Peace Index, Understanding When Your Are Out of Balance & Sharing Failures w/ Roy Page

Transcript

Dave (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the agency balance podcast. I am so excited today. I’m joined with Roy Page partner of Tobin left rhythm systems, strategy and executive coach partner at trio agency consulting and the co-founder of crossings addiction recovery. Roy, welcome to the podcast.

Roy (00:21):
Thanks Dave. It’s great to be here. I appreciate the invitation.

Dave (00:24):
Absolutely. Roy, you’ve done a lot over your career over these last 25 years from, you know, experiencing, you know, leading executive mid-market C-suite executives and entrepreneurs, but please, please tell our listeners more about who Roy Page really is on all these, these different titles I rattled off. Yeah. And what you’re up to right now.

Roy (00:48):
Thanks, Dave. Uh, well, first of all, uh, all of what you rattled off there is about 25 or 30 years in the making, right? So it, it’s not like all of that was done, uh, overnight, but yeah. Um, 22 years, as an agency CEO like yourself, many of your listeners, you know, grinding it out, finding your way over the course of 22 years, I exited that enterprise was founded in 1995. I bought a partner out through that process, um, reset the agency, specialized the agency had a number of good years and, uh, in 2018 just decided it was time to move on to what was next. A lot of personal challenges, uh, weathered nine 11, weathered a recession, took a, a really nice toll on me, went through a divorce, uh, the challenges of that loss of parents, you know, just the things that middle aged throws at you.

Roy (01:48):
And, uh, I’ve had a lot of failures right through that. So while, um, a lot of what you rattled off there sounds like great success. There were some failures in there that, um, hopefully when I failed, I, I just sort of failed forward. And so correct today, majority of my time is spent with Tobin left as a partner, advising agencies on, uh, mergers acquisitions, exit planning, growth strategies to build value. That’s really fun and rewarding. Enjoy working with agency principles. Um, you’re a great model for that because you listen, , we work together right. Troubleshoot together. Um, but you know, our business I’ve always found is not for the faint of heart. So much of our identity is wrapped up in that. And that can be, um, a slippery slope, uh, at times. And, and in addition, I’ve had the privilege of working with some really great professionals that impacted my life along the way, and, uh, where, and when appropriate, we continued to enjoy working together, which is trio.

Roy (02:50):
That is people acceleration, helping teams perform and function at a higher level. Uh, two great people in my life, Mickey, Jay Pryor, who I’ve known for the better Mickey. And I worked together for 16, 17 years. And Jay and I, uh, Jay was my executive coach for about 10 years. And, and yeah, and then, um, you know, about six years ago, um, life threw a curve ball at me and, uh, should have seen it coming. Didn’t see it coming. It was related to substance abuse and addiction, and was able to battle through that, but help us some really good people threw myself into recovery. And, uh, last year my wife and I founded crossings addiction recovery, which is a recovery program based on sailing. That’s sailing boats. Sometimes when I say that people think it’s sailing solution and they’re like, so what do you do?

Roy (03:40):
Do you take it intravenously? No, it’s sailing on a boat, uh, which was really a big part of my recovery and a big part of my reset. So, um, yeah, today life is good. It’s not without its challenges as you and I were talking a little bit before. We’ll share more about that as we get into the content, but you know, today I just really enjoy, um, Le um, you know, living, learning, leaning in one day at a time. And, uh, I have a plan and Lord willing that plan will unfold and unveil itself. So, and I’m a dad, you know, I have, uh, two biological kids. Um, I have one stepchild and I’ve really been in the throes of being a dad, even though they range from 22 to 28, but life’s a blessing, wonderful wife live in Raleigh, North Carolina. So I can be on a boat within a couple of hours, or I can be in a trout stream in the mountains within about three and a half or four. So I love the outdoors and yeah, that’s me.

Dave (04:41):
I mean, that’s great. And thank you for being so vulnerable, I think, yeah. We all like to post the things on LinkedIn and like, Hey, we’re doing great. And look at this rah, rah. And, and it is those moments when you sit back and you really think over the years, you’re like, yeah, but how many rough rivets did we get into? And, you know, I, I, I like to talk about that. I like to talk about failures. Um, that was, that was hard for me early on my career to, to admit that, uh, failures or to just be open to failing. Uh, but absolutely right now, like where I am being deep into my career, I love it because I, I, I love learning from those mistakes and not being afraid to, to fail. It’s how you rebound. Right. It’s what you’ll do next, right?

Roy (05:33):
Yeah, exactly. You know, and, and, uh, it takes help to get there. You know, I found that sharing my vulnerabilities most of the time draws people closer, right. Because I, I, I was the guy posting great, beautiful family photos, a few weeks ago of my son’s wedding. Um, and so it’s my wife, my son, his new bride, my daughter, and they’re beautiful. Right. Uh, I’m not including myself in that. I realize I need to start dye my hair or adding

Dave (06:07):

Roy (06:08):
And they’re beautiful. Right. And that’s a beautiful snapshot in time. And, and not that I count likes or anything, but it, that was the most liked post that I’ve put on either a LinkedIn, which I don’t normally put personal stuff on LinkedIn.

