those days of going to catapult I wish they would have showed a night catapult shot because then it goes from fun to oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this in the same day kind of thing. Because at night, it’s a totally different ballgame.

Curt Anderson 14:13
happening, Matt and I and we have so much to cover. My last question here. How about like the parachuting ejection like what did you experience many of those, so I have an equal

Ron Higgs 14:22
number of takeoffs and landings. But we during our training, we have some pretty intense training for flight school and that training. I think you remember me I was contributing author of a book called glint to book called The winner’s mindset. And my chapter was called a mindset shaped by naval aviation. And a lot of that training, I think back to that training because that training prepares you for when things go wrong. Right. So that training was tough, but, but necessary, right? But luckily, I didn’t have to. Actually I’ll give you one example where I had to engage my training I think you may have seen in some movies somewhere where people He put people in the, in the altitude chamber, right? Because if your air is thinner up at altitude, so you can’t breathe. So if you, you know, you pass out, and they put you through that so that you know what your symptoms are of hypoxia, because different symptoms happen to different people at different times your fingers turn blue, you may get a little lightheaded. But everybody’s a little bit different. So for you to recognize your own symptoms of hypoxia is important. So I was on a flight in Test Pilot School at students with with another guy, and I felt I was like, I’m feeling hypoxic, I need you to descend. So we descended below 10,000 feet where, you know, you don’t need oxygen. And so I started checking all my gear. And as it turns out, my oxygen hose at one point was unplugged. You know, so that would have, you know, I could have potentially passed out right. And I was in the back. He was in the front, he probably wouldn’t have known unless, you know, he was like, Hey, you had he not heard from me? It’s like, Hey, I’m not hearing from the back seat. I need to do something. So I mean, that’s just one example of how that training really comes into play. Because if you’re an aeroplane by yourself, yeah, in that happens, you know, different ballgame. I mean, you saw that in the movie where that one guy passed out anyway. But he passed out from G’s, not from hypoxia. But that training is really important. And it comes back to you. It really comes back to you, no matter how long ago it was.

Curt Anderson 16:29
Wow. And this is. Alright, so let’s light in. So Ron, thank you for your service to our country, what an amazing life that you’ve lived. The experiences that you have, you know, thank you for sharing those. I know we, we’ve got to talk more, we’ll have you back again and talk more. That’s more to cover, let’s tie it into the rest. That’s not the rest. But we’ll get into next steps of your career. So you leave, you know, serving our country and you decide to get into manufacturing, is that correct? I saw, you know, you have our three Boeing what?

Ron Higgs 17:04
I’ll tell you what the path was. First, it was a privilege and an honor for me to serve my country, I couldn’t think of a better a better career path. As far as manufacturing goes, I became in my career in the Navy, I became an aerospace engineering duty officer. So what that meant is program management, I’m getting into program management and acquisition. And that was working directly with defense contractors on naval aviation programs. So I was I’ve managed several programs in different facets of naval aviation. And then in one program, I was actually a spacecraft manager for a satellite program. And I sat on the launch Council and I was I gave the next I gave the final spacecraft go before launch. So you know, wide. So another great thing about the military is you could do all sorts of things, right. So I found myself, you know, sitting on a launch console, you know, launching a satellite into space, which I thought was pretty cool. But my job in building that satellite, I was involved from the programmatic side, in the integration test, and I was also sort of the interface between the primary interface between the Navy and all of the current the primary contractor and all of the subcontractors. So we had about 100 vendors for the satellite. So again, you know, manufacturing, on that scale, as far as the naval aviation programs, you know, manufacturing equipment that goes on Navy airplanes, right. So some of them, you know, not large numbers of widgets, right, but fairly large, so from the engineering side, so I got involved in manufacturing and production while I was still in the Navy.

Curt Anderson 18:48
Okay, all right. Hey, and one thing I didn’t ask you, what was your What was your call name? Like Maverick?

