Bet on People

Bet on People with Jason Blumer

• Keegan Evans • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode of the Bet on People Podcast, Keegan Evans, executive coach and AI Consultant at Euda and Limited Partner at Beyond Earth Ventures, sits with Jason M. Blumer, Entrepreneur, CEO at Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC  and Thriveal and co-author of the book Scale with Purpose. They discuss the principles of human-centered leadership and explore strategies that leaders can use to prioritize people, build trust, and scale culture within service-based businesses.

Jason M. Blumer shares his leadership philosophy, emphasizing intentionality, empathy, and servant leadership while making challenging business decisions. They also dive into effective hiring and team development, navigating the tension between freedom and structure, and aligning organizational goals with the growth, well-being, and development of individuals.

Expect to Learn:

  • How early entrepreneurial missteps shaped Jason’s understanding of intentional leadership.
  • Practical approaches to hiring and aligning people with mission and purpose.
  • Strategies for balancing freedom, structure, and team expectations.
  • Key principles for leading teams with empathy, clarity, and consistency.
  • Lessons on scaling a business without sacrificing culture, integrity, or people.

Episode Breakdown with Timestamps:

  • [00:00:00] – Teaser 
  • [00:00:57] – Introduction & Welcome: Keegan introduces the podcast and guest Jason M. Blumer.
  • [00:01:36] – Defining Intentional Leadership: Jason reflects on early missteps and the meaning of intentionality.
  • [00:03:57] – Recognizing “Wrong” in Leadership: How decisions impacting people define right and wrong.
  • [00:07:52] – Ownership vs. Leadership: Distinguishing owning a business from leading a team effectively.
  • [00:20:35] – Holding Tension as a Leader: Balancing vision, resilience, and responsiveness while managing personal emotions.
  • [00:30:37] – Do You Want What That Means?: Jason’s pivotal turning point on commitment to scaling and serving others.
  • [00:42:47] – Empathy and Perspective in Leadership: How understanding team perspectives shapes promotion and leadership decisions.
  • [00:46:03] – Key Leadership Lessons: Leadership is not about the founder; it’s about serving the team.
  • [00:49:04] – Leadership Myths & Insights: Promoting people skills over technical skills; redefining “soft skills” as hard leadership skills.
  • [00:53:49] – Closing & Resources: Jason shares where to connect, learn more about the book, and upcoming events.

🔗Learn from Jason M. Blumer’s Book: 

Scale With Purpose: https://read.amazon.com/sample/1774585634?clientId=share

🔗Connect with Guest Jason M. Blumer:
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonblumer/
👉 Email: jason@blumercpas.com

🔗Connect with Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC:
👉 Website: https://blumercpas.com/
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blumer-&-associates-cpas-pc/ 

🔗Connect with Thriveal:
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thriveal/

🔗Connect with Host Keegan Evans:
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keeganevans/

🔗 More from Euda:
👉 Website: https://www.euda.io/
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/euda-io/

🔗 Follow the Podcast on:
👉 Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bet-on-people/id1882863281
👉 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HgXTMbgkDsmuqzUiDGcXc
👉 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Euda-io



SPEAKER_01

If there's any one particular leadership skill that you wish you'd learned earlier, what would it be? Probably that leadership is not about me. And that drives its way through a lot of different components of how you respond.

SPEAKER_00

Meet Jason Blummer, CEO of Blummer CPAs, founder of Thrival, and co-author of Scale with Purpose. Helping service-based entrepreneurs grow their business with clarity, intention, and the people who make it all possible.

SPEAKER_02

What was underneath your resistance to hearing them on that?

SPEAKER_01

Probably the same common resistance I have with anybody, which is I want you to like and want what I want. Can you just be more like me? Which is weird and sick. A lot of what I did was not intentional at all. A lot of it early on was centered around myself. I built businesses that I wanted the way I wanted them to look and really never dove into what the servant side of leadership really is.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Bed on People, a podcast where we explore the decisions behind human-centered leadership and why betting on people isn't just good for people, it's smart business. I'm Keegan Evans, executive coach and founder of Uta, and my guest today is Jason Blummer, an entrepreneur and co-author of Scale with Purpose, the Service Entrepreneur's Guide to Intentional Growth. He owns and leads Blummer CPAs, a virtual CPA firm, and he also founded Thrival in 2010, a consultancy and learning organization built to help service firm founders grow with structure, intention, and strong teams. Jason, welcome to the show. I'm excited to talk about leadership, talk about people and how we affect and help people grow. Awesome. I love it. Yeah, it's been a delight to get into know you ahead, getting ready for this. Um, and before we dive into the format of the of the cast, I'd I'd love to ask, you built two businesses and you co-authored a book talking about all of this. Uh, what does intentional mean to you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Oh boy, that's a big one. Probably that that came out of I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So uh I've started businesses and probably ran them with the wrong thought, you know, with wrong perspectives. And a lot of what I did was not intentional at all. Really the opposite of that. It was a lot of it uh early on was centered around myself, you know, which is there's a little bit of narcissism in every entrepreneur, I think, probably for them to do what they do. Um, and you know, I had I had some of that. So I build businesses that I wanted, that I I wanted them to look the way I wanted them to look, and really never never dove into what the servant side of leadership really is requires of you. Um, so probably a lot of my early career as an entrepreneur was very accidental, the very opposite of intentional, just completely accidental. Um, hoping for things to happen, voicing one thing, yet committing to something else. You know, I got a lot of that confused uh that I've talked about in my book. So the book was really about it was kind of a hard look for entrepreneurs to say, hey, you might not should grow or scale a business. This is not for everybody, but if you're gonna do it, you have to do it on purpose with intention. Yep. Uh there's a lot of design that goes into businesses that are supposed to scale through different uh plateaus and growth ceilings they go through. So uh intention is real personal because it's the very opposite of how I started my journey in entrepreneurship. So I love that. That's really start.

