How to 10x Your Growth Mindset as a Home Care Owner (Aaron Marcum Pt. 1)

[ 00:00:03 ] Welcome back everyone to Home Care, a podcast by Careswitch. I'm Miriam Allred, your host and Head of Partnerships at Careswitch. It's great to be back with everyone. I hope you're having a great week. A great summer finally feels like summer where I live, so I'm over the moon to be out in the sun as much as possible, uh, quick, quick, exciting news here at the top of the show. We are launching what we're calling Campus Times, which is a newsletter extension of Home Care U, you so that's coming out this coming week. Keep an eye out for it in your inbox. We share so much great information here on the show,

[ 00:00:35 ] we want to have kind of an Extension of that on more resources, links, downloads connecting you with the guests, so uh, Campus Times newsletter coming out to you next week, keep an eye out, keep an eye out for it in your inbox, without further ado, we've got another loaded session today queued up with a very special guest who I am really excited to get into it with. We've got Aaron Marcum, the founder of Home Care Pulse and also the current founder and CEO of Breakaway Accelerator for Home Care. So, Aaron, thank you so much for being here. It's good to be here, Miriam. Uh, we've known each other a few years, so it's uh, it's really good to reconnect. It's about time for us.

[ 00:01:15 ] to have these conversations i know you're a busy guy you've written a book you've started multiple companies help multiple companies accelerate grow so we've got a lot to talk about before we do i'm putting you on the spot here um have listened to a lot of episodes of different companies and i'm really excited to be here with you and shows that you've been on uh read bits and pieces of the book i'm not all the way through it yet so just full disclaimer there um you and i have a surprising starting it you and i have a surprising amount of personal things in common so get get this i think we're both one of eight children if i'm not mistaken, I don't know if you know that about me; I'm seven of eight and I think I didn't know what number what of eight, I'm number three, number three of eight.

[ 00:01:53 ] So, we're both one of eight kids. Um, we're both cyclists; we haven't talked a ton about that either. I think you're a little bit older, wiser probably spent more time on the bike um, but we're both cyclists. We both worked at home care pulse you know throw that out there, I think everybody knows that. And we both live in Idaho, I think we live less than five miles apart so just some kind of personal notes there. We've got a lot in common, that's crazy! I didn't know you came from that. Large of a family and, well, even more important is cycling. Like that's a huge passion of mine, hence the breakaway term I use for our program; it's tied, tied to that, so yeah, we're gonna get into that later later on because I do want to talk about that.

[ 00:02:32 ] I uh like I said, uh, I've done a tour here in Yellowstone, we live in Idaho just you know about 60 minutes from Yellowstone, so I've done a tour up there. I know you've done a lot of races, tours, events, so I'm excited to talk a little bit about cycling as it pertains to home care. Yeah, there are so many tie-ins. Yeah, let's start with your background like I told you, I want to kind of look under the hood. A little bit, I think people know some of your larger accolades, um, but I want to talk maybe more in-depth about like early days, mid-days, what you've been up to and then what you're doing now. So let's start as far back as when you were actually operating a home care business in Salt Lake City, Utah, some 20 years ago...

[ 00:03:13 ] I don't even have the days, yeah, I started 22 years ago, 2002, dates me a little bit. I was 28 years old at the time when I when I launched that business, I mean my background, I was in telecom, I had been, uh, in sales, large sales, and actually, at the time that I walked away from that, I was working for WorldCom which went huge bankruptcy. Still, I probably people still know today Bernie Evers uh and he was cooking the books that kind of thing and I was so disenfranchised of corporate America, I'm like, man, what is another way? What can I do, you know? And I always wanted to start my own business, and I first found out about home care by reading an article in Entrepreneur Magazine, which is kind of cool because I'm on my second writing for Entrepreneur magazine, I'm on my second article, so it's kind of full circle and writing for them.

[ 00:04:09 ] But that's how I was introduced to it, then I started doing the research and launched my first home care agency just not knowing exactly. What I was getting myself into, and you you helped found it or you were kind of hired on to help with operations? I founded it; I was an entrepreneur, operator. Uh, my wife at the time, we had three kids at the time when we launched, so she was busy with the three kids, so it was just me, it was just me, you know, hiring care professionals and the whole nine yards, so yeah. And this was in Salt Lake City, yeah, some 20 years ago, uh, you know. Tell us a little bit about like your experience, you know? I know that's a loaded question, but like early struggles, you know?

[ 00:04:56 ] Were you in over your head, etc.? Yeah, I, you know, when I first started because of my age, I found it really hard to convince referral sources like, um, you know, home health and and hospice and companies like that to refer to me, and so that was my first hurdle is to convince them to trust me with their, you know, they call them patients in in their field but uh to trust me with that. And so that was like pushing a string a little bit early on. Those were my early frustrations, but I was pretty convincing. I would tell people, 'Hey, just give me just give me a chance, you know? Just give me your one patient and we'll take care of them.' That's kind of how I grew, and I was pretty relentless.

[ 00:05:39 ] And so within three years, we really had scaled that company i believe by my third year we had 60 70 care professionals you know at that point and i was starting my you know second third year i was coming home spending time with my kids eating dinner and then i would go back to the office to like one or two in the morning so by my third year even though we were experiencing this growth i was burned out i was exhausted i didn't know if i could even do it anymore my wife was frustrated with with the fact that i just was not around for these little ones and so so things had to change and that's when i went on this journey about systems and process and i became more of a process Visionary, and I've always kind of turned myself as that is, that I'm, I'm a unique visionary that way.

