The WAY to WOW Shows
Army to Top 10 Business Coach
July 9, 2024
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[0:00] to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time that of course is 1 pm on the East Coast already you know lunchtime there we're just we're just getting going here uh and we are we are live um this this is a live broadcast so you know flubs and everything you get to see it all here and I'm I'm very very excited to introduce to you uh my guest and I'm I'm I'm gonna mangle your last name but it's it's Joe suchinsky right that's close

[0:38] okay all right my polish background is finally you know coming back so um Joe and I have known each other for I think a couple of years now and we we both belong to a u kind of a veterans business group that a mutual friend of ours started uh you're gonna see this right away Joe is the the most positive person you will ever meet um but in a very authentic way so it's not the sort of raw raw stuff that you know that that is kind of frankly obnoxious this this is who Joe is as a

[1:15] human being and the energy that he provides is is really electric so um as you know the the the idea behind this show is um people like Joe and me we spend our time time in the military you our fellow citizens invest so much in our training our education the experience we get and this is an opportunity for us to give back to you some of that knowledge some of that training and to take these ideas to use

[1:50] in your business and professional life to increase your chances of success so that that's that's the whole idea behind here so we we talk about military Doctrine military history the practices of great military leaders the kind of things that you know we learned in our day-to-day military lives so without any further Ado um I'm gonna I'm gonna um you know say hello Joe how are you Kevin it's an honor and privilege to be here thank you uh very much for allowing me to spend some time with you I just got goosebumps whenever you whenever you

[2:25] said you're talking about you know the investment that that the communities made in our training and how we can give back to the community through that and and that just just I got goosebumps on you know because giving back is kind of what it's about is we've had some phenomenal experiences that we can leverage to help the universe and that's that's that's why I'm here anyways to help wherever we can whever I can and and as I think everybody's gonna see you really built your your uh civilian career on that idea so so let's let's start out Joe first of all tell us a

[3:00] little bit about your time in the Army what that experience was like and then follow that up within what you what you're you know doing in civilian life now with uh with brain share so um so well a little bit of History my dad was 22 years active duty Army of Vietnam actually n WW2 uh Vietnam and Korea or Korea then Vietnam so he he kind of and so I grew up in in Missour which is kind of a south of St Louis about 60 miles and

[3:36] kind of a at the time backward place and I kind of looked around and said you know what for me to do what I want to do I got to get out of here and and fig figure out what I want to do and dad said you know what about the you know the military I'm like hey get paid to go to college [Laughter] yay couldn't have floored it myself so um so my dad helped me and said you know what you know you're into Electronics so get the the the best electronics more uh you know course you can so I took the ASVAB test I maxed it out and so I kind

[4:11] of had my choice so I got the longest electronic course top secret security clearance and went into electronic intercept phenomenal thing the the AIT was a year long and talk about some pressure because we had over a 50% dropout rate wow yeah so and and they only took the top cheer to get in this in the school and then if you flunk out it's a year-long course with a test every two weeks and if you flunked out two tests you are out wow and so talk about some pressure some stress some things and but that translates to the

[4:48] civilian world because guess what running a business it's the it's it's the hardest thing you'll ever do yeah um from there I went to you know Advanced Training a year long and and then spent uh almost three years in South Korea actually doing my job of electronic intercept and doing that which was fantastic I went to the uh NCL Academy a distinguished uh leadership award and uh distinguished H graduate and Leadership award uh you know what does that mean well it taught us about leadership and and not leadership in the military sense

[5:25] because in the military you know you wear in the rank you've got you got the authority right but what I found or what I learned was yeah you've got to earn respect that that might get you but if you don't earn it guess what you're gonna have issues and Leadership and you could lead from the front you could lead from the side you could lead from the back but it is leadership and moving things to accomplish the mission and that leadership has tied into everything I've done um from there on forward because in One Way Or Another We're All leaders to some

[6:01] extent and so I spent spent that then I I got uh uh sent back to Fort or an infantry division so after spending time up on the the Z and doing my real job coming back I uh kind of said you know what um get out and then I spent some time in the reserves um and then went to work for a little company called heilek and using my technical background uhuh but the technical part of any business is the easy part m it it's the the the leadership the discipline uh I I mean how many times

