386 Jim Schleckser

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Jim Shlekser is an accomplished leader, entrepreneur, and CEO coach with extensive experience across diverse industries. He is the founder and CEO of The CEO Project, a renowned executive coaching company specializing in high revenue entrepreneurs. Jim offers a distinctive CEO coaching program that combines peer group discussions with personalized one on one coaching sessions led by former CEOs.

He advocates for the concept of the lazy CEO, emphasizing efficient delegation and time management as essential traits for successful leadership. Jim employs diagnostic and strategic tools to identify business constraints and provide tailored advice to CEOs and offers a curated advisory board, providing CEOs with unbiased and valuable guidance.

Jim hosts the Lazy CEO Podcast, a successful podcast focusing on entrepreneurship and CEO leadership, providing valuable insights to a wide audience. He's also the author of two impactful books, Great CEOs are Lazy and Professional [00:01:00] Drinking, a spirited guide to wine. cocktails, and confident business entertaining.

In addition to his professional endeavors, Jim is actively involved in various non profit organizations, such as the National Association of Corporate Directors, Boy Scouts of America, and Youth with a Mission. Jim is an avid soccer player and adventurer, having recently conquered Mount Kilimanjaro.

He's also a certified level two sommelier, reflecting his passion for wine and cocktails.

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

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The Deep Wealth Mastery program, it's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery and that's exactly what helped myself and my business [00:03:00] partners welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure deal.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, Whether that's three years away or 33 years away, and if you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. 

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Come on in and network with other business owners, with [00:04:00] other businesses, just like you, because they all want to lock in their financial freedom and enjoy both success and fulfillment. Again, the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Please send an email to success at deepwealth. com. 

Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. You heard the official introduction, but I got to tell you, it is fantastic because in the house, we have a fellow entrepreneur, a thought leader, a fellow podcaster, and he is going to rock your world with what's there. And let me ask something, Deep Wealth Nation, before I bring on the guest.

Do you want to achieve breakthrough results? There is that missing piece of the puzzle. Guess what? Coming out of this episode, you may have found that. 

So Jim, I'm going to put a plug in it right there. Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. I'm curious because there is always a story behind the story. So what's your story, Jim? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Jim Schleckser: And well, thanks, Jeffrey. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I was a weird kid. I read Think and Grow [00:05:00] Rich when I was 13. And the whole idea of being in business appealed to me, even though I was a math and science kid. I said, you know, that boy, that seems like a lot of fun.

It is the greatest game ever because I was a video game kid too. And so I began to move in the direction of business and understanding it and reading books about it. did get an engineering degree and then, but immediately went and got an MBA and moved over to sales and marketing and then ultimately general management at the age of 29.

And really ever since then, which was more than a couple of years ago, I've been running companies first for other people and and now for myself, but really was that book. It was Think and Grow Rich, which is an ancient book, Napoleon Hill's book. It's in the 30s really influenced me strongly that business was the place to be.

And then I Received to fill my brain with that and probably a thousand other business books. So I really did the work to get good at this. They talk about 10, 000 hours to become expert. I think I probably put my 10, 000 hours in at this point and I got good at it. That made a lot of money for other people as a hired gun.[00:06:00]

Luckily, there was some equity participation and that really changed my position and in the early Forties, I achieved sort of financial independence and said, I really don't need to worry about money anymore in my life. Just do the math and it's all going to work out. but there is an incredible weight that gets lifted.

They talk about the number one limiter of lifespan in the United States is stress. And the number one stressor. And so if you can get yourself to a point of being financially independent, like I really don't need to worry so much about money anymore, it just changes your life completely. And so I got there a long time ago, and it has been freeing in terms of how you can live your life and the relationships you can have and the activities and experiences that are available to you.

And leaving the corporate world as I did almost 20 years ago at this point and starting my own business is really about. Impact. It's about, I directly affect the outcome of entrepreneurs and CEOs, whether they're [00:07:00] founders or hired guns, to get very different outcomes in their business.

And that enriches not only themselves and their owners, but also all the people that work for them. So we have a goal. At the CEO project to positively impact a million lives. And the idea here is we do that by improving the quality of the performance of the CEO, which makes the business better, which gives everybody in the organization better opportunity to get that F 150 pickup truck, to send their kids to college, to buy a house, to whatever is important to them in life.

We're helping all of them in some little teeny way through the CEO's influence. So that's kind of how I got to what I do now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's a terrific story. And as you're going through that, I'm sure like so many listeners in Deep Wealth Nation, a lot of things just resonated from the think and grow rich, which like myself was introduced at a very young age, was fascinated. And there's many Bibles, although there's the Bible, but then this would be the Bible of business, I suppose, with so many entrepreneurs that really helped get them on their way.

But what's interesting, Jim, you've been on both sides of the table as [00:08:00] a CEO for a company that's brought you on board and now your own company. And now you're working with so many CEOs. Out there and making such a change. So for the listener who is not familiar with the CEO project, and by the way, you have your Lazy CEO Podcast and Deep Wealth Nation in the show notes, please click all the links are there.

