How Executive Retreats Drive Leadership Growth & Business Success

• 42:20

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Executive retreats, leadership growth, business success, green industry, personal development, John Maxwell, facilitation, team building, nature environment, Ocean Isle, personal mission, cultural development, change management, AI adaptation, relationship building.

SPEAKERS

Thane Isaacs, Damon Pistulka

Damon Pistulka  00:08

All right, everyone, welcome once again, the face of the business. I am your host, Damon Pistulka, and oh my goodness, am I excited for our guest today? Because we have none other than Thane Isaacs from innovations tomorrow, he is the man, the myth, the legend that is helping green and snow industry leaders and teams reach great heights. Today, we are going to be talking about how executive retreats drive leadership growth and business success. THANE, thanks for being here today, my friend. Man,

Thane Isaacs  00:46

thank you for having me. It’s always an honor to be here today. Man, it is fantastic day here in Vermont. We’re 58 degrees. Sun is out, the snow is melting. Doesn’t mean we’re not going to get more snow, but just really excited to be here, and hopefully we can learn a little bit from each other and help some people out there elevate themselves and excel themselves to a new level, nice,

Damon Pistulka  01:09

nice. I’m sure I’m not speaking myself, but I’m sure we can learn from you today. THANE, it’ll be great. So as we always like to do, Thane, let’s start out. Let’s look back aways Thane, getting into the green industry. What really brought you into the green industry, and going up through the green industry like you did? Well,

Thane Isaacs  01:34

to be honest, you know, I mean, I think a lot of people get in the green industry, not necessarily to become rich. I don’t think that’s really most people’s goal. In that, my goal was not to be stuck in an office all day and to be able to get around, do things and have freedom. And working for a small company, I had a lot of that, and we were able to do some really amazing and innovative things. But as time goes on, Damon, you know, you get responsibility. We had, you know, started a family and that small business didn’t really support and do everything I needed. So I had to get into the commercial world. And, you know, I looked around in the business I went into and thought, You know what I can actually do? I had always shown that kind of a business, but I’m like, I can actually do well here, and I can grow up through the ranks, which I did, and I felt like that I needed to use that leadership that I had done to move up the ladder quickly. You know, two years in this position, two years in this, two years in this, and, you know, within six years I’m running the whole thing, you know. So it was pretty amazing to be able to do that by just having that that vision and that I wanted to share that with other people and help other people do it as I move through my history, you know? I mean, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to move back into the industry and actually work on day to day stuff, and I’ve just found that that doesn’t excite me as much as being able to work with a whole lot of different situations and not have to deal with the day to day as much that’s that it gets a little boring for me, gets a little routine, and I really enjoy getting in and working with people. I’m not one of those people who comes in and says, Hey, here’s how you do it, and walk away. I want to roll up my sleeves. I’ll do it with you. I’ll go cut the grass with you. I’ll go I’ll go do snow with you, whatever you want to do. But where I have the most influence is through all my years of experience and be able to help people through those situations, plus my John Maxwell leadership coaching skills that have helped me do that as well.

Damon Pistulka  03:29

Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s cool. And the I think a lot of times, people confuse that there are some consultants that are, like, like, almost like a college professor, right? That wants to teach you something, but probably haven’t done it before, right? And that’s what I think is different for you, is you, you’ve been in the industry, you’ve done the things in the industry, and you understand and probably have done what you’re talking with them about,

Thane Isaacs  04:00

yes, most of the time I have done it, even recently, I’ve again, I try to stay involved in that kind of stuff so that I can keep, you know, keep hands on. But also as a coach with businesses. You know, professionally, I was a facilitator when I was with us lawns. I had 32 different operations around the country that I worked with individually, one on one as their facilitator. And that’s really what I like to look at myself at more as as a facilitator, because I feel like with consultants, that is kind of a lot of what they feel like their role is, and that’s great that that works for them. But I want to come in, and one of my big things is, especially as a remote as we are now, is I want to come in and spend time within the operations, to see how things work, to see how I can help by putting my hands on, but actually seeing how people put their hands on. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  04:49

that’s a that’s a great, great way to describe it, and what you have to do. And some of these industries where you are doing things with stuff, building things, you know, and like said in the snow. In the green industry, making great landscapes, making making sure that that places are safe in the wintertime. You know, there’s a lot of details in doing that, but we got a couple guests showing up this somebody, I think we know, Mr. Kirk Brown said, I’m Kirk. Hey, thanks for stopping by day. Kirk. Then someone else said, LinkedIn. They’re the LinkedIn user. People need to change their settings so you can be seen on the thing. But they said, Awesome. Thanks for being here. Whoever you are. Appreciate you stopping by. So as you, as you’re going through this career, right? You can, and we’re talking today about executive retreats and leadership development. I mean, that’s, that’s, you’re really a master in that. What caused the switch? When did you just say that? You know, I can be great operationally, but I, but I want to push myself to be better and help build leaders, and build better leaders.

