502 Ted Santos

[00:00:00]

Introduction to Disruptive Leadership

Jeffrey Feldberg: What if disruption not stability is the path to your biggest breakthroughs? Ted Santos has built a career by challenging the status quo. As the creator of the Disruptive Leadership Model, he guides CEOs and executives of mid-size companies to stop reacting to chaos and start using it as fuel. Over two decades, he's helped leaders transform culture, ignite innovation, and achieve revenue growth they once thought impossible.

His strength is deeply personal. 

Ted Santos' Personal Journey

Jeffrey Feldberg: At 21 after losing both parents in a day, Ted became caretaker for his younger siblings. That crucible, forged resilience, grit, and a mindset rooted in turning tragedy into transformation. Ted doesn't just coach from theory.

He's lived the lessons he teaches. Recognized Forbes and other major outlets. Ted is often called the CEO's miracle maker. He doesn't believe leaders should clean up chaos. He believes leaders should intentionally create disruption to spark growth.

[00:01:00] If you think you've hit your peak, or that your company is limited by structure, process, or doubt.

Ted's work may be the missing link to shift the boundary of what feels possible.

Deep Wealth Mastery Program

Jeffrey Feldberg: And before we hop into the podcast, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. We have William, a graduate of Deep Both Mastery, and he says, I didn't have the time for Deep Both Mastery, but I made the time and I'm glad I did.

What I learned goes far beyond any other executive program or coach I've ever experienced. Or how about Bruce? Bruce says, before Deep Wealth Mastery, the challenge I had with most business programs, coaches, or blogs was that they were one dimensional. Through Deep Wealth Mastery, I'm part of a richer community of other successful business owners.

The idea shared forever changed the trajectory of the business and best of all, the experience was fun. And we'll round things out with Stacey. 

Stacey said, I wish I had access to the Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event, as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery exceeded my expectations in terms of content and [00:02:00] quality.

And you know what, my Deep Wealth Nation, why they're saying this is because Deep Wealth Mastery, it's the only system based on a nine figure deal. That was my deal. And as you know, I said no to a seven figure offer, and I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery that helped myself and my business partners, welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure exit.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, if that's two years away or 20 years away, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S, at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as Scale for Ultimate Sale. That's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders just like you who are looking to create market disruptions.

And they want to lock in their financial freedom and have success and fulfillment. 

That's the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. It has your name on it. All you need to do [00:03:00] is take the next step. Send an email to success at deepwealth. com.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, if you are like me, in my entrepreneurial days when I started my companies, even when my companies was growing by leaps and bounds, chaos, chaos reigned supreme. And if you're like me, back in the day before, I knew better. Chaos seemed to be the enemy.

But what if you could turn chaos into a superpower? What if chaos can actually be your friend, not your foe, to take you into a whole other direction of where you wanna be? I'm gonna put a plug in it right there. You heard the official introduction. We have a very special guest in the house of Deep Wealth.

Ted, welcome to the Deep Health Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. There's always a story behind the story. You have quite the story. What is your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Ted Santos: So first, thanks for having me. My pleasure to be here. And yeah I'm looking forward to this from who you are in the world. I think this is going to be a very exciting and insightful [00:04:00] conversation. To answer your question, what got me here instead of there, wherever there was. 

Ted's Early Life and Formative Experiences

Ted Santos: So I would say my journey started at a very young age.

At six years old I saw my mother run with two broken legs. That was New Year's Eve and she had taken her three children to her mother's for a New Year's Eve party. And coming home 100 yards from home, the car is wrapped around a tree and I, I look over at my mother and she's gone I'm tall enough to see over the dashboard and I watch her.

I saw with my own eyes, she ran home. And within no time my father and his cousin come out and take us to the hospital. And at the hospital is where I learned she had two broken legs. And as a 6-year-old and I was an old 6-year-old. 'cause my birthday's January 5th, so I was almost seven. I know what I saw and I had seen my mother run many times, and all I could think was.

Human beings have something in [00:05:00] them, and we don't know how to pull it out of us on a normal basis because most people don't run with broken legs. And share a broken arm. So I'm thinking how do you do that? And so I, read as much as I could. read about women lifting cars off of their children and other miraculous feats that humans are doing.

And it's like, it's it's not just my mother. It happens. there must be something in us that we don't know how to pull out, and I'm going to work on pulling that out. Part of it was studying more human behavior. So at nine, and I never saw it as studying human behavior. I was just a curious child who wanted to understand humans.

So at nine years old, I'm reading everything I could. And at 11 I started training exercises to build a body that would be a great athlete. And I really was, I broke records in all the sports that I participated in. And at 5 6, 1 43 I was dunking [00:06:00] basketballs. And I do not like basketball. We play organized.

It was just another one of those training for something else and dunking. And so that was my childhood. I was looking to pull something out of me that I didn't know how to get out. 

Turning Tragedy into Triumph

Ted Santos: And then fast forward at 21, I lose both parents in one day, and I'm the oldest of four and I was 21. My brother was 19, and my sisters were 12 and 16.

So I still have this mindset of running with broken legs being, pulling something out of you and. I would ask my sisters to do things. So now in that situation, I'm not only looking to pull that extraordinary out of myself, I want to now pull it out of my sisters and my brother and I would ask them to do things that I knew they didn't know how to do, and I was okay with them failing.