Ron Higgs 18:54
You’re gonna ask that and I will challenge you. I never had a call sign and no, I’m not making this up. Because my wife is still on me to this day. It’s like you got a call sign. You’re just not telling me. I challenge you to go find someone out there that knows or callsign I had now there are a couple that that folks that attempted but they never caught right. Hagee mean Hey, that’s not all that original right? Yes. So so your callsign is some aberration of your name. Some physical abnormality or something you did? The more you don’t like it, the more it sticks somewhere. Yeah, yeah, that’s why I was lucky enough never to have one. Lucky enough maybe didn’t like me enough to give me one but it just made it through without getting.

Curt Anderson 19:37
We’ll just we’ll go with how we would good looks. How’s that Damon’s call name for you from now on? We’ll go with that. Right now. Let’s light into that. So you found yourself at Boeing. What was that experience? Like? You know, again, making that transition?

Ron Higgs 19:53
I’ll tell you what led me there. So first I got out of the Navy wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I was like, Well, you know, I’ve done aerospace and First, and I’ve done this for a long time, and maybe I want to see something else. Right. But where I started, I started with a company, as a as a consultant, and I was a senior system. They placed me at Boeing at a contractor as a senior systems engineer, and I worked on the 787 prior to first flight, right, so while I was in the Navy, I actually attended the Naval Postgraduate School and got a master’s degree in systems engineering. Right. So and that prepared me for my, you know, to lead engineering teams and the lead programs and things like that. So I started there, I spent a couple years in that job. And then I went to L three communications at the time. Now it’s Lt. Harris. And I did sales and business development. And that for me was okay, hey, sales and business development, that’s a good place to be if I want to change industries, right. And so I learned about so what I did. So the division that I work for, we made electro optical infrared cameras, and I sold them to back to the military and to the police. And I used to because I operated those systems on high performance aircraft and the Navy, right, I trained the police on how to use those infrared cameras that they have on police helicopter, so I sold them and train them on how to use it, which I thought was interesting. But I did that. And I figured I was like, you know, I don’t think I want to do sales and business development. For this long, I ended up getting an opportunity at Boeing to fly. So I worked in flight operations at Boeing and I flew the P eight, Pa Poseidon, which is a submarine Hunter, built on a 737 platform. Oh 737. So I got to fly those airplanes on their first flights out of the factory. And then we were still working on that airplane, it wasn’t yet ready for the Navy. So we were making, you know, we were doing all the flight testing, and things to get it ready for the Navy. So I got to do a couple of interesting things with that airplane. So it’s a 737. But it has weapons on it and as and bombs on it. So I got to draw, you know, shoot missiles and drop bombs and do sorts of all these interesting things from a seven summits from 37 has been modified as a military airplane.

Damon Pistulka 22:15
commercial aircraft, which

Ron Higgs 22:16
Yeah, and what are the things that the flight test brochure that they don’t, this is not in the flight test brochure. So we have to do cold, we have to do extreme weather testing on the aircraft. So they slipped us to Florida, they put the aircraft in the chamber, and it goes to minus 40 degrees, and you have to make sure that the airplane still operates and does everything starts, all the things turn on at minus 40. So I’m in a, basically in a park going out to the airplane, and it’s in a hangar, and the hangars specially configured. So we can start the airplane and run the engines while it’s in the hangar. And it’s minus 40 degrees. And here we are in this airplane going, Man, this is not in a brochure, you’re freezing, I mean, it’s cold. And so we have to make sure the airplane would everything would happen the way it’s supposed to. And, you know, we have fluorescent lights in the airplane. And guess what they don’t work and minus four degrees. So we switch those out to LED. And then the other side of that is the next day now we’re doing it at 115 degrees for the testing. So a lot of flight test stuff. So just taking up too much time with that No, no, no that I after that, I left flight operations and went and became the Delivery Manager for the PA for the Navy. So then I was at Boeing, all of a sudden in charge of getting all those airplanes delivered and turn it over to the Navy. So it was a big change. I mean, lots of people, lots of moving parts, lots of issues. And so I and then I ended up getting promoted out of that job. And I headed a large systems engineering group at Boeing. And that’s when I decided that I wanted to take my career in another direction. So I had decided to leave corporate America and become an independent consultant. And, and I worked for a few startups along the way, which kind of led me to where I am now. Right. So I started off doing executive coaching coach, I called myself a leadership consultant, consultant. So leadership, leadership development, some executive coaching, but you know how it is when you start out with taking anything that I could get anything that anybody would pay me for. So I’ve done quite a few different things, quite a few startups. And then I landed as a CEO of a small company in January of 2020. And in April of 2020, I got laid off due to COVID. But I thought that I really liked the CEO thing, because from a systems engineering background, you know, I looked at the company as a system and looked at all the operating functions of the business as a system and how does how do all of these work together to move this system and our company forward and sort of found my home so I rebranded myself as a fraction We’ll see Oh, and I’ve been doing that since.