You'll find it all about that. Please subscribe to Jim's podcast. You'll get a kick out of it. What's going on with that whole CEO focus that you've now been doing? I mean, you could have really done anything. You've had a very successful career. As a CEO and now helping other CEOs, but was there a defining moment that set you on your path that you're going to be doing CEO project and why the CEO project?

What's that all about for people who aren't familiar with you just yet?

Jim Schleckser: Yeah, no problem. So to be fair, I say I left corporate, I got fired which is an occupational hazard at that level. It can happen, right? And as I reflected on what I wanted to do, the idea of dropping back in didn't get me the relationship with my [00:09:00] family that I wanted, and particularly my two boys who were young at the time.

And uh, so I built a matrix. I'm an engineer, right? I go, what's important to me, right? I knew myself well enough to know that it's intellectual stimulation is number one, impact is number two, money's number three. And then of course I wanted the freedom sort of over that was the freedom to spend time with my boys, which I did.

And I looked at a variety of businesses and part of my contribution to a business is creativity. I'm a very, very good problem solver. I'm very creative. It's one of my little gifts, that God gave me. so for example, I looked at, Open up a bunch of Dunkin Donuts. model.

It's hard to screw it up if you get the right location. I said, but here's the thing. They go, you will not change one period, one comma, one semi colon, one letter in our contract with you. You will sign your name or not sign your name. That's it. And I'm like, this is not leaving a lot of room for creativity.

And so, I don't mean to denigrate them. They're all like that. I said well, I can make money at it, but like I said, money's number three. [00:10:00] And I won't have intellectual stimulation, I won't be able to use my creativity, I can't have impact the way I'd like to, so I passed on it, even though it was a good business opportunity.

And this business, for me, hit sort of the three things. A guy named Dan Sullivan, who does strategic coach, fabulous work he does, he says you want three circles, right? Circle number one is something you would, like to do. number two is something you can be he says world class, but one of the best around at, let's say, right?

And circle number three is something people will pay you money to do. What you want to find is that little triangle where those three circles overlap. That's your happy place. And honestly, this idea of working with CEOs, I'm solving with them their hardest problems. I'm having a huge impact on the business.

I love it and I'm good at it. I'm like, wow, hit all three circles. So what we do is we work with CEOs to help them grow their business. We're all about growth. We're all about, getting from here to there in their business improving their profitability as we go. Because many times people are all about growth, but they forget to [00:11:00] make money and need to make money.

It's the oxygen that we breathe to continue operations. And we're quite good at it. I remember not that long ago, I was flying with one of our members on his private jet. And he said, Jim, the reason I'm on this jet right now is because of you and the insight that you gave me and the help you gave me and the honest truths that you gave me that helped me get to the place I'm at right now.

And I was impressed. I wished I had a jet, but okay, it's good. You know, You don't want, don't need a jet. You need a friend with a jet. So, His life was transformed as a result of being part of the CEO project and becoming a better better, better CEO. When we first started working with him, he was, Kind of terrible.

And now, he may be one of the best CEOs I know, and I'll take like a teeny little bit of credit for that. He was obviously a huge learner as well. So that's what we do. We help people just get better. key thing to think about, the key takeaway is, if you are not dramatically improving your performance as the CEO, You'll become the [00:12:00] point of constraint, the inhibitor to the future growth of your business.

So you've got to kind of stay ahead of the crowd in terms of your capability. If you fall back and say, I'm good, I don't need to really do this anymore. company will catch up to you and you will now stop the company from growing. So if you want to keep growing, you have to keep expanding yourself and we help do that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: know, it's a terrific segue, everything that you said, there's so many different areas that I want to jump into. I'm going to have to constrain myself. We don't have enough time. It could be a multi episode series going on here. Epoth Nation, why don't you go back to

Jim Schleckser: Jim and Jeff show, let's do it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Why not? But Deep Wealth Nation, go back to the show notes, and I want you to click on the link and get Jim's book, Great CEOs are Lazy, How Exceptional CEOs Do More in Less Time.

And I love how you approach that, Jim, because you talk about, okay, just what you said right now. Okay, where is your point of constraint? And then you're, we'll talk about this later on, but the learner hat, the architect hat, the coach hat, the engineer hat, the player hat, which I love because we're talking about Aren't we all of those at one point or another, or sometimes all of them [00:13:00] still, even though we shouldn't be?

But what I was wondering, as you're going through that, there's a myth that you're breaking out there, thank goodness, and that myth is You've got to work really hard to achieve the results. in fact, you just shatter that. In the introduction, what got me right away, I love the quote from Bill Gates, I chose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

And wow, doesn't that say a lot? So why don't you share for Deep Wealth Nation? How they can and entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs, they can really shift their mindset. Be lazy, but not in a negative way, actually in a positive way to really prioritize what matters. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Jim Schleckser: Michael Gerber talked about this in his book, E Myth and E Myth Revisited, and he wrote a number of others, but those are the popular ones. It's about working on the business versus in the business. And many times, getting going, we have to be in the business. I mean, I was when I got my business started.

But over time, you need to move on working on the business. And that's really the [00:14:00] starting place where he ended, I started, which is, okay, great, on the business. What does that mean? And the answer is you need to do two things, and I'm going to go back. The whole thing is based on a theory of constraints by a guy named Eli Goldratt.