Dave (06:22):
Yeah.

Roy (06:23):
Uh, and on, uh, on Facebook, but what people don’t see behind those smiles was the, the 10 days before and, and now, right. The 15 days after which have been a challenge for my wife and I, and my family for various reasons, just, you know, life has life just came at us, but yeah. Um, so I, I find that I can only help people if I can share a bit of my story. Right. And, and, and share my failures and how I was able to maybe overcome those and, and now help other people. And, and that’s really what I’m called to do, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in recovery, uh, or just in friendship.

Dave (07:04):
Yeah. That, that’s huge because that’s how you and I met. Right. Right. So I, I, two, two years ago, and the, and the listeners who, who know my backstory, if you don’t know my backstory, listen to episode one. I mean, I was going through a transition where I had a partner pass away on me and then three months, no, three weeks, I’m sorry, three or four weeks later, my brother passed away, uh, to addiction. And I lost his, lost his battle there. So that hit me really close. And I was entering into a new chapter of my life. And I, I was open to get, like, I did sessions and trainings before that. Right. That’s different, but I was transitioning to something else. I was like, holy crap. I’m gonna take over an agency for real now, and I’m gonna need some support. I’m gonna need some coaching.

Dave (07:54):
I’m gonna need some help. And I started to reach out to all my past bosses, all my past CEOs, and they recommended you. And that’s how we got connected. And I’m so glad I did, because it it’s helped me. Number one with confirmation and confidence that I’m doing the right type of things. But it’s also, it’s like, I, I, if, if I can gain learnings for, from you and from, and from your firm that have already been through this a gazillion times, why would you not take that help? Um, right. So maybe talk a little bit about the differences of what it was like back in the nineties when you were running it versus, you know, coaching and leading right now, talk about, you know, and the agency balance is all about balance and, and share what you can share about the differences there. And some of maybe the characteristics and some, some similarities that you’re seeing coming out, um, uh, of, of what’s going on right now with, with agencies and markets.

Roy (09:04):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think I was in the business at a really good time in, in spite of some of, you know, the, the, the world events or even our, uh, economic events. I, I was in the business at a great time. I got a good start with an agency, uh, in North Carolina working on a large brand. I learned a lot. I was able to carry that into mine. And like most we found companies because we feel we can do something different. You know, we feel maybe there’s a better, better approach to our craft. And I was just fortunate enough to surround myself with really good people, um, accountable people, you know, people that were committed to a vision and somewhere along the line, I guess I shared that vision appropriately. Not always, but once I understood the power of vision and the power of buy-in, the power of collaboration, um, and then the power of alignment, accountability, we, our agency really thrived.

Roy (09:59):
All I did was set a stage. I just set a culture, right. That’s what CEOs do. And, and I made the tough decision when the tough decision was needed to be made. Uh, but I also had a lot of people to help me, help me do that. And, you know, today I see oftentimes in clients, a mirror image of the firm that I ran and I can see from a people perspective where there are holes, or I can see maybe where the CEO is a little bit out of balance somewhere, whether it’s professionally or personally. And we all know that that carries over into our day to day life. And so, you know that I’m not a big fan. You and I’ve had conversations. I’m not a big fan of this term balance. right. I, I mean, I, I, can I cuss on the show?

Dave (10:46):
Yeah, absolutely.

Roy (10:47):
I, I think it’s bullshit.

Dave (10:49):
I do too.

Roy (10:50):
And many of my peers, you know, think it’s BS. Yeah. And I’m, I’m not gonna cuss anymore, but it, it makes the strong point. Yeah. You know, I had a, I had a team member one time when I was going through some difficult things and she was an officer of the company. She came to I me, and she said, you know, Roy, I feel like you need some peace mm-hmm in your life. Right. Because I was out of balance. And, and I realized that balance was probably gonna be unachievable for me, so I could continue to fight that. But more importantly, maybe I could find peace. She was right. Maybe I could find a sense of peace in all of this unbalance. And it took me a while, maybe 10 years. , I’m not sure I was really good at it until becoming a consultant right.

Roy (11:31):
Where I could immerse myself more in, in different thought leadership. I could pull myself out of the tactical day to day of people, of client work, the challenges that come with both of those, you know, the agency world, in my opinion. And even my partners at Tobin left would tell you, it’s so refreshing the day that you actually step out of it, then that’s not the, I believe me, I loved it. It fit me, but there was it that that time came where I was no longer passionate about. I was no longer excited about going in every day. I had, I had spent 25 years in the agency world and in 21 as an agency owner, and it was just time. The good news is, is there’s great life after, right. If we have a purpose and a vision, things of that nature. So today I see a lot of, uh, what I experienced in my firm.