SPEAKER_02

There's a lot more to it, but I'll stop there. That's big. But I'm sure a lot more is in the book, uh, for sure. Which we want people to know about. You said something in there uh that I want to I want to click in on. You said I think I did a lot of it wrong at the beginning. And when I work with when I work with folks, there's some things are pretty binary, right and wrong, but a lot of stuff there isn't. But you had a you had a lot of conviction when you said it that way. What were some of the signs uh when you look back or even in the moment that said this is wrong?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and and wrong is a is a funny word, right? Um, you know, a lot of times my partner and I would look at each other and go, Wow, we we messed something up in the past, but probably if we look back, we wouldn't have done anything different with the information we had at the time to make the decision. And so you can look back hindsight's 2020, and you can label something wrong, but in the moment, it still may not have been the wrong decision that you would have made. And that's that's probably still very true. Uh, so labeling something wrong should have a lot of caution with it. Um, but I I think wrong for me was that I probably hurt myself and hurt people, and it's you know, not physical hurt, but your leadership has such an impact on people, uh, for good or bad. And as leaders, a lot of times we we run through life doing what we want, doing what we want for our business, trying to achieve our goals. And at some point, uh the role you're called to as a leader for a business is about all the people, which include you, as one of the roles uh on the company. And so there was, I mean, so I really did a lot of things for myself and that I talk about in the book. And it a lot of that had impacts to my partner and my team members and even my family, my wife and and my kids. And so a lot of people bear the impact of the weight of poor leadership. And um, so that's probably why I called it wrong, because there are a lot of things I shouldn't have been doing. Um, and it came it came out of a lot of just wrong mindset, you know, kicking off my entrepreneurial journey, really not knowing, but it was really all about me and what I wanted. And this this company started to require things of me that I pushed back on, I didn't embrace. Um, but when I did embrace them, and really my partner kind of forced me into it because she she cares a lot about me and she cared a lot about the businesses she owned with me. And she's like, if I'm gonna do this with you, then we're gonna do it for the right reasons. And so I had to, I really had to had a come to Jesus moment and I and I had to go, you know, why am I doing this? Is this about me or other people? And it had to really start uh being about other people and not myself and hard turn, man. That was a hard turn, but through some of those hardships you learn the most about yourself as a leader. Yep. Uh so probably it was wrong because of how it impacted uh people, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think. Well, I couldn't ask for a better segue into a podcast called Bet on People uh than that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'm the poster child maybe for doing it uh incorrectly. So there we go.

SPEAKER_02

We'll we'll use me. But before we dive into the into the specific story, which is gonna I I I think unpack some of those specific leadership lessons and and and about yourself, I just want to flag that when you talked about being wrong in retrospect, you talked really about the the root of it was hurting people, hurting other people, hurting myself, hurting people in the in the business, hurting people who are really close and personal to me. And that that wrong where it can be fluid and different for for all sorts of people, it really is about that recognizing what was going against your integrity and what and what wasn't actually feeling right for you. Uh so thank you for thank you for sharing a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02

That's very true. All right, let's jump into kind of our format here. So we on Bet on People, we like to talk in three stories uh and and and build and look at the arc of of the journey. So our first one, tell me about a time before you were getting it more right where where you were deprioritizing people in your decisions as a leader.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of my leadership early on, and I I don't even know if I would label it leadership. I was maybe the owner of the company. Sure. Um owning a company and leading are different, right? Those are not the same thing. Absolutely. They can be the same thing, but those are not necessarily the same thing. So I was the owner, and I I think initially I got what I wanted, which was I want to own a company that I want to run the way I want to run it. And you can you can totally have that by starting the company and owning it, right? So you can really legally you can do whatever you want. You don't have to listen to anybody, which to me, I I attached it to what we hear a lot from entrepreneurs because we serve entrepreneurs as our main positioning in in the world. It is entrepreneurs and the things that they're building. Um, and it what we hear a lot, and this is what I did, was I wanted freedom. And the this word, that we hear this word a lot. I need freedom, I need to break away. Um, and and I had that. I started my own company. Cool, I was finally free, right? I'm free from somebody else telling me what to do, or I thought they didn't know what they were doing, um, and they were 30 years older than me, 30 years more into their entrepreneurial career. And so my very pursuit of freedom really wrecked my life. So uh here I am free, right? And I'm ruining all the things around me. I'm really producing a lot of overwhelm for myself. Uh, because when you're free, uh, and I'm not saying everybody feels this, but um when you're free, you kind of have the perception that you don't need to listen to other people, right? Because I'm I'm the boss now. I this is what I wanted, and I'm finally free from everybody. And that's when you get in so much trouble as a leader. Leaders have to have other people around them. They there's just I don't I don't think there's a way you can do this unless you unless you have good uh coaches, consultants, leadership teams around you, people that you trust that trust you. Um, because as a leader, a lot of your worst qualities come out really, and a lot of your best ones come out too. So leadership pushes you to your extremes, really. Uh, so you you show how good you are at things and how bad you are at things. And man, leaders need such balance. They need a lot of the rough spots worn off. Leaders are very, they're very bumpy, entrepreneurial leaders, you know. But that's what makes them so amazing, right? Because they'll go take risks and push into places that nobody would ever dare push into. But man, they have some extremes in their life. Very, they're very polar people, which I which I am. Um they come with things like ADHD and dyslexia. These are all real common in you know, in uh entrepreneurs. I think my early on pursuit of freedom was all about me. And that was not that had nothing to do with other people. So um the people I would hire would be for me. You do stuff so I don't have to do it. Typically, you do stuff I don't want to do, right? And that's not that's not how you build a company. It's like, here's all the crap I don't want to do, and you give that to the people you hire. People are not dumb, they figure that out and they're like, Are you using me? And you you never say yes, but that's actually what you're doing is you're pursuing freedom. So I don't know, Keegan. I'm speaking for myself. That's a lot of what I've done, and we see that in a lot of entrepreneurs' life. So that's those are some hard, some of the hard lessons I went through.