And when they failed, I knew they would come to me and I would just [00:07:00] ask questions instead of telling them how to do it, because that seemed like it would handicap them. And I needed to unload things because I was clearly in situations that were not normal for a 21-year-old. There were lots of things to handle around my parents' estate, and they were all lost at the same time.

They had chaos of families fighting and. I would coach my sister and brothers up by asking them questions instead of telling them how to do it. And essentially they developed a new problem solving capacity. And then I could ask them to do things and it, it would be less likely they would fail, or less likely they would come back to me.

They would just work through it on their own. And sort of a fast forward, that came to me innately. And in my professional life, I found myself doing the same thing as an executive. So a couple of things. My mother running with broken legs, that was a chaotic situation. The cars wrapped around a tree and she goes to get her husband [00:08:00] parents dying and you have the chaos of two sides of the family fighting.

And it was messy. And what I saw was chaos could have you run for the hills. Like I want to get away from it. Or you can use it as almost like a springboard, as a catalyst to do things And so I thought that chaos was a good thing.

it was a, something that you could use to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. I never thought about as a, 30-year-old being a chief operating officer, I wouldn't have related it to my mother running with broken legs and my parents dying.

It was just. Who I was. It took me years before I, I could distinguish all the parts of how it works and then be able to give it to someone else. But what I saw was, and it wasn't just that I lived in Acapulco, Mexico. I was there for their worst hurricane and their history. And I saw how that at the aftermath of that chaos brought people [00:09:00] together.

Now, that was more of resilience. There was a hurricane, devastation. And you saw how people came together. I live in New Jersey right across, I mean literally across from Manhattan, New York City. And so when nine 11 happened, I saw that and I saw the chaos of that.

So I'm seeing this pattern throughout my life that. These horrible situations, you wouldn't wish it on anyone. However, there's something there in it. And I'm not saying as simple as there's a silver lining in everything. There's just something there. And if you focus on what's wrong, you miss the opportunity and the possibility of being more than who you would normally be.

that's kind of how I see it. Chaos gives you an opportunity to see what's really happening in front of you and then execute based on what your intention is.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Ted, so much to unpack, and again, we're [00:10:00] talking about this offline and online, my condolences for losing both of your parents, that's quite an event.

And let me ask you something. For many people losing their parents and a relatively young age when that happened, for many people they would look to that and that would be their victim mentality of why they just aren't where they want to be in life, because it just wasn't fair. They lost their parents and the list goes on and on.

And as tragic as that was, that is not your story. And so what happened there that you're able to take the tragedy and turn it from tragedy into triumph for your own life in terms of your accomplishments and what you're able to do. What's going on with that?

Ted Santos: I'd say two quick responses. my mother running with broken legs, that gave me a mindset. And so I was very sure that people had something extraordinary that could come out of them. And it, it didn't need to just be in the face of a disaster, a car accident or a death.

So I had that [00:11:00] mindset that I had developed from the age of six until 21. And. The second part to that is Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote the book, A lot of people know him for Tipping Point. He wrote Outlier, and he also wrote a book, David and Goliath, and in David and Goliath. He titled it that because he says there are seemingly disadvantages that people have or misfortune that turned out to be to their advantage.

So David being smaller than Goliath, that was his disadvantage, which had him create a weapon that allowed him to defeat Goliath. Instead of trying to fight Goliath hand to hand, he used his smaller size as his advantage to create a weapon. And in the book he talks about how people who lose a parent around the age of 20.

It becomes an advantage. It because it develops them as a leader and it allows them to be [00:12:00] very effective in the face of chaos. And I remember as a COO running a transportation logistics company that was growing much faster than it could handle, it was literally falling apart before I took the reigns.

And I remember one day stepping to the side from everyone and saying, wow, we're in absolute chaos. And I have experienced chaos with my parents' death, and I worked through that, so this is not even as chaotic as that, so I'll be fine. And then I just went on. Well, in Malcolm Gladwell's book, he said that's exactly what a lot of people would say to themselves when they lost a parent around the age of 20.

And, it was remarkable for me to read that in the book and see that, wow. I'm not the only one who used that. As a sort of a toolkit almost your, my parents' death almost became a toolkit and knowing how to navigate through chaos and still be able to lead people. So [00:13:00] tho those two things I would say gave me an advantage 

Jeffrey Feldberg: As you're talking about that you are actually having me go down memory lane and Ted. It was on the business side, not the personal side, but on the business side as a startup. And I was bootstrapping. So $0 in the bank, negative dollars in the bank, not a lot going on. I could not write the check. And from the outside looking in, Jeffrey, no way you're gonna make this happen.

You don't have the funds, you can't do it. And actually people are shocked, Ted, when I say that was the best thing that ever could have happened. And I go on to say, had we not been bootstrapped, there likely would not have been a nine figure exit if we would've had private equity or venture capital. And why I say that, and we'll get to this with all that you're doing.

For me, it was the resilience. I was forced to have resilience to find a way to live another day. And resilience in my books always trumps resources. So if I could write the check, I would not have been as lean and mean and hungry to [00:14:00] outperform my competition. They had a choice. I didn't. If we didn't do it well, we were outta business and that simply wasn't a choice.

So we would do, and this was one of our models, whatever it takes. So I hear you loud and clear when it comes to, okay, how can I turn this, what some people call a huge disadvantage, how can I actually use that as my rocket fuel? On the personal side? On the business side, I'm right there with you and so many people nation, as you're listening to this, ask yourself, look back in your history.

