Why Emotional Energy Is the Real X-Factor in Scaling a Business (Not Strategy)

25:27Lee Benson:There are a lot of structural things that you have to get right to support this. But generally speaking, my message to every team member was think of Able Aerospace, this business, as a large value creation machine went from very small to very large. And we all have a part to play in that. And every one of you in one way or another touches the customer. So we're really all in sales. That was always my my thing. We're all in sales. And by the way, I did have marketing and customer service and sales all lumped together in one part of the building. engineering was tied into it because their product development production of our stuff was tied into it.

26:09Lee Benson:So I view it the way I've heard you talk about it. Everybody should be at the hip around it. But this is what we're doing. We're all here to create this value. We're creating a better and better experience for the customer. Think of it as our product, if you will. And we had a lot of different products, but our product was making sure our customers that flew helicopters or large fixed wing aircraft were mission ready when they needed to be. And there were no safety issues. We had, gosh, a few hundred when I sold a million flight hours on our parts with zero in-service failures where the thing broke and they had to take the aircraft out of service.

26:47Lee Benson:No accidents, nothing. I haven't been able to find anybody else that was in business that long, that many flight hours that could say that. And that was because of how we got everybody working on our mission of reducing aircraft operating costs safely and creating a better experience for customers. And then structurally, it was probably around 22 % of our pre-tax net profit every month was given back to all of the team members proportionate to their income. That was the fairest way to distribute a bonus, in my view, because we've done our best to make sure we're all paid fairly in our base wage relative to each other inside the company.

27:27Lee Benson:So if, for simple round numbers sake, if payroll's a million bucks and there's$100 ,000 in bonus as a percentage of profit, then everybody gets 10%. Whether you made$200 ,000 a year or$10 an hour, it doesn't matter. and I have some really interesting things. 10 % of their wages you're saying of their wages. That was like the fairest way. So they were, they were all incentivized to help everybody else earn a dollar for the company, no matter where it was, wherever the opportunity came up. So that's just one of the structural things, you know, the intentional culture, intentional leadership, the, the enterprise resource planning or ERP system that we built from scratch.

28:08Lee Benson:Like all of that was just this continuous development, moving in a direction of creating more and more value for our customers and everybody's input mattered everybody i don't care as soon as you start and and some leaders would ask me um this went away later but early on in our bonus programs well we should make people wait you know 90 days or six months before they can qualify for it and i said well how long should they wait to get fully in the game i want them in the game from day one and if we if we miss it and they shouldn't be here that's okay we'll help them find another role somewhere else.

28:42Lee Benson:But like, I want them in the game from day one, let's go for it. And, and the ideas that came from all the frontline team members all the way up through to senior leadership were amazing. It was like, I thought of value creation as team out. Every single team anywhere can infect the rest of the company with even more value creation energy, if you will. Oh, I love the idea of that 20%. How much percent did you say exactly of profits? was it you said 22 yeah ended up being about 22 there were a few kickers in there to where you know there we would give 16 of the profit to everybody proportionate to their income every single month and then if you were a frontline supervisor you got a little bit of a kicker a middle manager a senior leader a senior leader in business development because i had folks traveling the world we were doing business in 60 different countries totally fun going to most of Those places were growing the business for me.

29:39Lee Benson:But they were they were without the sales. Nothing else happened. And everybody knew they were supporting sales and we're all working together going through. But it ended up being about 22 percent. Now, a lot of folks would say in total, a lot of folks would say, well, we're not going to do that. We wouldn't give that away. But by the time we sold it, look at the growing value for me as the majority shareholder. And I controlled 100 percent of it. we sold for 21.6x multiple of EBITDA. In an industry where if you got eight, that was incredibly strong. Like PEs would just almost never pay that much.

30:18Lee Benson:We found the perfect strategic buyer. They won, we won. It was incredible. And the company's still there today, a strong global brand. I'm so proud of what they're doing. And so what are you working on now? Well, I've got ETW and ETW.com. If this stuff resonates, that's where we talk about a lot of this stuff. But I have CEO mastermind groups that I lead. We have leading for value workshops that we do. We have a leadership value lab where there's a growing membership in there where we every month have a live call and lots of resources, interactions with a growing community. and then built software to be able to easily sustain and scale operating a company this way.