Thane Isaacs  05:59

Well, here’s what I found. This really happened at US lawns, because I got the opportunity to see a whole lot of different operations, and they all had a lot of the same systems and processes. But you know what? They didn’t all have the same people, the ones that had the people who were bought in and were really passionate about and felt a big part of and these were even some of the operations that I didn’t work with directly, that I visited and got to visit with other franchise advisors. I got to see this as well. Those were the ones that were really doing well. It didn’t matter that we, you know, all used the same kind of process, all the same kind of system. It mattered about the people implementing it. And that was something I just really thought about how I can implement this into my my life, and what I want to do when I look went out on my own. And what I eventually did was I became a John Maxwell coach that helped me understand the leadership and personal development and personal growth side. Because it doesn’t matter what, again, what systems and processes you have if you’re not also constantly innovating and asking yourself, what’s going to break? How can I make it better? I want to be the one seeing how it’s going to break. I don’t want my competition to break it, and I don’t want my customers to break it. I want to be the one to break it, see what’s going to break and fix it. So those were kind of some of the things, the nuances that helped me want to go down this line, and by having this family beach house that we have, and being able to invite people there in this organic environment, we’re able to have more clarity and more focus. There aren’t these distractions. You’re not having to check with the desk at the hotel. You’re not having to ask permission to do this or do that. It’s a house that is open and free to explore in and be a part of, and everybody’s able to live in this little mini, mini community, almost, and we serve each other, and everybody has to do everybody’s dishes, carry out garbage and things like that. And part of the reason behind that Damon, is because I believe if we can’t do the lowest of things for each other, we’ll never do the greatest of things together. Yeah, so big deal. So I feel like, if I can carry out your garbage, if you know Kurt Brown, who’s been to three of these, if he can wash the dishes of Scott Lee sack, or if he can wash the dishes of Paul verisis, then, you know, he you know, then he can get along with them and do some hard tasks, you know, work through some hard things. So I think that, again, that’s that’s a real big part of it, but also, again, the organic setting, where it’s not so sterile, it gives a lot of people a lot of clarity. Friend of mine who came she was going through a big career change, she said it was one of the greatest things she had done, because she got the clarity she needed to make, the changes she wanted to make, and gave her that great focus that would have been hard in a different kind of setting. So where the beach behind me is, is sunrise at that beach. And again, we’ve been doing this for about four years now. I’ve had a lot of repeat attendees, and a lot of people coming back is my greatest compliment. People who want to come back and I mean, it’s, it’s kind of like I want that recipe or I want to eat that again. What you what you made last night for supper. I want to eat that again. It’s a great compliment. That’s

Damon Pistulka  09:13

awesome. That’s awesome. We got, got one of our friends here, Ronald Henderson, he said, here with you. Thanks for stopping by today, Ronald, and dropping a comment, my friend, always great to see you in the in the crowd and listening. So Thane, we’ve got a little special, special treat for people today. And you’ve got something one of your sponsors, yeah, let’s, let’s show that off there. Yeah, this

Thane Isaacs  09:40

is a great hat. Storks plows. They are one of our sponsors for coffee on the peak. And this, this hat is really nice. And it has this, also from Western plows. And it’s got this really nice emblem. It’s, it’s a really heavy duty, heavy industrial rubber. And it’s raised riding, so the first person who can type in, I. Want the hat, I will mail you the hat. Or if it happens to be Kirk Brown, I’ll bring it to him. So the first person who says, I want the hat, I can’t see anybody’s comments, oh, I There we go. I’m there we go. Now, you got them. Now, I got them. So anybody who who wants this hat, I will mail it to you or bring it to you, but you gotta type in the comments, I want the hat. So the first person to do that gets that hat. And thanks for my sponsor on coffee on the peak storks plows, who’s got the snow Alliance coming up? If you’re in the industry, it’s a great event to attend. And that’s

Damon Pistulka  10:29

Yeah, and it I tell you that the one thing that I know, and I know zero, almost, about snow removal, and especially in the, oh, we

Thane Isaacs  10:39

got somebody, Stephen Goodwin right there. He’s he, he’s a coffee on the peak fan, and he comes to Sundays on the peak too, every Sunday at 630 Ronald and I do Sundays on the peak, which is leadership and scripture. It’s not preaching, it’s actually us trying to learn, and we just share what we’re learning with everybody. So Stephen, drop your drop your address in my direct message, and I will get this mailed out to you, brother. It’s an awesome hat. You’ll love it.