Goldratt said, in any system you can name, There is one particular point that controls the performance of the whole system, and the job is to figure out what that is and open it up. You can think of the simple example, the garden hose. Garden hose is supposed to put water through the end, but if there's a kink in the hose, the only work that's valuable, Is to find the kink and open it up.

The same thing's true in your business. You want to grow your revenue or grow your profit. You go, where is the kink in the hose? Where is the point of constraint? Our job as CEOs is to find that point of constraint and open it up, and for that limited amount of work, you get a improvement in the entire business performance.

It's crazy, right? So let's say. One machine in your manufacturing operation is limiting your [00:15:00] production. You got lots of orders. You just can't get enough volume through. Figuring out which machine it is and upgrading it or replacing it or adding a second machine just improved the performance of the entire business with one move.

And that's really what the book talks about. Great CEOs. And I interviewed Jeffrey probably three, four thousand CEOs over the last 20 years. The really good ones, this is exactly what they do. They don't say it the way I say it in the book, but what they do is they go, I try to figure out where that point of constraint is, I spend 30 40 percent of my time on that.

And then everything else that CEOs are supposed to do, with little air quotes, I jam down into a minimum amount of time, so I'm not working 80 hours a week. In fact, one question for me told if somebody was a good CEO or a bad CEO, or average, let's say, I'll be nice or how many hours a week do you work?

And I regularly would have CEOs that go 80 hours a week. I'm like, in my little head, my little mouse brain, I go, this is not a very good CEO in

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mm [00:16:00] hmm. 

Jim Schleckser: They're not in control of their responsibilities. Somebody says, ah, 50, 55, 60, depends on what's going on. I'm like, that's a good CEO. They've managed their time, they're working on the things that matter, probably, we had some other questions we asked, and hopefully they're getting great results.

And the great results come from find the kink and open it up, and that's where the hats come in. The hats help you think about how do I find the point of constraint, the kink in the hose, and how do I fix the point of constraint. And that is the CEO's job. It's funny, just real quick, I mean, I've got an MBA, we screwed this up.

We told people that you all have stakeholders. they're like the environment and your employees and your customers and your bank and your little, you know, these are all stakeholders in your business. So we're smart. We go, I got this 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10 percent of my time, and everybody's going to be happy.

We call this peanut buttering your time. If you peanut butter your time across the business like that, sort of trying to deal with all your [00:17:00] stakeholders, you're never going to get an interesting result. Good CEOs. Good CEOs. Now I'll distribute their time to the point of constraint. They go, I'm not going to talk about engineering, production, my issue is sales.

I'm going to spend all my time on sales until I crack that nut. Then I'll look for the next point of constraint and I'll spend all my time there. And that's what the good ones do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: I really couldn't agree more with what you're saying. I'm right there with you. Let me put myself under the microscope. I've made so many mistakes. People see me and say, Jeffrey, look at that success, but I'll quickly share if I had a dollar for every mistake that I need, that I did, I would not have needed my exit.

It would have been far, you know, I would have had several private jets. Let's put it that way, Jim, for all the mistakes that I've done. Some of my biggest mistakes, as I look back, going to what you said, really, I've made To put a different spin on what you're saying, very similar concept, probably the same thing.

An effective CEO, an effective leader, really, is someone who knows how to delegate properly. I'm not going to be the smartest person in the room. I'm going to get the right people. I'm going to delegate that to. What I'm wondering, I'd love your take on this. My [00:18:00] mistake has been, I didn't delegate, I abdicated.

And abdicating is even worse in my books than working too hard or maybe delegating to someone who isn't the best, but you're still delegating. And so for the Deep Wealth Nation, they're listening to this saying well, I don't really know. How am I going to be doing this? And I'm not walking away. I'm giving the keys to the kingdom, but it's to the wrong person because I'm abdicating.

How do we prevent that? Can you prevent that? What's going on there?

Jim Schleckser: absolutely possible. And that's sort of the next part of it. You're working 80 hours a week. How do we get you down to 50 on the right things? It means a whole bunch of things that are on your to do list have to go away. So we tell people, look, take that list. Put it in economic impact order, highest at the top, lowest at the bottom, draw a line halfway up.

There'll be some things that still need to happen below the line, but you have three Ds at that point, defer, don't do, delegate. So let's start with don't do. Don't do, you're going to cross it off your list. You're just not going to do it. If it's below the line, it's not [00:19:00] as important as the things above the line.

Let's just not do it. And you go, oh, something might happen. Yeah, not a big thing, a little thing. Who cares? Defer into the future. I'm amazed at how many things I think are important in a month and a half, they turn out, eh, it wasn't so important, or time solved it, or it went away, or. So time is a real tool to solve problems if they're low priority. Delegates the third one, which is what you asked about. And we have a rule, which is if somebody's 70 percent as good as you as a CEO, delegate aggressively. And now people go well, but they're not as good as I am. Look, here's the problem. If you're a CEO, you're a special person. You're either really smart, or a really good salesperson, or a really good organizer, or a great marketer, whatever your thing is, you've got a gift, if you go when they're as good as I am, I'll delegate, which will, A, first of all, those people are running their own companies, and you'll also never delegate, so, quote unquote.