31:05Lee Benson:And I wrote a book a few years ago titled Your Most Important Number. And it outlines this, what I call the mind management system. Mind, men, most important number and everything that drives continually improving it. And it's kind of a cool, simple, elegant way in terms of how I run my businesses. Even the bigger ones, I can see the most important number for the company, the most important number for every function, for every team below that, and whether they're on track or not. And I can see the best work they're doing to improve it. In seconds, I've got the lay of the land of the whole company.

31:39Lee Benson:And I think that's a challenge for a lot of businesses. How do you really know what's going on? And they just typically don't. Whereas I can see that. And if I go into a team within minutes, I can see if they're checking boxes or doing really good work. But anyway, so that's there. So we have the software as well. The other thing I'm doing, I'm CEO of a company called Dinner Table. And dinnertable.com is where you can learn about it. And it's about helping families intentionally create value. Kind of starting with this foundational family meeting. How do you talk about refined family goals? Everybody's job for the family, what it means to be a leader in the family, going through the family budget as a team sport.

32:20Lee Benson:You know, kids as young as five, six years old have line items on the budget. This is ridiculously cool. And so it's, you know, it's kind of threading what's important to me, which is driving holistic value creation behaviors out into the world. I'm doing it with for profit, nonprofit families. We have over 40 ,000. We're two years in. We have over 40 ,000 parents in our dinner table family community. And I'm driving this holistic value creation throughout all of it and everything that I do. and it's so rewarding. It's cool. So I'll be 65 in a few months and I'm kind of in the legacy part of my life and everything I'm doing is about this right now.

32:59I could tell. And I could tell that you were talking about the first thing you talk about is every leader, business owner needs passion. And I can tell that you're absolutely passionate about just the idea of even the holistic value creation and bringing value. It sounds like Really, the idea is where can you bring value in every little piece of the business, no matter where you are in the business? Where can you bring value into the world? Where do you bring value to your families, to your communities? And just always having the, I would say, the wherewithal of looking or understanding what type of value can I bring?

33:35And in turn, things will open up. The doors will open up. You'll start seeing different opportunities while looking through a lens like that.

33:45Lee Benson:Would that be fair to say? Yeah. Where can we actually create measurably, objectively measurable value in the world? And whether it's material, the money is the easiest one, emotional energy. That's a little bit more challenging, but you can. And the spiritual, which is connectedness, like family, team members at work in a community, higher power, whatever is important to each of you. And I recommend that we all come up with the right balance of creating value in the world for us. So what's right, material, emotional and spiritual for me. And everybody gets to create their own balance. And if I had one, you know, so I've done really well financially.

34:27Lee Benson:But if I had one of the three that I think is probably my strongest of the three, and I work on all three still today and I'll never stop, is the emotional energy piece. because again, it just supercharges everything. But finding that balance is really important when it comes to creating value. I find the emotional piece was something that you've worked hard on and you've trained your mind and your body and your physiology on of how to maintain and ensure that you're in a peak, high emotional state. Yeah. Over time, I want it continually going up and you're going to go up and down. We all have days that go back and forth.

35:12Lee Benson:One of the ways, you know, Kayvon, I think about this, when you explain a concept to somebody and they nod and they say they get it, how many times have you done that where, you know, they have no idea what I just said? But they intellectually, they kind of understood the words and what's happening. So if I were to say, you know, start a business and you're going to go through all these different stages and then you can you can create money. Some people have never done think, oh, anybody starts a business or instantly millionaires. And it's so easy. Well, it takes a lot of work to be able to do that for most of us to figure out and go through those unless you get incredibly lucky.

35:46Lee Benson:But for most, it's a hard road, most fail. And you have to a lot of work into the material value creation piece. you have to put just as much work into the emotional energy piece and you have to put just as much work into the connectedness piece so when i when i think about connection like we're more digitally connected than ever but we're also lonelier than ever like we don't have this human interaction and all of it and i say it's it's by choice if you really embrace spiritual value creation this connectedness piece of value creation and you lean into different communities that resonate with you in a way you're really helping them create more value.