Roy (12:19):
And ideally I’m able to help provide suggestions, uh, tools, techniques, things to address that, if not for me, cuz I don’t have all the answers from the resources that I’ve leveraged over the years and, and still continue, you know, to leverage, I think it’s much harder today. I mean, let’s face it COVID while most agencies have adapted and adapted, well it’s changed the cultural dynamics of how we work together. We don’t play together as much in the business like we used to and that’s what made the agency business so fun. It was that collaboration in exchange of, of thoughts. And so, you know, I applaud the way most agencies have adapted to different workforces, different structures on the, you know, while maybe there’s been some challenge in that area, the fact that we’re now open to more remote employees, it broadens the pool of us just having to recruit from a geography, which has its limitations.

Roy (13:20):
And so if we can create the right, you know, cultural environments, the right work methods, the right rhythm of work, that’s a little plugged for the, you know, the coaching consulting I do under rhythm, then the opportunities are really endless. And uh, and so I, you know, I, I work with there’s baby boomers, the young boomers are aging out, right. And they’re looking for that exit pathway. So there are a lot of questions and oftentimes more questions than answers. That’s a long ramble, but just goes to show you the complexity of, you know, what we’re dealing with a as, as business owners. But I see great potential. And the beauty is, is the market is responding. And if someone, you know, today feels like they’re at the end of that journey and they’re ready to position for that exit. The beauty is, um, there is opportunity today to market your enterprise transition. And I don’t believe those were there 12 years ago. You know, the thought was put into the business, what you can take out of it, what you can and don’t expect to ever be able to sell your agency. And that was the thought, you know, 12 years ago. Well, today that’s a possibility and a high possibility if your firm is well positioned. So thanks for letting me speak for probably four minutes there, you can edit whatever you can edit, whatever you need. No, that’s all, I’ve never been at a loss for words. so,

Dave (14:45):
Ah, that’s great. No, that’s all really good factual information cuz I can validate some of that and you know, so I, I joined smarter a decade ago and I remember what that time was like and we had those discussions and it was like, there’s no way we’re ever gonna be able to, to monetize unless if we’re a giant, that’s what happened back then. So like 20 15, 20 years ago, if you were a big, if you were a top 25, 50 agency than you could. Right, right. But the smaller guys forget it. No. Um, so that’s interesting. So the one thing I just

Roy (15:16):
Wonder, remember just real quickly, I, I remember being in my peer groups, right. Because I was a peer group junkie. I love being around other agency owners. You know, the magic number then was we, we gotta get to 10 million in AGI. Right. And, and we’ve gotta have, you know, at least 20% of that in, in EBIDA because that’s the holding comp that was the holding company threshold. That’s, that’s where you garnered interest today. That’s not the case a small firm can transition today, which is great.

Dave (15:46):
Yeah. And I think that’s really important because a lot of there there’s a lot of great companies that should live on that. They should go do something that they should continue. Right. And they should, can have, uh, different ways to grow you. You mentioned rhythm, which, you know, I participated in and I really enjoyed the one thing that as a CEO, um, first it’s lonely at the top and sometimes there’s no one else that you are, um, you know, reporting into other than maybe your partners and accountability for me is really important as a CEO and the rhythm system that you’ve used helped me be accountable with goals and making sure that it could help align me from where I am today to the future. So just real quick, talk a little bit about something like a rhythm systems. Sure. Uh, what it is to our listeners, because I, I, I shared that a few times and I don’t think a lot of people understand what something that that can do. Right.

Roy (16:41):
Yeah. So, you know, let’s just put it in a context, right. I think we’re all great at creating strategic plans, right? Some vision, some strategies, some mission and, and we’re as a CEO, we, we love to put forth that vision and that mission to our team, but, but strategy is 80% execution. And I can’t tell you how many times I may sit with, um, a principal or any other business leader and they have a strategic plan. What they don’t have is the execution plan to that, you know, to go with it. And so what rhythm is, rhythm is a means of, of working on the strategy, you know, the vision, but it’s also about aligning that vision with execution. And, you know, in the agency world, let’s face it. Most of us are driven by people. So someone has to take their priority and execute it and be accountable for that execution.

Roy (17:43):
It’s an individual or, or a team. And so what rhythm is, it’s an operating philosophy that cascades that vision and that strategy through execution based on priorities and tasks that are set with accountability. And then there are metrics, you know, there are certain KPIs in the agency world that are important and we want to achieve measure, monitor those metrics. And we want to have conversations at the appropriate time where we’re falling short so we can solve the problem and impact the problem and move forward. So, you know, it’s, it’s a long term play, but the beauty of rhythm, uh, that I have found and why I used it in my company and ultimately affiliated with rhythm was that it’s measured over short sprints. You know, we break things down into quarterly priorities and action because it’s, we, we are great at setting annual goals, but do we break that down and know what we have to do this week next week, next month, even. And so the, the rhythm of operating is really where the power is in that.