Now, the [00:20:00] problem is when we say delegate, people say well, hand it off, never see it again. But it turns out there are levels of delegation that we recommend people think about. So level one might be, hey, Jeffrey, look into this, come back, let's talk about it, I'll make a decision of what we're going to do, and then you're going to go execute it.

I just lost the whole research part. You come back with a kind of a refined list, and then you're going to go execute. Up to, hey, Jeffrey, go figure out what you want to do, show me your plan, I'll agree your plan. Then you're going to go do. Up to, hey, Jeffrey, go look into it. Figure out a plan, shoot me a note.

If I don't say no, so now I'm opting out, right? In a day, just go do it. Up to, hey Jeffrey, go do this, figure out a plan, go execute, just let me know what you did. And then abdication, abdication, which is what you talked about is, hey Jeffrey, take it over and I never want to hear about it again.

And that is super scary, particularly if, one, it's a very risky issue, like it could sink the company if we screw this one up. You never want to go to level five on those. Always going [00:21:00] to be at level two, three. We're going to change the branding of the entire company. Okay, I would like to have a conversation before we do that, right?

Jeffrey Feldberg: You think

Jim Schleckser: and then the other one is what Bezos talks about is one way doors and two way doors. because I'm an engineer, I say reversible and irreversible. If a decision is reversible, You go, delegate it hard and fast, because if we screw it up, to your point, made a mistake, okay, nobody died, let's just change it, go back another way.

If it's irreversible, and let me just say, there really isn't anything that's irreversible, it's going to take a bunch of money and a bunch of time, but everything's, even bad tattoos are reversible, right? So, hopefully. So, irreversible, we're more careful about those two. And then, to your point, you got to consider, Am I delegating to a low competency person, like a newbie, or like my really trusted COO?

I'd be more aggressive in delegating to a COO than a green bean, somebody who's brand new in the organization. So those are some factors when we're thinking [00:22:00] about delegation. think to your point, it's super uncomfortable. You have to, Be really committed to getting good at this, and I'm going to tell you, if you get good at it, it is freeing beyond words.

You're like, why is this on my desk? I've got to find somebody to do this for me. Why am I working so darn hard?

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's a superpower. As a follow up to that though, and I don't know about you, here's what we see a lot. So we'll have. A new company come into the Deep Wealth ecosystem and we're speaking to either the CEO or the founder entrepreneur. Hey, does the company run without you? One of two things usually happens, Jim.

It's hemming and hawing all these excuses and the short answer is no, it doesn't really run without them. Or it's the emperor with no clothes. Yes, the company runs without me. I have a professional management team. We speak to the management team and you know what they're saying? Actually, we can't make any decision.

It's always got to go back through the, the ranks, ultimately to the CEO or to the owner. And so for our [00:23:00] listeners who are saying you know what, that's kind of me. If I'm open and honest about that, what would you say of how do you really get it right in terms of that cadence of, okay, you have some oversight, but it's not too much on the one hand.

And we've talked about abdicating and not just walking away. But we're delegating with just the right amount. Not too little, not too much, I suppose. It's the Goldilocks scenario. What's the secret sauce here?

Jim Schleckser: I used to use a simple rule of a monetary rule.

Depending on the size of the company, depend, gave me the size of the project I could delegate without concern. So when I was running a 20, 30 million company, I could delegate to a direct report, something that would cost a hundred grand, grand.

And I'm like, just figure it out. 50 grand isn't going to kill us. It's fine. Just go do it. Figure it out. When I was running a 300 million company, that number might be a million or 2 million to a trusted, executing report. It's a million dollar decision. Just go make it. I don't need to be involved.

A 20 million decision, on the other hand, [00:24:00] I need to be involved in that decision. And so I think what I've seen is that people don't discriminate based on economic impact. I got to be involved, digital, I got to be involved or not involved. I'm like, why would you be involved in picking the sandwiches for the company picnic?

That makes no sense. Get out of that. Why would you even, why would you even want to see the catering quote? Why would you wanna see the tent rental? just give it to somebody and let 'em figure it out? It's low risk. It's not a lot of money. You got better things to work on. And yet the analogy we use for people that are, all data flows in and outta my office, right?

Is if you remember those old time switchboard operators, you call Macy's, gimbals, whatever, and they, Mr. Schleckser, flexer, yep. Connect Mr. Feldberg, Mr. , and they connect the little wires. Let's say, and they're mostly women in those days, but they could do a hundred phone calls an hour.

What happens when 200 comes in? 400? 800? You go I'll get more people. Yeah, but there's only one CEO. So if all of the swift calls are coming [00:25:00] into your desk and you've got to connect the dots, eventually we run out of you. And I go back to my point before, you just became the constraint to the growth of the company.

You may feel good because you think you got your fingers in all the pies, but you are limiting the growth of the company with that behavior.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And we really, we've got to lose those golden handcuffs so we can get back to doing what we enjoy and what we're really good at. But let me ask you this because I'm sure there's some listeners who are saying, okay, that sounds really good. Another myth. Okay. But I'm going to do that when my company gets to a certain revenue size.