[ 00:06:31 ] But we started putting those things in place, started getting the right people into the company, and then really scaled that company to where, which is in a short period of time, I stepped away and started Home Care Pulse because I saw the need for data. I was frustrated that we didn't have enough data, and so, uh, in a you know a short version, I guess, in the sense that about, I don't know it was 2006 when I got the idea for Home Care Pulse, yeah, that's what I was going to ask, you know, when and how the idea was born. So not to discredit You know, your experience I want everyone to understand like you've been in their shoes.

[ 00:07:07 ] You walk the walk, talk the talk, built a business this is a long time ago but as we talk through a lot of different concepts today, like we'll get back to your home care days, but I think your claim to fame, you know, founding Home Care Pulse, big you know national company, um, started in a small town in Idaho that that idea it sounds like was born during your days running and operating your home care pulse business so tell us give us kind of an inside look of where that came from and how you acted on it quickly or slowly and early on yeah yeah you know I. guess I can share it now as back then I was using a company called Pinnacle Quality Insights who happens to have been acquired by Home Care Pulse, so a full circle moment there too.

[ 00:07:49 ] So, I was using them for quality for my satisfaction surveys because I wanted the information, but I was one of the very few if not one at the time really using their services. They were focused on home health, hospice, senior living and so I was being compared to other industries, my performance but not it was really hard to know exactly how I was doing. So, the idea originated from from what I was doing with them and decided to launch it specifically. You know, for the private duty home care space, and thought if I had this idea, I mean maybe other people had the idea, but why not me? Right, that's what holds us back sometimes as we think well, someone else is going to do that.

[ 00:08:39 ] I just thought, well, I don't have any data analytics background, I don't have any survey background, but I'm just gonna try to figure this out and launched it in 2007 started building the software for it and then official launch was 2008 and a big part of that early concept was to my knowledge um was the benchmarking report, like you said there's other survey companies there's other benchmarking for home health and hospice and you know acute care but there isn't or wasn't benchmarks for home care and so at what at what point or was it you know from the beginning that the benchmarking report and the benchmarks were part of this philosophy oh that's a great question so the idea was there even back in 2008 that i wanted to expand beyond the satisfaction surveys but i didn't think they

[ 00:09:29 ] expansion would happen that quick i thought we would get into the surveys and then over time do performance benchmarking in other areas and i had been because of my home care background in business i was one of the very early members of The National Private Duty Association back then, now it's the Home Care Association of America. I think I was in the i don't know top 50 first members of that association, and because of that relationship with Sheila McMahon and the then president, she called me one day and said, 'Hey Aaron, I know what you're doing you know, with satisfaction surveys.' And we started ideating on a benchmarking study for the industry. That's where it was born, like let's do something for the industry that would be helpful.

[ 00:10:14 ] I'm not realizing that I was way over my head; I said yes, and I talk about it in my book about the journey of that and how as Entrepreneurs, sometimes we just have to figure out almost the impossible. And which I ended up doing back then. I used Publisher Microsoft Publisher to actually publish the study, which is so funny to me today with all the other technology out there to create these kinds of things. But that was in 2010. That was the first study. We didn't start bringing on customers at Home Care Pulse till we had our pilot in May of 2009. I'm sorry, May of 2009 actually. We started in 2008, but so they were very close as far as when we launched the surveys and then when we had the study...

[ 00:11:09 ] yeah, share a couple of other big milestones for you at Home. Care, pulse again kind of a loaded question and it's a lot to sum up in just a few minutes, but what were what were some of the biggest milestones and highlights for you during that journey, yeah you know the benchmarking study was a big one especially after we got through the first study, and then we had the study, and then we had the study, it was a it i mean I was blown away on that first study how many we got to participate on that very first one, I think it was close to 600 providers participated, most of which didn't know Aaron Markham like who's that guy right, and I was you know I had grown an agency but it was Local right, no one really knew me that well, but so that was really cool.

[ 00:11:53 ] And of course, having the backing of the main trade association helped, but they were still not necessarily in their infancy, but they were still you know fairly small at the time and growing, and so that was really cool to see that much like people saw the need and they wanted the information, they wanted to participate. And in that same year, in 2010, we launched 'Best of Home Care' the awards; a lot of that happened early on, and we started with the client side of it, so Best of Home Care on the client side, and then rolled out the Best of Home Care. The employee side, next year, and so those were huge milestones because nothing existed.

[ 00:12:34 ] We wanted to raise the standards of care, which it did; um, you know, one would argue really like elevated the level of care when we were when we launched the Best of Home Care and made it more internal or intrinsically motivating for home care providers, they wanted to earn that award and therefore they had to improve the quality of care in order to do that. So, that was a huge milestone. When I finally got the idea that I needed more of the right people, that was another milestone. Is that I decided to really go all in and invest; so, in 2012 was when I brought on Eric Madsen as my chief operations officer, and I think Eric; I would say was a milestone for me.

[ 00:13:20 ] It was a it was a hurdle I was trying to do so many things on my own and was pulling all the strings with the rest of the team and I wasn't really in my visionary role like I wanted to be, and I finally caught that vision - this company will only grow and scale when I can stay above the trees and be in my visionary role and allow someone like Eric to really integrate and implement all those ideas and concepts. And so I think that was a a real milestone along the journey. Then 2016, well 2015; so this is part of my story is that we Had experienced some really good growth, we had if you look at our trajectory pretty decent growth at that point and so we thought in 2015 Eric and I thought that the company was worth more than it was right; we and we were; we I was burned out.

