Episode Transcription 

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed up, you’ll be joined by your hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to hire improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast. 

Brittany Anderson:

Welcome back to your ultimate advisor Podcast. Today you are in for a treat. So a little bit of backstory. Before I dive into the intro of who we have today, I actually had the great pleasure of interviewing the gentleman that’s about to come up on our dream architects life podcast, it was such riveting content, so many great things we could have gone on for hours and hours and hours that we decided to bring him to you here in our advisor audience. So without further ado, I’d like to introduce Trevor Yarm. Trevor is the CEO of SharePoint group and the founder of the SharePoint someday today initiative. He’s laser-focused on building a culture of caring and believes to his core, that authenticity and vulnerability are strengths. He strives to be an inspiring leader and knows that people help people best by sharing in their experiences. Trevor, welcome.

Good to see you again, Brittany.

Oh, I’ve been so looking forward to this conversation. And, you know, let’s, let’s get right into it. So, again, backstory, we were talking in another podcast, and I was also on Traverse, we did this back to back super fun jam session. And Trevor started talking about some really cool things that they did to enhance culture through COVID. So these are things that I think could be carried forward. So Trevor, I’d love you to take it away on that note, and share what you did the impact all the good stuff behind it.
Yeah, thank you. And thanks for inviting me back in a super appreciate it, I love to talk about SharePoint and the team and the culture that we’ve created here. And it really comes down to, you know, people caring about people. And we’re just trying our best to create an environment where folks can come in, and be them themselves and, and really look after each other. And there’s so many stories that I think I shared with you examples of things that this team does for for each other, and for the company and for, for me, and and for the community, but a bit of backstory, so we started SharePoint in 2003. And there were 10 owners, I was one of them, and 15 people in the entire company and kind of go through this part quick. And we didn’t we didn’t really I don’t think we really understood what we were creating. We didn’t we weren’t business people, we were farmers and and tradespeople and, and a bunch of young young folks and came together and we and we started to go to work and we’re in right place, right time. But our business, we thought at one time, we were like maybe we 15 people, we did our first ever strategic planning session with a bunch of quads and a couple flats of beer, in a campsite in the bush. And we said, well, you know, this year we did 4 million, let’s let’s just do 8 million next year, and we kind of just doubled everything. And then we went and had fun for the weekend. And we hit that. And I remember somebody saying that first year, you know, imagine if we ever had like 40 people in our company like Holy crow, can you imagine for 40 or 50 people like that would be unreal. And we ended up growing from 2003 to 2013 to 401 International and, and and you know the story when you when you tell that part of it, it sounds it sounds amazing. But the reality is, from 2003 to 2008, we had created this environment where we were just attracting so many good people and people people would leave they just and so good people attract good people. I always say that, like our job isn’t going and we don’t have to do a ton of marketing to train and get folks to come here we have to attract a few good people and they’ll go and do it for us if we have the right environment here. And and so 2008 We ended up selling to a private equity group out of the US and things started to change. If we had a mandate to grow, and, and just just a lot of things happened, one of the things I don’t think anybody really contemplated was what would happen to a bunch of young owners who finally had some money. You know, to us our goals were in my personal goal when I was 1415, was to buy a quarter alanda quad and ride the roller coaster at this West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton. Like that was the that was my bucket list. And, and so all of a sudden, you know, financially things have changed for us. And, and a bunch of the bunch of the owners, that’s what they did, they went and bought some land and they got some cows, and they went and did their, their thing. And slowly over time, you know, our culture started to disintegrate, and we didn’t talk about culture back then we didn’t really know much about it, other than we were just living it. And in 2013, I became the CEO and things were dire, like, 2012 2013, were really, really tough. We saw some really nice growth, we had gone from 4 million to over 90 million from 2003 to 2020 12. And, and I got offered the CEO role, the board is going to make some changes to leadership. And I had turned it down. At first, I actually was planning on leaving, because this wasn’t the company that I had been a part of creating, either. And so I had given notice, and then the board offered me the CEO role. And, and I was in Australia at the time, and I, I turned it down, I had