Dave (18:47):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it, it, it hit home for me. I was a project manager for years and stare at Gant Gantt chart after Gantt chart. Um, and that’s really helpful. I, I, no matter what, I’m working on, whether if it’s something personal or professionally, or if I’m building a presentation for, you know, an agency pitcher internal presentation, I always break it down, right. Start with an outline. And then you start breaking down your task. It’s much easier to, to, to achieve success when you start to break things down. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah.

Roy (19:17):
You know, you mentioned it’s lonely at the top and it is.

Dave (19:20):
Yeah.

Roy (19:20):
And so this type of, of system allows you to pull in other people resources so that you’ve got teammates that are delivering and driving as well. And so that’s a key aspect. It, it, it’s always gonna be lonely at the time. Yeah. Cause you deal with issues that you really, sometimes you can’t share with everyone else. And, and that’s just the nature of the beast. That’s not gonna change like

Dave (19:46):
Excellent. Yeah. And if those are interested in learning more about rhythm systems, I’ll put a link to Roy’s info and a link to rhythm systems on my website at agencybalance.com. I wanna come back to something you said about when we’re talking about balance. And when I always talk about balance, there’s, there’s a hidden agenda behind it because I think prioritization is your superpower. Mm-hmm I think if you prioritize the things mm-hmm, that keep you balanced things that you like to do and you over prioritize those that’s when you feel like you’re, you’re having balance. But when you let, when you don’t prioritize the things that, that make you happy and you you’re over prioritizing things that don’t work task or whatever it might be, then you feel unbalanced, but you set a word that I, that I think we will let’s, let’s spend some time to talk about and that’s peace.

Roy (20:35):
Yeah. And peace.

Dave (20:37):
Um, and, and you shared with me and, and, and, and my, my company about the peace index, which I think is fascinating, and it really helped me. Let’s let’s D let’s dive into that. Let’s lean into that. As you always say, let’s, let’s talk about the peace index.

Roy (20:52):
Sure. So the peace index is really, it’s a measurement of about five we’ll call them dimensions that most people, professionals, people experience in the course of their life, in the course of their day, right. It’s where we live in the here and now. I mean, we’re, we’re a society in the us of immediate gratification, right. We wanna solve problems today. And so the peace index looks at different aspects, elements, um, call ’em dimensions of the individual. So if I look at myself, um, one area’s purpose, you know, am I living out the purpose that I was intended to live out? Do I know what that purpose is? How do I feel about that purpose? And it may change over time, you know, for 20 years, my purpose was for 21. My purpose was the CEO, founder of third degree, advertising and communications. That purpose shifted a few years ago.

Roy (21:49):
The second is provision. You know, how do we feel about, um, our income? You know, our career, are we meeting our, our needs financially? Are we meeting our needs in other areas spiritually, if you will, which leads in then to help? How do I feel about my mental wellbeing, my physical health. Uh, I can tell you as someone coming outta recovery, that took a, a much higher priority over some of the others for a period of time. And then there’s the social aspect. So the fourth dimension being kind of people who am I surrounded with? My, the people at work, my friendships, my family relations, do I have the right people, advisors, coaches, do I have the right people in my life to help me, uh, impact my life in a positive way? And then finally, there’s our place. Um, that is how do we feel about where we live, how we live, the geography that we’re in, the access to enjoyment that we have, you know, me, Dave, I love the outdoors, right?

Roy (22:52):
So I want to be, it’s great that I live, where I live today. I’m close to the coast, I’m close to the mountains. I can be sailing one day and a couple of days later, if I could find the time I’d be fly fishing right in the PISA national forest in North Carolina. So summarizing its purpose, health people in place. And if we were to assign a percentage to each of those and average it out, we would get our peace index overall. How peaceful are we today on a scale of, you know, one to 10 or one to 100. So it’s, it’s measured in percentages and I’m happy to share sort of how that changes on a regular basis. You know, just based on my experience O over the last month, but what it allows us to do is if we’re lower than we feel like we should be, then we know what we need to prioritize for a period of time to address it.

Roy (23:45):
Right. And so, you know, for me, um, most recently it was the people piece in my life that, that I really needed to address more. And I had it maybe at 80%, well, my overall peace index, if I were to average, everything may have been 90, 92%. It’s never been a hundred percent, but it was the people piece that was really low for me. And it had to do with just life events, from family members, things that my wife and I were experiencing. And so how do we cope and manage and navigate that and make sure that we are addressing the things that at the end of the day, we have a better sense of peace about how we’re treating the people in our life, how we’re being treated, how present are we in their major life events?