[ 00:14:16 ] I got to the point where I my obsessive passion, and I talk about this concept in my book, obsessive passion can where we feel called and we feel like this is what we're supposed to do can actually bring us to the next level; and so I think that was a really big milestone for me; burn us out because we let our families suffer, our well-being suffer, and all of those things. And so I was 25 pounds overweight. in 2015 I was not cycling this I hadn't gotten into the sport yet and I was not happy um it was just not a great time and so I went to Eric and said you know let's see what the company's worth we got the valuation back and I remember the valuation was

[ 00:14:52 ] like eight hundred and thirty two thousand completely deflated I thought it was worth a million dollars I thought it was worth a million dollars I thought it was worth a million at that point right and I look back on it now and I know there was probably a fairly accurate valuation someone might have paid more for it a strategic buyer but anyway that was a wake-up call to what we needed To do, and so in 2016, I invested in myself. I bought my road bike the same day I registered for Lodajah, the 200-mile bike race. And when I started investing in myself in 2016, and started letting go, hiring the right people that's also the year which is also a milestone when we implemented the EOS operating system, entrepreneurial operating system, that changed the game for us as an organization.

[ 00:15:39 ] And if you look at 2016, and our growth compared to the previous years, it was like hockey-stick growth; and we just took it to a whole new level. Our valuations went through the roof, so it was it was a pretty cool pretty cool experience. From 2016, I always tell people that it was really the moment my team would also say this, that when Aaron started not only investing in his own well-being but also investing in growing his team, mentoring his team, and investing in their own well-being; is really when the company took off. And when we've you know found certain things, but anyway, those were some really key milestones. And I think the last milestone before I...

[ 00:16:28 ] well there were more than this, but another one was when I, when I took that seven-week sabbatical in 2018, where I just checked out, left my laptop on my desk, Todd Austin, and I go back and forth on Whether I checked in or not, I don't think I did; he thinks I did. A couple times, I don't know it was long enough, but I hardly checked in to the team and the company was fine. It was the last kind of test for my team to see, okay I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, okay. Could they continue to grow this company without me because I had other aspirations, other things I wanted to do, and so I stepped down as CEO right after that; stayed in the company but stepped down as CEO after that.

[ 00:17:13 ] Yeah, great milestones, I'm glad you you highlighted those few things; some would think you know your career could have almost ended there on such a high. But like you said, you wanted more and I think that's what I admire about you, and I think that's what I you're still young, you're still going and and here we go, we're about to talk about what you've been up to since Home Care Polls because I don't know if people know even just the magnitude of what you've accomplished in the last, you know, six or eight years, so let's keep going we'll obviously come back to Home Care Polls and touch on these things, but after your exit, you know, you said stayed on as CEO, um, eventually exited the business 2020 in 2020, yeah, so let's, let's keep going, after that, you decided to go back to school, which, yeah I think might be pretty interesting for some people to hear, after a pretty successful experience, for me decided to go back to school, so let's let's start there, yeah.

[ 00:18:05 ] So the real beginning of my desire to go back to school started in 2017 again investing in myself and I read the book 'The Happiness Advantage' by Sean Achor, and it introduced me to the field of positive psychology and I was fascinated with the field purely from a home care standpoint; all the turnover, all the negative um type of cultures that I had seen in home care create that have been created. I thought this needs to change and I wanted to help change that, so At the time I looked into the top program, Master's program in Positive Psychology at UPenn, started by Martin Seligman who is the father of positive psychology, actually is the top psychologist of the last decade; he's an amazing guy, he's in his early 80s now.

[ 00:18:55 ] And at the time I was at the top of the top, because I was CEO of Home Care Pulse, I couldn't; I couldn't go into the program because they demand a week of your time, you have to fly out to UPenn every month for a year; I couldn't commit to that and so when I exited Home Care Pulse and COVID hit shortly thereafter, they took the whole program for a couple years. took it all virtual, and so you had these live immersive virtual classes and there was some hybrid there but mostly all virtual and I went through that, that it just, I can't even like it's hard to even express how transformative it was for me, even personally a better father, better boss, I mean all the way around, it just helped me become a better person, but the entire time I had the this industry in mind, is like I wanted to learn the science of well-being, a lot of people like what is positive psychology and positive psychology is the proactive side of psychology rather than the reactive so it's helping people thrive regardless.

[ 00:19:59 ] of circumstance and it's a great science of well-being when it comes to creating positive cultures and so i learned so much it also catapulted the book entre thrive that it came out earlier this year that was kind of a continuation of my thesis in that program that my capstone and it's all about it was for the general entrepreneur i'm actually in the started writing something for the home care entrepreneur that has some of the same concepts in the book but applied differently to the home care space but it's uh it you know it's just that part of that journey where i took positive psychology and also during that five years I became an Eos Implementer myself and worked with I've worked with, since exiting home care, pulled some of the most reputable brands.

[ 00:20:53 ] Excuse me, I need to take a drink. Care in home care, and so I've been an executive coach for many of the national top brands in the home care space while implementing positive psychology in the process, and so I've seen the outcomes of it, and that's where again the book was also a culmination of that. And super proud of the book, it was an Amazon number one bestseller and USA Today featured bestseller, and it's done really well, you know, so anyway, that's, that's kind of the five-year summary. I guess since I exited Home Care Pulse to lead me to the Breakaway Accelerator, which is my most recent yeah let me let me jump in and yeah yeah. I may be highlighting what you're about to say so so for those listening unfamiliar with EOS, the acronym that he's using Entrepreneurial Operating System um.