So, Jim, I know you're dealing with companies from give or take 20 million up to a few billion dollars. And what I'm curious, when you're working with these CEOs, Is there a difference in their leadership approach or is it doesn't really matter if it's a 2 billion company or a 20 million company, the leadership approach is really one and the same.

What are you seeing there?

Jim Schleckser: I'd say the biggest thing that changes as you scale is in the early, like the 20 million, [00:26:00] you just got a whole man, a most of a management team in place. And so you're not. CEO and number one salesperson, number one engineer, number one financier, number, whatever that your specialty is, you're just the CEO. And it causes a crisis of identity. I don't quite know what this job is or what I'm supposed to do now that I'm not the sales guy anymore, gal or, you know, or marketing person. So that's one. in that zone, they go, I don't know how to hold people accountable. Delegate and hold people accountable at the lower end of that range.

As you grow, people get good at finding great people, framing the problem, giving them specific and measurable goals, and then holding them accountable to get it. At the high end, billions, you really are dealing with, leaders managing leaders, right? So you think about the first level, it's, I'm leading other individual contributors, and then I'm manager managing managers, [00:27:00] and then leader leading managers, and then leaders leading leaders, right?

So there's like this evolution of the behavior, but if you go to a very large company, you will find a master talent assessor and delegator. And also somebody who's incredibly self aware, because they go, I know I'm horrible at these four things, so I'm going to find global class people to put around me, remember my three circles.

I hate it. I'm not good at it. You can never get to the little happy triangle, right? So I'm going to find other people to do that for me, and then I'm only going to do what I'm really good at, whether it's strategy or major client relations or raising money or whatever your thing is. Do more of what you're incredibly great at.

You'll get better results.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And speaking of that, because it really goes right into everything that we've been talking about and I love what you talk about in your book, again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes, click on the link, get the book. You said one thing interesting, and it's in one of the earlier chapters, and you said that the CEOs, don't mistake me, they are working hard, but they're [00:28:00] It's on a very limited number of tasks or areas of focus.

And let me ask you this, because I know from my career, I've really been all over the map, more mistakes than not. Fortunately, what I got right in a big way. The mistakes helped me really figure that out. But the question for you is, how Because I don't believe in that concept of a balance.

A balanced life See a Hollywood movie, read a fiction book. For me, it doesn't really exist. So for someone in the Deep Wealth Nation, they're hearing you talk saying, okay, yeah, I would really love to have this blended life where I'm successful in the business, but actually I still have a life outside the business.

And Jim is saying to focus on a small number of tasks, work really hard at it. I'm really good at that. Is there a magic number that if it goes over this number, you're dooming yourself to failure? Does it depend on the person? Where is it at? What do you think?

Jim Schleckser: Yeah, you get three.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Jim Schleckser: And we teach CEOs, focus three. There's, give me the three big things you're going to get done this quarter. three, not [00:29:00] seven, not 15, three. And, we had a client we worked with for a while and he said, focus equals growth. And I think that's true. If and really within that, what you decide not to do defines you more than what you decide to do.

So choosing to say no to things is very defining to what the business is and what you're going to spend time on. So you should say no to lots and lots of things that sound like they might be good. I grew up in sales. We are the worst at this because everybody looks like a client, right?

Everybody might buy. You never know. And really, the good salespeople go no, yes, this one I'm going to spend a lot of time on because that's a big deal and they need what I've got. And the bad ones are like you never know. I don't want to throw these fish back in the ocean. You never know.

They might buy someday. And you're just wasting your time. It's a low probability use of time. So good CEOs figure out those couple of things and they just push the chips in on those three big focus things. Now, hopefully you're right more often than you're wrong about [00:30:00] those three things. But just going back to balance, I wrote one of my most popular articles, funny enough, which is how to live a balanced life.

I later sort of modified that, which is, you can't get anything interesting done if you're in balance. and what it means is, you want to appreciate, my social life, my physical, my financial, my professional, my spiritual, so forth. And you'd love to have them all kind of symmetric and a nice round wheel where everything's balanced.

10 out of 10. But it turns out if you want to really get something interesting done, have to be mal distributed for a while. You have to like, we're going to go acquire this really big company and I'm going to work 70 hours a week for a little while. I know I'm making a decision to do it.

And then I'm going to go try to go back to balance once I get that done, or I'm going to run a marathon. So I'm going to spend more time than I really should on my physical for a while. And I'm going to, but I'm going to get the marathon done. And then I'm going to come back to some level of, relative balance.

So I think we [00:31:00] go out of balance, good peak, good ones, choose to go out of balance for periods of time, and then come back to something that's a little more balanced and stable on an ongoing basis.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Really the seasons of life, the seasons of nature. Okay. You know what? I normally wouldn't do this, but for this short period of time, I know why. I'll explain it to my family, those close to me, those around me in the business. Here's why it's going to be happening. And I'm also going to monitor it myself just to make sure that it doesn't go on for an extended period.

Let me ask you this, because again, from running companies to your own company, is there a difference? When you look back on the countless leaders, and again, I'm putting CEOs as leaders because that's what we do,

Jim Schleckser: Some are.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Hopefully more than some, but you're right. Looking back, is there one advice, one piece of advice that you got that's been the most impactful?