Curt Anderson 25:02
Man that is so, you know, Damon one thing with these programs, you know, sometimes I felt like a little bit of an underachiever when I checked. Oh, yeah.

Ron Higgs 25:09
Oh man really hits hard here.

Curt Anderson 25:13
And what have I done with my career? So anyway?

Ron Higgs 25:17
Not at all. Hey, believe me, there’s been some. There’s been a lot of work and setbacks along the way.

Curt Anderson 25:23
And I’d say you are such, my respect and admiration for you. Iran is just off the charts. You’re just such a blessing. Let’s so let’s fight in here. So you’re a fractional CEO. Oh, absolutely love that. You know, Matt, thanks. So my dear friends sky over here, those hands on back over here. COVID heads, and we’re getting those exit your way. Boy, Damon, you were just a saving grace. When when COVID hit, you brought a great group of people together. And Ron, I’ll tell you I have I met amazing, amazing folks. And one of them, of course, was being you. And you are an expert at EOS. We’re going to talk a little bit about predictable success. But just share with folks like this whole, you know, EOS is new to somebody share a little bit about what is EOS? And like? How do you tackle that? And how do you help your clients with that process?

Ron Higgs 26:10
Well, I discovered EOS a walk back. And when I was when I started my business, and I was looking for business systems and just looking for other things. And what stood out to me about EOS is the first thing that they do at EOS is they have have you to take a test, you know for your leadership style. And they separate people into two categories. Visionary, integrator, visionaries are people who start businesses, people with all the ideas, right? I mean, they have, they just have brilliant ideas. They like to go and talk about their ideas, and sell things and everything else. integrators are the people that can make those ideas happen very rarely. Are there people that can do both, right? So it’s this visionary integrator do two people that you need the balance of those two people to take the org any organization forward. And then there are other things about EOS that I really like to write Eos, it really solidifies Hey, what is it you’re doing? It forces you to figure out what your mission is, what your real mission is. And until it and then there’s another part and there are quite a few parts that don’t want to go all over here. But one thing is the level 10 meeting. So there’s a meeting structure. And if you think some people think meetings just sit around and they don’t get anything done, because visionaries like consider meetings as a place to just talk about their ideas, right? There’s an agenda. Yeah, we don’t need an agenda. We’re just gonna talk, right? And there’s some people that come to meetings, it’s like, Okay, here’s the agenda. Here’s what we need to get done. Right. So this l 10. Meeting this, I’m a really big fan of it, because the structure of it, every meeting is very, very useful. Even people who hate meetings, like those Elton’s because he gets stuff done, it’s not a waste of your time. And you just don’t sit around and talk about the issues that you have with a company you actually use those meetings to solve. You prioritize those issues and solve them right there. So you walk away from every meeting, but at least having solved something, which is good. Right? Well, that’s a powerful solution. Yeah. So that for that reason, I really like and so what I do is a fractional integrator fractional Eos, integrator, fractional CO, oh, there’s a whole lot of overlap, right, is to find a visionary out there that doesn’t have that balance of an integrator. And you guys could probably think of people you know, now that are, that are running companies that are 100%, visionary, they just have a million ideas and nobody to bounce those ideas off of nobody to look at them and say, No, that’s not going to work and why or Hey, okay, you just gave me 10 ideas, let’s prioritize all 10 of them, right? And then most probably, let’s try to get to at least three, right? Which ones. And so there’s so you provide as a fractional integrator, that balance to the visionary, they help help them move their companies forward. So I work with a group of fractional integrator. So if it turns out because we all know you got to find the right match for the person for you to help, right. So I work with a group of fractional integrators. And if I find someone in need of a fractional integrator, I can find them the right match in the right person to be that.