[ 00:21:50 ] So you were an implementer of that like you said helping businesses across the country heavily you know saturated in the Home Care industry helping different home care businesses implement this very structured operating system that touches kind of every aspect of the business like you mentioned Home Care Pulse um use. This system, and then you help me know implement in other systems. This may be what you were getting at, but you helped um an agency out on the East Coast, Golden Harmony, for a couple of years and to my knowledge, you know scaled that revenue really substantially in just about 24 months. I think that's probably another one of your accolades is being able to step in help a CEO with an established business really accelerate growth.

[ 00:22:29 ] Yeah, and a lot of people don't know and this I have to be fully transparent with this is I'm a I'm a partner in that company, I'm an investor, and so that makes it a little bit even more intimate in the fact. To help them grow, but more importantly than even like the revenue growth is to see my business partner Jen Um, she was able to to get her weekends back and her evenings back and live the life, and have more time with her family. I love it when she's spending time with her kids, and that's been very rewarding to see that side of it right off that. But then a lot of case studies we cite in the last five years, and working with home care providers; one very large franchise brand, working with the actual franchise corporate team, and helping them hit records that they have never seen before, you know, helping a regional home care provider grow.

[ 00:23:23 ] By almost 50 to three years, so just really uh my focus is on acceleration. Like I feel like acceleration is easier than like the slower growth it's just um, and I have some very good reasons why I feel like that's that's uh easier. I don't we can maybe talk about and why I kind of built this program around it so yeah one one question before we start into that which I feel this I think a lot of people feel this and so I want kind of your take on this, which is home care gets in your blood, there's just something here that's unlike other industries other fields other job opportunities and you, you know started so early have you know.

[ 00:24:08 ] Of charted your own path and now you're back, you know, in it 100% - what does that feel like for you? You know, something personal, a personal connection. Is it the people, like, what, what is it that ties you so intimately to this industry, yeah, yeah... And one thing I think is important for people to know is that I never left home care right; is that I did exit a home care pulse but shortly thereafter invested in Golden Harmony and then made my EOS practice primarily like literally 90% of my clients were home care providers, and so I've done over 300 full-day coaching sessions with home care providers over the last four to five years, and and what That allowed me like, home care pulse was great.

[ 00:24:49 ] I was able to talk to a lot of home care providers, and we got the data to the home care providers. But nothing's like being a home care provider, and I'm not a home care provider. I'm not a home care provider, and so I've been able to get a little bit more on the front lines and seeing their issues and what their challenges are, and so that's really helped me um kind of even um get even deeper, but going back to the question: Is that when you think about the impact these providers are making, and if you can help them not only create better cultures but create better lives for themselves, it's A it's a it's a triple effect, unlike most industries that I can even think of because of these care professionals are taking care of hundreds of clients sometimes, you know, for a home care business.

[ 00:25:38 ] I always looked at home care polls and that even leveled up my, my desire to stay in this industry is that when you think about all the quality surveys we're doing and all the trying to improve quality, we weren't just impacting the agency, but impacting all the people who worked for them and all the clients that were receiving the care. Right. And so what a great thing. And for a home care agency, I think a golden harmony and all the impact they make on a daily basis, that is hard to duplicate in a lot of other industries. And so I, for me, it's just been the impact when I was in corporate America, it was like helping people implement, like their data and telecom.

[ 00:26:22 ] And I mean, you know, it's not, it's not the warm, fuzzy impact that you really look for. And I was looking for something different back then. And it's always just stayed with me. I just love, and I'll tell you there, and I get emotional even sharing this sometimes – that is, that these are no, there's just not a better group of people than home care owners on the planet. Is that these are, these are salt-of-the-earth people that, that, that lead with their heart; they really care as a whole. I mean, I'm making a generalization. I guess there's some exceptions out there, but I just love, love, love these people – like truly love them. Thank you for sharing that. I, uh, it resonates with me as well.

[ 00:27:07 ] I've only been doing this, you know, fraction of the time that you have, but I feel similarly – there's just no, no better place, no better people, and no better impact than to have. And I think you and I both, you know, there's like some indirect, you know, here we are, podcasting, but this show reaches so many owners, operators; helps them think differently, which then ripple effects help them in their businesses, helps them be better bosses, owners, you know, leaders to their, to their people. And so, um, I, I couldn't agree more on the salt of the earth. The people doing this have hearts different than most because it is not for the faint of heart. It is extremely challenging.

[ 00:27:43 ] Um, but, but the impact and the influence and the intimacy that can happen in the home with these people is just unlike any other. So thank you for sharing that. I just wanted to gain your perspective on that because I knew, you know, this industry means so much to you. So a few times already, you’re referencing this book. You have written a book about all of this fast experience, the good, the bad and ugly of what you personally have went through as a business owner several times. And so, um, maybe just right here, kind of mid-session, talk a little bit about the book and kind of the breakdown. And then we're going to focus on what you call these breakaway mindsets.

[ 00:28:20 ] And today, we're just going to touch on kind of the first principle, which is the foundation for the other principles. And then in the second session, we're going to cover two through five. So today just one and then second session, two through five, but I want you to talk kind of, you know, overview of the book and overview of kind of breakaway mindset. And then we'll get into the first one. Yeah. Yeah. So the book, the focus of the book is, is to help people understand that they can have both financial freedom and live the good, good life while their business also scales. I call it the lie of the either-or, a lot of us entrepreneurs, we believe that either I have to thrive personally, or I have to thrive professionally, but I can't do both at the same time.