Damon Pistulka  11:04

Oh, yeah, sorry, Christine, I

Thane Isaacs  11:07

only have one hat to give away today. Yeah, check out coffee on the peak. I’ve got four more of these to give away on, coming up on coffee on the peak. We do that every Friday at 8am Eastern. Yep, there you go. There you go,

Damon Pistulka  11:22

right here on LinkedIn. Yes, it is, yes it is. Connect with Thane if you aren’t already, and you can join them on coffee on the peak every Thursday at 8am Eastern Friday. Friday, excuse me, I

11:35

don’t know what

Damon Pistulka  11:36

I was thinking Thursday, that’s alright. But anyway, it’s Friday, 8am and then you do on on this the Sunday show, talk a little bit about that, because that’s another good one. I get to watch the replays because I’m on the West Coast right on Sunday, it’s a little late or early,

Thane Isaacs  11:51

yeah. And I you look, yeah, you’ve, you’ve been up for coffee on the peak to be a guest for us before. And I know that’s five o’clock your time, so we really appreciate that. But yeah. So what Ron and I are doing with Sundays on the peak it’s just John Maxwell says the Bible’s the greatest leadership book ever written, and we’re just going through and we both come up with the subject. We switch weeks, we alternate weeks, and we talk about those subjects and the leadership lessons that are there. Again, it’s not to say you need to read the Bible. You don’t need to read the Bible. I’m more about spirituality than I am a particular religion, and I’m just again, it’s just a journey that I’m trying to learn, and Ronald was willing to go through that with me. And we also have a guy who helps us named Deborah, who’s married to Ronald, and she is a great guy. She comes in from time to time and straightens us out. But she is. She is a true theologian at heart. She completely understands and actually does Bible classes every Sunday. So she’s, she actually teaches so but it’s just a it’s a personal journey to help me have a better relation with that, and have a better understanding of that, and be able to apply those principles in my life and the life of people around because, again, you may not be religious, but this that those lessons are not going to hurt you. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  13:06

well, and this, this is, I’m glad we started talking about this thing, because one of the things that you can really experience after being around you for a few moments and really listen to you talk is your passion for helping your own leadership to personal development and leadership development and helping others with their development, their personal leadership development. So what, what do you think really? I mean, when did you when did that really connect? You said something about John Maxwell. But I mean, man, your passion is undeniable. About this. Just talk about that a little bit and how it really fulfills you.

Thane Isaacs  13:47

Well, I was actually sharing this story with Ronald the other day, where this whole personal growth journey started. I’ve shared desert Rada with a lot of people, and when I was about 14, I was going through my stepfathers. He had a chest of drawers down in the garage. It was full of a lot of books like Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut Jr, just some really outlandish thinking for a 14 year old kid to start reading. So that’s where I really started reading. But I also found this plaque, and it was desert errata, and go placidly amidst the noise and haste and find what piece there may be in silence. We could go into the whole thing, but I’m not going to go into it all. But I hung that on my wall when I was 14 years old. I would read that on a regular basis. I still have that same plaque to this day hanging downstairs. It’s just a it’s a great, great piece, and it always made me realize that my my biggest goal was to continue to grow like the universe around me grows to continue to expand, and I applied that first in my life to playing guitar. That’s where I first applied it was I never want to stop learning how to get better on my guitar. I also played bass as well, and I played both of those, and I tried to learn different ways to do different things and be as creative as I could. I didn’t start applying to that to my. Real life until I probably turned about 35 and then that’s when I decided I need to come up with my own personal ambition. Before I’d even read that from Stephen COVID. I’m like businesses have personal missions. Why shouldn’t I have a personal mission? I eventually came up with it, and it took me years to do it. It’s so succinct, but my personal mission finally became to help any and all, whether stranger or friend, have a better life, and in turn, make a better world for all of us. That’s it. It’s that simple, you know? And if I can, if I can do that, if I can try to help others around me have a better life, that will create a better world for all of us, you know, if I help two people have a better life, just that little bit helps the world be a little bit better. And if I can do that on a daily basis, then that makes everything better. And it’s, it comes from, you know, understanding that the greatest thing I can do to make me be a better leader is to help other people.