Curt Anderson 29:27
I absolutely love that. So that’s so anybody out there, you know, the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur that has that dream, the visionary, as you just said, and they’re like, Man, I can see it, I can feel I can taste it, but boy, I need some support. You my friend or a dream supporter, will you help those entrepreneur entrepreneurs bring those dreams to life with the implementation and execution and moving forward? And what I love is that, you know, you’re big on the training side, to help his folks out, you know, the folks that maybe there’s a disconnect with that entrepreneur in the dream and the folks that are going to be implementing the actual tactics, you play like a nice bridge or interpreter even to help make those to make that training come true. Is that is that mind? Kind of?

Ron Higgs 30:08
So yes, indeed two ways, right? Help the visionary really communicate that vision to everyone help everyone understand that vision, but it’s also helping the visionary in communicating that vision, right? And then helping everybody else understand, right? So both. So both ways. And then really what you want to do to a lot of visionaries set up their companies. And I know you guys have seen this Daymond I know you have specifically since you’re buying and selling companies, right? You’ve got a visionary, who is integral to every decision in the business, the the visionary has put him or herself in the middle of everything, so that no decisions can be made, nothing can be done without them around, right? So I, so I want to get them out of that business. Right? Start working in on your business instead of in, right. So let’s start figuring out where, what the appropriate level where decisions can be made, so that you don’t have to make everyone and then start empowering people to make it. I’ll give you an example. So I was the CEO of a small company about a year ago. And we were running some changes to our proposal process. Right. And so I just looked at the account manager and said, hey, guess what, now you have, you can sign off on change orders I’m giving you I’m empowering you to sign off on a change order. So if somebody’s got to change order, you don’t have to come all the way up to me and you don’t have to find me and run it all the way up the chain to do it. You You can you can approve it this, you can sign it. And that’ll be fine. And if you’re not comfortable with it, just come to me for the first couple. But I’m right now you got it. Right. And that really changed the level. That’s just a small example at the level in changing where decisions are being made to help remove the most senior executive CEO ever from every decision in the company. Right.

Curt Anderson 32:01
Right. Right. Yeah. So Ron, let’s do this. I know. First off, thank you. Thank you. Thank you what a gift this has been today. What uh, what great timing, man, like you’re just so fresh. I just cut that movie. But let’s, let’s sign to this. I know you’re a busy man. And we need to get wrapped up soon. Last question for you. Predictable success. You and I had a phenomenal conversation earlier this year about predictable success I’ve been found last week. McEwen. And Leslie McEwen, I thought you know, I think he stumbled on my radar like 10 years ago. I love his process. And that predictable success. Talk a little bit, I know you’ve taken this on full, full throttle, talk a little bit about that predictable success process that you’re implementing? Yeah, well, so