[ 00:29:03 ] I can't have both. And so in the book, I really wanted to paint the picture that you can have both, but there is a process to it. There is a better way of implementing certain things that would help not only scale your company and help you transform your company, but also transform your life, which is our fourth principle. Breakaway. But it's, it's all about really; the book is, is, is the foundational first breakaway when it comes to that. So our first one is think, and if we can't get on top of our thinking and the way we kind of go about even our day and how we start our day and how we end our day and how we, what the middle of the day looks like and what we're doing, if we're not intentional, then it's really hard to scale a business.

[ 00:29:49 ] And so the, the book really derives from my desire. I tell stories even about home care poults about the benchmarking study and sleeping under my desk. A lot of people have heard that story, but to share also other world examples. So I tie the science of wellbeing, positive psychology kind of meets entrepreneurship. So I'm bringing the two concepts together, principles together and have built eight laws in that book. So these are eight laws to help them think, figure and help that get, help them get in control of their personal and professional wellbeing so that they can thrive and create financial freedoms that they've never thought possible. So, yeah, I think that that rings true with everyone.

[ 00:30:34 ] And I, and I, I love your take on this, you know, there's a lot of business books, there's a growing number of home care specific books, but this is kind of your lens of like being able to balance both. You, again, you went through it yourself, you struggled with it, but now, you know, you can step back and understand that both is possible. And I think every owner operator that's listening to this is, is at a different stage, you know, some in the startup, some in the mid, and, you know, they're exiting or, you know, exiting daily operations. I think everyone's at a different stage, but I think the majority of this industry is striving for what you're talking about, which is that balance. You know, I want to run a successful business.

[ 00:31:14 ] I want to be a good leader. I want to be involved, but I also want to have a life. I want to have my weekends. I want to not be on call, you know, 24/7. So I think, um, you know, I love this perspective that you're bringing in this information that you're sharing. Let's talk about this first breakaway, which is, think, um, naturally that feels, you know, like the right foundational place to start. Um, you know, you probably have a lot of thoughts on this, especially from the positive psychology angle: thinking is, you know, you stop and think about thinking, and really our lives are in our minds and our thoughts are in our minds. So, um, talk, talk kind of just, just generally to start about this breakaway and why it's important and why it's kind of the foundational layer.

[ 00:31:54 ] Yeah. Yeah. So the breakaway term and how it aligns with the thing is that in cycling, I think about the Tour de France. If I want the yellow Jersey, if I want to break away and that's my goal. So, in a home care provider might have a goal, you know, that they're trying to strive to, to get to that goal. You first have to bigger, you know, I've had a provider not that long ago that I've been working with, uh, that she came to me and said, 'said', you know, I, I asked her what her goal was, you know, three years from now and, and, and her exit goal, like what point would she exit? And she's like, she's like, oh, if I could just be a $3 million agency, right.

[ 00:32:39 ] If that, if I could just achieve that, that would be amazing. And wasn't that too far in the, in the distant future that she started thinking much bigger than that. And she achieved that. And, and, you know, she's well beyond that now. And so it's, it's really fun to see this like expansion and this thinking that just, that just goes beyond what they ever thought even was possible. And so our limiting beliefs, things are getting in our way that, that keep our thinking small. We're in the day-to-day we're putting out fires. We're dealing with turnover. We're dealing with client calls. They're not happy. And so it's really tough for a home care owner to get on top of their thinking and creating that space.

[ 00:33:27 ] And so, in the program, we're really trying to help them do that and, and give them the tools to be able to create that space that they can think and they can think bigger, um, and create habits around their day and how they're really structuring things in that sense. Um, and so those eight laws all kind of culminate in that whole thinking part of the program is that your home care business will never grow beyond your thinking. I say that all the time: it's like if you think you're going to be $2 million, you probably will never make it to $5 million, you know, or $10 million or $20 million or whatever that is. So. Yeah. You said that, you know, owners are so in it.

[ 00:34:13 ] They're, you know, especially early mid-days, you know, they can't think about tomorrow because they're putting fire out fires of today. Um, I, I think there's probably a turning point, you know, maybe you've worked with a lot of businesses. And so I'm kind of like, you know, analyzing what I imagine you've seen, but it's, there's a lot of early-stage businesses that they're, they may not be starting the business thinking about the exit. Some people are, I think we're, you know, we talk more about that. And so people may be in that mindset, but I think there's this period of time where you do have to put in the work. Um, do you think that's accurate or do you think.

[ 00:34:48 ] There there's different levels of thinking at every stage of the business and there should always be a goal that businesses are working towards or early days. Is it just, you know, you've got to start somewhere and start grinding in order to even start thinking about a goal. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a process of working backwards, you know, in my, you know, where you start and say, where do you want to be, you know, three years from now, then one year from now, or even two years from now and starting working backwards and maybe three years from now. You're not going to exit three years when you first start, which I wouldn't recommend it, you know? And so, so what is that three-year mark?

[ 00:35:26 ] Like, what's the, what's the one thing that you'd like to accomplish within the next three years that if we were sitting here today or three years from today, it would make you feel happy about your progress. Dan Sullivan, my coach strategic coach calls that the R factor question. And it's the results question. Like, what is it? What is that one thing that I would like to accomplish within that period of time? And for them to establish that early on, but the problem, the problem I see the number one problem I see with that is that people sell themselves short of what they can really accomplish and do. And sometimes it takes others, other guides, other people who know what's possible and what's achievable to help them set even bigger goals and how to work backwards from those bigger goals.