SPEAKER_02

In those kind of first uh those first businesses where you were uh in retrospect, uh the owner, if not the leader. Actually, first how old were you when you started that?

SPEAKER_01

I was so I'm 55 now. So that was in a um yeah, late 20s, early 30s, something like that. I don't know. Okay. Is that math work? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Uh it's it's it's good enough for government work. There you go. And uh the reason I asked that is because I see a lot of what you talked about around the focus on self and whatnot is there there are traits within entrepreneur personalities, but there's also just a natural course of brain development and personality around that and recognizing those patterns in an additional specific value of having the humility to surround yourself with people like coaches, consultants, and advisors, like you mentioned, is as much about borrowing that experience and catching those things that make you a cliche versus the real breakout entrepreneur you want to be.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Can you give me a is there like a specific bad hire? I love the example of I hired just to do stuff that I didn't want. Is there a specific one that you can think of that you really learn, like either really regret if you're if you're particularly vulnerable or or really learn the most from is probably the better way to ask that.

SPEAKER_01

You know, we lead service organizations. So that's what our book is about. Me, me and my co-author, our book is about service organizations. So it's people, it's people businesses, marketing agencies, engineering, law, you know, accounting, those kind of things. That's the world we live I've lived in for for 30 years. Um so it's a very people-centric business, so which means it's a very leadership-centric world because it's if you're scaling with people, you're automatically going to have to hone your skills as a leader because you're moving people forward or not. So, really through that process, I don't I don't know, Keegan, if I can think of a specific one. Sure. But I have gone through so many different good and bad hires. Yeah. Uh, many, many, many times. Yeah. Uh we've tried to counter it, um, which most people counter it with, well, I need better hiring processes or I need better, you know, HR tests up front. I need, you know, more personality tests. Uh, there's new ones all the time. And it it turns out hiring is such a heavy risk that you go through. Um, you really can't truly know the person that you're hiring. Yeah. Um, and so there's there's not a lot of the risk you can avoid when you're actually hiring people. And so I I think early on, hiring is, I mean, it is such an intense skill. Yeah. It takes time. Yeah. You have to really learn people as much as you can. Because I mean, you can't take all the time you want because you're trying to get them hired because you need something, you know, uh performed. But I think uh over the years, I've just honed my skills in uh the insight, the empathy, the thought processes, trying to read behind the line the scenes, you know, about who these people are. Yeah. Um, and early on, I had no freaking clue, right? So if I'm hiring an accountant and they go, I'm a good accountant, I go, Well, you're perfect then for the role. If you're telling me you're a good accountant and that's what I need, when I had no idea they were lying, they actually weren't an accountant, or uh they weren't trustworthy. Uh and then it you can also find people that you hired that are incredible, they trust you, they follow you as a leader, you can lean on them and you can also say that also I can't claim as me being really good, right? So I think when you have a bad hire, which I've had a number of those, you you can't fully blame yourself because you couldn't know. But when you have good hires too, those people just happen to be amazing people. And you can't even claim that that fully. So um, and through the ups and downs of good and bad hires, there's so many principles that I know about that we teach and coach on very specifically when you are trying to build teams. Uh, it's just such a very difficult, skilled effort to build a team. So, but Keegan, that's more general. You might have more specific questions. I don't have, I can't even narrow it down to the many poor hires I've made.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's it's you know what, it's great. It's a great kind of overall lesson for those who are at whatever stage of their entrepreneurial journey or their organizational leadership journey to to think about. And and and hiring is not a craft that, oh, now I'm now I'm good at it, it's always going to be easy. It's it's it's a new time at bat every single time. That's true. One thing you did say um in there, not just for the hiring process at finding the right people, you had you shared something earlier about I was hiring people to do the jobs that I just didn't want to do and bringing them on and just dumping uh dumping the that kind of work on them. How do you do that well? Because a a huge part about entrepreneurship and scaling is recognizing that you can't do all the jobs. And uh a lot of the fundamental principles of what uh Yuda believes is around matching not just the work but the life and the passions and the purpose of people to the variations. Um and I just, you know, I Molly Molly writes about it on Substack and and fairly publicly. I have an aversion to social media. I absolutely don't want to do that, and she's much better with it. What does right look like in terms of hires and leaderships for jobs you don't want to do?