Dave (24:32):
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great way to look at that. Um, and there there’s some resources we can make available bet to our listeners off the website. So you can kind of create your own peace index. I, I think it’s so important, no matter what level you’re at and whether, if you’re just coming into your career or you’re just getting started or you’re at the top, I, I live by always be caring and making sure that just because you’re, you know, you’re at the top, doesn’t mean an I curse now you can be a, a dickhead , you know? Right. And it, and, and that’s, that’s tough. Like, it’s, it’s, I’ve seen that. I’ve I personally have seen that where, you know, as you start to climb the ladder, you start, your personality starts to change. You’re because you’re making more money or whatever, and you, you start to be different to people. And human wellness is, is so important. And some of the things that you’re talking about, and, you know, I, when you’re breaking down those dimensions, maybe talk about that a little bit, where it’s the different dimensions between, you know, spiritual and emotional and yeah. All of those. Like how, how, how do you start? How so? How do you, you index yourself, right. Right. How do you start to apply change?

Roy (25:48):
Right. Well, you know, self assessment is the place to start. You know, one, one area I always look at is where do I feel empty? Where do I feel something’s missing? Where am I not fulfilled? And that’s a simple question you can ask yourself. And if you’re honest with yourself, fortunately those of us in recovery are very honest with ourself because before you can address that, you have to be brutally honest with yourself where you’re broken. Um, so just asking yourself where something is lacking, where you’re not feeling fulfilled is a, is a great place to start, and then you’ll be able to isolate. Is this something perhaps that’s spiritual? Is it something that’s emotional? Is it occupational, right? Is it, is it what I do for a living every day? Is it intellectual? Am I missing some knowledge? Am I not growing, uh, intellectually, am I not?

Roy (26:43):
You know, driving my emotional capital? I, I was a student of the craft. I’ve always been, I was a terrible student. That’s the irony in high school college. And I was a terrible student today. I love to learn. I love to read. I love to expose myself to it. And so that’s the intellectual piece, you know, is it my social community or my social network is something missing there. Um, that’s not fulfilling and then let’s face it. Um, our physical health is really important and, and all types of research suggests that if you’re physically fit, you’ll be emotionally more fit. If you’re emotionally unfit or challenging, then that’s gonna impact your, your physical wellbeing. And so, you know, those dimensions that I tend to break it down, the human wellness dimension that’s presented by Rogers university, which I really like if you look at those areas of your spirituality, um, your emotional position, your occupational position, your intellectual position, your social community, and your physical community, likely within those, if there’s a deficiency or an area you’re challenge, it’s gonna impact your purpose, your provision, your health, your, you know, the people around your life, in the place.

Roy (27:57):
And so I like to look at both of those tools, the peace index, which is not mine, by the way, it was presented to be my, one of my partners, Mickey, Laura, uh, who’s, who’s great at, at coaching, uh, through that, um, it was just a really nice overlay to those human wellness dimensions. And one thing we didn’t talk about was when I went through, um, that major change coming outta recovery, I actually went back to grad school at an older age than most people though. I found that I was among many of my peers, some, you know, even much older, I do have a milestone birthday coming up. I’m not gonna disclose that. So

Dave (28:34):
,

Roy (28:36):
Cause I don’t feel that , um, you know, I went back to grad school as part of my recovery, so I could better understand Roy in the events and the circumstances that led up to that. And I was really grateful for that because I was able to study some of these really interesting models and modalities, you know, and, and not get not to get too philosophical and deep in that. But, you know, we can address certain challenges in our life through simple tools. We often try to make things more complex than they need to be. And so I, I think the peace index is just a really great snapshot that a person can take in five minutes at any point in time.

Dave (29:17):
Thanks for sharing that. I think so much and, and, you know, share what you can share. I, I think when, when things are happening today, right, like it’s, it’s easy to focus on the moment. It’s easy to, to kind of get off track quickly with something, you know, bad happens to you. What, what are some, some techniques that you can share and maybe even work in some of the, some of the recent examples that, that you faced over these last couple weeks. Sure. That you can rely back on the peace index to kind of get you back on the right track and, and navigate back to, to some peace.

Roy (29:51):
Yeah. You bet. Yeah. So let’s talk about Roy’s last 30 some days, right? So for the listeners, um, and it’s all very special, but on May 13th, my wife and I, a couple of days before journeyed out, my daughter was graduating from college, by the way, which people said she would never be able to attend a major university and she did, and she excelled and she graduated almost with honors really close. So we, we journey out for that. So five day journey, she goes to college, she graduated from university of Arkansas Sunday after graduation. I start not feeling very well. Uh, and then that Monday, my wife starts not feeling well. We find out we have COVID we get back to North Carolina, sorry for those of you that were flying on Delta, um, with us. But we, we get back. I thought it was allergies. We test, and we both have COVID and I’m thinking, oh wow.

Roy (30:46):
In a week and a half, we’re gonna be flying to Kansas city because our oldest son’s getting married. So, you know, it’s four days of festivity, so we’ve gotta be ready for that more air travel, right. More hotels, more moving around. Um, and then a week and a half after that, the very daughter that graduated from college has to undergo fairly intensive surgery, which happened last Tuesday. Um, and through all of that, I have this career called Tobin left right. So I’ve had clients that are relying on me. Right. And I, and, and I can’t just put them off for a month. So things are a little unsettled, right? That’s a lot of, a lot of stress. And so what I had to end up doing was, you know, I had to be present in, in all of those cases. And so we can talk all we want to about time management.