gone over there and told them it was probably the last trip over with SharePoint. And I came back to talk to my wife and told my wife that, you know, I, I, I got offered the role. And and she said don’t take it like absolutely don’t take it. And, and I jokingly tell people that the reason I took it is because she told me not to. But the reality is, I told her, I’ve already turned it down, I had some plans to do some other things. And she asked me a question a couple of days later, how will you feel if you don’t, and I remember telling her that I said I am going to like things to change for her and I we you know, we’re up for it, you know, we’ve got Boston, and never had a bunch of money, you know, we had to work. And all of a sudden I can I can take a little bit of time and sit on the couch for a while. And I remember saying that you’re like, we don’t have to worry now as much. But a lot of really good people quit really good jobs to come to SharePoint. And a lot of them did, because I told them, we were different. And and we were and now we’re not we might even be worse in some ways. And I feel like I have a chance to make a difference. And I’ll be running away from my family and friends. And I feel like I have to try this. And so I I took the role and 10 weeks into it. And for background, little context, I’m an instrument mechanic by trade, I don’t have a business degree, I didn’t get any education around this stuff. And all of a sudden I am I am the CEO of a fairly large corporation, and really don’t know what the hell I’m doing to be honest with you. But I did know that, you know, what made us successful at one time was we just we just rallied around each other, like people really, really cared about SharePoint. And we cared about each other. And I was trying to find a way, you know, to quickly pull us back together. Because we were losing lots of good people and, and 10 weeks, 10 weeks in as a CEO 10 to 12 weeks, I got a letter of forbearance from from our bank, and I didn’t know what that was. But it looks it looks scary. And then I found out you know, for very shortly after that, it was basically we had to come up with with a bunch of money, which was seemingly impossible, because we weren’t making any or finding new bank, which was again, seemingly impossible, or, or there was a high likelihood of foreclosure in four or five months. And so get put into this thing called the workout group. All of a sudden, I am like, oh my god, you know, my ego is just like fear, anxiety. And, you know, I’d like to say, say, it’s really all about me, and, and so I’m like, Oh my God, you know, my fingerprints are on this, what I’m going to do, I’m going to be the guy that took this thing down, I know what to do. And I was really panicked and kind of internalizing things. And one night, it was Tuesday, I remember clearly in the middle of the night I woke up and I was like, Oh my God, I’ve been thinking of this wrong. This is a gift. I’ve been praying for an opportunity, something to help bring us together. And the SharePoint team rallies around crisis better than anything, and probably any one or any organization in the world. No bigger crisis, then then, you know, we might not be around in four or five months. And so I coined it the gift of forbearance, and I got up that morning, and I got on the road and in that like four days, I started that more you know, into every branch and then coffees people in their houses out to job sites and everywhere and had these conversations with them about about what what our reality was I first I lead with I’m Trevor mostly unknown and way over my head, and then I quickly went into I’m really sorry we screwed this up like we didn’t mean to. I know you don’t feel like we care but You do, and I certainly care. And, and we, you know, we can rebuild this, we can rebuild it better. But I also want to tell you something else, we’re in this thing called forbearance, I don’t really know much about it, other than it’s bad, and and then if we don’t do a lot of things, you know, right in a short period of time, then we’re not going to be around and I want you all to know, so you can go find other jobs. And I said, you know, we will rebuild this thing, if, you know, I hope you stay, I’ve decided to, and if you do, I believe we can build a better company than we’ve ever had in better culture than we’ve ever had, which was a major, major statement. And so we’ve rebuilt, we started to rebuild our company on this foundational called core value called we care. And we’re in an oil and gas industry, like predominantly type A males, you know, sports, athletics, cowboys, and they, you know, talking about caring is just foreign, it’s foreign to men anyway, I find to be honest with you, but it’s certainly foreign to, to the type of folks that that work here. And, and so it was a tough sell. And I kept saying things like, caring is a competitive advantage, like, and we’re gonna prove that and, and so we go through this stuff, and you know, it got it was really, really hard. But what the team rallied to came together, and they pulled us, they pulled us through these times that were seemingly impossible to get through. And they learned a whole bunch about myself and I learned a whole bunch about human beings and resiliency, and how when people will work together to help each other, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. And so fast