Damon Pistulka  15:48

Yeah, man, that’s awesome. That awesome. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna diverge a little bit here, but, and I wanna, I’m gonna get to the comments here in just a moment. But a very important question, favorite guitar player of all time, favorite

Thane Isaacs  16:02

guitar player of all time. That’s one of those things that those like, my favorite color, you know, I really hate to answer those questions, give me a couple, then give me a couple, you know? I mean, Stevie Ray Vaughn was incredible Jim. You know, Jimmy Page was Jimmy Page was incredible to see. I mean, I never got to see him live. I do get to see Stevie Ray Vaughn live. I mean, I was right there in front of the stage at the mid south fair. It was a free show to get to see. Oh, my god, yeah. It was like they used to do fair, yeah. So to be able to see him play was incredible. Again, Jimmy Page is incredible Hendrix, obviously, but I was never a big Hendrix fan. I never listened to a lot of Hendrix. I mean, I have Hendrix, but it’s not something I’m going to play over and over again. But I’m also one of those people that love someone like Les Paul and I love Chad Atkins. I love that kind of guitar playing too. I mean, it’s some precise, almost digitized guitar playing. So they did, they weren’t digital at all. So again, I like a whole genre, but I definitely don’t have a someone who I’d be like, Oh, I’ll go down in history fight you that that’s the best guitar player, you know, because, again, I also like Alex Lifeson of rush, and I could, again, I could go on forever to the different players that I like. I just depends on the mood. But I won’t. I would never say one of them’s best. I would just say that in this situation, I want to hear that one in this situation. So that’s, that’s how, I mean, it’s just, again, I just don’t have the best, like, it would be like, saying, What’s your favorite Led Zeppelin song? You know, how do you do that? You know, it’s, like, exactly you can’t. So, yeah, but

Damon Pistulka  17:35

that’s amazing. What though you mentioned, you mentioned the greats there, and they’re, they’re just some and like you said, it’s, it’s, you can hear somebody play a classical guitar, and it is absolutely incredible with their technical expertise and the precision of it. And then you hear somebody that’s completely on the other side of it, that’s, that’s just doing it themselves, too. So that’s so cool.

Thane Isaacs  17:59

Well, like the Jimmy Page hand eye coordination that he had. I mean, it just to watch the sound, the song remains the same, and watch what his fingers are doing. It’s mesmerizing. It is completely mesmerizing. So it’s a completely different style than sticky Ray bond. I mean, they’re just different stuff. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  18:14

yeah, yeah. That’s so good, so good. So as as you’re moving down the road here in you, this passion for personal development leadership, what really was the impetus, or the origin, origin story of having retreats and bringing these leaders out there and spending some days with people and really doing this differently? Well,

Thane Isaacs  18:40

it actually goes back to Memphis, and it was before I ever had a beach house to go to. My father had some land in the Ozarks. And every year I would take my team from Valley crest that I worked with, every year I would take them in the fall, and we’d go out there and we’d have paintball wars, and we would have team building. We, you know, I did that, I think, for four years. And we would sit around the fire at night and we would have really personal sharing conversations. Get really intimate, really deep, share, you know, be vulnerable with each other. And so that’s the first place I really started doing that, and it made us a really strong team. I mean, we were, I mean, we ran it at 94 to 92% retention rate on employees. I mean, that says a lot in a landscape company in the south okay? And that was not my reporting, that was corporates reporting. So you know that. So we had a strong team. It was a great bond like that. And as I, you know, when I came to Vermont, I just went out the window. That wasn’t something anybody here wanted to do. But as I as COVID came, and I was trying to think of, well, actually I’d started before COVID, because I actually had to write refund checks because of COVID coming, so I had to cancel some of those that I had set up. And then after COVID, I wanted to get it going again and but I wanted to focus not on. Business, because that’s what I focused on for the first some of those that I had was more about the business. I wanted to get back to those roots of working on personal development, personal growth. Because again, that nature, that’s that part of nature, that organic place where there’s not a schedule, there’s not the rush, the cell phones are off to the side, you can actually focus and get some clarity that you that you need. I mean, I can’t tell you the amount of people who have cried at those retreats. It’s almost everyone that’s been to those have has had some type of and they ask why I’m like, because you’re healing, you know, because we all need to heal, especially men. Men have so much healing they need to do. So there’s so that’s, that’s what I decided to do after COVID, was to get that going. And the first one was such a success, I just haven’t stopped since. About every six months I try to do some. I did some in January this year, which I’ve never done before, and they were pretty unique. There was snow there at the beach, which since the 1950s never, never had any snow there. So that was pretty cool. But again, each time, it’s a unique experience, I try to make each each experience better, or at least different people have come. And I remember one guy coming to his second one, and he was like, well, this isn’t what we did last time. I’m like, well, that’s not this. We aren’t doing the exact you would, you would be bored. I mean, you might what that might be, what you want, but once you start doing it, it’s kind of like peeking at your Christmas presents and know what they are before Christmas. Once you have Christmas comes, it’s not as exciting as if you didn’t know what your presents were. It’s the same type of thing. So you gotta keep people guessing what’s coming, the exciting things that are coming. And you have to have that time for personal growth. One gentleman recently came to the to the retreat in January, and then his mother passed recently, and he said he was able to use a lot of the things he learned at the retreat to deal with this and actually to help propel himself to do some things that he hadn’t, hadn’t done, that he’d wanted to do for years, and he’s actually started doing some of these things. So again, what happens at these retreats is different for everybody. And I’ll have an itinerary. Okay, this is I just like to always know this. I have an itinerary. It rarely sticks to the itinerary, because we find out, hey, this is something somebody needs. We need to go down this path as opposed to this path. We need to work on this as opposed to this So, and that’s, that’s the beauty is to be able to have done this, you know, for so long that I can, I can change on the fly. I can, I can take it where it needs to go, so the people that are in attendance get the most out of it, because it’s never about me and what I need to deliver. It’s about what the recipients need, and what they need me to deliver, and what they need to deliver themselves while they’re there finding those things out.