SPEAKER_01

No, that's a that's a good question. And I I I think you're right. When we do hire, we we need to hire for a role. We need filled because we need stuff to be done, right? So that so that's true. I think a lot of it is a mindset of the the entrepreneur and the leader. So uh it a the change really came when I started approaching the hiring process with I need you, and and I want you to know if this is right for you because we have a purpose, we have a mission, and we're going somewhere. And I got to really make sure you want to go where we're going because I'm gonna take us there. And I need you to be okay with trusting a leader to follow the purpose that we've designed. So it really starts further back from the job description and the role. Do you want to do this or not? Here's the pay. And it starts from we're an organization with a purpose and a mission. And it may be that you're not right or you might be, but you need to figure it out for yourself, and so do we. So we're trying to match up together to make sure we're gonna follow this mission together. And so it starts with a different mindset, and so we that really led us to switch our our hiring process. So we'll have somebody uh fill out a form, a lot of questions, and they're they're questions they wouldn't normally fill out, which is you know, you know, when have you struggled and what lessons did you learn from those struggles? You know? Yeah, and because it's now it early on in the hiring process, it's not even about the job you need to fulfill. I'm trying to figure out what kind of people these are. So I'm like, do you learn from struggles? And and that teaches you so much when they're like, oh, that's a weird question. Don't tell me. We're like, okay, but that's fine for them, right? And you go, maybe we're not able, we shouldn't be hooking up. And then the second, if we say, uh we like you, we love the form you filled out, um, then the next meeting is we make a presentation to them and it's all on our processes, it's on our vision and values. Just got a we've got a full presentation, and we ask them to sit there for an hour and go through this presentation. And if they go, this is amazing to know what's behind this, or if they go, why are you sharing all this with me? I'm trying to see if I can get a job. Yeah. And so we've slowed down the hiring process. We put more pieces into it to give them opportunity to opt out, or to give us opportunity to see how they respond to some of the mission-related value presentations we give. Um, so it the mindset changed, not trying to fill a role, but trying to go, are you are you the person that needs to hook up with us? Do we need to be together in our life? And if so, we might have a job for you. Yeah. But and it's slower, it's more frustrating. Yeah. I need them to be hired, but here I am going through this slow thing. And it's so weird as a leader. I'm there making this presentation when I'm really stressed, I'm overwhelmed, I'm in a hurry. I want them to be the person you're the fifth person I've given this stupid vision and values presentation to. And you're thinking through this as a leader, you need them to fill this role, but you learn, you have to learn as a leader. It's like, well, Jason, remember, this is not about you. It's about your job. And your job right now is to present the values, be very clear, call them to it, and let them opt out or let you see them long enough to where you can opt them out. And this is just part of the process you have to go through. So I don't know, leaders are often just are fighting with them their own personal emotions and desires to hurry or not do things they want. Um, so Keegan, that's a long answer to say it was a mindset change, right? Because the result is, like you said, it's very it's still the same. I need you to fill a role. But we had to put parts into the front of the hiring process to figure out what kind of people they were. That was key.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's so powerful. Core philosophy for Yuda is intentional culture is what drives outcomes. Culture fit is not a linear gradient of bad to good. It's a spectrum of personal personality and how that and how that fits in. And I really love the yes, you may have to give that presentation five times, but you just saved yourself 20 exit interviews. You hope so, right? Yeah. By doing that. I mean that that piece could have uh could could have qualified as story number two, but I'm not I'm not letting me off the hook or letting our time off the hook. You shared with us a bit a little bit about an example where you overhauled the firm's time off policies once as a prioritizing the people over a over the business decisions. Can you go a little deeper into that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that that's interesting. The way my partner and I wanted to build a firm and give time off is we really wanted to just say there's structure to it. You got to plan your time with us. Um, we're we're an accounting firm that hasn't tracked time for probably 12, 15 years or something like that. So that we don't believe that time piece really is necessarily the reflection of the value, though time is very important. Um so with some of that belief, when we hire a team, we want to say, you know what, if you do proper planning with us, you can take off whenever you need to. We try not to call it unlimited because that that feels completely. Confusing sometimes. I know that's a very common phrase that people use. So we have PTO, but we call it plan time off. So we're like, you get to you get to take whatever time you want. All you have to do is plan with us. And so we set up the structure around planning. Planning is a huge skill for entrepreneurs. Yep. We love it. I need it. So we we applied planning to the team and we have them plan their calendars every week and things like that. So we approached that really wanting them to love this ability to take off anytime they want and plan. Yep. And we and we found what the employees continued to want or ask for was no, you tell me when to be off. And we thought, no, no, let me explain this to you again. You get to be off anytime you want. All you have to do is plan. And they're like, Yeah, but are are we closed on July 4th? And it's like, not necessarily. You can if you want. And they're and we kept wanting them to want that. And they they kept voicing, please tell me when I can be off. And I I kept going, I think you want the other thing, which is you can be off anytime you want. And they they continued to not voice that to us. So probably against the belief we had or the desire we wanted to give them, which is you get to be off anytime you want. Um if you don't follow some kind of religious holiday like a Christmas or something, you can do it on some other time. But uh kind of against my own beliefs, we went ahead and designed holidays and we said, Sure, all right, we're closed. Here's the seven days, you're off. And they're like, Thank you. And I'm like, I I didn't, I still didn't fully understand why that would be such a big deal to them. But I had to just make the decision and go, am I giving them what they want? Are they voicing something different? Um, and that was that was weird. That's still weird for me. Um, but at some point I have to look in the mirror and go, am I do I continue to try to give them something that they want that is a value they're not perceiving as a gift to them? And do I have to make it very stated? And then I have to ask myself, well, they're not an entrepreneur like me, and that's not wrong or bad. So maybe they want the gift of that structure. Um, and maybe that's what they're telling me they need. And as a leader, there's something they want me to give them, and I don't want to give it to them. So I but I give it to them anyway, and that happens to be the thing they wanted as a gift. And so that's just all that's mental stuff you got to think through. And that that was kind of an odd thing to do, but it turned out that that is what they they appreciated and wanted.