[6:36] did you wake up at four o'clock in the morning and to you know even today it's like not a big deal but some other people that haven't had those same experiences that discipline's not ingrained in their DNA like it is I'll speak for myself with me and with many of our many of our better Associates and brothers in our um and so that discipline that leadership are two things that stick out to me on what's transs you know transferred to the civilian world and still is with me every single day today

[7:13] so and I want to just go back just for a moment you you were involved in electronic intercept just tell us what what that really involves because I think people need to to people will you know want to understand that so um back in the day before the satellites and everything we would actually listening to anything electron anything that came over the radio wave CW any type of we would record it trans and utilize it to figure out what's going on from an intelligence perspective okay so this was gathering function basically yeah

[7:48] yeah we we we worked for um a the old army Security Agency which transitioned to Military Intelligence which reported to NSA back in the day before the world evolved so that that intelligence um whether electronic we also had a DF Direction finding system so if we found a signal no matter which way it came in we could actually pinpoint where it came from based on you know some technology of thehere the signal strength the angle that came in it so we could identify and then we had all all of our linguist which would translate everything so

[8:23] based on the signal the intelligence the point point of where it was at and that's what we did um and you know this was during the the cold war that was kind of the that that's what we did that was that was job how old were you when you were doing this I 18 years old I I I went in when I uh 17 18 19 20 20 so yeah 18 19 20 years old yeah um which boy boy I look back then I was invincible I don't know what happened when I got old

[8:58] so one of the things I like like to point out is the the the the level of the training and the work you were doing at really such a young age it's it's really remarkable you know you were really kind of on the for you know the not the Forefront the uh the front lines of intelligence gathering during the Cold War and you were you know a teenager basically right yeah and and you know I look back you know when you're in it you don't you don't know how you know how things are and you look back and you're like wow uh that was some pretty cool

[9:34] stuff that that uh we we accomplished at that space and time and um you know and you know all that moves forward to how do we help the universe as we move forward and that's you know that's what it's about um so how did you how did you come to the point where you started um brain share and and doing you know what you're doing now so so um after the military I uh as uh I have a tendency to I went in the military because of a girl because I fell in love we were gonna go we were GNA join the military together

[10:10] get stationed in Hawaii live happily ever after well she lived happily ever after and I went to Korea so I'm getting out my plan was to do 20 years retire at 37 you know well I fell in love again and we decided that I was going to get out go to the high-tech world because of my background make lots of money we get married and live happily ever after so I got out went and worked in electronics world made a lot of money and she lived happily ever [Laughter]

[10:47] after so I went to work for for HB which was a phenomenal um it just the at that space and time in the world that was one of the best companies to work for their techn olog especially in the in the engineering space was the top of the top of the line and I started out as an engineer helped start the first call center before there were call centers and that's where my leadership started coming in because back then there there were no cell phones and call centers were a kind of A New Concept so we put together call the

[11:24] call center to help optimize and leverage efficiencies as we learned in the military to how you know what are your assets what's your mission how do you accomplish with the assets you currently have and analyzing that so we put together the call centers and I went into management and actually um uh ran the world's largest repair facility here in Mountain View California and then uh would to converted that from a really a cost center to a profit Center and by doing that because most of the work was was warranty which is just cost Relief by actually just selling services so we started selling in services and created

[12:01] a business model out of that and then ran the North and South America's marketing my claim to famous I ran the Global Services operation and re-engineered that uh with video technology but it was brand new remote Diagnostics and call centers um took my stock option Cash Out chi ching to go buy my Island that was my goal of life is to buy an island make it a scuba diving Resort oh wow yeah yeah well you know that's still the future but I'm I'm having so much fun now I I I don't know what well let me I'll continue this story it gets fun because well you