Damon Pistulka  22:49

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, I said I was going to get to the comments here, Thane, I’m going to and of course, Steven was here. He said, said, Nice. Earlier than he got the I want the hat first. That’s good. And then we had Christine stop by, and she was right behind Steve, and forgetting that, but just missed out. We had Ronald’s got a few good comments in here. Thanks for shopping and Jeremy was here. Make sure we got Jeremy, the gangs all here. Thanks for and thanks for stopping by Jeremy and dropping a comment. And then Ronald stopping putting his Hendrix blew my mind in when we were talking about guitar players. So thanks so much for doing that. Yeah, but you know the one thing, and that’s we’re gonna we’re gonna diverge here just a little bit, because let’s talk a little bit about ocean Isle, where you have the retreats in, in the the part that nature plays. Well, the

Thane Isaacs  23:43

part that nature plays where we walk and we’re right out on the ocean. I mean, it’s the house is, I would say, 500 yards from the beach. We don’t have any and anything that’s going to keep us from getting out there. We you can just walk right out onto the onto the beach. And then there’s the ocean, the ocean, Damon, the ocean that is the most calming force in the world and the most powerful force in the world. Okay, it’s most powerful force we know. It can can take cities out in no time, but it can also put you to sleep. We have a day bed that people will actually sit on and fall asleep during the day. It’s a humongous day bed out on the porch and the with the ocean going. It’s just so soothing. And having those two forces out there, those it in one entity, those opposing forces. It helps us to understand how to be more harmonious with life, and it helps us to understand, you know, our connection to everything. I feel like every time I come there, I don’t care how cold it is. I did it in January. I’ve got to put my feet in the ocean, because it connects me to the whole world. You know, when I’m putting my feet there, I’m connected to the whole world. And I think we have that connection with life when we’re there, and we’re able to really, really be able to feel that connection in that natural environment. Again, we’re. We wouldn’t be able to in that hotel environment where we got 750 people with tents up and and umbrellas up beside us. And we do have a lot of privacy there. All are, there are other people there, but it’s not, it’s not overly crowded. We’re, we have, we have somewhat a good deal of privacy,

Damon Pistulka  25:18

yeah, yeah. And I think too, as as you’re talking about the the location that quiet, that quiet is so important if you’re trying to work on yourself, if you’re trying to work on your whatever, you’re trying to just getting those distractions away from you and being in an environment where it is really close to nature and and quiet, so you can think about, well,

Thane Isaacs  25:47

that’s even part of the exercises. There are times it’s like, hey, I need you to go walk the beach. Now I need you to go walk the beach. You can sometimes it’s going together, but sometimes it’s I need you to go on your own. I need you to walk each on your own so you can have your own thoughts. And that’s where some also the greatest thoughts I’ve had there, you know, come from. I mean, one of the exercises that we do at almost every event, it came to me. The first event I had never thought of it. I was sitting on the day bed, and it came to me, and I just did it the next morning. And it’s what really propelled a lot of people to go, wow. It’s, it’s a mind opener. We call it the abundance exercise. And now it’s done at almost every one of those of those retreats. And if it’s a second retreat, you know, we do it a little bit differently. I’ve even had one person who I asked them to do the abundance exercise. So again, it’s, it’s one of those things that it’s just a very magical place. And you, you can’t really explain it, you have to attend it. But it is definitely a magical place. And it’s an inlet, so the sun doesn’t rise in front of you. The sun rises from the side and it goes down, so the sun is there all day. Have one panoramic picture where the sun is on one end of the sky and the full moon is in the other end of the sky. So it’s, it’s a pretty, pretty magical and unique place, just in the way it’s set. Because usually when you’re at the ocean, the sun comes up on the horizon and it goes down behind you, but it doesn’t do that at Ocean Isle beach. Very