Roy (31:36):
But what I found is that my sense of, of PE my purpose is intact. My purpose did not change in any of that. What, what I do as a professional, um, you know, what I do personally, I have a purpose and a vision for that, that doesn’t change, but all this people stuff in my life and the demands of people. So my peace index let’s say, went from being on May 12th of maybe 95 to just declining all the way through the last 30 days. Right. And it, it really got to the point where it was like, wow, I’m just ready for this to be over. So I can go on to the next thing. So for me, what I figured out really quickly, just in doing a quick daily assessment was it was the people peace that was really starting to suffer. I’d gone from a 92%, let’s say down to I, when my daughter went into surgery last Tuesday, I can tell you that, that, you know, it was 50% probably, but fortunately through recovery, I’d learned skills that helped me better cope.

Roy (32:41):
So staying in tune with my spiritual side, right. Continuing to do my exercises, jumping on the elliptical at the hotel for 30 minutes was helpful, making sure I had my quiet time for reflection, right. Um, you know, in the rooms of AA, we like to say your higher power as you understand them. And I, and I have a higher power as well. So my prayer time became very important, making sure I was staying in touch with my wife, that we were talking and communicating, you know, and, and sharing that. And so for me, it just was a matter of saying, all right, Roy, what do I need to focus on the first 30 minutes this morning so that I can be set for the rest of the day’s demands. And I’ve shared with you and your team, you know, 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM is my time, right?

Roy (33:28):
It’s just what I block off for work on Roy for my spiritual time, my quiet time, my study, uh, maybe some writing or journaling, all those things to me are very helpful because I’ve learned about myself. If I bottle things up, it just creates more stress. So writing is a way for me to just vent that, taking walks, you know, moving a little bit of exercising and then this wonderful thing called box breathing, right. For, you know, just learning how to breathe. So I can lower the cortisol in my brain when I, when I’m triggered. Um, and so for me, it’s something as, as simple as that, and then sometimes you just have to ride it out, right? You just, just one day at a time you ride it out, try not to project too far into the future. Just deal with what you can deal with in that short term, small successes to me, small steps, add up to great steps. And, and so often we Sur we, we get overwhelmed and we don’t prioritize, as you said earlier, so we don’t realize any reward or we don’t see any victory. And for me it was, it was that one day at a time, making sure I, I had the time for myself and this is letting the days pass.

Dave (34:44):
Yeah. Wow. Thanks for sharing that. I’m, I’m glad that, um, glad that some of the things are, are, are bouncing back and, uh, it sounds like your, your daughter’s recovering, you know,

Roy (34:55):
She’s doing great. Yeah. Good. You know, when I heard daddy yesterday. Oh, that, that daddy was the daddy I was used to hearing. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, she’s doing great. Thanks for asking.

Dave (35:06):
Good, good. Yeah. Yeah. The couple things that, that, that I do as well, the quiet time for me, um, something that, that I learned that, um, just even if I’m just sitting and drinking my morning coffee and at my favorite spot or starting my, my day in my office, just quiet. And it, if you can hear it really closely listeners, there’s birds chirping out my window. It’s really peaceful. I open my window up and I listen to the birds chirp, um, for those in the city. Sorry.

Roy (35:38):
They don’t worry.

Dave (35:39):
Yeah, exactly. They don’t worry. And I, I like the one day at a time too, because I always remind my kids that is like, today is a brand new day. Yeah. It’s a reset. You can, you can do whatever. If, if yesterday was bad and rough, let it in the past, start, start to work forward and move on to, to the next thing. And that’s really, you know, what you can do and, and you have that, that, that reset. Um, excellent. Excellent. Thanks for sharing all of that.

Roy (36:10):
Yeah. Well, you know, we have a, we, we do have a lot of stress today.

Dave (36:15):
Yes, we do.

Roy (36:17):
Um, we have a mental health crisis, you know, according to many experts, um, addiction is through the roof overdoses are, you know, climbing and we have to ask ourselves, you know, we have to bring that down to an individual level. What’s my role in all of that. And how can I take care of, of myself? And, you know, one of the things I learned through recovery was there were times when I was trying to worry about too many other people. It’s what we do. You know, we run a company of 20 to 50 employees. That’s a lot of responsibility. Mm-hmm , and we all embrace that. And thank God for men and women who are willing to occupy those seats and do that. The fact of the matter is the best I can do is take care of that close circle that I can influence and then let them do the rest. Right. And so maintaining those core relationships, I think, are real important, whether they’re professional or personal, I got a lot of joy for many years out of the professional team and leadership team that surrounded me. Um, and that changed at, at some point, right? So now the relationships and the dynamics are a bit different.