Ron Higgs 32:42
I came across predictable success right around the beginning of the year. And I also less like a lot of other professionals are out there. He can’t do it all himself. So he’s figuring out hey, how do I create a group of predictable so they can license my content, and create a group of predictable success practitioners, I can go out and spread the word and, you know, extend the network of predict predictable success practitioners. So I, you know, I jumped on board have been trained by less to one given a predictable success keynote, but I will tell you predictable success. I really like the idea because I found it to be very intuitive. So the basic premise is that companies go through stages, seven stages of growth and decline, right. And there’s actual decline, right. And so the pinnacle of this is called predictable success. And then companies start to decline. The predictable success part is where the company’s is the most scalable. So that means the company is running like a well oiled machine, right, decisions are being made at the right places. And the most senior executives, again, is not in the middle of every decision. And just as a as a little preview to it. You know, you’ve got these stages that I talked about. The first stage is early struggle, again, right? Early struggle just means that the company starts and you’re in the company is trying to find a profitable and sustainable market before whatever seed capital they have runs out. Right? That makes sense, right? I mean, again, it’s it’s just to me, it’s Wow, this is totally intuitive. It just makes it just makes sense. The next stage where the company is in fun, he calls that stage fun, because hey, now they’re generating revenue. Right? So the generating revenue revenue continues to grow. And they’re just out there doing it. They’re making money. They’re saying yes to everything. They’re pivoting. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there, right where you say yes to everything. Hey, Ron, can you come and do this? Absolutely. I can’t, then you walk away from that conversation going, Man, how am I gonna do that? Right? You figure out and do it. Every company has been in that spot, right? And so that’s what that’s what he calls fun. And then, interestingly enough, the next stage is when companies get start to get really complex. So if you’ve got five people and you’re having fun and things are going really, really, really well, right, all of a sudden you have to hire all of a sudden now you have 25 people. Right now. He’s starting to get more complex and things start to get slow down, right? You start making mistakes. There’s a little bit of employee churn. You said, Hey, didn’t we make the decision to do X last week and is still not done? Why not? Right? So they’re running into this stage called whitewater every company sees, right and it’s because back and fun to doers and deciders are the same people. Right when you get into lightwater, the doers and deciders are different groups of people. So the deciders is the leadership team, and the doers are all these others. So you have to flow that information down to people, everybody may not be aligned, everybody may not understand a vision and things just get, things don’t happen quickly. So you can make decisions quickly, but you can’t implement them, you end up implementing them very slowly. And that that whole thing is called Whitewater. So so I look for companies that are in Whitewater. Right, and I won’t, I won’t go through the rest of it. But the next stage after Whitewater is that stage called predictable success is really they kind of figured everything out. And then the next part of the second component of predictable success is, is the types of leadership styles and the types of people. So in Eos, we talked about integrators and visionaries, right? In predictable success, there are visionaries, which is the same, then you have operators who are people who just don’t know how to get stuff done. So tell me what to do. And I’ll do it, then you have processors, processors are people who like to set up systems and processes, right, which you need at some point. But all of those people have motivated different motivations and different perspectives. Right, so the visionary has the 30,000 foot level, the operator is right on the ground, getting stuff done in the processor is kind of working below decks on the processes, right, unseen, they all have different motivations. So visionary starts things, operator finishes things, and the processor sustains things, you would think that that’s a good match. But in reality, there’s conflict between those types of people, because, because they just all have different perspectives. And they’re wired differently. So it takes the introduction of someone called the synergist, which I am, by the way, right, which to come in and have all of those folks understand the different perspectives of each other, and to get them all working together. And that’s basically so you need a mix of all four of those styles in order to enter in state into predictable success. So the first thing is getting people to figure out, hey, what stage is your company in? And then let’s look at the profiles of the leadership team to see where you are it just as a quick example, if you’re an early struggle, and you have a visionary, but what happens if you add another visionary?

Right, so that’s why it’s kind of important to understand, right? So probably, so you need an operator you need somebody knows how to get stuff done. And so throughout the whole lifecycle, figuring out what types of people to introduce to the company at the right time, based on what stage they’re at. Because again, if you’re an early struggle, and you introduce a processor, well, you don’t need strict processes and systems when you only have five people, right, that can actually slow you down to set you back. Right? So you just have to figure out what part what type of person to add to the mix. And when, yeah, basic view of predictable success, but I am happy to come out to any if anyone’s interested in a predictable success overview, reach out and contact me and I’m happy to provide it.

Damon Pistulka 38:51
Yeah, cuz this is this is the thing too is is we hire we tend to like to hire people that are similar to us in you know, personalities and stuff. So a visionary sitting there going, man, demons, a great guy, he will go, Oh, God, he would do it. And then he’s hiring another visionary. And then we wonder six months down the road, why the hell we’re not getting anything done. Yeah. You know, we’re talking about all these great ideas, but they’re not getting implemented. And so you make such a great point that you got to get the right people the right time.