For you, anything that comes to mind of something that perhaps shaped your philosophy, where you are today. It's because you had Jeffrey back in the day. So and so said this, or, you know what, just [00:32:00] last month, I heard that. And wow, that was a game changer for me.

Jim Schleckser: When I got my first larger company president role, I had a guy I worked for, a guy named Paul Snyder. And Paul was a, he worked for Larry Bossett. He was a big allied signal exec for a long time, and he was running this conglomerate and I ran one of his businesses. And when I got the job, first of all he, met me to interview me, he goes.

Man, you're really young. I'm like yes, I am, but hopefully we'll do okay. But he said, all right, here's the deal. Everything matters. When you're the leader, everything matters. You don't get to have bad days. You don't get to yell at people. You don't get to kick the dog. People interpret your emotion as meaning something in what's going on with the business.

Jim's upset. We must not be doing really well, or we lost a client, or we, no, I had an accident on the way in, but you're not allowed. To be like that because every, everybody's looking at you. They look at who you say hello to. They look at who's in the meetings and who's not in the meetings. They look at [00:33:00] the order of your emails what order did it get put in?

I mean, it is insanity, the level of attention that people put on the CEO, and then they do this Ouija board trying to interpret what it all means, when 95 percent of the time it doesn't mean anything. But if you aren't aware that they're doing this, you may behave in a way that sends signals to the organization that you don't want to send.

And so as leaders, as CEOs. Everything matters, people go well, that's not fair. I go well, then don't do the job, because that's the job, unfortunately. So, everything matters, and I've really taken that to heart, that, how you show up, how you engage, it matters tremendously in this job. You're an engineer or an accountant doing a job in a company, it doesn't matter nearly as much.

You got that job, everybody's looking at you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. Some great advice there. And I'm wondering, as you're talking about that, does emotional intelligence play a role in successful leadership? And [00:34:00] if it does, how and how do we even cultivate that outside of ourselves?

Jim Schleckser: Yeah, I mean, I think the data is pretty conclusive around the importance of EQ, Emotional Intelligence. It's the ability to manage and control your emotions and understand the impact of your emotions on other people and your behaviors on other people. And we've seen. People that lack emotional intelligence, they go off the handle, they scream at the team, they gosh, I mean, I'm not sure I want to work in a place like that, honestly, not for very long.

And so, I think it is directly correlated to getting the best out of people. It's about knowing yourself, knowing how, it goes back to, everything matters. If you don't understand yourself and don't understand how your actions matter, Impact others, or have an ability to control your emotions at some level, where you're going to do crazy, silly stuff, and you're going to screw the company up, and you're going to put people off their game, and if you're, like, measured, and you can manage your energy, and you know the impact, I think that makes a good leader.

So, yeah, there's a direct correlation. Now, getting better at it we're [00:35:00] born with an intrinsic capability that's been tested even at three or four years old, they can predict sort of EQ. I do think you can get a little bit better by just mantra ing in your head, everything matters, bite my tongue, count to ten, big breaths of air, all those little tricks help and maybe over a long period of time a behavior will turn into a characteristic and will turn, of yourself.

But it takes a long time. It really does take a long time to build a characteristic like that if you don't have it to start.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And perhaps for a listener saying, yeah, you know what, that really sounds like me. I'm not sure I was ever born with it. It's at least having an awareness of it. Okay. Let me stop. What would someone with a high emotional intelligence how best guess, how do I think they would react? I'm going to do this.

Maybe not such a good idea. So there is hope for that.

Jim Schleckser: I've used so, the Pinocchio, they had the little cricket, Jiminy Cricket, right?

I think you can engage your team if you're willing to be vulnerable. This is the other thing. You got to be willing to be vulnerable. You engage your team to help you. You go, [00:36:00] hey, I'm trying to get better at X, Y, Z I don't want to blow up the way I've blown up in the past on stuff.

When I do it, I want, my CFO or my CEO, somebody I trust. to go, Jim, touch the nose or wiggle my ears like you're doing it. interrupt the process. It's oh, yes, I am. Okay, great. Thank you. maybe have somebody help you checking your backswing, so to speak, right?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. So, so true. And actually you touched on one of the questions I was thinking about and that's vulnerability. Because for some, they'll say vulnerability, particularly in a leadership position, it's weakness. And clearly, in my experience, it's not the case. But you can say, Jeffrey, on base, off base, where's vulnerability for you in terms of being an, not any leader, but an effective leader, an effective leader being vulnerable?

Jim Schleckser: I think people don't like invulnerable people. They just don't. You think you don't make any mistakes. You think you're, Can't take any critique because there's none to be had. You can't get [00:37:00] better. Boy, that's not a very likable human being, so, I think you got to lead with vulnerability if somebody tells me I'm wrong in a meeting, I've diminished my leadership competency. And I would say, absolutely not. People go, Jim's still the CEO. He's still running the joint. He's got all these other great characteristics. He's smart, he works hard, whatever the things are.

And, oh my gosh, he can actually, when he's wrong, he listens and does something about it. I think it makes you more human, a better leader, more likable. And I think people follow people they like. And being vulnerable is part of being likable. And there's a combination of competency and vulnerability that go together, right?