forward, we kind of get, you know, we go through some ups and downs industry takes a pretty good beating a few years later, and it just, you know, we just keep slugging it out, like, our team fights hard and, and for each other, and in 2018, we get an opportunity, not the private equity group had had gotten a hold of me and said, Look, you know, we love you guys. But it’s, it’s really time for us to exit to find like, we got to kind of move SharePoint on. And, and my plan was always to go and do something else. Like, I was like, Okay, nice exit strategy here. But the thought of that, is like, if, you know, I called him back the next day and said, just hold off, before you put it to market, I want to talk to some of the folks in SharePoint, one of my dreams had always been to give this thing back to the people if they wanted it, like have them on it. entrepreneurial vision and entrepreneurs a bit of a trap, you start a company, usually out of a labor of love, you believe you’re gonna do it different your friends, it’s all people come to work, you’re going to, you’re going to be different than every other organization you’ve ever worked for, you’re going to be better, you’re going to care more, do all this stuff. And then it gets hard, you get some girls, there’s some really tough stuff, you run out of money, you’ve got your house mortgage, you do all this stuff. And if you’re fortunate enough to get through it, there’s only one exit strategy typically, and that’s to sell the, you know, that’s the sell your baby and all in the entire family with it. And the people, you know, for me, I got I got a pail from from when we sold. But everybody else got up the next day and had to go to work. Like there were only 10 of us that really had a financial, like a major financial benefit from it. And I was like, it didn’t make sense to me. All these people work so hard to you know, to help organizations be successful. And they get they get paid well, and they get treated well. But I was like wealth redistribution became a thing that I became extremely focused on. And in 2018, I went to a few of the folks and said, Hey, would you like to vise your point back. And if you do all stay and do it again, I’ll put some more money into this. But on one caveat, you all have to be open to us becoming an employee on business. So we we started to create this structure, we got some help from Chairman of our Board, he’s the guy who’s who’s arguably developed maybe the most successful employee sharing ship program in North America, maybe the world. And he joined our team invested in became our chairman of our board brought a lot of experience with this with it. And so we’re like, we build out a structure, we got 15 We started with 15 owners to get this thing bought back and and we’re just like, all excited and pumped. And, and we’re going into into 2019 2020. And we’re looking at having the biggest month that we’ve ever had in the history of SharePoint. And all of a sudden the world stops like search. And, and so fear, I think is the is the most appropriate word probably for everybody on the planet. And it was different for different reasons. We found some people were afraid of the virus, like deathly afraid of it, and some weren’t, but they were afraid of financial insecurity. And some were afraid of, you know, how were their kids going to cope and how were their parents going to cope? And, and so and then as an organization, it’s how do you survive this like how do you how do you how do you get through it, this is such an unknown, and I think we did like at like every organization or the majority of them. And and we had we had assumed that our revenue It would probably drop by 30 or 40%, we were way off, it dropped by 60 to 70% for a while. And here we are. A group that had just bought this company back highly leveraged took on a lot of debt. We’ve got now no people, I love my, like people who are like family to me and free mortgage their houses to put money into this thing, because we’re going to go for it, and it’s going to be fun, and they’re going to do well. And, and all of a sudden, we don’t know what the future looks like at all. And so worked with our network a lot spent a lot of time with different peers, and kind of the general consensus was conserved capital, it was, you know, cut costs, and our costs are people. And so we, you know, we spent a couple of weeks sort of agonizing over over this decision, made a list, you know, of some folks that we’re going to get to let go finalized it on a Friday morning, and and Monday, Tuesday, we’re gonna, we’re gonna have the tough conversations with some folks. And Friday night I called our CEO and our one VP, about six or seven o’clock at night. And I said, Don’t let anything go Monday. Like I said, like, no one, don’t let anyone go. I said, we’re a few weeks into this, we don’t even we can’t even make a good decision right now. You know, we don’t know if this is going to last two weeks, two months, two years, we don’t, we don’t know if half the population is going to die, or no one’s going to die. The only thing we know right now is people are scared to death. For the reasons that I mentioned. People are told to go and stay in their houses, they’re not supposed to go see their families, they can’t go see their parents, they can’t go on dates with their spouses, they can’t go hang out with friends, they can’t go veers with buddies, the