[ 00:36:12 ] And that's where I think thinking bigger is really important. Sometimes we're just not setting them high enough. You know, in that sense either, and that we can achieve them. Thinking is also on the smaller side of it is on the day-to-day. Like that's even more important is once you have that it's protecting your thinking at all costs. And that means people, situations, experiences; making sure that you don't schedule your day where there's no white space for you to actually process a previous experience. You know, and how we frame our past is all about thinking like, but your past is mostly made up in the fact that the way you look at it. Right. And so if you think of experiences or turnover as real negative and, you know, instead of saying, well, yeah, some turnover is actually a good thing.

[ 00:37:06 ] You know, those are two different ways, two different mindsets there, you know, and where you might look at, at the same situation or the same challenge. And so I think, you know, I think that again, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I think that the, the, the way you frame your past, the way you is the way you're going to move forward into your future and getting clear on that clear on your breakaways. We call them breakaway goals that help you separate yourself from the pack. One of the and I, you just stopped me, Miriam, if I'm going off for too long and you say, and you want to go deeper in one thing, but one thing, and I'm not shy about saying this and I, I know that that's probably not popular.

[ 00:37:50 ] I don't know, but, but there's a lot of group think in this industry where we're all doing the same things. We're trying the same strategies, but if you have different goals, your strategies should be different. And so it's more about the questions that are being asked and your answers to those questions, again, going back to thinking that should drive your strategies. Your location obviously should drive a different strategy. You want something that works in San Francisco is not going to work in New York necessarily. And so that thinking is like thinking differently. It's thinking outside the box is getting on top of the box. Right. And really seeing, okay, how can I do things differently? And not just fall into what everyone else is saying I should do.

[ 00:38:45 ] You know, what can I, how can I do things differently? How can I create my own? I've been through this training called Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean strategy from INSEAD. Awesome. And it's all about creating, getting out of the red ocean of competition, bloody water, everyone's feeding frenzy to your own blue ocean, clear water, not as much competition. I think that's possible even in home care, but your thinking has to change at every front. So yeah, super interesting. I do have a couple of follow-up questions in a few different directions. So bear with me here. You cited revenue as being probably like the obvious goal. You know, when you think of a one, three, five-year goal, like revenues easily tracked and, and it's usually kind of like the tangible goal that you want to accomplish.

[ 00:39:34 ] Home care is a little bit unique in that there, there are other versions of goals. You know, we talk about impact. We talk about heart. We talk about, you know, the people that were influencing the lives. So I am curious in your experience working with some of the people that were influencing the lives. So I'm curious in your home care businesses, do you, do you see, and do you focus heavily on revenue or are there other successful businesses that have a different focus or a different, you know, three-year goal? That's not revenue per se. Obviously revenue will always be a goal, but are there other focuses that can drive a really successful business? There should be. In fact, it's very hard to scale without impact goals, right? And meaningful goals that people that really, really care about. So I'm curious in your home care business, do you, do you see, and do you focus heavily on revenue or are there other focuses that can drive a really successful business?

[ 00:40:17 ] That's not part of building a keeping culture, a culture that keeps your best people and your best talent, your best talent. They are about impact, you know, revenue. They can get maybe up for that, but what does that mean to them? And so I always worked with people on another, in fact, often their five-year target, that's an EOS term, the five-year target, their big, hairy, audacious goal. I would say 80% of the time, it was not a revenue goal. It was more of an impact goal. And there's, there's your number goals and there's your impact goals. And the impact goal is how many clients are we going to change lives, you know, or, or even team members? What what's our, what's our retention look like five years from now?

[ 00:41:07 ] What does our culture look like? You can start painting that picture. You can still put numbers to it, but it's not necessarily a revenue number. You know, this is the impact. This is how many clients we're going to serve between now and the next three years, you know? Yeah. That's, that's translates to one of my observations of home care. I think the most successful businesses that I've seen balance that qualitative and that quantitative when it comes to goals and goal setting is, of course, you're focused on the numbers. You want to see that growth. You want to see those charts and graphs, but equally important is the impact on the lives, in the culture, you know, those things that are more qualitative that are harder to track.

[ 00:41:45 ] Retention is a really good example; it's a number that's trackable, but it translates to your people, your culture, and your training. And so I think, you know, just a takeaway here is for everyone to be thinking to, to be successful, to be successful in this industry. I think you need to have your eye on both and have really established goals for both, especially in the long-term. Yeah. You, I mean, you can't get by without it; you won't get buy-in from your people without impact goals. And one thing I have learned over the years, I learned this at home care polls. I learned it when I had my home care agency, is that you can't do this alone.

[ 00:42:23 ] Like if you're trying to carry this as the CEO or the founder, and you think, you know, it all, and therefore, and maybe you don't even think, you know, at all, you just feel like you do it better, maybe the most, and we don't let go. And without impact goals, you're not really bringing your team in, you know, and helping them create the buy-in because they want to make an impact. They want to feel like they're making a difference and that what they're doing is very meaningful. Mm-hmm, your 'T' your teasing concept number two, which is where we'll start next episode, which is talking about finding, hiring, retaining talent, because I think you're a testament to this.

[ 00:42:54 ] And you mentioned it, you know, your, your early hires of Home Care Polls, just how important every hire is: hiring the right person, getting them on the right seat and making sure you have that buy-in for that vision. So we'll talk more about that next week. The other question I wanted to ask, you know, backtracking here slightly, you talked about creating space for yourself to think that's really tough to do. In the home care world, when there are literally people's lives, you know, on the line every single day. And so I'm, I'm curious what, what that looks like, what you've, you've seen successful owners do on a daily, weekly basis to step back, to create that space, to get out of the fires, you know, is that time blocking on your calendar?