SPEAKER_02

Was it a was it an either-or of kind of a structure planned or holidays, or or just you gave you gave some holidays and then there's still the the planned upslash unlimited?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, we we worked through we worked through it with HR because we were getting large enough to where we had to start inserting some more structured legal HR-related components. So we had to say, you know, time like your vacation time off, you still have to do some planning to know what that is. But the holidays, even we mixed that up a little bit. We said what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna designate seven holidays. Yeah. And the way we used to say it is the firm is not ever really closed because you can take off anytime you want. And now we said these holidays were closed. We're shutting the we're shutting the firm down. And so to them, they're like, cool. So I can actually not look at my email. It gave them a different level of freedom. And then we say there's three floating holidays too. So we know the seven are the the real common US-based, probably non-religious, not all of them, you know, religious-based uh holidays. And then there's three more they can float around to whenever they need to take them off. And we tried our best, you know, that stuff's hard. But that was that was kind of wild to go through that thinking when you believe something different than what the perception is on your team that they keep voicing to you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. What was underneath your resistance to hearing them on that? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, this is psychology here. That's what this is. Keith can't asking me these hard questions. Probably the the same common resistance I have with anybody, which is I want you to like and want what I want.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

You know, can you be, can you just be more like me?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Which is kind of weird and sick, right? If you think about it, uh, because an entrepreneur is is is something I warn people about. I'm like, it's it's not the easiest career choice that you choose. Uh and it's right for some people, it's not right for other people. And just be okay with the fact that everybody in your life's got to go through that entrepreneurial journey with you. So nobody's gonna, uh, you it's entrepreneurship is not a lot of professional and personal time off. You don't clock out in entrepreneurship, which makes the roles really difficult on you and the team. So, as a perception as an entrepreneur, it's kind of like, well, I know what's best, I know what's valuable. Let me tell you, you're gonna love it if you'll just understand what I'm trying to explain to you. And you push that over and over, you're trying to get them to value and want the things you don't want. So that's really hard. It's hard as a leader to face yourself and go, the thing you continue to value is not the thing your team values. So you need to give it up. While at the same time, as a leader, I still believe it's the right thing and valuable. But also I'm being told I have to lead other people in a way that is most valuable for them. And it's just such a weird uh thing you got to do in your mind to give them the gift they actually want, not the one you truly believe they should have if they could just understand what you're doing. Um, so that was that was a weird mind change and decision I had to make.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for meeting me on that question. That was a that was a that was intentionally a pushy one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was it was a good one. Yeah, it was a good, it was a good one.

SPEAKER_02

One of the things I see, I do mentorship with some accelerators at uh the local university and and I've coached entrepreneurs. You mentioned earlier kind of the sociopathy that a certain amount of uh uh entrepreneurs have to have. And I there there's there's some reality to that. How I break it down often is it's the constant tension of being receptive to input and understanding what your customer, like understanding the customer problem underneath it deeply and truly obsessing over that customer problem and being flexible and learning based off of new inputs while also being resilient enough to be the only one in the room who believes that this is believes in your vision. And holding those two things simultaneously is incredibly difficult. And you're gonna land on the wrong side of the line uh every so often. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I love, yeah, I love how you said it. There as entrepreneurs, there's constant inputs, right? That as entrepreneurs, when you believe you're right, those deflect off of your beliefs pretty easily. Yeah. And you sometimes you don't even know that you're not accepting new ways to understand the world around you. Yeah. But you're right. You're holding the, you're holding leaders hold the tension of things in their mind to opposing ideas a lot of times. That's very common.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it's a mental wrestling that leaders have to do. Uh, and sometimes that's what creates a lot of the anxiety and stress. Absolutely. Is that they're holding a belief, like you said, I like what you said. They're the only person in the room truly that believes that mission. And you have to preach it to people, knowing they're like, eh, that's fine. Uh, the job's okay. And you're like, no, it's bigger than that. And but not, I don't, I don't need to require that it's bigger for them. It needs to be okay that they like their job, and that's about it. Love it.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Jason. Yeah. All right. I put you through the ringer on the coaching question. Now we get to now you get to tell your favorite story. Uh you mentioned something about uh uh a question your partner asked you. Do you know what that means?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good one. Yeah. Well, it's I was on I was on one of my podcasts early on and uh had a co-host. Can I tell that story? I'm kind of going I want to hear any story you want to tell.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, this is our third story. This is like this is whatever your favorite story is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, this is this is a good one. Well, so many in our community know this story. Um Barrett Young, who was one of your guests, of course, really knows the story uh very deeply. But I was early in my career um as an entrepreneur, and I was on a podcast, and my partner had just become my partner. And with my co-host, I said, he said, What's up, man? And I'm like, I'm I'm sick of this. I just want to go cut grass for a living. That's what I said on the podcast publicly. And she's like, Well, I just signed up in my life to be your partner. What does that mean? So she was she was kind of upset. She's like, Yeah, did I sign up for you? And you're are you gonna leave and go cut grass? What the heck are you talking about, man? So that was a little bit uh freaky to hear that publicly. But I was sharing, you know, this this emotion and this overwhelm that I had. And really truly, I had always voiced, let's grow. I want to grow this business, but I had wanted to live like a lifestyle business, which, and again, scaling a business and lifestyle businesses are really two different things. Neither one are wrong or right, but there there are components of them where they don't fit together. Yep. Um, because scaling takes a lot of sacrifice, um, it goes through a lot of bumps, a lot of ups and downs. Um, but I was acting like a lifestyle business, which is I want to also do anything I want anytime I want. So if I'm done at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, I'm going to the movies and I'm leaving. And it turns out that started hurting the business. So I had, again, these opposing views of I want to scale, I want to grow. And she's like, What is it? Which one is it? They're both different. And you voice this uh growth and scaling mentality. And she asked me, she said, Do you want what that means? And in the moment, it was a real intimate, specific moment, and it really impacted me in a very, very hard way. I was very angry because it really drove the nail pretty hard into my desires and my actions were completely misaligned. They did not match at all. Not many people could see it. She's she could start to see it. And she's like, when you voice growth, that comes with something. You're gonna have to sign up for what it means to grow, not just voice the sentiment of I want to grow. And since then, I've said that phrase so many times. It's in that first chapter of my book. Um, it's been on t-shirts, mugs, wall wall posters. Uh, people, people in our thrival communities ask themselves that and they're each other very, very often. So that was that was a real big turning point for me. And it was it was a big turning point because what it meant was I had to make a lot of practical changes. I had to go talk to my wife. Yeah, uh, I had to cut my pay. Yeah. I had to, I I mean, I had to do some really hard things because I had I had started acting and like this business is even my piggy bank. You know, that money's my money. Um, and I'm gonna take that money out and really was was way overpaying myself, you know, these these kind of things, and then they start to really impact you personally, and you're you gotta go face your wife. Uh super hard stuff. She didn't say do that, she just asked me the question, do you want what this means? Because it means a lot. And man, it was so hard, but it really changed how I view the world and how I'm supposed to approach the world as an entrepreneur, mainly as a leader. I'm meant to serve, you know, uh the people around me. When you sign up as a leader, you're now the only person that has the power to remove all barriers out of the way of everybody. And so they need you, you have to be there. You can't skip out on them. Uh, doesn't care if you're overwhelmed or you're sad or you're uh happy. Show up. Your team needs you, and you have to, it's very sacrificial, um, sometimes lonely. But ultimately you go, yep, this is what I'm made for. I want to be used in a way that helps other people uh move to the next place they're meant to be, and I can be the the the power behind moving them forward, and that's a really amazing thing. Uh it's what I want to do now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Love it. Do you want what this means? That is a that is just such a great it's good. It it cuts right to the it it ties very nicely with what we were talking about about entrepreneurs needing to hold to realities or two opposing thoughts in the head, and also all the way back to understanding what the purpose is from from the very beginning in having clarity on the vision, having clarity on what you what you're trying to do, but aligning with the problem that you're trying to solve, and then being able to detach yourself from any solution any particular solution as you learn more information about it to focus on that problem. Yeah. And really being honest about the integrity between behavior and and percep self-perception. Uh that I mean that's some hard it took it took me working with a therapist post-marine corps to get to that recognition.