36:22Lee Benson:It'll expose you to incredible opportunities everywhere. I've got a large global martial arts network because I taught for 23 years. Haven't taught for, you know, eight to 10 years now, but I'm still sponsoring kids to compete in world events and I'm still connected. I could go just about anywhere in the world and stay with one of my Taekwondo brothers or sisters. Same thing in aerospace. I can't travel anywhere on the planet and not run into people that I've worked with over there. So I've got that giant network because I intentionally worked on strengthening that connectedness piece of it. And there's more opportunities if it was just about money.

36:58Lee Benson:There's more opportunities for me to play to earn more money by helping them earn more money that I could ever possibly take advantage of. So that's why the spiritual piece is so important. Does that make sense? the the value create i'll be a create i'll be honest with the value creation makes sense the material uh creation makes sense putting yourself into the environments like you know your taekwondo brothers and and creating so much value in the aerospace that people always remember you that makes sense what didn't where where i lost it was where the spirituality comes in all that like where it is your like for me spirituality is more of an internal uh maybe uh the way i think about spirituality it's my it's me and my connection to the world and my connection to god or to whatever it might be so i'm wondering where does that come in when it comes to uh the emotional and or the material side for you it's a great question so uh material and emotional get that spiritual i think at its core is about connectedness okay i believe and so there's levels of that.

38:06Lee Benson:It's connected with ourselves. As leaders or really anyone, the more you can improve self and social awareness, those become superpowers and help you be more successful in life. So that's connected with yourself, connected with family, connected with team members. It works strengthening those relationships where it just feels amazing to be running through walls with them to create huge value in our businesses. So that's connectedness. Out into different communities important to you. I wasn't raised religious, but connectedness goes to a higher power. It can go to God. It can go to whatever you want.

38:43Lee Benson:And it's wild to me, the more I'm open to being connected with the universe, whatever you want to call it. I don't even know what to call it. It's so big and powerful. I don't know what to call it. But I get a song that kind of flows into me, a new song idea that I'm, as I'm working on this new album, virtually every day. and they're amazing and when I wasn't connected to this because I wasn't intentionally working on it back in let's say the late 70s early 80s when I'm playing in bands back then it was really hard to write a song and and I wasn't feeling it I wasn't connected to it and and now that I am so there's no end to that either and so for some folks um you know have a relationship with God is is incredibly important to them for others it's not and it's it's it's always crazy to me when you get into politics, you'd seem to turn off half the brains in the room.

39:32Lee Benson:When you get into religion, you seem to turn off half the brains in the room. But we all want better conditions to work, live, learn, and play and be more connected to things that are meaningful to us. So that's why I talk about it the way I do. For me, spiritual is connectedness. And there's so much that goes into that. And each individual gets to decide how they want that to go. But if I just picked a category and said, God, um, it wouldn't open up half the people on the planet because they're so adverse, um, averse to this that, that, um, you know, they, they wouldn't experience those. So does that make sense?

40:08I mean, it's like what was coming through me was it's, it's, it's, it's where the energy go, right. You hear where the energy goes, the money flows, where the energy goes, the spirituality grows, right. Where the energy goes, the relationships grow like it's and for me it's it's if you want to have the sound the all three the trifecta i'm going to call it the trifecta you call it a holistic value creation but the material the emotional spiritual they all they all need the equal amounts of energy if you put too much in one the other two will suffer if you and it sounds like uh to have the highest spirituality you need to have the energy there you cannot have the spirituality without putting energy or work towards that is what I'm hearing through this.

40:53Lee Benson:Yeah. And they're, they all, they're all synergistic. They all, you know, they all reinforce each other. You know, the more, the more money that I earn or my companies earn, the bigger impact we can have in the world and do other things. And you don't need to have a ton of money to have impact. You can do it one person at a time. And it all really matters. Inside our businesses, we want really high levels of productive engagement. We want everybody in the game and going for it. And one thing that's always interesting to me when people talk about it, it's almost like they talk about it as though this isn't their intent, but like they're trying to manipulate the employees to feel a certain way, be a certain way, behave a certain way.