Was there an event, it was dark days that you thought were the worst of the worst, but as you look back now and perhaps you're saying that was the best thing that ever could have happened because it put me on this path, or it got me over here, or I looked at the world in a different way. 

The Disruptive Leadership Model

Jeffrey Feldberg: So as we're talking about that, you are known as the creator of the disruptive leadership model.

It's an oxymoron. It's counterintuitive. It makes absolutely no sense, but it makes perfect sense. Talk to us about that.

Ted Santos: sure. So to add to not making sense, if [00:15:00] you are the CEO of a company and you are not intentionally creating problems, you should be fired or retrained immediately. And I know a lot of people think, well, I, I'm at the top. I'm the CEO I'm, I'm here to solve problems. And if you are spending a large percentage of your time and for me a large percentage is more than 10% of your time solving problems, then you have not set up your organization, you haven't created a culture that of higher performers. I created the disruptive leadership model to em, empower CEOs to be able to function with that kind of mindset.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so for Deep Wealth Nation, they're hearing this and they're saying, okay, I understand the words, but you're putting these words together in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense. And Ted, you're saying that if I'm the leader, the founder, or even a CEO, the president, a hired guy, and if I'm not creating problems, I should be fired.

We don't hear that. That is not common advice. And so I know Deep Wealth Nation, they have gotta be thinking, [00:16:00] Ted, have you lost your marbles? Are you crazy? That sounds absolutely nuts. Ted. What's going on with that? Why should this be the only way that we're thinking?

Ted Santos: Well, that's your job as a CEO. And as a side I'm not a guy hypothetically talking about CEOs. As I've been an advisor to many CEOs of middle market companies and some small businesses, and I also used to do CEO round tables where I had mid-size meaning revenues between 100 million and a billion.

And I, I'd invite them in. The sitting CEOs for CEO round table. And then I would invite former CEOs of Fortune five hundreds to lead those round table discussions. And I, when I say Fortune five hundreds, I've had former CEOs of Chase Bank, dun and Bradstreet, Xerox Harris Hotel and Casinos, New York Life, New York Stock Exchange.

And so I've really immersed myself in the world of CEOs. And what I have done is I've married my personal and past [00:17:00] experiences as an executive working intimately with CEOs. And what I see is a pattern that the CEOs who are really good at creating problems. Are the ones that we read about and they've done the greatest job so we can, the most recent is Elon Musk.

He's a, they call him a disruptor. He creates problems for his people to solve. I mean, just think about his car that goes zero to 60 than any of these other super cars. Like that's amazing that was a problem. And he asked his organization to solve it. Steve Jobs, imagine saying, Hey, I want you to put 1000 songs on a listening device, and it needs to be so small.

It fits in your pocket, and you don't even know it's there. And his people may have been thinking, why are we doing this? They could have even thought Steve was smoking drugs that day because it makes no sense. We make these big, beautiful computers. Why are we making listening devices? [00:18:00] And they disrupted Sony who were.

Formerly the Masters of Portable Listening Devices. And we can go on and on. John d Rockefeller Haven. Howard Hughes yeah. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, all leaders who disrupted the marketplace and they also disrupted their people. So being able to disrupt your people and not walking around with a white glove and saying, the desk is dirty.

It's creating this future, this possibility that doesn't exist and there's no blueprint for it. Sort of like the Wright Brothers and creating an airplane. How do you do something that you've never done and you don't know how to do it? It's a very different mindset than someone who's there and let's say a publicly traded company and you think you're there just to maintain status quo.

And I'm gonna buy back shares. I'm going to do financial re-engineering. I'll lay people off and look. We're more profitable. That's not a company that is going to have a quantum leap in growth. There'll be no [00:19:00] breakthroughs in innovation there. So if you're really committed to being innovative, be fearless about in asking your people to do things they don't know how to do, to create something that at least a either doesn't exist for your company or it doesn't exist in the marketplace.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Ted, as you're talking about this here at Deep Wealth, we say something very similar in different words in the Deep Wealth nine step roadmap, step one, big picture. This is where we're looking for what some people call blind spots. We call them inflection points. What's a problem? Very small right now, not a lot of people really know about this, but what's a problem that I can latch onto that my business can solve in such a world class manner?

I'll become the market leader. I'll create a disruption in the marketplace. I'll put myself out of business into a bigger and better business. And in fact, we are creating chaos.

So as an example. At Deep Wealth, one of the case studies that we use is Netflix and Blockbuster. That can be an entire series, not just an episode, but we [00:20:00] talk about how very short narrative Netflix latched onto, Hey, there's gonna be something called a high speed bandwidth fast internet that we can stream movies.

So forget the VHS tapes, forget the DVDs, you'll do this at home from your computer or from a streaming device. Blockbuster saw that, but they didn't wanna embrace that. And so I'm exactly with you. Hey, let's create the chaos, let's do that. But it's harder for some than it is for others of number one, not only finding these areas, but then two, having that discipline and commitment.

Yeah, it's not easy. This is challenging, but we're gonna stick with it. We're gonna do it. So based on you being in the trenches and doing this for yourself and doing this for countless organizations and CEOs and founders and entrepreneurs, what would be some insights with the system that you've created that can help us?

Ted Santos: Sure. 