SPEAKER_01

No, I've been through my own therapy. Yeah. But it's but that's that's weird. That's the value of coaches. Sometimes you're not meant to journey through those mental battles on your own. You need another person that's a little distant from you. They're distant emotionally uh from you. And then that that's strength, right? To go, I think I don't have within myself uh the power to get through this next um level of my life. And, you know, to to go get help. Some people, you know, entrepreneurs don't want help from anybody because we don't believe we need it until you gotten beaten up enough and you ruin other people's lives. You're like, I do you do need help. So, and that becomes okay, and it is okay now. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

You also highlighted something really important there in terms of the direction of kind of the emotional burden and accepting we often hear leadership and entrepreneurship can be lonely, but you framed it in a beautiful way where it's explicitly it's it's not your team or your employees job to worry about you being stressed because it's your job to not lie to them, not not to hide the truth, but to project consistency and steadiness. And the only way in in high stress situations to be able to do that, to have the capacity to do that, is to seek the support outside of the team for yourself. Uh whether it be a coach, whether it be a consultant, whether it be a partner or a mastermind group. There's so many solutions to that problem. Yeah. And that when leaders choose to inflict the emotional burden on their teams, that's that's not that's not strength, that's not assertive leadership, that's lack of creative solutioning. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, you're you're exactly right. Um I I believe that I believe that that deeply. You know, and when we and you probably see this too, when you coach entrepreneurs, you see very, very immature emotional behaviors, um uh acting out, um, letting their narcissism get in the best of them, um, pushing that emotional burden of what they've signed up for onto other people who didn't sign up for it. That could be your personal family, could be your team members. And that's leadership is lonely because um a lot of times when we're delivering messaging, my partner and I and our other leaders, we'll script that messaging, which basically means you get to say some things, and then there are some things you do not get to say. You have to deliver the message clearly. And if you're upset or whatever battle you went through, that's kind of none of their business. And it really is none of your business to place that upon them. What they need is very uh clear leadership. And if you've got wrestling to do, you got to go in the back room and go get a therapist and wrestle with them. But it's not, it's not meant to be dumped on them, but specifically because it's a place they can't do anything about it. They're just now freaked out and they have no power to help you uh or or anything like that. And a lot of times your your best leadership moves come in very intense times, right? Critical moments where you want to act out. You want to get pissed and start throwing stuff and saying things you shouldn't. And we all do that and we make those mistakes, but that's not right. You know, when your business is in a critical situation, yeah, you uh what they need is what you said, you know, that that stability, that direction, that clarity. I hear a lot of those lessons from military. I didn't go into the military, but I hear how powerful it is. You know, there's a lot of people like you from the military that have a lot of leadership techniques, which uh we all need to absorb way, way more of um, because I guess in those settings, sometimes you don't have a choice. It is life or death situations, yeah. But it so applies to leadership in companies too. Um, but it's very powerful stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. And we uh and I I it's a great recognition. It's something I I often talk about. The the experience of the military gave me a very compressed learning cycle for some of these lessons. And the life or death stakes are valuable, not too many people take a life and death stakes and then use it to judge other situations as just less or then. But what it really, the real superpower of these stakes, and this can be acquired in any different place in any different method of learning, is it gives perspective of I made it through this, and so when my amygdala is firing and dumping all the adrenaline into my system because my advanced television company that I'm working for as a pitch, uh no one's actually dying. I made it through that, I can make it through this, take the breaths and remember what my what my role and purpose here is. Perspective, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Something that really ties in, and I thought about this at the beginning of our conversation when you talked about the different people want different things, not everyone signed on to be an entrepreneur, it can show up in different ways. Uh, our first leadership principle at Utah is assume everyone's trying to do the right thing. And that doesn't mean give everyone a pass. It means pause and recognize the combination of sources and inputs and desires that are bringing people to the decisions that they've made. And even when you think it's even when it feels like a right or wrong move, take that beat and understand perspective because, like you so beautifully expressed, right and wrong is not anywhere near as binary. It's it's about that perspective.