41:40Lee Benson:And any program to improve culture and increase productive engagement so your teams are creating a whole lot more value, when you start exploring it and how it's going to be communicated and all of it, put yourself in the shoes of team members that aren't leaders and how would it land on them? Because the feedback that I get, most of these programs, like 90 % of them come in, they're super smart and do this. We want them to feel this way and do that. They feel like they're trying to be manipulated. That's terrible. Anything that we do, and that's not the intent of most putting these programs in, right?

42:16It's anything we do should be about creating an environment from which they create value.

42:22Lee Benson:And they'll either get on board with it or not. And that's okay. Our company's culture is going to be perfect for everyone. But I'm never thinking, I need to get you to feel this way or believe this or do that. We'll have a set of alignment tools to drive an intentional culture and you'll get on board or you won't. And then there's this whole other piece that's super interesting to me and I wouldn't let anybody get away with it. It's an integrity challenge. So an employee signs up, we're going to pay you X to do this work. We're really clear on this work. We're investing in you. We're going to keep our end of the bargain 100 % of the time.

42:57Lee Benson:And you need to be at least achieving this because that's what we're investing in. And they always say yes when they start. Most companies aren't that clear about what they want them to do, which is a problem. But let's say you are. And then when they're not, it doesn't work out. OK, well, this isn't working out. You know, thank you for trying. That's ideal. And that's how I like to do it. But then there's this notion out there that if the company doesn't show up perfectly for every team member, somehow it's OK for them not to have the integrity of doing what they agreed to do. So this isn't some leadership company culture crisis to me.

43:32Lee Benson:it's there's a giant integrity issue out there um if we agree to do something let's do it and and if you don't want to do it anymore go find another environment to work in i don't know that how that lands on you but i'm so tired of giving everybody excuses not to do what they agreed to do because integrity is incredibly important yeah and every employee the last thing i'll say that that complains about the culture of the company they work in well aren't you part of the culture like what are you doing to influence it you know it's like like you're all experts in what's wrong with everything big companies have terrible cultures they don't know why don't you try to lead a giant company and see how you would get any better like you have you have no idea and by the way you're part of the culture i i have a short jack welch story if you want to want to hear i know i love it i i i think culture is like it's so important um and then one of the one of my sayings always tell people no culture is culture uh and you know if that makes sense but the culture i mean i personally left like the uh the corporate world because of one but you know one bad experience in uh in a poison culture that and i just knew i was like i just had it i just saw it so many times through other people that i'm like this is just what the corporate culture is so that's why i became an entrepreneur because I didn't want to be part of that.

44:55But realizing that there are huge corporations that can create really, really positive culture. But when you have so many people, you just said it, when you have so many people in a culture, it starts taking its own culture on its own. And how do you intentionally make sure that everybody's on that same mission and not being a leaky bucket. Intentionally, intentionality is what I kept hearing from you is from the leader. It has to have the intentionality behind it. If I bring in a leadership company, but I don't really care, I'm just bringing it in because that's what my board members are telling me.

45:33The people are going to feel it. They're going to know it. And that's why most leadership projects don't even probably get off or they fail because the people bringing in don't even want to bring it in. They're being told or they don't actually believe in what they're bringing in. Yeah.

45:49Lee Benson:And a lot of this is an emotional reaction. It's confirmation bias. There's so many things that are going on there, but I believe every single employee, no matter what company is great culture, terrible culture can influence culture in a better direction. And so what are you, what are you doing to do that? And when they look at large companies and we're super critical of them, the Jack Welch story I'll share, you know, he had his, his 2070 10 program, like top 20%, middle 70 and bottom 10. And every year the bottom 10 have to go. Some people responded to that and said, you know, Neutron Jack, he's terrible.

46:23Lee Benson:I can't believe this. And it's like, what a terrible cutthroat culture. And others are like, well, 15 to 18, maybe 20 % of team members every year probably should go because they're not performing. And so here's a guy running a conglomerate over 400 ,000 employees and managers won't let low performers go because they go to church together they have barbecues together they build new relationships so since they won't actually follow the program to make sure you keep folks that are at or above what they agreed to do when we hired them he had no choice but to say um i just need to force it the bottom didn't have to go and and and in a few occasions you're letting really good people go which is terrible but in most occasions there probably should be you know 50 to 100 % more than half ago.