[12:37] remember the.com bust sure absolutely lost a bunch of money then so I put everything into real estate because real estate safe right until I retired in 2007 2008 oh my God what am I gonna do and I'm like okay I can hold my breath for a while I can put on the snorkel and but after about eight months I'm like I got do something and I'm walking down Al Cino and I'm seeing these businesses having problems and I'm like hey I've got all this experience I can help them so I started this and guess what

[13:13] was failing miserably because I knew how a Fortune 50 company worked but I didn't know how small business worked and I had to relearn everything and you can't see but I got a bunch of books here all kinds of of books and and knowledge and degrees and all kinds of stuff to understand that building a business like building a house and you got to start with a foundation and that's how I get here it was supposed to be a twoyear threeyear gig you know until the the things turned around that was 15 years ago and I'm still having fun and I have the privilege of helping people utilizing my

[13:49] experience my knowledge to to help people I mean 87% of businesses never make it past year two right it doesn't have to be that way it's it's understanding building a business is not about putting a a shingle on the thing and everything happens there's a whole lot to it it's the most challenging and rewarding thing you can ever do so it's it's my honor to leverage that out to the universe and help people when they've got that and they want to go down that path I want to help them so so and and at this point and I I

[14:27] put this in some of the promotion for for this show you've helped over a thousand uh clients right help them grow their businesses get their businesses and and in fact I even worked with you um on with one of them who was doing doing some real estate work right yeah yeah we we've actually hit over 2,000 but yeah after about 300 it starts getting kind of a but it's it it it's just a blast to watch a business go from struggling to actually thriving yeah so if you could

[15:04] pick let's say you know three things from your time in the army that that you use on a regular basis when you're mentoring small business owners what would those three things be I know you said you have a whole lot of them but I and and I'm winging this so thinking with my mouth open a little bit here I think it's goal goal setting which is Mission what's your mission what's the goal so goal say no know

[15:40] where you're going um I'm going to call it time allocations but it really is resource allocation how do you allocate your resources to accomplish the mission and then that leadership of bringing the team along with that so goal setting resource allocation and Leadership I think would be the top three the the the military ingrained in My DNA so and let's take each one of those so let's start with goal setting and and the idea of of having a mission um you and you you were kind enough to flash a copy of the the three pillars of

[16:15] attainment uh earlier so um you'll you'll you'll probably get a kick out of this right below the three pillars of attainment you can't see it because it's too small but is I have written out it's it's it's in French because it helps me practice French I have my purpose and my mission and I have another copy of this on the bathroom mirror and every morning I read my purpose and my mission right now for me that that was something I was kind of involved with before I joined the Navy because the Navy was a second career for me but being in the Navy and

[16:51] understanding that really solidified this process this process for me right I'm wa so how how from a military standpoint take take us through that process that you now use for your clients well in the military it's a little easier actually because you're typically given the mission it's like here you go in business you got to Define that and if it's not defined then where are you going what are you gonna do how you and I see this a lot people just kind of spin around of circles you know it's like U you know the rat on the

[17:27] wheel what how whatever analogy you want to use but as a leader or the the business owner or the in that leadership role you've got to Define what that goal is what is that mission and then figure out how to get there you know and utilizing all of your resources everything that but that has to be defined whether it's Financial whether it's uh number of employees whatever your mission is helping people whatever you want my my my person Miss I'm going to help 10,000 businesses before I you know that that's my my mission is to to to help them um when you know that it's

[18:05] easy to put a plan a place and allocate the resources to do that but you've got to take the time to actually Define that and I I I got I hear so many people say this well what happens if I don't accomplish my goal that was a question I was gonna ask you right you knew it was coming yeah well whose goal is it it's yours who can change it when can you change it I've been goal setting since I was 14 years old and I've never ever hit one of my five-year goals you want to know why they change

[18:42] right it's okay I I remember I wanted to spend 20 years in the military guess what that changed um you know this I wanted to go to Hawaii for right it changed it's okay they're your goals and if they don't change you're probably not doing know right so you know this being the beginning of July right so we just hit the half you know halfway through the year mark and my process is to examine my goals for this year right at the halfway point and and I ended up um modifying a couple of them um because