Damon Pistulka  27:10

cool, very cool. So we’re talking about these retreats, and how these really help to drive personal leadership growth and business success. What are some of the things people say once they’ve taken this time to really understand and work on these things that they’re trying to, you know, change in their life and their business and those things well,

Thane Isaacs  27:38

you know, again, Martin tirado of Simon was there, and one of the things he said was it taught him ways that he can be a better leader with ways he because he has a huge team that he leads at the Simon organization, and taught him ways that he needs to you know, like a lot of people think that when they’re when they’re asking people to do other things, they’re shirking their duties. And it’s like one of the things we we talk about is, well, that’s part of giving people opportunity to grow. And that gives you, I mean, my thing was always the more I can get other people to do, the more I can do. It’s not the less I can do. I can do other things that I wasn’t able to do before. And if you can see these kind of things, your role as a leader is not to hold people back. Your role as a leader is to develop people. And I used to have a saying that was, take my job. Please, take my job. Please. If you’re that good, take my job. We won’t fight about it. You know, it’s like if that, you know, we need the best people in the best places. So again, having that, you know, having that, kind of put it in these words, okay, it’s something I shared with a couple of people I work with. So many of us are so worried about being the damn captain of our ship instead of the admiral of our fleet. You know, we’ve got to be the Admiral of the Fleet. Need to have more boats with more captains on it than us trying to be the captain on that ship. And when we can understand the delegation, the ability to give people the ability to do that, we can go and we can visit more islands, we can visit more lands. We can have more opportunity by that. But when we’re trying to be the captain of that ship, that’s the only ship we have, and that’s the only place we can go is where that ship’s going. We need more ships in that fleet going where we need them to go. So in order to do that, we’ve gotta have more captains, because I can’t be a captain on 27 ships. Yeah, you know? I mean, I can try to be, but it’s going to be a disaster, you know? So how can we get where we have people who have that much want to be the captain of each ship, and how can we be good enough at our leadership to be able to let those people do what they need to do, and give them that kind of guidance that they need?

Damon Pistulka  29:43

Yeah, that’s, that’s great advice, because as you, as you’re thinking about that, you can only be the captain of one ship, but the admiral has many ships, yes, and when you’re looking at the green industry and and the way that teams are built, and. The things that you need to get done. If you’re the captain of one ship, you’re not going to get that much done. No,

Thane Isaacs  30:05

you’ve got, you’ve got to start figuring out how to do that. And, you know, again, with a lot of people, that’s they, they want to move too fast, and it’s like, hey, you’ve got to, you’ve got to be able to get two captains first, you know, you’ve got to be able to let, let that fleet grow. You can’t push it too fast. And you still got to, until you get that fleet where it needs to be, you still gotta step on those boats a lot and make sure that they’re running right. Once you get that culture going and you get, hey, this is how we’re training our people. This the system and process. We do it. This is replicable, and we build that culture where people believe in it and follow it. Now we can build it a lot faster, but we, you know, again, we’ve got it. We we’ve got to have the quality people, and we’ve got to have the great then we’ve got to have the great systems. As I said earlier, you can have all the systems in the world, but if you don’t have good people, and you’ve got to be good people to attract good people, yeah, you’re not going to attract good people if you’re if not for long, if you’re an ass, you good people will leave. I

Damon Pistulka  31:02

love that. I love that because I haven’t been just going to talk about that a little bit. You brought out the C word, and I mean culture, and everybody talks about it today, and they always think, you know, building great guilt or building great culture. But you just brought it up and talk a little bit about how the relationship between personal development helps to build better culture.