47:11Lee Benson:So that was a policy. And then those complaining about it, I always ask, well, what would you do differently? How would you approach it? Well, just tell everybody to do it and they'll do the right thing. Well, but that doesn't work, right? So you have to have policies, you have to go through it. And that's where he and I built a relationship when he looked at what I was doing in my aerospace business. He goes, if I had that, the results at GE would have been exponentially better because you wouldn't be getting rid of anyone that was, you know, performing at or above where we wanted them to be.

47:42Lee Benson:And you would identify all the others to be, you would develop them better or offload them better. So it's, it's just, it's always interesting being, being an expert on what's wrong with everything. And everyone isn't in my view, a great mindset to have. We should, we should have a developmental mindset, a value creation mindset. Every interaction is about moving in a positive direction, not pointing out what an expert you are and what's wrong with the world. Does that make sense? It's not healthy being that way. I don't think. I couldn't agree more with you. I love that. Again, that just goes to your positive mental attitude, right?

48:20And your ability to see the bigger picture. And I couldn't agree more with what you just said is it's not, again, it's not about trying to make someone right or wrong. It's about what can we learn in the moment, how do we grow in the moment, and how do we still like that long-term vision, right, is how can we stay anchored to the vision. I always had a mentor. We call it Australia, right, and he always uses this as analogy and when he's teaching is imagine you started out on the West Coast. You started in L.A. and you had a job and you said, I want to get to Australia. So you go on the road trip, and he's like, a lot of people, right, Sometimes you'll venture off.

49:01You'll end up in Alberta. And he says, and that's okay. He goes, you want to stop off in Alberta, you want to stop off in none of it, whatever, or in Mexico or wherever it is. His analogy is like, it's okay as long as you don't lose the vision of where you're actually going. He said the problem and the challenge is if you stop off in the Mexico or you stop off in Colombia and you've lost the vision, you forgot where you're going. That's when the problems start happening. So for me, it's I kind of get the same. What you're saying is whatever the problem is today with either the employee or the team or whatever, the problem, whatever it might be, don't stop losing the vision of what we're actually trying to create.

49:41And in your world, it seems like you have this divine power to bring this holistic value creation to this world. The idea of how much value can I bring to this world in three departments, again, materially, emotionally, and spiritually.

50:01Lee Benson:And I believe, Kayvon, that the biggest deficit on the planet is that we do not have enough leaders that are both moral and capable. And just because somebody else isn't behaving in a good way, it doesn't help the situation for any of us to start behaving that way or get off our value creation mindset or path. And I look at elected leaders literally around the world and they make it seem like the most important thing is for one person or another to be elected. And they're driving fear, contempt, anger. How do we move through life and not let those folks influence how we think about the world and how we create value and then maybe understand it a little bit more so we find people that will create net positive value in the world?

50:57Lee Benson:I mean, just in the United States, we literally, I believe across the board, we could spend half the money on government at all levels and get more done. It's so bad. Like their job is to create better conditions to work, live, learn, and play to lowering relative cost over time. And they haven't made it about that on average for the last few decades. And it's gotten us to where we're at. I'm optimistic that we can get there. I really like a lot of things are happening. We just had a month where we had, you know, positive cash flows for the government. Finally, the first time since the Clinton era, you know, so certain policies are working.

51:35Let's go that direction and not make it all about.

51:40Lee Benson:Who's going to who's going to get elected and then manipulate everybody with fear, anger, contempt and all the other stuff that's going on. But that goes back to we have leaders that were capable of doing those things and moral moral is they make decisions. that are going to be win-win, at least with the intent for all the stakeholders involved with it. We need more of that. Yeah, it's a hard one for me because, again, I don't want to get too much. I don't want to make this a political show. I'm not going to go into politics here. But it's a hard way hearing that. I'm like, yeah, isn't that like in a perfect world what you just said would be great?

52:17But what happens in the real world when there's donors and there's big businesses that want their agenda and the big, big boys that are running this world. And you're just trying to appease everybody just so you can be in this position. And now you're working multiple people's agendas at some point. I could see no matter how moral one is, you can start losing who you are. You can start losing a little morality just to save your position or save your seat. Or depending on how you get, safety of your own life. I do know.