Dave (37:25):
Oh, so I’m gonna try something new Roy, if you’re, if you’re up for a fun exercise, um, cuz sometimes you can get kind of serious on these podcasts, but I, I, I’m gonna introduce something new to, to my balance podcast here called Dave’s random 10 . And these might change from episode to episode. Um, it’s not Dave’s top 10 it’s, Dave’s random 10 of 10 things that you just real quickly or if you need to take a second, you know, to process it. And, and I have not shared these with Roy before, but this is an idea of some of his likes and dislikes. All right. So you ready?

Roy (38:06):
I think so.

Dave (38:07):

Roy (38:08):
This

Dave (38:09):
Is, this is and maybe

Roy (38:10):
No I’m not ready.

Dave (38:11):
Well then may, this is clean. This is good. Clean, fun. All right. We’ll start off fun here. Here we go. Ready? Number one, the choice you have one choice of these three tofu steak or seafood

Roy (38:25):
Steak.

Dave (38:26):
Steak. Yeah, this is

Roy (38:27):
Easy. I’m I’m a steak guy. Yeah.

Dave (38:29):
All right. Number two. Lace up sneakers or slip-ons

Roy (38:35):
Slip ons with elastic lace. It’s on cloud man. It’s all I wear.

Dave (38:41):
Okay.

Roy (38:41):
Yeah. It’s a great shoe. Yeah. I hope you get really famous and I can, I can get something for that. Yeah. not a lace up fan, but I do love the, the elastic lace that just expands.

Dave (38:54):
That is, that is game changer. Yes. You in and out. Yeah. And if you’re like me, I’m barefoot right now. I don’t wear shoes in my house. Uh, I have like a strict, no shoe policy in my house. That’s

Roy (39:04):
A good policy.

Dave (39:05):
Uh, alright, cool. Uh t-shirt or collared shirt.

Roy (39:08):
T-shirt

Dave (39:09):
T-shirt absolutely.

Roy (39:10):
For sure. Even though I’m wearing a collared shirt. Yeah.

Dave (39:15):
Yeah. All right. I, I know the answer to this one, but I threw maybe a wild card horse car or boat

Roy (39:23):
Boat.

Dave (39:23):
Oh no. Yeah. I thought maybe you would throw maybe a horse in there that, you know, I thought I could get you

Roy (39:29):
When I was no, one of my, one of my desires is to actually live on a boat for about a year in sail. My wife has told me, don’t even think about it. It’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna be present with you. But yes, I would take a boat.

Dave (39:45):
What’s that if you live on a boat for a long time, you start to adapt to the waves and it like, and you go back on land and you’re like off balance. Is that a real thing?

Roy (39:53):
Well, I don’t know. I, I mean, every time I get off a sailboat, I’ve only taken a couple of cruises, you know, I’m on ’em for a week and yeah. You rock for a few days. Right. I mean, for me it somewhat, but yeah. I don’t know. I

Dave (40:05):
There’s something that there’s something out there and someone of our listeners and go, I know exactly what you’re talking about, but like some people will live on a boat for a long time and then they come back to land like four months later or three months later and they feel like they’re still on the boat and they can’t shake it.

Roy (40:20):
Yeah. Oh

Dave (40:20):
Really? Like really messed with their like equilibrium and stuff. Okay. Keep going

Roy (40:24):
Here please. Let’s please not let Lynn, my wife listen to

Dave (40:27):
This. Okay. Well we’ll edit that part out. You, you, you stole one of these earlier, so I think I know what you’re gonna say, but beach or mountains.

Roy (40:35):
Oh, uh, beach, I think probably, but mountains have their place.

Dave (40:40):
Yeah. And you’re right in between both. So you

Roy (40:42):
Can right in between. Yeah.

Dave (40:44):
All right. This is this. Now we’re getting into some open-ended things here. Okay. Okay. What would you sing at karaoke night?

Roy (40:52):
Oh, wow. You know? Oh, wow. Um, you want a song title

Dave (41:02):
Or? Yeah. Or, or, or just a, a, a, a band or, or a singer songwriter.

Roy (41:06):
I would be able to sing like, uh, like Steve Perry,

Dave (41:10):
Steve Perry,

Roy (41:11):
You know, but then there’s a part of me that thinks, um, you know, something kind of wooy

Dave (41:17):
Like, don’t stop believing. Like I could, yeah. Something like that.

Roy (41:21):
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Okay. Or maybe REO speed wagon, you know, again, Sherry made, but then it would be fun to rap.

Dave (41:29):
Ooh, Roy, the rapper,

Roy (41:31):
Roy, the rapper, the Arian rapper or something like that. That, that would be, that would be cool. Right.

Dave (41:38):
Okay. So start working on that. And the next time we meet up, we’re gonna go do that.

Roy (41:43):

Dave (41:44):
All right. This is a weird one. This has come up quite a bit, uh, over the last few months. And like we asked, uh, some of our new smart acres who joined this doors or wheels,

Roy (41:53):
Doors are wheels.