Thane Isaacs  31:24

Well, yeah, I mean, with if, if we’re getting everybody within the organization to develop and work on themselves, then we’re building better, stronger people. And when we build better, stronger people, we’re going to attract better, stronger people. Actually, I did a post today on the almost today, where I was up on the mountain yesterday, my boss had invited, oh, my ex boss had invited me to lunch, to talk, and we had a great time. I saw the sign and it said, HR, where the employee experience starts. That’s actually where the customer experience starts as well, you know. And if we don’t have that great culture, if we have that, we have that culture where we talk about things, but we don’t, we don’t model them for our people. If we talk about how we need to be so respectful to the customer, but we hear someone on the phone cussing a customer out, or hanging up on the phone and then cussing about the customer. That’s not setting that example, you know. So we have to live those things. So I think we have to understand that part of what culture is is also how we treat each other, which is how we treat the customer. I’m not going to treat the customer great at the core of who I am, naturally, if I don’t treat the people around me great that you can’t. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not psycho. You know, you’re not where it’s like, I can be this really respectful person here with the customer, but I’m going to be disrespectful with the employees. It’s how you you know, how you do both is who you are. At the core, I think that’s very important. We have to respect people. We have to value people, and it’s up for them to lose our respect, and it’s up for them to, you know, lose their value themselves. But we have to start everybody at a high respect level, on a high value level, because when we, you know, when we don’t do that, people can read it and they’re not going to do work of value, or they’re not going to respect us, if that’s not given first as leaders, I think we have to, we have to set that precedence. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  33:09

yeah. And if you one of the things I think people need to consider is change, being able to change talk a little bit about that, because some people might might think about this, oh, this is great. We’re talking about a lot of stuff, but I’ve been this way for a long time. Yeah,

Thane Isaacs  33:32

yeah. I used to, actually, when I run landscape operation, I used to keep a wooden handled stick edger on my wall. It was, you had to, like to, you just had to use it in Lubbock, Texas to edge grass with, okay? And I kept it on my wall. And when people didn’t want to change things, I would say, hey, well, then get me one of your crews, GAS POWERED STICK edgerr. And I want to give you this old wooden handle stick edger to use, because if we didn’t change things, this is what we’d still be using. Yeah, as I moved up and I started coaching people, I would carry a rotary phone with me, and if people said they didn’t want to change things, I go out to my car and I bring so give them your cell phone here. Use this to do your job with, because if we didn’t change things, I mean, I still have it sitting over here. It’s a brown rotary phone. You know, it’s like we didn’t change things, this is what we’d still be using. So I like because that’s a lot more symbolic for people than just, hey, if you don’t change, you know, so it’s like you don’t, you don’t have to change, but the world is going to change. Okay, things are changing around you. And I believe either you manage change or change manages you one of the two. And, you know, we all have to get on board with AI in some way or another. I heard someone say, No, AI will not replace your job. But somebody who knows how to use AI in your role will so, you know. So again, think it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, once we started getting gas powered vehicles, until you come up with something better, we’re going to use those till the end of time, you know. So it’s the same thing. You have to learn how to adapt to these things, you know. I mean, I’m, remember. Making fun of people who used to carry cell phones and target but they were those big shoulder mounted models, you know, it’s like, yeah, doing now everybody, now, everybody does. You know, it’s like, I was fighting that technology, if you could call that technology at the time, but, yeah, it really was. But, you know, I was fighting that. But it’s like, yep, everybody carries those now. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, you you’ve got to stay up with the times. You can fight it all you want, but if it’s, if it’s something that’s moving through society, you’ve got to figure out how to use it, or how to adapt to it to some degree.

Damon Pistulka  35:30

Yeah, that’s for sure. So we’re getting close to the end here, but I got a couple couple more questions, and then we’re going to wind down things. So as you’re doing these retreats, helping people, coaching personal development, helping these organizations. What? How does this help you grow?

Thane Isaacs  35:50

Oh, wow. Well, you know, I mean, there’s not one, one session that I haven’t, haven’t done, doing these, that I haven’t gained something from it. I’ll give you a perfect example. Again, this wasn’t really my, my hang up, but it was something that was like, wow, that’s, that’s really cool. So, you know, as I said, people would walk along the beach, it’s like, hey, you need some reflection time. So a couple of the guys went out one time, and one of them was looking for the perfect shell. You know, it’s like, I’ve gotta find the perfect shell. I’ve gotta find the perfect one. And another one was like, Why? Why Why do you want the perfect show? Because he had a broken show. It’s like this shell has been through so much, and it’s done, it’s and it’s still here, you know, it’s still, you know, it’s kind of like us in life, and plus, where it’s broken through, you can see the cut, the beautiful colors inside. You couldn’t see all those beautiful colors inside if it wasn’t broken. So with it being broken, you can see truly what it is, you know, I just thought, wow, that’s such a beautiful thing. You know, it’s like, you know, it was a quote of mine that I’d had before this, but it, it tied into it, that even a flawed diamond will shine with brilliance if it lets the light shine through a flawed diamond, you let the sunlight shine through it, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be just as you wouldn’t know it was flawed, unless you got very close and looked down at it with a with a glass. So that’s one of those things that you know, that I believe it just by being around 543, other great minds, you’re always going to learn something. Four, four. You know, four days may seem like a lot. It goes so quick before you know it, and it’s one of the most bittersweet things. People want to get back home, but they don’t want to. They don’t want to leave and but again, it’s to be around some great people and have open conversation, vulnerable conversations. And it’s not always easy for people to be vulnerable, but I can promise you, within the first first three to four hours, you’re going to break down and and talk like a like you would to any one of your best friends in the world, because that’s how we are there. It’s, it’s just very, very open, very as Dave Westcott said, he was an attendee, and as he said, that’s one of my superpowers. And it’s not a it’s not a bragging thing. It’s just what I was told. It’s nothing I ever knew that I had. But I’ve had a lot of people tell me that, that, you know, you just make people feel comfortable, make people feel open, to be able and able to talk and heal. And that’s, you know, he actually gave me the the Native American name of medicine heart. So that’s what he gave me. And as my name, he’s, he’s Native American, and so am I on Cherokee. And I’m not sure what he is, maybe ute or something. But anyway, so that was really nice of them to do. That’s