52:57Lee Benson:Well, yeah, it can be. But how is this any different than these large companies that people say have terrible cultures? You have all these forces. And what we're talking about is never going away. So you have one side that creates value, one side that takes value out of the world by rigging the game. You could call it good and evil if you want. But I think about good as net positive value creation, the intent, and evil is taking it out of the world in some way, materially, emotionally, all of it. and it's never going away. So we could say all this is going on, and I guess it really doesn't matter.

53:32Lee Benson:No, it does matter. We need to keep fighting because the side rigging the game to take value out of the world, they never sleep. That's their whole thing. It's their superpower. So the side that creates value just needs to step it up, keep their foot on the gas, never give up, keep shining a flashlight on all of it. So you've heard that term, happy warrior. I mean, I think that's the right way for all of us to be. It's been here for all of recorded history, never going away. Let's just strengthen the value creation side and the game riggers. Let's just squash them, shine a flashlight on them and squash them.

54:08Well, let's leave it there. The giant, let's squash them. Because I would ask, you know, how do we do that? But I think the question is...

54:15Lee Benson:The behavior. I mean, metaphorically, the behavior. And I think shining a flashlight on it, exposing it so people can really see it. And they don't fall for the manipulation. I think that's how we sort of squash that energy, that taking value out of the world piece of it. And with the best of intentions, a lot of folks out there, they believe government has their best interest. They believe mainstream media wants to keep them informed of what's really going on. But there's a lot of manipulation going on and it works. Psychological nudging works. I don't I have. OK, so tell me where I'm wrong is, you know, I'm going to admit it.

54:54I don't care. This is this is going to get me canceled. I don't care. I have a hard time, like for me as a leader, let's just say, you know, I'm a leader in my business and, you know, my businesses that I have and I'm leader at my home and I try to be a leader in, you know, in my community. I have a lot more to go with my leadership. I will be the first to admit that I am. I got a lot of things I got to work around my leadership. One of the ones I fail is right there. I do not have room, capacity, or any like, I don't even want to call it any energy towards towards somebody who can sit here today and actually tell me that the media care like that we that the media is telling the truth and that the governments care about our well-being like for me i have no tolerance for that like it's like i'm talking to a you know they say you're trying to get a um what do you call a fish to climb a tree that's what it is to me like you're you're speaking to a tree.

56:02Like if you're speaking to somebody who actually believes that the media cares and, and, and is bringing you the real knowledge, like how do you have conversations with those types of people? Yeah.

56:13Lee Benson:Part of my job, whenever that happens and it happens regularly is to help them think a little bit more clearly. See, that's why you're such a great leader. I can, you, you, you, you actually believe that your job is to help them think clearly in my job. I guess my emotionality is like, I just, I don't have the patience for it. I just think like they're so far from like, how do you get them to open up at this point? I guess my, my, my view is this, if I can see it and I was the guy who was in the bottom half of the class, like I was the guy, like I was the D's and E's and F's. Like, so my, my brain's always like, if I get it, how can you guys not like, how are you not seeing this?

56:55Like what is going on in this world? Yeah,

56:57Lee Benson:almost. Well, I mean, a hundred percent of the time their math doesn't, add up. And so how do you come up with examples that will cut through all their biases around it? Yeah. What I what I don't think most appreciate is that the most powerful weapon in the world to me is weaponizing false morality. And every one of these manipulative approaches will take some moral concept out of context with false pretenses to get a lot of folks to go around it. Like, don't, you know, I can't believe that this, you know, agency killed somebody. It's terrible. And then we, we burned down millions, you know, billions of dollars in property and all.

57:34Lee Benson:And then you look at it. So if the bigger issue is we don't want people to die unnecessarily, well, last year, because of policy changes and what's going on, 20 % lower homicide rate, that's over 4 ,000 people that are alive that otherwise wouldn't be. The drug overdoses dropped from somewhere between 110, 150 ,000 a year down to 60 something thousand. So now we've got, so if you really cared about people not dying unnecessarily, we have 60 to 80 ,000 people alive that otherwise wouldn't be because of these policies. And yet you don't want to talk about that. You want to talk about one person or you want to talk about you spent whatever, a hundred million dollars on this or that as a federal government.