[19:20] you know they needed to be modified right and this year they I I happen to make them you know bigger but in other years I realized you know what I'm not going to make these there's things that are going on that are going to prevent me and so I I have to in essence kind of shrink the goal um but still make it you know aspirational enough to in you know to inspire me to reach right isn't that the essence yeah yeah well and if if you know you can achieve your goal it's not big enough you know it's you got you got and you know reach for the sky reach for the

[19:55] the Stars you hit the moon you know what you're doing pretty good I I love that analogy because you know that the human brain has a tendency to to make sure you're safe right so it wants to to be conservative um I I love using the 10x thing if you think you could make a a million dollars what what would it take to make1 million and you put the plan in place to make 10 all of a sudden one's pretty easy our biggest competitor is right between our ears so true right saying you can't do this yeah well yeah yeah oh that's going to be hard

[20:30] well all that noise and all that negative selft talk that that garbage of what what can I do it's not what I can't do what can I do to achieve that what would it take to do that how would I make that happen when you get in that creative mindset the the world changes for and it's really really cool oh you know 10x take a goal 10 exit and then come back and go wow you know what I can do that and here's how I'm going to go do it and then putting that tactical plan in place following it doing your check your your Milestone check-ins at you know six months three months

[21:05] whatever you decide it should be but do it and that's the discipline aspect of things and and I found out if I don't put on my calendar it doesn't happen you in the military it was easy because somebody told you what to go do and told you when to go do it and in in in my life now in our lives now we've got to take that role and say let's put it on the counter let's make it happen let's be disciplined to do it and we've got to do that ourselves so I I you know and i' I've never thought about this before until you until what you just said but you

[21:42] know in our m in our military lives we we always had our commanding officer right civilian lives we still need a commanding officer we may have to be our own commanding officer and that commanding officer may be our our you know count it may be like I I keep a a reminder you know checklist with with the dates of that things have to be completed right that's that's my commanding officer because when I when I wake up each day I can open that up and I already know what needs to be done today yep well and and

[22:18] I I use a little different thing sometimes you've got to be the CEO which is the commanding officer sometimes you got to be the marketing guy especially you sometimes you got to be the sales guy sometimes you got to be the CFO guy and these different modalities especially when you're running a smaller business you've got to kind to be all of those as you start growing you can delegate that out but you still got to keep that you know 100,000 foot view of things and you know you can get mentors you can get coaches you can get whatever you want to help with that but in this at least my experience in this world

[22:55] it's on me and if I don't take that the initiative to go set my goals and to be disciplined about achieving them they're not going to happen and is that simple keep it simple oh so now let's go on to your second point which is the utilization of resources so we've got our goal now we've got our mission right now how how how do we deal with you know like this is a common thing I hear from from uh people wanting well I don't have the money and no 's going to give me the money for example right you know that's

[23:33] an excuse and you know and you know um it's like you blame excuses denial just stay in bed C you know you're not gonna go anywhere um if you want to do something you're gonna find a way to do it okay that you know how many people started out with I mean you look at Mark cubin or a lot of people start out with virtually nothing but they have a goal of what to do and your most valuable asset is not money your most valuable asset is your

[24:08] time and how you utilize your time will determine the success of your life and your business you you can make more money that that that that's that's not easy but you can't make more time when that 30 seconds ago is gone we can never get it back I know Einstein said times veryable but but at least from my perspective it's gone I can't get it back that's a bourban conversation we can have that's a whole another one how we utilize your

[24:43] time that's our biggest most powerful resource we have and most people make excuses I don't have the money I don't have this I don't have the education I don't have this well guess what you do have time when you allocate your time to achieve your goal your probability achieving it is so much higher what's your goal put the plan in place it's actually easier to do in my experience than to figure out what to do right most people spend more time planning their vacation than they do their

[25:19] life so so from a resource allocation standpoint the reality is as long as we have time and we're using the time time efficiently so then we're going to whatever other resources we need we will be able to gather those if we're if we're conscious of our uh you know overuse phrase our time management yeah you can't manage time you can only manage yourself so it's not I I don't like the word time manage because okay I know Einstein but time's going to go