If I'm only vulnerable and I'm not competent. That's not very interesting, right? That's like a mushy, that's a mush. If I'm competent and not vulnerable, I'm invulnerable, I'm arrogant, I'm all the other, but if I have the combination of both, they go, you're human, you're [00:38:00] compassionate, and you're really competent, that's the kind of person you want to follow, I think.

Jeffrey Feldberg: I think so. My experience has been people want someone who's relatable. And so if you're absolutely perfect,

Jim Schleckser: Yeah.

Jeffrey Feldberg: People can't relate to that. At the same side, if you're always a mess, people can't relate to that either. But someone who says, okay, you know what? I see some of me in that person and Jeffrey owned it.

Yeah. He just lost it over there, but he owned it. He said, yeah, I made that mistake. Not. Yeah. I liked that. It's something about the human condition that we want to see. Okay. Yeah. I can relate to that person that just like me. I'm right with you on that. Jim, before we go into wrap up mode, unfortunately, before we go into wrap up mode, so many questions, but let me ask you this.

Artificial intelligence, it continues to change life, business, society, as we know it. Where we are today and best guess going forward, AI, leadership, CEOs, what do you see? What's going on there?

Jim Schleckser: any technology has an adoption cycle that starts with hype. And we are in the hype phase of [00:39:00] AI, like it's going to change everything and nobody's going to work anymore and all the jobs are going away. No, that's not going to happen, but there will be things that happen that are really useful.

And I tend to think of AI at the moment, at least as human augmentation. So all this crummy stuff that we can do that are not very good at, that takes a lot of time, that's tedious, AI is just way better than we are. So, let's use it for that. It'll augment the effectiveness of the humans. We'll become more productive as a result of the use of AI.

And, look at it. Like, I use Grammarly to check my spelling and my grammar. You use Google, which, by the way, is AI. Do you really think a human could check three billion websites and find the ten most relevant ones? That's AI that's doing it for you. It's, it is already all over the place.

The thing that, Showed up were these large language models that can do lots and lots of different things. I think more likely what we're going to see is what is being called small language models. So these are dedicated automations, dedicated [00:40:00] AI for particular purposes. I'll give you an example or two.

Let's say I'm an auditor, financial auditor. And I want to audit financial transactions for anomalies so I can go dig in to see if there was fraud. Boy, that's a great job for AI. Now, could it write a memo? Nope. Could it make me a plane reservation? Nope. But it can do that like a son of a gun and better than a human could probably.

The same thing for an invoice comes in. Find the original bill. Make sure it matches with the vendor, if so, cut the check, verify all the data's on the invoice, and if so, cut the check in 30 days. Boy, AI would be great at that, for example. Humans can do it, but why would we want to do it if AI could do it?

Now, maybe we just oversight it, because AI can imagine answers sometimes. So, I see lots of point solutions to take tedious work away from humans and highly detailed work. Let us be more creative, let us oversight the system. So I think that's the next few years, a lot, a deployment of business [00:41:00] case driven point solutions using small language models that make humans more effective.

I think that's sort of the near term future.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So interesting, the fascinating to see where we go, where we land up, but I suspect as with any technology to your point, an effective CEO will know how as an organization, okay, maybe I don't have to master that myself, but let me surround myself with the right people, smart people who can figure out what's best for the organization.

Jim Schleckser: I do think as a CEO, you need to know enough to ask the question,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes.

Jim Schleckser: is this a place for AI, for example? And they'll go, yes, no, maybe, here's why, at least you got to ask the question.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So many different areas that we could have gone into. We didn't even get into you being a sommelier and that book that you wrote, Professional Drinking, A Spirited Guide to Wine, Cocktails, and Confident Business, Entertaining. But all of that said, before we go into wrap up mode, Jim, is there a question I didn't ask or a topic that we didn't cover, even a message that you'd like to get out to Deep Wealth Nation?

Jim Schleckser: lot of people, when they get to the CEO job, they think they've finished, right? we're [00:42:00] done. I won, right? I hit the finish line. I've got the big job. or I started my company and it's growing. I've won. And I think you really have to embrace this concept of lifelong learning, no matter what you do.

And whether that's, A CEO peer group as part of your infrastructure like Wemake or classes or reading or something. But you know, gosh, Jeffrey, I've run into CEOs that are 50. And, I mean, long time ago I thought that was young now, or old, now I think it's young. And then they go, Jim, I've moved into the teaching phase of my life more than the learning phase of my life.

And I'm like, are you dead? What do you mean? You! So, lifelong learning, embrace it, no matter what job you have, and I think the big message is back to everything matters. If you're not advancing yourself, you're not learning and becoming better as CEO, what do you think everybody else in your company's doing?

They're looking at you. So, the modeling and signaling that you send by investing in yourself to make yourself better is what you want everybody in your company doing. You darn well better do it. You can't say, you go learn and [00:43:00] get better, but I'm the perfect, I'm the perfect answer. That's not going to fly.

So, learn. That's my message.