58:18Lee Benson:I can't believe this leader, But wait a minute, we just had a net positive month on cash coming in as opposed to cash going out. We haven't had that in a really decades, in a really long time. We're capturing all of this fraud. I mean, there's hundreds of billions of dollars. So they don't, me helping them think is just like, let's look at the bigger issue, the moral issue that you're talking about here. And where's the bigger impact? And that's getting them to kind of flip. But but if we can't give up on this, I don't think I think I think all of us have to keep this side of the value creation side to be working and nudging.

58:57Lee Benson:And even if they walk away really frustrated, you planted some seeds that are probably going to make them think. It's hard for people to be wrong when they've taken a position for so long, too. And I understand that. And it's usually with good intent. usually the leaders of of these political parties around the world i can't say that about but uh for for a lot of them but for individuals it's with good intent they they want to believe that others have their best interests in mind yeah do you believe that that a lot of people want to believe that yes if you if you read but the leaders know like they'll They'll say they're for something, but they're only leveraging it to get something.

59:39Lee Benson:If you read Victor Davis Hanson's book, The End of Everything, it's such a great book. My biggest takeaway from the book is that throughout recorded history, every civilization or culture was wiped out or way significantly diffused. And right up to the point where it happened, they all said the same thing. Oh, it can never happen here. And I talked to history teachers in the U.S. that know this and they say, oh, that could never happen here. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, this is going to be again, I stopped saying never, ever. Honestly, the moment Donald Trump became president the first time, that was the first time in my life where I because I used to be never, never, ever.

1:00:29never ever and the moment i saw that happen i was like i'll never say never ever anything is possible in this world and you said it i loved what you said the beginning of the show it was it was it was really it it hit me and we the moment we think we have a limitation or we even put an idea of what our max potential is we we've just shut off our actual greatest potential of what could be because we do not have as humans, as individuals, as spiritual beings, we actually do not have the ability to understand truly how great our potential can be. And the only thing we can do is what I'm hearing from you is every day, be the best person we can be, create the most value everywhere we can create it, continuously learn and grow, understand that we live in a world that's up and down.

1:01:25It's not about taking the motionality of the up and down. It's just being able to be consistent throughout. And in that, in those tribulations and those times of, of struggle and greatness, the potential will reveal itself is what I'm hearing from you.

1:01:44Lee Benson:Yeah. A hundred percent. Let's keep growing and keep growing and let's create positive value and push back on things that are taking value out of the world. I do. I try to do both every day. I like it. I like, you know, Lee, I appreciate you stopping by and giving us this wisdom. I can see how much it means to you. There, there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of wisdom and spirituality in you. I can see it. I can feel it for those that want to, uh, I love the round, the dinner table too. I think as a family, like, you know, with two young kids, I love that. So for those that are in business and want to learn leadership and learn how to bring value creation to their businesses or families or whatnot, where can people find you?

1:02:27Lee Benson:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, if this stuff is resonating on the professional side and in the business world, go to etw.com. And there's a number of ways that we can help. A lot of free resources there, and there's different programs to get involved with. And then for family value creation, being really intentional there, please visit dinnertable.com. I do live calls several times a month. Love to see you in our community and give us feedback there. Like I said, we're two years in, 40 ,000 parents. I want over the next five years to reach millions of families with us. I love it. I love it. And we'll make sure we have those in the show notes.

1:03:06As we depart, any last words for the audience?

1:03:11Lee Benson:I think just reinforcing the bigger concept here that we've been talking about, you know, think about how you create value in the world. Ask your kids, how would you like to create value in the world now and when you become an adult someday? And even your jobs, you know, wherever we're working, how do we create value for the business? How does our company create value? And it just kind of resets where our focus is. And it actually makes it a little bit easier. Like every day, even my lower emotional energy days when I'm focused on creating value, I climb out of it really fast. I love it. So the question that is stated is, where can you bring value into your day-to-day, no matter where you are, no matter what position you have, no matter what you're doing, there's some value you can bring, look for it, create it, offer it.

1:04:04Awesome.

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