[25:54] it's what you do and how you manage what you do in that time okay and and that also means the rest and relaxation need to recoup it's like a battery you know if your batter is dead you're you know you're not going anywhere so you got to recharge your battery that means your your relaxation time your your family time your other things that recharge you so you got to understand your Cycles understand your time allocations what you're spending your time on to achieve your goal and goals are not all about business business when I talk

[26:30] about goals the first thing I talk about is personal goals because if your business isn't achieving your poal goals why do it it's too much work it's hard all of your business goals should be driving toward your personal goals and defining your personal goals is you know sit down draft them out and guess what you can review them in five minutes in three months in six months in a year put down at least your Drive I like the analogy of a jet ski you ever drive a jet ski you ever get on a jet yes I did

[27:05] okay okay okay remember when the first time you get on the jet ski and just sitting there and you get on and you're doing this life is the same thing if you're just sitting there you can't steer but once you get going guess what you can steer go to me goal setting is about getting moving and then adjusting as you go so what your go well let's get moving and we can adjust as we go but if you're just sitting there all you're going to do is nowhere and even more so once you've got some speed on you you can you know

[27:40] the waves will come but you're going to cut through the waves much more easily because you you've got a direction you've got momentum right and so why they may still jostle you they're not going to flip you you know out of the seat well and you and it's it's it's easier to adjust it's like driving a car you're sitting in the parking lot you're not you can't steer soon as you get moving you can steer and you yeah can you go too fast probably but most people's challenge is not going too fast it's getting moving so so the the the effective use

[28:17] of resources really then comes down instead of time management really comes down to self-management would that be absolutely okay and it's yourself you can't control anybody else's time thinking nothing the only thing you can control is yourself and when you know Jim ran talks about this you focus more on yourself than you do on your business work harder on yourself than you do on your business when we focus on what we need to do the universe kind of starts helping us do it or that's my view on things yeah yeah okay so um we're we're we're almost going to run out of time

[28:53] but I want to get to your third one which is which was leadership so so I'm again I'm going to give you I think a a common uh you know sort of rebuttal to that it's like well well my business is just me there's no leadership here well by definition you are the leader of the business so yeah guess what you have to lead yourself you have to wear those different hats but somebody's got to be that leader that says here's where we're going

[29:28] and that that Leader's job is strategic Direction managing the other functions and um profitable Revenue growth if you're running a business that's the leader's job is to Define that where are we going setting the goals the vision mission purpose whatever terminology you want to utilize you're set in the direction managing the other things which may even be yourself it's okay but leadership is not about being the boss it's about leading where you want to go and then you know what no businesses by themselves you've got an accountant

[30:03] you've got an investment banker you've got other people that are helping you with your company so you're not alone although it may feel like it sometimes yeah right yeah for sure so and and again you know you you sparked an idea for me in talking about that and that is even if we are a you know so-called solo trur you know that's like the the sort of phrase right the the reality is we're we're working with customers or clients and they need our leadership too right yes otherwise what do they need us for

[30:38] well well but but that that's the privilege we have and the responsibility we have is to help them Define where they want to go and help them get there and most of the time it's just a slight you know Tony Robin says you know a 2 millimeter adjustment most of the time it is that little teeny tiny adjustment to get you back on the role or change change it's okay to Pivot it's your business your everything make it okay for yourself and that's a lot of people have a challenge with hey guess what

[31:13] it's okay to do that it's okay to go with that it's it's okay to take a vacation you probably need it it's okay you know what I I had a I I want to go to this concert but you know I need all this work to do well maybe I need to go to the concert I don't know I'm not inside your brain you are think about it and and make a decision and go for it it's okay yeah and and and we we we see this kind of leadership throughout the military where

[31:49] people tend to think of the military as as this very hierarchical organization and it certainly is in some respects but but but leadership in the military it kind of flows out in every direction up down I I mean I know as as a Chaplain much of of my leadership really impacted the people who are senior to me yes helping them see what they needed to see about themselves what was going on in their unit right so that that idea of