Damon Pistulka  38:23

awesome. That’s awesome. So retreats in the future. So if someone wants to talk to you about a retreat thing, well, first of all, let’s talk about what you got planned for the rest of this year, and and and beyond.

Thane Isaacs  38:36

I’m trying to nail down dates for April to be able to do do a treat or two for this year, and I would like to do some in October. I would really like to do one here. I wanted to do snowmobiling here, but I’m glad I didn’t. Now, with it being 58 degrees and rainy, because it was supposed to be this weekend, and so I’m glad it didn’t happen. A lot of people got too much snow this year. It was a little bit of a bummer for me, but now it’s not. I’m like, Oh, God did this for a reason. God did this, you know, because that would have been disappointing for a lot of people. So, you know, that’s one thing contingent with the weather, but that’s, you know, that’s two of the things I’m trying to do. I’ll actually be at the snow alliance that storks flows is putting on. I actually be traveling to Pennsylvania next week to visit with Kirk Brown, and then go into a jersey to visit with Rob Miller. So having some fun on the road with some of those people. I’m trying to get out a little bit more on a regular basis with people I work with. So that’s, you know, something I really think is important to be able to, again, put the hands on. I think I’ve visited Kirk two or three times so far, so this will be, I think, my fourth visit there, and looking forward to

Damon Pistulka  39:43

1. Good, good. Well, if someone wants to reach out and talk to you more about this, about personal development coaching in the in the snow, or the green industry, what’s the best way to get hold of you? THANE

Thane Isaacs  39:55

really right through LinkedIn is the best way, than Isaacs, if you’re not connected with me. You want to connect? I had plenty of room in my connection board. I have like half of my connections filled up, I think like 50, 15,000 but I got plenty of room. So please reach out. I’d love to connect with anybody who is not trying to sell me crypto coin or date me. You know, those two things I’m not really into, but everything else I’m good with. So again, anybody who I can help in any way. It’s not to me. It’s not always about the transaction. It’s about the relationship. Is what it’s really about. So if I can help anybody in any way, and again, if anybody’s ever interested in attending these retreats, yeah, I have several people you can talk to to find out if they’re worth going to. And again, I’ve had nobody ever say they didn’t didn’t get so much out of it. Everybody gets a lot out of it. Because, again, I don’t cater them to what I think needs to be delivered. I cater them to what the people who are attending need, and that makes it that much better. But like any of the any event you go to, I don’t care if it’s a Tony Robbins or if it’s one of mine, they’re only good the only thing that makes them great is if you take the relationships and grow those relationships that you get from there, and you take what you learn at these and actually apply them to your life. Otherwise, you might as well just watch a video.

Damon Pistulka  41:11

Yep, yep. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, thanks so much for being here day Thane. I want to thank everyone who has stopped in the comments, Ronald and Kirk Andy came in later, and he said, really nice ideas for sharing business leaders to get along well with their customers and clients. That is for sure. THANE is a master at that. We had Jeremy stopping by today. We had Steven and Christine. I think I’ve gotten everybody. And then we had our mysterious user that was in here that but thanks for stopping by today. We will be back again next week with another show than hang out with a man with me for a minute. We’ll finish up offline everyone that was listening today. Thank you. And if you got here late, go back to the beginning and start over, because Thane dropped some golden nuggets right from the beginning. You want to learn about personal development. You want to learn how executive retreats really do drive leadership and business growth and business success. Get back there and listen to it. Thanks again. We’ll be back. You.