Dave (41:55):
You look confused for those who are watching on YouTube. Have you heard about this doors are wheels? What do you think? They’re more, more of in the world. Doors are wheels.

Roy (42:05):
I play Wordle at night. You know, that’s kind of how I end my day doors are wheels. I would suspect in the us that has to be more wheels.

Dave (42:14):
Right? Cause most things have like four wheels, like cars

Roy (42:18):
And yeah. But my house has a lot of doors. How do you define door?

Dave (42:23):
An entryway?

Roy (42:24):
An entryway,

Dave (42:25):
Right? I think that’s what a door is. I mean,

Roy (42:27):
I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go with doors entryway. I think

Dave (42:31):
Doors. Okay. Yeah. This is the great debate.

Roy (42:33):
It is a good debate that, that that’ll drive a person. Insane.

Dave (42:37):
If you really start to think about that. How many D cabinet doors that are in your house.

Roy (42:42):
Yeah.

Dave (42:43):
But then you look down and you got like, I have like eight wheels on that chair over here.

Roy (42:47):
Well, yeah, I’m exactly.

Dave (42:48):
. I told you this is gonna be random and fun and

Roy (42:51):
That’s, that’s gonna Jack me up the rest of the day.

Dave (42:54):
All right. Um, three more. What is your favorite zoo? Animal

Roy (43:00):
Favorite zoo animal. I gotta go with the zebra.

Dave (43:04):
A zebra.

Roy (43:05):
Yeah, this is cool, man.

Dave (43:07):
It is cool.

Roy (43:08):
I mean, to have those stripes, plus I like fruit Stripe gum

Dave (43:12):
Oh, that’s a classic fruit Stripe gum.

Roy (43:14):
It it’s hard to find it is, but walk into your local hardware store and you might get lucky.

Dave (43:20):
Yeah. You know, what’s funny. I have about four things on my desk. And for those who are watching, I’m gonna share a gum because you brought it up. You talk about a blaster in the past. You ready for this?

Roy (43:29):
Ready? Yes.

Dave (43:31):
Tea Barry gum.

Roy (43:32):
You went to cracker barrel.

Dave (43:34):
Nope. I have a, I have two local candy, like old fashioned soda pop slash candy stores in my nearby here. And they sell vintage candy. And I’m a sucker for that.

Roy (43:45):
I’ve been known to buy bemans at cracker barrel.

Dave (43:49):
Yes. Bemans as well. All right. Well we got two more to go here. All right, man. These are kind of putting a bow on it and everything that we talked about. So we’re kind of a little bit more serious.

Roy (43:58):
All right.

Dave (44:00):
Something you would change

Roy (44:02):
Something I would change.

Dave (44:04):
Yeah. Could be anything.

Roy (44:06):
Wow. Um, Hmm. I probably would’ve changed shirts. Had I known you were gonna ask about change

Dave (44:15):
The shirts. you’re not the first person to come on and go wait, you’re wearing a t-shirt so I don’t have to wear a dress shirt.

Roy (44:21):
I know what I would. I, I, I would change in myself. Um, I’m fairly impatient, right? I mean, it’s, I’m better at it. Um, I think I would change two things. One is I would try to be more patient, let things unfold. And two, I would try to listen better or listen more often. I talk a lot, Dave, your listeners are gonna hear that too. You know, not learn to shorten my thoughts. yeah. How change those things? Great question. Those

Dave (44:54):
Are hard. Those are hard to work on. I’ve been, so my, my, my resolution, if you have one for the year for myself, was to try not to sweat the small things because I got kind of very, I got very upset, quickly, over little stupid little things. And I, I just like that is just, I have to learn to break that. Um, the listening is, is really hard when you’re an agency, cuz you think you’re the smartest person in the room and you love to hear yourself talk, but that is really powerful to work on listening skills, try to be in a, in a, in a very active conversation and bite your tongue. That’s it’s it’s, it’s something you really have to work on. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna change one or two things and now something you will keep, this is the final one. Something that you’re, you’re gonna keep

Roy (45:39):
My gratitude.

Dave (45:42):
That’s a great answer.

Roy (45:43):
I am a grateful person today. I really am. I, and I want to keep that. I, I make a gratitude list. I don’t, I won’t say I do it every day. That’s not true, but every couple of days I’ll find 20 things to be grateful for. And I have a lot to be grateful for in spite of the journey. Right. So yeah, I just, I wanna keep gratitude.

Dave (46:10):
Well, thank you for that fun exercise. I am grateful for you Roy Page. And Roy, thank you so much. Please tell our listeners how they can learn more about you and what we talked and how can they connect with you

Roy (46:22):
So they can just email me R page Tobin, left.com T O B I N L E F f.com. Um, or they can find me on LinkedIn and uh, connect with me LinkedIn and, uh, there, they should be able to find my cell phone number and everything else. so it’s all good. Yeah. Thanks Dave.

Dave (46:44):
And thank you and have a beautiful day.

Roy (46:47):
Thanks you too. I enjoyed it.