Navigating Chaos and Self-Mastery

Ted Santos: So you said something important. Most people think about controlling chaos, controlled chaos. And once you do that, you really set yourself up to drive down this path of uncertainty [00:21:00] that you don't control. And it's easy to abandon that. So we are educated to navigate in certainty.

We go to school for finance and marketing, and we learn project management. We learn all kinds of, medical legal. We operate in a world of knowledge that we already know and we just become better at it. And in attempting to use the knowledge you already know to create something that you don't know Is where you're going to find yourself in trouble, and you're attempting to control the chaos in a domain of things that you, that are unfamiliar with you. And so you'll, attempt to control it will actually constrain the possibility of creating something. I would say a let go of the idea of control.

It's a wasted effort. And I would, the other part is, if I ask a person to stop thinking and think nothing, I mean, that's a perfect example of how [00:22:00] people can't even control what they think. I, it's very few people can just stop thinking like, flipping a light switch off. They'll have thoughts, they'll have pictures, they'll have things run through their head.

How do I stop thinking they'll be asking themselves? And the notion of control is really a wasted effort. So the punchline. Chaos is not chaos. It's your perspective, it's your interpretation of what's occurring. So chaos is something that's occurring. What you say to yourself about what's occurring is what makes it chaotic.

So he who master self master chaos. So a large part of my work revolves around self-mastery and being able to master those for one master the interpretations that you make up that have nothing to do with what's occurring. And also reveal your blind spots so that the things that automatically derail you, you can see them and manage those blind spots.

[00:23:00] So you're really managing yourself. Instead of managing chaos, you're managing yourself and you're staying very clear to your intention and what you're committed to accomplishing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Deep Wealth Nation, as Ted was talking about this, I hope you're paying close attention because what he was sharing, it's not gold, it's platinum. And Ted, I've gotta share with you, I've been there myself. I get caught up with things and I believe, and it's not possible. I believe, yeah, I can control the situation.

I really can't. And it makes it that much more harder. And as you're sharing these things, it's reminding me we cannot control what other people do. We can't control what happens around us, what the marketplace is doing or not doing. We can control how we react to that. And that's a lesson for us. For so many people it's hard learned. Also true though. And so you're absolutely right. We have to learn how to be the master of our own selves, and yes, we're human and we're not gonna be perfect. That said, what would you want Deep Wealth Nation to know in terms of, okay, as the leader, [00:24:00] whether I'm a founder, a hired gun as president, or CEO, what steps can I take to begin to control myself in terms of how I'm reacting to things around me, but at the same time, understanding and realizing I can't control what happens around me.

Ted Santos: Stop thinking about controlling yourself. It's managing yourself. I'll do this one with a question to you. Let's say you and I are, we're walking down the beach and we have to get somewhere and it's rather urgent, and we come to a fence and there's a big sign on the fence that says for the next 100 meters, this beach is a minefield. And you and I have to get to the other side, like we have to. And if we go out into the ocean, I see the shark fins and they're just waiting for a nice lunch. So you can't go into the ocean to get around it. And on the other side, well, there's a wall and we can't, there's no way to get over that wall. So we have [00:25:00] to go through this minefield.

What are you going to do, Jeffrey?

So if I say to you, this is not a problem. We're going to make it across,

I have thousands of hours in training to distinguish mines in the minefield. So right now, you and I are aware that there are mines in the minefield and I'm gonna ask you, how much is that awareness going to help us get to the other side?

How much is that awareness going to help us get across? We are now aware this is a minefield. yet, you don't know yet that I have training. we're now aware it's a minefield. How much does the awareness get us across? How much that does that awareness help us get across?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, you know what? In my books Ted, it's Russian roulette. It's gonna be luck of the draw. Where if, we just With that information alone and we don't have that experience, it's probably not gonna be a great outcome.

Ted Santos: Great. Good. So I want to hold that up as one distinction, because people [00:26:00] often say you just have to be aware, I'm asserting that's insufficient. So now you and I are aware it's a minefield and that, as you said, it's Russian roulette. And the odds are probably not good. then I say I have thousands of hours of training to distinguish mines in the minefield.

And whoever set this up they are either vindictive, crafty something because there are three mines right at the entrance. We wouldn't even make it inside. And I can see all three. So what I'm going to do, because in my training, what I discovered is. If they bury the mind too deep, you step on it and nothing happens.

'cause it's, it's too much in the earth. So it's buried in such a way. You can see like a sort of unevenness. There's perturbance in the land even though it's a beach and you can see where it is. So I'm trained not only to see where it is, I can uncover it, [00:27:00] dismantle it, and then move forward.

So I'm going to dismantle those first three, and then I see another two there and I'm going to dismantle them. And I ask that you just step exactly in my footsteps and we'll get to the other side. Are you following me?

What I'm saying is that people have minds in their mind like the minefield and something occurs chaos, for example, and it triggers it explodes, it steps on when that chaos happens.

It puts pressure on that trigger point or the mind, and it explodes. And the person, once it explodes, they lose sight of what they really want to accomplish. They're yelling at people that, they go into a tailspin of chaos themselves. So my job is to work with people to help them uncover those minds in their own mind so that they can reverse engineer them, dismantle them, and move forward.

[00:28:00] It's the same way of going across the minefield. What would've stopped you in the past? Now you have a way of managing it. So when it comes up in the future, you can manage it. In the past, you may have been aware of it, but you had no way to distinguish how it was running your life. I'll give you an example.