Jeffrey Feldberg: spot on. And a quick follow up to that. I know we're going to wrap them up, but one more question before that, because I know there are listeners in the Deep Wealth Nation, they're saying, okay, yeah, Jim, I hear you. The CEO project sounds interesting. Here's the but. But I don't have the time, or I've heard of other CEO groups and maybe I've even been a part of it.

It was a waste of my time, or they didn't get me, or I didn't get it. Not for me. So what would you say to someone who maybe is even enjoying themselves in another CEO peer group or not even part of one, they're buying into all these myths of why the CEO project is different, why it's possibly for them.

Jim Schleckser: Yeah we design founded the business. So, I designed the CEO project for larger and more sophisticated CEOs. And we have seen them participate in other groups and they find them to be, not what they need. And that's because they were not designed for larger and more sophisticated CEOs.

And there's three elements to it. One is the quality of the members you're with. You want to be [00:44:00] in a group that has people your size because the issues you deal with at a hundred million dollars are very different to the issues you deal when you're 20 million dollars. So you could help somebody who's at 20, but they can't help you at a hundred because they have never even seen a hundred.

They have no idea what problems you're dealing with, but other people in, in and around your range. They can help you. So that's one, like size, like complexity companies of learners. The second is the methodology. You want a methodology that not only delivers immediate impact, but also helps you learn and model to be a better CEO.

We do that. It's based on this theory of constraints we talked about in the book I wrote, Great CEOs are Lazy, highly efficient way focused on the point of constraint to get incredibly good results, but also you're going to help other people solve their problems. So you're going to learn how to be a better CEO.

And then the last one is the advisors, it turns out there was a book article in Harvard Business Review years ago that called it the wild west of executive coaching, which is to say there's no credentialing required to be an executive coach. And so consequently you get [00:45:00] salespeople and psychologists and goodness, and they've never run a popsicle stand.

What we do is we match you up with former CEOs that have run companies your size. So when you say, I'm dealing with this problem, they go, Oh, yeah. screwed that one up really good. Let me tell you what not to do. And so they can give you genuine advice instead of just going that's horrible.

What do you think you might want to do about it? And they can actually give you real advice. So who you're with. The efficiency and impact of the methodology and the quality of the advisors differentiates what we do from everybody else that's in the market. So, would just say, and remember I said what you decide not to do defines you, we're not good for a 5 or 10 or 15 million dollar company.

There's probably lots of people that can handle you there. You get to 100 very few can really handle you the way we can. So we're good at that and bad at the other thing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: All about focus, goes back to what you say, you're walking the talk, you're very focused on, hey, if you're a company in this size, we're for you. And here's why. Yeah. [00:46:00] Beautiful. That said, let's go into wrap up mode. It's a tradition here at the Deep Wealth Podcast where it's a privilege, it's an honor, I ask the same question to every guest.

It's a fun one. I'll set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So Jim, it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window. Not only do you see the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now going to go to any point in your life.

Jim, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or, hey Jim, do this but don't do that? What would it sound like?

Jim Schleckser: I would go to the younger Jim. And go and tell him to start his own business sooner. You're going to make a lot more mistakes, but you have a lot less responsibilities. So if you're, you're living in a one bedroom apartment, driving a rusty car, who cares when you're 22 years old, as you get older, it gets harder and harder because you have kids and a house and a wife and a, all these obligations and a mortgage.

And so the ability that, that what you have to [00:47:00] overcome to go start your own thing gets much higher. And I'm going to say, if you start young. And you work it, you get a higher average outcome by willing to take the risk of starting your own business. The more years you put in, the better you get.

And so I'd say do as little of the corporate thing you can and jump as fast as you can to your own business. That would be my advice. In fact, maybe not even do the corporate thing, just immediately go into your own business and figure it out. That'd be my advice. Yeah.

Jeffrey Feldberg: that. You're preaching to the choir. I've got to tell you, out of my MBA program, I did not follow the route where my friends signed these very lucrative contracts, and the advice to me was, Jeffrey, before you start your own company, go the corporate route. Learn a little bit. It was some hard years there.

Looking back, though, what I was able to achieve, myself, my business partners, the team, I don't know if it would have done that, to your point, if it would have gone the corporate route. It's because I didn't know what I was doing, because I made those horrible mistakes, because I struggled for, really, the first number of years, but that pressure.

That's really what sculpted and molded me for the future success of what was there. [00:48:00] So what you're saying is absolutely spot on. And one of the last

Jim Schleckser: You did it and I didn't, so good for you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: You've more than got up there and you've been playing some amazing just amazing things that you've been doing out there. So all the kudos to you on that. For a listener on The Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question, Jim. They want to learn more about the CEO project, even speak with you, even become a member.

Have a conversation. Where is the best place online for them to do that?

Jim Schleckser: So you want to go to our website. It's got all of our information and videos and so forth at theceoproject. com or you can send me an email at jim at theceoproject. com and we'll get right back to you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth mentioned it does not get any better. Jim gave you his email address. Take him up on that offer. Send him an email. Have that conversation. See what's there for you. I know you'll come out better than when you came into the call with Jim. Jim, it's official. Congratulations. It's a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Jim Schleckser: Thank you, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. [00:49:00] What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

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God bless.