[32:24] sort of you know leading up if you will right you're you're right I I I like what you said about we're we're almost all of us are in a position of leadership somewhere it really is for us to identify what that is and that's that is something we learn learned in the military as well right in the Marine Corp we used to talk about the Strategic Corporal right and that's that's your first official leadership level right very ve you know it's a E4 right but but that Corporal could make the difference between s you know reach ing the mission and

[32:59] not well and that's you know what I call lateral leadership or you know what there's always kind of a leader that that's you know at that front line and yeah you can you could come down but that doesn't work till real well it's better when everybody's driving in the same everybody pulling in the same direction you know there's some some uh stats about you know a flock of birds when they're all flying in formation they're extrem efficient one bird gets space you lose 30% of the efficiency that leadership is about pulling everyone in the same direction

[33:35] and to me that's what leadership is about knowing the mission getting everybody aligned to that and going forward as expediently as possible there you go well and and that that we're actually a little bit overtime but that's okay because my apologies I I I love helping people and this this is a an opportunity that Kevin I just want to thank you so much for everything you do for the community for the people that that are associated with you and and touch you in one way or another I mean some of the groups that were in it's just an honor and privilege to be here thank you so much for allowing me to be

[34:10] here I appreciate it you're you're welcome and and and and Joe thank you for coming on today and sharing your your you know your life your experience I mean these these are very powerful things and I didn't mention this at the beginning of the show but none of my show shows are about you know talking to the you know Elon musks of the world because the reality is most of us are not going to be Alon musk but all of us can be a Joe suchinsky right and that's not that's not to put you down it's to say that we can reach

[34:46] your level and we can serve other people if we're opening ourselves up to the ideas that that we need to absorb in order to have that kind of life that kind of success and that's why I love having I love having you on the show because I got goosebumps again I just you know this is to me this is inspiring because I I can relate to a person like you I can't I frankly can't relate to Alon musk I really can't you know so you can tell me this is what I

[35:21] need to do to be successful but it's gonna be kind you know okay whatever you know um so I I I I you know we need to walk and this is I think your what you were talking about your your parallel leadership we need to link arms and walk side by side into our success and that's also something that's very much comes out of the military again people who aren't involved in think about the military is it's generals and Admirals and and they're like charge or what no it's mostly us linking arms with our comrades our you know our and and and

[35:57] making the mission happen day by day and that's I think that's that's maybe the most powerful thing that we can bring to our our fellow civilians is is is that's really what it's all about it's not hitting those home runs it's it's hitting the singles and the doubles and sometimes getting thrown out at the plate and and right and and picking up and doing it again tomorrow well we're all going to get knocked down it's how fast you get up there you go there you go right well I'm gonna have you um hang tight for just a minute while I wrap up the show and we can talk for a couple minutes

[36:32] offline right there you go so folks that thank you so much for joining us today um I I I really hope that that you you got something out of this um what I can say is listen to this show again listen to what Joe said and and and and I don't know maybe make this part of of something you do once a month when you review your goals or something like that because it's it's through the the you know the internalizing of these ideas that they'll really have the

[37:07] impact on your life that they' they've had on Joe's life and and you know metem as we say on on on on on my life so again thank you so much for joining me real quickly wrapping up tomorrow at 10: a.m. is my show people making money and we're going to be talking this is our monthly economic Echoes so for the last few months I've been talking about you know we hear all this economic data and it and it sounds all fancy and all that and then and but none of us live life according to the National economy we

[37:42] live life according to our own individual life so what does all this economic data mean in terms of our lives our individual lives what we should do the decisions we need to make for ourselves and our families so we'll be talking about that tomorrow 10: a.m. Pacific time on people making money and then next Monday is um the next edition of trust and Estates weekly again 10 a.m. Pacific and then one week from today will be the next edition of business lessons from the military so I invite you to join me for all of those shows thank you again for joining me

[38:18] wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do um you know I know Marie you were a tremendous supporter of the military so it's always this is always a special thing to remember you on this particular show you are my bell darling courage at all times my friends