A woman who one day I remember she said, Ted, why do I always have to be right? And I said uh, maybe when you were about five years old, you gave the wrong answer. And she went into complete animation. Oh my God. Yes. Yes. I was five years old. I was in the dentist's office. I was in the waiting area with my mom, and there were other children there with their mothers.

And the dentist came. He opened the door and came out and said, hi children. Who knows what this is? And she raised her hand enthusiastically and said, oh, I know what it is. I know. And she answered. And he said, no wrong. At that point, she doesn't even know what happened after that because all she could think [00:29:00] as a 5-year-old was stupid.

I was embarrassing. 

The Impact of Childhood Events on Adult Behavior

Ted Santos: And I'll never let that happen again. So if you put her in a situation where she thinks she's gonna be wrong, she fights like an alley cat. I mean, she doesn't want to have that same feeling. She had in the dentist's office. So she fights. What do you think her profession was?

 Trial lawyer. She was a great trial lawyer. If you needed a an attorney, she was going to fight for you and she would

Jeffrey Feldberg: No. Exactly. Being on the other side. That is, I would not wanna be

Ted Santos: Oh, absolutely.

Uncovering Blind Spots for Personal and Professional Growth

Ted Santos: So part of what I'm saying is that event that occurred at five, was it still impacting this woman as an adult in her career choices? When I'm speaking to her, she's 45. And she's aware that thing happened where she had no distinction for how it was shaping her decisions and how she interacted with [00:30:00] people.

And so my job is to be able to uncover those minds so that they no longer run your life, because they really do. It becomes that blind spot. So now this woman has created a law firm and she has all these employees and she leads as this person who has to be right. Like that's just her full-time mode.

Anything happens. She was like a samurai. She cuts everyone's head off. And so being able to do that and there were only women in her firm she could not hire men for some reason. working with her, she was not only able to expand and grow her firm exponentially. She was also able to hire men and her.

I worked with the entire firm. The employees became much more productive than they were in the past. But her being able to have that distinction, that blind spot that was [00:31:00] derailing her from being more effective, it was great in the courtroom, but it was horrible for her intimate relationships. And it was horrible as a leader for an organization.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so my big takeaway here, Ted and Jeffrey, you can say on base or off base, and we so often hear this, particularly when we're much younger and growing up in 5, 6, 7, 8 years of age, there are events that happen, no judgment on those events, but those events make an imprint. Oftentimes, we don't even realize that event, this is why I am the way I am today because of that, and maybe it makes me super aggressive, or no, I am completely risk averse or something in between, we're an autopilot.

We don't even realize why. So it sounds like Ted, part of your secret sauce when you're working with a founder, an entrepreneur or a president or CEO, is coming in and helping the individual discover why they are the way that they are. How am I doing with that?

Ted Santos: Yes. [00:32:00] That's part of it. 

Challenging Societal Beliefs and Presuppositions

Ted Santos: So to create a breakthrough, we first have to uncover those mines in the minefield because those are things that those events have you look at the culture of the world, the country the presuppositions. just look at the Wright Brothers.

And people were mocking the Wright brothers and saying, look, if man were meant to fly, he would have wings. You guys should go back to building bicycles. So there are all these presuppositions, Copernicus saying the Earth is not the center of the universe. And he paid a price for that dear price because they believed the earth was the center.

And he said, no, it's not. So it's not just the things that happen in your personal life that derail you. It's also these beliefs that we have in society that people don't question. Automobiles, we go back to the early 19 hundreds. The top speed was 40 miles an hour. Do you know why?

Jeffrey Feldberg: I have a feeling you're gonna tell us why. Why [00:33:00] Ted?

Ted Santos: They believe that a woman's uterus would explode if she went beyond 40 miles an hour?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh my goodness. Wow. Today we can look back and say That is nuts. Back in the day though, this was serious business.

Ted Santos: And it shaped an entire, well, it shaped the entire transportation industry. Can you imagine if we still believe that, and airplanes could only go 40 miles an hour, how many people can you put on a plane at that speed and there'd be no space station? Because you have to go over 17,000 miles an hour to get out of the earth's gravitational pole.

And no woman has reported her uterus exploded at over 17,000 miles an hour.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ted from uterus to baking pans. It sounds random. There's an old story out there that's been around, perhaps it's an urban myth, not quite sure, but it's something along the lines of, it's been a family tradition in our family that whenever we make a roast, we always cut off the ends of the roast and we do half a roast.

And so one day, I'm not sure if it was a daughter or a grandchild or a [00:34:00] child, actually asked the mother, and the mother said, I don't know why. Actually, I've just always done it this way. Why don't we ask my mother, your grandmother? And he asked the grandmother. And the grandmother says. Well, back in the day, we couldn't afford such a large pan, so we just bought what we could afford and it was a smaller pan and that's why we had to cut off the end so it would fit in.

And it had nothing to do with nothing, but people took that as, this is just how it was done. We're drawing a hard line in the sand and this is just the way it is.

Ted Santos: exactly. 

Understanding and Leveraging Corporate Culture

Ted Santos: So there are parts of your corporate culture where this is just the way we do things and people live as though those are the facts of life. We've always done it this way you know, it's great when companies have, let's say you have a process that 20 steps and someone new comes in and they do it in seven.