kids can’t swipe on Tinder, like nothing is not, we would, that’s the only thing we know. And, and we also have a playbook to go back to, we went through a tough period. And we were just honest with the folks and they helped us through through this. So we’re going to take a different approach on Monday, Tuesday, we’re going to have a town hall. And we’re going to tell people the truth, we’re not letting anyone go yet, we we you know, we care, we’re never going to have a better opportunity to exemplify this value. And that we built this thing on. And, and so we have an opportunity to show people that we actually do care. And this is a time where people need people and people need organizations to be there. And that’s what we believed. And I said to our team, because they’re young, like they’re our VP and our TVs and our CFO were in their 30s. And I said no matter what, this will be the most memorable time of your career. And whether we get through or not, if if my belief is if we don’t get through than we weren’t going to anyway. And I said Make no mistake, we’ll be in a book one day, it’ll either be if they could do it, how many other companies could have, or this is why you never ever do what they did. And I said it’s gonna be one extreme or the other. And so we and so we had that conversation with the team. And, and when overwhelmed, but to be honest with you, we weren’t doing folks, some of our folks a lot of favors because their hourly employees and make sure they get paid if they go to work in the field, and we get paid for them. So a few weeks go by, and the work just dropped off. And so instead of letting them go in Canada, there was a serve a Canadian, I don’t know what it stands for. But there was a way they could get a couple 1000 bucks a month, quickly. And at least it’s something so now we’re keeping a team of people together. And we also wanted to keep them together so that we could find ways to still keep them engaged so that folks aren’t sitting at home all alone through the essence. But now Now we’re not paying them and in the government came up with an employee subsidy program, which subsidy program. And basically there was a match up to a certain amount if you keep people employed. And we said, hey, you know, great, now we can keep some folks employed. But we did something that was super unique. And turns out I don’t know if anybody else did it. Actually. We we made a decision. When we heard about that I went to our CFO and said, Hey, now that we’ve kept the people, what if we guaranteed everybody a paycheck? Like they said we do? I’m like, no, no, I mean, our hourly staff, the ones that go to the field are first year apprentices and journeyman. And I said I was thinking something like this, what if we guaranteed all our Journeyman $5,000 and all our apprentices, 2500 blacks, and then a second year, you know, 3000, a third year, three 500, and so on. And so we we would have to do a toss up on every single person that we that we paid. And he said I love the idea, but we can’t afford it. And and I said well what if we could? And he’s like I’d absolutely support it. So I went to our board and got amazing board and and I pitched it and pitched it to them and and they said the same thing. We’d absolutely support it, but can you afford it? I don’t think you can afford it. And I said, Well, I don’t know what if we cut it out. We’ll support it. So then I came back and talk to our leadership You and said, ask them the same thing. How would you feel if we actually kept everybody and guaranteed everybody a paycheck? And it’s an easy thing to say yes, to feel so good. And everyone said, Yes. And I said, but there’s one problem, we can’t afford it. You know, here’s the reality, we just can’t, not the way that we’re structured, what I’m about to ask is going to be extreme for some of you. And you can say no, but there’s only one way we can do it. And some of us are going to have to sacrifice a lot, I am willing to give up 50% of my pay. I said, you know, for whatever duration the program is for, and we’re going to need some of you to give up 30% and some 20. And, and it was about a 15 or 20 minute conversation. And here’s the thing, these are I told you, these are folks in their 30s, they have kids, they have mortgages, they have SUVs, they have quads, and snowmobiles, they have way too much yet, but what they haven’t, like the end, and then it’s not going away. And they have a lifestyle and and they’re full of fear and anxiety, then about a 15 or 20 minute conversation, and I said no gun to anyone’s head. If anybody in this room says no, then we’ll go a different way. Like and, and nobody needs to know. And they, they said yes to it, they agreed, and the entire company ended up giving us a minimum of 10%. So that we could we could keep you know, keep our folks and, and pay them for seven and a half months. I think Gemini were about nine months on that reduced thing. I, you know, I, I knew that it would create an opportunity for us to really show that we care. You know, I knew that it would create a bit of stickiness. But more than anything, it was the right thing to do. And, and that the fact that everybody was willing to sacrifice for everyone else. So good, was the proudest moment in my career, for sure. And it was tough, and it was hard, and we still aren’t making money. And, and as we’ve come out of the pandemic, we have, we have been attracting