[ 00:43:36 ] Is that, you know, a separate physical space for them to go think like, what, what are some of the ways you've seen owners create and manage that space? Yeah. The number one thing is they've got to be self-regulated. That's a positive psychology. One of the, one of the top 24 character strengths is someone who's self-regulated where, yeah, we've, we've heard block it out on your calendar, all of those things that it's being repeated a lot these days, but it just comes down to your own commitment to it and treating that blocked out space. So my blocked out spaces in the mornings, I call them deep thrive sessions. I talk about it in the book. I actually have a tool that people can create their own deep thrive sessions, but these deep thrive sessions are creative sessions.

[ 00:44:26 ] It helps me with my creativity to be able to get out. It's not in the office because remember one thing people forget is that where do you do your administrative checking email, all of those things, it's almost impossible to get on your thinking. And to really take that time and create that space in that same space, because you will get distracted. Like no one's business, right? There's just, there's science behind this. And so to create, you've got to step away. One of the things I didn't mention, this is a milestone, but it was a key milestone at Home Care Pulse. This is how long I've been doing this - I was taking full days by the time of a year or so before I stepped down as CEO.

[ 00:45:13 ] It has taken full day, Tuesday, Tuesdays running a very busy business where I was stepping away from the office the whole day and thinking and writing things down, coming up with ideas, concepts, various things that really helped us move forward as a company. Now I realize in a home care business, with the fire, especially early on, there's a lot of those things going on. And so you might have to get up a little bit earlier and I'm not saying block out the whole day. I'm saying, if you could block out an hour in the morning, to focus on, on reading 10 pages in the book and really thinking about the, how those principles apply to your business. And I mean, you read 10 pages in a book, that's 300 pages in a month.

[ 00:45:59 ] You can finish that book and have a lot of great applications in, in your own business. And so again, it's, it's, it's that self-regulation and treating it like it's your most important appointment. So if an assessment comes up, or another meeting comes up is that they see that that's like sacred time for you. And when I had my home care business, I call them my keystone periods. And you can even talk my executive director, who was my director, my home care business in Salt Lake, is also my director at Golden Harmony in, in Raleigh. Amazing. And he'll, he'll tell you that I, I would block out my keystone periods nine to 11, every day, almost where it was just, my door was closed. Back then I would, I was in the same space.

[ 00:46:47 ] So that wasn't the best thing, but I was at least focusing some of my time on thinking bigger, you know, back then. So I've been doing this for a long time. So one of the, the words that comes to mind, and this is one of your laws and entry thrive is clarity. You know, I, I also have been a recipient of EOS. And so understand these concepts and principles and have been like the beneficiary of this, which is, to me, clarity. And I think it's still rings true, you know, my job and my role today, which is just finding and creating that space. And, and the, the ROI on it is the efficiency that you bring back with more clarity, with more mental headspace, with more capacity.

[ 00:47:32 ] And so sometimes I, you know, you talk about this is, you know, that, that space to think that clarity for you as the owner, the CEO, the founder, but also giving each one of your employees, the time and the space to have their own kind of clarity breaks to bring new ideas, new energy, new opportunities back to the business. So sometimes it may be hard, you know, for an owner to justify even giving, say a scheduler who's so busy at day in and day out, give them, you know, an hour or two a week or a month to have that time and space so that they can come back with a fresh set of eyes, new ideas to bring to the table. Yeah.

[ 00:48:11 ] When we were, and that's an EOS term, clarity breaks, when we were doing that, as a team, a leadership team, home care pulse, that was certainly one of the pivotal moments of our journey to where I felt like everyone was thinking bigger. Everyone was helping us solve issues better because they were taking the time to create and to think about the problems. They go into maybe their clarity break with a certain issue they wanted to solve. And by the end of the clarity break, they had some great ideas that they could present to the team. So that's a clarity break. I also been doing these kind of deep thrive sessions, more personal, right? It's more my own personal development. So I kind of separate the two from clarity breaks being business related.

[ 00:48:55 ] And then these deep thrive sessions is more meditation, more reading and getting on my thinking early in the morning. It's like 5:00 AM. I also exercise in the mornings and I, and if you can only do 15 minutes, do 15 minutes, you know, let's not, let's, let's go slow. It's the, it's the crawl, walk, run, fly concept that I talk about in the book. My favorite quote is Martin Luther King. One of my favorite quotes is: 'If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, keep moving forward.' So we have to start somewhere. That leads me to one of the other laws that I want to talk briefly about here as it pertains to thinking, which are habits.

[ 00:49:39 ] Yes. Habits are so hard. Why are they so hard? Why are they so hard? Why are they so hard? Why are they so hard? Why are they so hard? You know, I think you could probably run long on that, but just creating habits because a lot of thinking, a lot of taking clarity breaks, creating that space in time is habit forming. And so share, share your thoughts on the importance of habits as it pertains to this thinking concept. There, there are so many great books like 'Atomic Habits' and things that, that really help with what we consider habits. And maybe I should have used a different term. And when I call it habits in the book, is that that the ultimate performance flows from your unconscious choices. And that key unconscious choices is the habits I'm talking about.