SPEAKER_01

That is beautiful. That's hard to do. Right? That's that's that's hard to do because you need your team to do what you need them to do. And if they're not, you're like, what the heck is wrong with you? And a lot of times it's you. You weren't clear, you didn't, you were a little more passive than you thought. So people ask us sometimes, what's a great leader? You know, and if you use an example like an accounting firm, what people do is they go, This accountant is awesome. Let me promote them, and they'll be the accounting leader. And it's like, well, that's probably the worst person you could promote, but it makes sense, right? Yep. But leadership has a lot to do with empathy, uh, insight, yep, uh, care. It has nothing to do with the technical service actually you're trying to promote. A leader is a people person, it is a person that uh notices the people in the room, gives room for people to understand things, yeah, doesn't apply their own belief or what they're seeing and assuming everybody else is seeing and believing the same thing there. No, so there's a lot of patience with a leader to walk people to a new location in in a form of a belief or something. Or if they if they won't go there to figure out are they right for the mission of the organization. Uh so leadership is, I mean, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of mental work. Uh, you you said it, you said it better. Uh it's not it's not really assuming that they're supposed to have the same perspective on life as you do. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay. You just touched on entirely entirely other we could go on for a whole other podcast on the topic of uh uh of promotion structures that uh just uh escalator up uh high performing individual contributors without considering the very different uh skills required. I uh I always refer Kim Scott's book, Radical Candor. Uh it was did an excellent breakdown of why why that why that breaks down very quickly and creates generations of leadership skill cascading problems. I think that's a great place to kind of leave the meat of the conversation. Uh any anything surprise you or come in that you weren't expecting out of this? I always like to I always like to get that perspective.

SPEAKER_01

No, I would say you you and Molly prepped me pretty well. So you know, which is y'all prepare. I'm not surprised, right? So the preparation is is always very comforting. So uh so there were no surprises. You know, you know, the only thing that's uh surprising is and this this is always interesting to talk about your leadership journey and the things you've learned. Because you do always say something new in each new podcast that you that you share, right? Because you're like, oh, I didn't know I believed that perspective. Um so it's uh it's always helpful to Do your own self-assessments by just being asked by somebody like you, a coach, to say, tell me why you did that. It's like, uh, I'm not totally sure, but let's let me give you my best answer. And we we learn a lot through just verbally analyzing those things. So that's always helpful. I always enjoy the exploration of my brain. Because I don't I've learned I don't always know what's up in my head. So absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, until we get it out. That's right.

SPEAKER_02

All right. You ready for the palate cleanser? Uh uh, the light lightning-ish round?

SPEAKER_01

Let's do it. Palette cleanser. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_02

There we go.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, Jason, what was your first job? Um, I was a bag boy at a grocery store. Awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I have been, and this is where the ish on lightning ish comes in. I've been noticing my safe way, there's back to people, bagging groceries are available there. But I remember there being like a really explicit tip and expectation of tipping back when I was growing up, and that that seems to have gone away. Uh, where everywhere else tipping is just a button. Tipping bag baggers isn't there for me.

SPEAKER_01

No, yeah, we I go to no, that's that's a clear, that's a clear change. We yeah, tipping was an expectation when I was doing it, so much so that you started knowing the regulars that would give you a ten dollar bill, and back then you would beat up the other bag people to get to the end of that counter and go, those two old sisters who bring their dogs in every Tuesday, they're mine, right? Because each one of them is gonna give me 10 bucks. Yeah. And you're that you were rich if you got 20 bucks out of a tip from just uh two two people. So tipping was the thing, man, and it's gone now.

SPEAKER_02

Now some stores say do not tip.

SPEAKER_01

I wonder if it has to do with the uh maybe you just revealed why if there's if there was uh fights breaking out over probably in the back room, they're like, yeah, don't you go, you know, meet the sisters because they're they're mine. All right.

SPEAKER_02

We talked a lot about these different skills that you and and I I really appreciate your vulnerability on your growth journey as a leader, but if there's any one particular leadership skill that you wish you'd learned earlier, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

Probably that the the leadership is not about me. And I, you know, I know I reiterated that throughout the podcast, but that's that's that's huge. That um it is so not about me. Um and that that that drives its way through a lot of different components of how you respond. Each time I struggle, uh, struggle with a team member, or I'm happy with a team member, or a critical point in our business. I I have to keep remembering if if it was about me, I would go do whatever I wanted. I would fire people quicker, I would hire people quicker, uh, and then re fire them because I hired them too fast. Um, there would be a lot of poor behavior if if I continue to act out thinking this is about me. Yeah. Um, and that's the one thing that I think needs to be driven out of entrepreneurs and leaders big time is that you know, we hear those horror stories of these leaders who are just uh brutal and cruel, and it is all about them. And nobody wants to be around people like that. And so, but it means you as a person, as an entrepreneur, there's a lot you got to die to if you think this is all about you because man, it is it is so not about you.

SPEAKER_02

I'll ask the obvious question just to get the explicit answer. Uh, have you ever seen any successful uh scaling organizations that have been just about one person?

SPEAKER_01

No, yeah. It did well, it can't be true. Yeah, it can't, it can't you can't scale by yourself. There is, you know, in any kind of growth movement, groups of people moving forward, there is never a one-person deal.