some of the most amazing people in the industry, like folks, so most pleasing people in the world, technically some of the strongest in the industry. And our company is growing. And and there’s this feeling this sense of we we care that this permeates through our organization. And it’s real, you know, we were able to back it up. And the next thing that we did right was when people were getting paid anyway, the amount of things that we did in the community, we wanted to keep our folks engaged. So we started a master chef cooking class that not we a few of our guys, guys and gals did and every week for 14 weeks on a Wednesday virtual cooking class with each other and then sending you send ingredients, send out the recipe and everyone gets together, then then eats together at the end and with their families. And we publish the professionally published the cookbook from that. And then we sold that gave the money to a not for profit that feeds homeless people in Edmonton at Christmas. But we went one step further, we also showed up with a whole group of us and made the sandwiches in a suit donated the money made the sandwiches and soup. And then we went out into the streets and me and 15 to 20 of our folks went out and handed out the sandwiches, you know and engaged with some of the you know, those those who suffer more than us. And and in Grand Prairie, we did something similar, we started to see this, this love just going out and this kindness being shared throughout the world. And our folks would just come up with these crazy things. And these things to help human beings said, Chris, I can tell you, there’s make you cry. I mean, we help this family and this young girl, a six year old who ended up dying of cancer. And we were able to take Christmas presents to her and her her brother. And you see the smiles on these faces. And I still keep in touch with the parents, you just become connected in these very short interactions with these human beings. And then a group of us showed up when she did pass away, we went to the town where she lived and went to the funeral. And and we did, we had a magician hired to come and do the magic show for us for our Christmas party. And of course all of that ends you can’t have Christmas party. So talk to Matt Gore is his name. And he’s phenomenal and and talk to our team and said well, why don’t we do a virtual one for our company that way? It’s not even just one location. It’s everywhere. So this is actually good. And, and we went from that to well, let’s open it up to friends and family to what if we open it up to the entire world for free. And so we did this virtual magic show that magical Christmas with SharePoint, we called it and and we did it two years in a row. And Matt was at a conference that some of us were out and he got on stage and he saw us he’s like, ah, there’s my SharePoint family. And he tells a story of how we had we had engaged him to do this. And he was gracious enough to do it. And we had over 10,000 viewers that that that had watched the show. And just I mean, I could I could spend two hours talking about that. And so I think I told you when we first met you know, we do instrumentation, electrical mechanical services, we do well and I’m super proud of that. Um, but what I love to talk about is who we are. And, and that is, that is who we are, you know, we’re a company that makes a lot of mistakes, but man on, when someone needs help in this organization, you get flooded with love.

Well, holy smokes, there is a lot to unpack in what you were just talking about. And, you know, first of all, I think the journey, it’s, it’s just so truly representative of the heart of the leadership, like, I mean, I can’t even fathom some of those big decisions, there are so many times in there, where you could have quit, you all could have quit, you all could have just walked away and said, forget it. This is hard. This is stressful. This is, you know, it’s taking too much brainpower, whatever, but you didn’t. And there’s so much resiliency in that. So there’s a couple of things that I made note of when you were talking there, Trevor, one thing is, you know, if I’m thinking about the advisor, audience listening to this, there’s one thing that a lot of them deal with both personally and with their clients. And it’s the little notion of preparing for big money, right? Like, there comes a point where you make a decision within your business to sell to explore the whole private equity sale, like you’ve talked about maybe mergers, acquisitions, different things along those lines, whether you’re being acquired, or you’re merging with somebody else, or you’re looking at acquiring another business. So there’s this whole world this whole space, then on the other side of that a lot of the advisors that listen, that either are participating in our programs, or they just write in off of the show, they deal with people who are business owners, who are either fast approaching some sort of liquidity event or have had one, and there’s a common theme there about not being prepared for that windfall, not being prepared for that, that money to come into play, and what you’re then going to do with your life. So, Trevor, I would love to know, as somebody who’s actually been there, done that been through it, is there anything that you would have done different in preparation for your sale? And for that liquidity event that you had?