No one ever thought to do it in less than 20, because that's the way we always did it. So there are, yes, there are things that happen in your personal life. There are things that shape the way we see the world because these are [00:35:00] the conver, the dominant conversations in the world that inform us of what's possible and impossible.

So when you start to strip those away melts away many of your blind spots or the mental barriers that will stop you from creating a breakthrough. 

Creating a Future from the Future

Ted Santos: And then we go into looking at how do you create a future from the future? How do you create a future that doesn't exist? And the first part is so important because when you go into a future that doesn't exist for you, you're going into uncertainty and there is a good chance you will encounter chaos.

And those past conversations the social belief, limiting beliefs are all the things that can slow you down or derail you completely. So that's why we have to deal with the first part first.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ted, generally speaking, and I know every company and every culture in a company and every leader they have their own journey. They're unique. No two are the same. I get that.

But generally [00:36:00] speaking, are there some things that if most leaders would either start doing or they would stop doing, they could see a huge improvement in terms of their performance, their company, or maybe said in another way, coming outta this episode, if someone could only take one action, even a low hanging fruit, that they can begin to see some fairly quick results.

What would you be recommending?

Ted Santos: Okay, the age of microwave. So everyone wants a quick result. I would say the takeaway is stop looking for quick results. Stop looking for

Jeffrey Feldberg: that. Yeah.

Ted Santos: One of the things that would be helpful and as a leader is. 

Effective Leadership and Knowing Your Team

Ted Santos: Get to know your people. And I'm gonna say it in a way that it sounds crude, but know your people like inventory understand their skills, competencies, and everyone has untapped intellectual capital.

Like I talked about how my parents' death made me more effective as a leader in an organization. That [00:37:00] might have been something someone above me didn't look for and know how to tap into.

So everyone has transferable skills and when you understand your people like inventory, you understand what they are very capable of doing.

And then they have these sort of tangential skills and competencies that can be harnessed. And with that, you can ask your people to do things they don't know how to do. And it will uh, initially seem like a problem to them. And I've seen this where people say, Hey, you're overestimating me and I don't know how to do this.

You're asking me to do something. But they couldn't see that it was just tangential from what they were normally doing. And then when they went and accomplished it, you know, I assured them I'd be there and it'd be okay if it didn't work. And in one case, I said, you have 90 minutes to work on this and just come back to me in 90 minutes and let's see where you are.

And they came back in 90 [00:38:00] minutes and said, oh my God, I did it. I never imagined I could do this. So what you're doing is you're really developing your people to be more than they know how to do on their own. And I would say that's a, that is a huge part of being a leader. Is getting more out of your people and not like, a slave driver, I'm just gonna work you into the bone.

It's helping people see that they are greater than they even know they are, and you're helping them develop their prowess. So asking them to do things they don't know how to do. As a leader, one of the things that can be really effective is that person that you think you don't like and you maybe you don't have your finger on why, or maybe you do.

And most likely you're associating them with someone they don't even know like your Uncle Fred or someone. Spend time getting to know that person. It doesn't have to just be at work. It could [00:39:00] be your neighbor, take them to lunch. And sit down and really talk to them and get to know them.

And you'll find they're human being just like you and everyone has a story. But they also may have a perspective that can benefit you. But ultimately it's you learning to get to know people as opposed to only dealing with people based on your interpretation from your past.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It is so true that we look at the world through the lens that we're looking at. It may be completely different. 

The Importance of Trust and Personal Connection in Leadership

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ted, what's interesting as you're talking about this, I'm actually reminded, I've been very fortunate and I've had people on the podcast that have been in the services, the military services, and the one common thing that they've all shared with me, and this has also been my own personal philosophy when it comes to business, I said, Jeffrey, just because I happen to be overseeing a particular unit.

They're not gonna respect me. They're not going to completely follow my orders unless I've earned their trust. And that means I need to get to know them as an [00:40:00] individual, what their family is like, what turns 'em on, what turns 'em off, what they like to do, what they don't like to do, what's going on in their day in day out lives.

And until I can do that, I'm not their leader. I'm not effective, and they shouldn't respect me. And if I don't do that, there's no reason they should be respecting me or following what I'm doing. And the absolute best in the services. And thank goodness they do what they do so we can do what we do. That particular philosophy, that mindset, at least for me, really resonates because I know for me, in business first, I don't call them employees.

I call them team members. I really wanna know what are they all about and what's going on in their lives. And yes, there's always a time and place that when the personal starts spilling over onto the business, we need to talk about that and how can we be a resource and help. But it can't just be, to your point.

It's just a widget and they're just showing up to do what they do, and I don't really care what happens outside of these business walls or these virtual walls. The team member, it's a whole person, a whole individual, and it's my responsibility as a leader to know all my team members really well. How am I doing with [00:41:00] that?

Ted Santos: That's really good. Well said. Do you mind if I share a story? It's, It's not 100% what you're saying, but it's in that ballpark.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely.

Ted Santos: As I said, I. Did CEO round tables. And I remember the Richard Gig line, he's former CEO of Harris Hotel and Casinos, but before Harris, he was the, he made it, he climbed the corporate ladder and became president of the Holiday Corp.

And that's the company that owns Holiday Inn and Holiday Corp bought Harris. And Harris is this five star, elite hotel and casino. And it was founded, I forget Mr. Harris first name, but Mr. Harris founded it and he's been running it for years. And he's built it up to this, this Fortune 500 company.