Ron Higgs 39:20
Diversity of thought and perspective really is what leads to better problem solving. Right? Yeah.

Curt Anderson 39:25
There you go. Absolutely. Well, man. I wish I would love to keep just keep this ball rolling right now. Ryan, this is just such a deep dive conversation. We’ve got to have you back. I’d love to leave off where we are and just continue this. My you know, is we talked earlier before in the program, you know that diversity is so critical to companies and manufacturers out there. You know, we were talking real quick today’s a federal holiday with Juneteenth great day to celebrate our country’s history and something that’s been you know, as using your words, way overdue, you know, so these are things these These are tactics and strategies that you can apply to your business today. So Ryan, I’m gonna ask you one quick last question. I promise. I said that last time. Well, one quick last question. First off, I want to thank you. Thanks, guys connect with Ron on LinkedIn. Number one, please reach out Connect. Please connect with Brian, if you want to learn more about his amazing track record in history, you know, serving our country. Thank you, Ron, you can talk to him, you can geek out about some Navy conversation. You can get some tips from Top Gun, you know, like, hey, what about this, this scene or this scene? And less importantly, you can talk about your business on predictable success on Eos, all these things that Ron can help you with? I’ll tell you, Damon, you know, when you think of Ron Higgs integrity, just everything is just so admirable of what he does trust honesty, impeccable, radiant smile, just what a great dude. Ron, my last question for you today. You’re such an inspiration to so many who inspires you today? Who’s your inspiration? You shared that Uncle Uncle still? Was your hero growing up? Who’s your inspiration today? Well, you know, I will,

Ron Higgs 41:06
I’m just gonna go with mom. Right? Because, you know, I saw my mom raised two kids in a single parent home. Right. And, you know, my mom taught me everything that I know, right about integrity and working hard and things like that. So I’ll just say, you know, my mom worked two jobs. Right? So she would come home, you know, she’d be home for like an hour and then go work at night. But it was my brother Nice job to kind of get her fed and out the door. Right. So we cooked cleaned, we’d have dinner ready for her. She was a medical assistant. So she wore the white uniform, we have to have all those ironed and ready to go for her. So we came in, we got her fed and then back out the door. So we all work together. And she didn’t you know, she just looked at me and said I can’t I was 12 years old. And she said I can’t do this by myself. I need your help. Right. And I can’t afford to ask you more than once to do anything. Right. So I just need you to do it. Right. And I got to the point where she didn’t even ask me and I did it right. She never asked me to take out the trash. I just took it out. Right? Because that was instilled in me. Right. So that’s Mom, mom. Is

Curt Anderson 42:17
it man? Well, again, what’s your mom’s name? Awesome. Paul Paul. Well, hey, man, guide bus plot, Paul. So Ron, I know you’re busy. You need to run board trustee at the King County Library System, I believe is that do I have that? Correct. I want to make sure I threw that out there as president of the board. So guys, you know, Ron is just run you in all sincerity. You are a hero, my friend. You’re just you make everybody around you better. You’re a blessing. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join David myself today. We appreciate your friendship. We appreciate everything that you do. We need to have you back. We want to geek out even further on predictable success. Yeah, one heck. So we’ll get that set up with you.

Ron Higgs 42:55
So time and thank you, gentlemen, for providing me with the platform and the opportunity. I will look forward to next time.

Curt Anderson 43:01
Absolutely. Dude, your blessing. So, Damon, thank you, brother. Appreciate you for making these awesome interviews possible. So guys, we wish you an amazing, incredible week. Go out there writing your awesomeness. Just like our friend Ron Higgs, and we will see you this Friday. We have a really good program. Coming up this Friday. You’ll catch Damon on faces of business on Tuesdays and Thursdays six o’clock Eastern three o’clock Pacific and Damon we’re back here Friday at 130 to 1032. Pacific. So guys have a great week rod hang out one second. And all right. We’ll see you soon. Thanks, everybody. Bye bye.