SPEAKER_02

It just can't can't be true in the world. Yeah. I might have uh I might have just cannibalized the next question, but what's the uh biggest myth about leadership uh that that you think's out there?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, one we run into a lot is that we we'll coach people in scaling technical-based businesses, right? Um so they'll promote based upon the technical skills of those people. And leadership uh sometimes has nothing to do with that at all. So it's it's but it and it's counterintuitive, right, in an accounting firm to promote the person that's worse at accounting but's great at leading people. It's that's so weird. And so when you tell people, hey, don't promote your best accountant, they're like, Well, of course I should. It's like maybe not. And that's just some of those leadership things just bump into your mind, they just don't seem to make sense. But that's a real big deal. You you you you promote leaders of people who can move groups of people forward with trust and care that are ready to serve them. You don't necessarily move somebody uh into a leadership position that's just good at a technical skill. Necessarily, yeah, they may go together, but they do not necessarily go together.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Marine Corps principle is uh be technically and tactically proficient. It's a core leadership principle, but proficient isn't the best technical aspect. And we also, I would argue, define officer in all leader roles as the leadership stuff is the technical as well. It's just a different technical for flying the aircraft.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, it's you know, it's it's funny. I one of my mentors, his name's Peter Block, and he writes a lot of leader leadership books. Uh he's kind of a business philosopher, really. Sure. Um have learned most from some of his writing and books. And when you tell him, you know, leadership stuff, that's the soft stuff. He goes, dude, that's the hard skills. Yeah, those are not we need to stop calling those soft skills because that is the hard stuff, which I think is what you were saying too. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

All right, I'm assuming this did not come from Peter Block, but what's the worst professional advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, what is the worst professional advice? You know, I've been doing this on my own, and I've been I've been producing my own poor leadership skills for so long. Um, I I can't remember way early on in my in my career, but I was I was with bosses before that were very narcissistic and they did run the business for themselves. It was it was very clear. Maybe the worst thing is that I never caught on and didn't catch myself when I when I was actually doing it. So I've been in entrepreneurship almost 30 years, so I can't remember some of my early bosses, but I I have tons of you could ask some of my employees and partner stuff about me, and they can go, oh, let me tell you the worst leadership thing Jason's ever said. Um they do they do care about me. They may not say that, but there's there's a lot people could could point to. Uh I can't remember one uh off the top of my head, but I remember some really bad bosses. I mean, I think we all had those, and I'm like, Absolutely, these people were were jerks, they'd yell at people, uh, they let their emotions really drive a lot of how they responded and um and acted, yeah. Um, had no control over their amygdala or their prefrontal cortex, that stuff. They didn't do any mental uh management. Um, and so it all just spewed out of their mouth, and that's that's wrong, and it's not right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Universally voted is the hardest question uh we ask on this. Uh what are you watching, playing, reading, or listening to that is not leadership or business focused?

SPEAKER_01

That yeah, that's a hard question. Um, because entrepreneurs are probably always reading about business or all of our podcasts or economics and you know, Warren Buffett and all that stuff. But um, I'm typically reading about three to four books at a time, always. I always have three or four books. Um, I get bored, so I'm always hopping between books. I grew up in rock bands in college. Uh I was a bass player, so I've always studied and followed bands uh for uh 40 solid years. And so I read about bands. I love my, you know, Metallica, one of my favorite bands. I love their um, I think it's the monster in me, their documentary. Yeah. Uh just an incredible view of the interpersonal family dynamics that go inside of a band, especially with a band like that that has stayed together for so long. Oh, yeah. Um, so I'm leaving, I'm reading Dave Grohl's uh book, who was the drummer for Nirvana, you know, is where he started, um, and now is the lead lead for Foo Fighters. And it, you know, these books, um, of course, these people are somewhat narcissistic like me, so maybe I'm like, I love I love it from that perspective. But their books are so fun because these rock stars have the craziest stories, insane uh stories. Uh just to to listen to the ways that they they grew up is uh is really cool. Um then I'm reading Bill O'Reilly's book on just the presidents, just the past, you know, uh presidents, um, just the history of that. And then I'm reading uh super agency uh book, a book on AI. So which I got it's probably right behind me. That's a great one. Yeah, so that's a that's a go one. I'm halfway through that. So just learning the principles that Reed Hoffman um teaches about that. And I'm I'm very positive on the on the the AI aspects of our of our future. Uh while there's tons of fear mongering in the world, so there's a lot of mental fighting we're all having to do about that now. And I I need support in those books to help me sort through that.

SPEAKER_02

So uh again, multiple podcasts could spawn out of that conversation. We're we're very um we're very much uh Reed Hoffman bloomers uh out of the framework of the city.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the bloomers are he describes uh a number of different bloomers too, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Awesome. Jason, thank you so much for spending time with us. This has been a real delight of a conversation. Thanks, Keegan, for having me. So you had great questions and you and Molly really prepped me well, so I appreciate that. Jason Bloomer is an entrepreneur and co-author of Scale with Purpose who owns and leads Bloomberg CPAs and Thrival. Uh, we'll have all this linked in our show notes. Uh, but Jason, where can people find you or what else do you want our listeners to check out?

SPEAKER_01

Probably the the book website, scalewithpurpose.info, uh, is where you'll learn more about our book. We're gonna be launching resources and an event, you know, where we will walk about 40 people in September in Dallas through a lot of the technical components of the book on scaling. Uh so that'll that'll be fun. Um, and my LinkedIn. I just you know do a lot of work on LinkedIn and so I connect with a lot of people there. So hook me up on uh LinkedIn and we'll connect.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome. And like we said, we'll have all those uh make it easy for you in the show notes uh for everyone. Follow Link and subscribe to Bet on People on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. And if you want to learn more about how we at Uta think about leadership, visit uta.io slash executive coaching. Uh I'm Keegan Evans and we bet on people.