And now the Holiday Corp has bought it. Well, the people in Harris were terrified that they were about to be downgraded from a five star, [00:42:00] hotel. To a, green signs of Holiday Corp. And they were terrified of that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Ted Santos: And Mr. Hara took really good care of his people. Like Richard explained, like the sort of care that he had for his people, like that he had them wear costumes that he personally had dry cleaned like every week, and and people had several costumes and they, he took care of the expense, that expense because it was that important and his people were important.

So now, Mr. Harris exiting and Richard is coming in and people are also, they didn't call Mr. Harra, they called him by his first name. Everyone from the janitor all the way up. And Richard was a former military guy. So everything was formal. And yes, sir. And yes ma'am.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes.

Ted Santos: So now he's in there and he said he wanted to get rid of the fears.

So there were 6,000 [00:43:00] employees he met with every single employee in gr in groups of five to 10 over a certain time period. But that's to your point. So he was able to get to know each person personally by having those meetings and assured them, you are never going to be Holiday Corp. You are always going to be Harris's and we're going to run this as Harris's.

And and so he ended up with a high level of trust with his people so I'll just leave it there. So really getting to know your people and that's inside of a 6,000 plus per per person organization where you can still touch your people that way.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's absolutely incredible, a story from the Trenches default nation. I hope you're listening and picking up on this, and it really goes to the heart of leadership. 

Transforming Business Culture from the Top

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ted, I wanna ask you a question about business culture and then we're gonna go into wrap up mode. Sadly, we're gonna go into wrap up mode, but before doing that, so when it comes to culture and business, I know that the culture is something very important to [00:44:00] you.

Talk to us about the business culture from more of a high level, and you'd be completely correct in saying, well, Jeffrey, the culture of every business, it's unique to that business. It's like a fingerprint. No two are the same, and I couldn't agree more. Again, generally speaking, high level, when it comes to business culture, what would you want us doing and not doing?

Ted Santos: Sure. So first I would say the first thing is to understand what a culture is, and social anthropologists say a culture is a network of conversations. So those are the conversations that your employees have with one another at the water cooler or with their family about the company. It's what your vendors say about you.

A client say about you, what's the media? What are the conversations that are being said? And it also includes what people think. They can't say. You may have some unspoken policies, those sacred cows that people believe they can't touch these things. So if you understand that, then you begin to [00:45:00] understand that it's not payment packages, it's not having video games and ping pong tables and trips.

All these things that are what would be considered more tangible corporate culture is this intangible. But it's a conversation. And if you understand that one of the most nimble things in our universe is a conversation. So if the conversation is our culture is toxic, it's not that you are. Everyone has a black plague.

It's just what people say about the organization. So what are the conversations that you would like to see happen? And that transformation will start right at the top. And I've seen once again, fortune 500 CEOs say he went into a company and he knew that it needed a transformation. And he tried.

He fired a bunch of people, brought in his own, it still [00:46:00] didn't transform culture. So then he brought in a firm who could transform culture, and they asked him would he participate in the, transformation? He said no, no, this is just for my people. I'm fine. I'm the CEO. And it didn't work.

And finally the firm said, look, this has to start with you. And he took it on. And he was amazed that once he transformed, once the conversations that he was, and which means he would've uncovered his blind spots, maybe it was that event that happened when he was five that he just couldn't see that he was holding onto.

That was shaping the culture of the organization. So understanding that your culture is, it's what people say, it's what they don't say. And and it, that transformation of culture starts with you as the top leader in your leadership team.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And that to me is the biggest takeaway, and you're reinforcing what most people know, although it's so easy to forget. And Ted, again, you [00:47:00] can share Jeffrey on base or off base. The culture, the success of the company, what we're like, what we're not like. It starts with the people at the top, the founder, the entrepreneur, the president, the CEO.

We can't be exclusive. We gotta be inclusive with everyone, and we need to be the change in the people that we wanna see. We gotta do it with ourselves first. If people are going to follow, how am I doing with that?

Ted Santos: Very good. Yes. And so in some cases it may be a real paradigm shift and the challenge with paradigm shifts in, in culture. Culture, and I'm only going to speak for the US, is a more better or different. I want to change corporate culture. So we'll do more of this. I've read that putting Pac-Man games in or what is it?

I'm trying to think of one of those mortal Kombat, whatever the game is that, that guys play. Or we'll just pay them more, all these things that we believe that's going to create [00:48:00] this paradigm shift, and that's really not it. So imagine during the time of the Wright Brothers at that time, the main mode of transportation was a horse.

Horse and buggy. And imagine they are saying, we're going to create a flying machine and all we need are more horses, and we'll be able to fly. Maybe we have to change the horse shoes on the horse. Maybe it's the saddle, maybe it's, so they're working on the paradigm. That does exist, which is horses and they are assuming the horse and all the language revolving around horse was going to make flight happen.

So what the Wright brothers did is they forgot about horses. They forgot about bicycles, and they created a paradigm shift. They created an entirely new language. So instead of talking about what food you feed your horse, you're talking about laws of aerodynamics and wings of an airplane and a motor.

So [00:49:00] it's the paradigm shift is going to have a language that may not even exist in the old paradigm, and you need to be okay with that. And so that's why when I talked about crossing the minefield, most people say, well, all you have to do is be aware. And I'm asserting being aware is not enough where people talk about resilience, and I'm not talking about resilience.