[ 00:50:23 ] So in positive psychology, we talk about these 24 character strengths, which is spirituality, love, leadership, courage. Curiosity is another one. And these habits are really foundational to what Aristotle calls the good life, the virtuous life, their virtuous habits. They tie to these virtues. Anyway, what if there's a, there was a study done. Let me just back up. There's a study done that 43% of our habits, even like brushing our teeth, things like that are unconscious. Like we just do them because they're just falling in place. The way we shave, the way we physically move, as well as, as even the way we think sometimes our unconscious habits and the way we process. And so if 43% are unconscious, we just do them because they're just falling into place.

[ 00:51:11 ] What if we could make a lot of those unconscious habits, like love, leadership, spirituality, running in the background and where they're just become natural. So the habits I'm talking about are more of the foundational habits that create better cultures, help us become better husbands, better spouses, better sons, daughters, whatever. And help us lead better lives because the number one factor to wellbeing are relationships; like that's the most biggest factor is our relationships and how those relationships are. And so if our habits are more foundational and more unconscious, and we're creating these character strengths in such a way that they're just running in the background and what we do on a day-to-day basis, but to make something onto create that kind of a habit where it runs unconsciously, you have to make it conscious.

[ 00:52:11 ] You have to first start with being more aware. And so with habits, like let's say I wanted to increase my habit of love for my team or my character strength of love and wanted to deepen that. And maybe that's something I'm not really great at. So what I might do is use habit stacking and things that James Clear talks about in this book, Atomic Habits, and say, okay, I'm going to set a reminder, a trigger. At a certain time during the day where I am, it's going to remind me on my watch to send a text to one of my team members to tell them how much I appreciate them. So those are the habits I'm talking about as a leader; is what can we do to create these character strengths?

[ 00:52:57 ] There's 24 of them. You can go to viacharacter.org to kind of see the list of them. I also list them in my book, but if we could have those and be more intent on those, like, yes, waking up in the morning at a certain time, exercise, all of those habits are super important. I talk about them in that chapter, but at the same time, I think I wanted to, so like I was, sometimes I want to push something out there that maybe hasn't been considered before. We, because I felt like I don't want to just write about what everyone else is writing about when it comes to habits. I wanted to get deeper than that, you know? And so that's, does that make sense? Yeah. I like, I like where you're going with this.

[ 00:53:42 ] And I think the, this will resonate with a lot of people, which is like, you mentioned before you, you know, had this junction of like focusing heavily on operations and like the processes and operations of the business. I think equally important to that are, are like the micro habits of running a business for you as the leader and how you treat people and how you talk and how you interact and respond. And, and that translates to, you know, what the process is, what the operations, what the outcomes look like, and so you know, I, I eat this type of stuff up when you talk about the good life. Like I, I feel strongly about that, you know, how important clarity habits are. We didn't talk about grit, vigor, all these concepts that you talk about.

[ 00:54:23 ] I think it's all of these just kind of small, you know, knobs that need tweaking in our lives and in our businesses that have the greatest impact, which is why you focus on acceleration. I think it's a lot of just kind of small, minor changes and fixes that lead to the massive acceleration. And I think that's, I think that's why you've been so successful as you're, as a, as a business leader, as a CEO and founder, but also helping so many other businesses understand these really kind of basic principles at such a deeper level, and then letting that ripple effect into their businesses to, to really grow, you know, start that acceleration process. So we're, we're almost at time here. I want to give you just a minute to talk about where people can find the book.

[ 00:55:08 ] What's the best, easiest way for people to get access to the book. Some people may want to look into it before our next session. So where can people find the book and where can people get in contact with you? That's most conducive for you. Yeah. So the book, we have two different websites. And so the book, you can obviously go to Amazon and you can order the book there. Entrethrive E N T R E T H R I V E. You can order the book there. Entrethrive.com is also a place to go, or you can get more information on some of these laws and there's some resources there. And then the website, I would really steer the home care owners to more than even the, like, I want them to buy the book like that.

[ 00:55:47 ] It would be great. Right. But I would love for them to look at our program, breakawayaccelerator.com. And it's uniquely set up for, for home care providers where we dive deep accountability coaching. It's a very individualized program to help them break away. A 12-month program. They can go beyond that, but it, it starts with this kind of a 12-month monthly, you know, even bi-weekly type accountability processes. We've created thinking tools, things like that, that helped them break away. And so that's the, and there's a link back to the book as well from there too. Awesome. Awesome. Well, yeah, let's we'll continue the conversation again next week. Just kind of a quick teaser for people. We're going to cover concepts two through five, which is talking about, like we mentioned before, keeping, keeping your top 10, finding, hiring, attracting the right people.

[ 00:56:44 ] Then we're going to talk about the systems, the processes, the operations. I think that's where you know, a lot of people will get into the meat of it and what, what worked for you and what you've coached other businesses on. And then we'll talk about yeah. Transforming those systems. Once you've got processes, systems in place, how do you, you know, tweak those and transform them to be what they need to be to accelerate that growth and get to those you know, three- and five-year goals. And then we'll end on abundance, gaining that flexibility, finding that balance, getting your life back, getting to financial freedom. I think that's, you know, what you achieved, what everyone wants to achieve. And so we'll kind of round out the session with that.

[ 00:57:22 ] So Aaron, I know this hour went by really quickly, but I'm looking forward to same day, same time next week and we'll continue the conversation. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for being here live. And all of you listening into the podcast, we hope you've enjoyed the session. I'll have Aaron back same day, same time next week, chatting, talking to you. We'll keep the conversation going next week and we'll get, we'll get back into it. So, Aaron, thanks for being here and we'll see you again next week. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Take care. We'll see ya.