I'm talking about how you navigate yourself in real time when the chaos is happening, not that you recovered from it. It's not needing resilience. Resilience serves its purpose and it has its place. But when my parents died, how I navigated that in real time on the field, sort of like a running back.

He's not paid to be resilient. He's paid to real time. Go through the chaos and get across the goal line. So that's where I talked about self mastery, being able to [00:50:00] manage yourself so that when you're creating a paradigm shift, instead of holding onto the old paradigm and doing it more of that or doing it better, and when that doesn't work, you do it differently because that's our paradigm.

More better, different. You look at creating something and that's where the problem. Uncertainty and chaos comes, you look at creating a new paradigm. And if you apply that to culture, what's the new language? What are we committed to here? What are we standing for as opposed to the old language of our culture is X, Y, Z.

And even if your culture is good and your're looking to take your organization to its next level, what's the paradigm shift that you're creating and what's the correlated language that will support getting people to that paradigm? Am I making sense with that?

Jeffrey Feldberg: It is making perfect sense and Deep Wealth Nation. As we go into wrap up mode, I want you to reflect what Ted was just sharing with us. Words matter, concepts matter, [00:51:00] mindset matters. And if we're out there to create a market disruption, Ted, to your point, if we're the Wright brothers and we're all about, okay, we're gonna create an airplane, which that word didn't really exist at the time, well, if we're talking about how we feed the horses and what's going on with the horses, likely not going to happen.

That we're gonna be successful. So we need to be open to changing our vocabulary, how we look at the world, changing the lens over our eyes in terms of how we're seeing things. People, nation, are you there or is it the same blank, different day? Because that's what feels comfortable. That's your comfort zone.

A lot to think about there. And Ted, that said, I mean, my goodness, we can keep on going. We are bumping up against some time. It's a tradition here on the Deep podcast. It's my privilege, my pleasure to ask every guest the same question. Lemme set this up for you. 

Reflecting on Life Lessons and Personal Wisdom

Jeffrey Feldberg: 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.

Ted, I want you to imagine it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window and here's the fun part. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to [00:52:00] hop on in which you do, and you're now gonna go to any point in your life, Ted, 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 Ted, do this, but don't do that. What would it sound like?

Ted Santos: I'd go back to my mid to late twenties and I would hold those stocks that I had, I would hold them.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, no kidding. actually, I spoke about that with another guest. Ted, where they said the most successful investors fell into two categories, the ones who forgot their passwords and just let the stock sit. the ones who had passed away, nothing was done for a while. Then the family or whoever else got access to the account.

And lo and behold, it was incredible. So aside from, hey, keep your stocks, would there be other advice that you'd be giving your younger self?

Ted Santos: What other advice? I'm thinking I would say when I left the country, I was gone for two and a half years. When I came back I was at a crossroad to leave again, [00:53:00] and instead I started a business. I would say take the money and run. I would leave the country. I had three times the amount of money I had the first time I left, and I would leave the country.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Words for the why is Ted, why would you leave the country, someone deport nation? Well, Ted, what's going on? Why would you do that? What would you say to that?

Ted Santos: Well, so one thing is language skills, I would've gone straight to Bel Brazil because my Portuguese was okay. I would've lived there for a year, I would've had mastery in, in Portuguese. So that would've been one. And then I would've taken a trip and hopped around on the Pacific Islands.

So these are things that I would want to do anyway but I would've, the Pacific Islands I'd like to do it as a sort of like I have no time limits and hop around from island to island. I'd like to explore the islands. I said that I lived in the jungles of Belize. I'm really [00:54:00] interested in people, so I, the Pacific Islands, what that would've given me was to see people who have been less touched by US culture.

And I would've wanted to see the human paradigm. My, my assumption, the human paradigm is the same all over the world. But I would have wanted to see how the sense of community leadership, I would've wanted to see all of those things and, how high performance is achieved in those environments, what that are less influenced by the us

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. De both Nation. You're hearing it straight from the source. Ted, what I'm hearing is follow your passions even if they don't necessarily make sense at the time. Go with the flow. Something that we're talking about earlier. It all makes sense as I reflect upon our conversation. And Ted, one last question for you.

De Both Nation, they have a question for you. They wanna speak with you. They even want you to come in and help with their leadership, their culture. Take them from where they are to where they want to be. [00:55:00] Where would be the best place online to reach you?

Ted Santos: Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn under Ted Santos or my website, which is turn around ip.com. And IP is for investment partners. and find me on those two. And I am willing to give someone 30 minutes free of my time to help them understand their blind spots or have some better understanding on how to create a future from the future.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, take Ted up on his offer. My goodness, he's offering 30 minutes of his time and that's valuable time. Take him up, speak with him. You'll walk out a whole lot more insightful than when you walked in Ted, that's very gracious and kind of you. Thank you so much. Well, Ted, it's official.

Congratulations. This is a wrap and as we'd love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Ted Santos: No, thanks for having me. This was a great conversation very good questions on your part. So thank you for the invitation and thanks for [00:56:00] being a great conversationalist.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ted, thank you. Good thing our listeners can't see us. You're making me blush, but thank you. I appreciate that. God bless. Have a terrific day and week ahead. Thank you so much.

Ted Santos: Thanks, you too. 

Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. 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? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase [00:57:00] the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth [00:58:00] 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.

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. 

God bless.