Yeah, I think I shared last time, so the time in my life, like when we ended up selling SharePoint, that everything changed for me and so financially, obviously. And, and it should have been, you know, it was always growing up and kind of getting to that point, it was always the, the belief that I had internally was, was that when when I made when I made it, like everything was going to be okay, like everything would be better. How could it not be a beautiful wife, you know, a son that had grown up, he’s 18, at a fancy acreage in a sports car, and horses and barns and, and family that loves me and friends. And now all of a sudden, you know, we’re not we’re not in debt, a million dollars and wondering, you know, how we’re going to make the bill payments. The next month, there’s some there’s some money and there’s some relief. And it ended up being the very worst time of my life. I I spiraled out of control. I was not prepared. I was not prepared for that. For that moment. I spoke to a fellow who on an airplane actually, he’s super famous. And I didn’t, I didn’t know that. I was chatting away with him and then told me who he was. And he started a company in the basement of his house. He’s a Canadian, and he ended up selling it for $6 billion. It grew and there’s a whole bunch of bunch of folks. And I asked him, I said, How did you feel after I love to ask people that question? And I said to him, how did you how did you feel? Like obviously you don’t have a mortgage? She laughs No, you know, and can do anything he wants in the world. He said, Well, I didn’t own the whole company. Okay, so I don’t know 300 million or a billion, whatever it was. And he said, Honestly, he said, I would the kids were young, took them kindergarten, and grade one took them out of school for six months. And my wife and I were gonna spend all this time together as a family because we hadn’t had the opportunity to because I was so busy. And we’re gonna travel around to a few different places in the world. He’s on a beach in Australia Water laughing up to his knees. In the ocean, his family’s going sandcastles and his wife is with them. He said, I’ve never felt more lonely. I’ve never felt or more lost. He said back then, a long time ago, the blackberries were cool. He’s like, I just I became insignificant. And, and everything changed. And it took him a couple years and some counseling and life coaching to find to find a new purpose. And I so I guess I guess my recommendation would be if you’re seriously looking to exit your business, understand why, like, true and truly go through what does that mean? And there’s nothing wrong with is being brutally honest with yourself to say, I’m just tired, and I want to take some money off this thing and I’ve done my thing and whoever takes it is going to do what they do. And that’s okay, as long as you understand what it is, and have a plan on what you’re going to do after and I mean, like, they seven, the first few days are just exciting, it is all of a sudden, you know, you get up in the morning and sort of quit do anything today, you know, drinking coffee, but after a week or so it starts to sink in, like most of us, our identity is tied to our businesses and, and very few entrepreneurs ever have side hustles or side hobbies, they seldom even have time with their family to be honest with you. And, and so I encourage a lot of people now don’t wait for that day. Like life Life is short, I don’t know if you saw my somebody took a DVD or not if I shared it with you, but you know, and I just did a trip to Malaysia and just came back I was over there for work and I jam packed as much stuff as I could in there. And I did a post on it here just recently and I’ve been really thinking about you know, life balance, there’s no work life balance, there’s that’s horseshit. It’s that it is like we don’t get moments segregated for work. And then the rest of your life, you have to draw down these two accounts, you get, you get so many seconds, so many breaths on this earth, and none of us know how many and and yet, we spent so damn much time on our businesses, that we that we miss out on all these things, that our intentions are great as entrepreneurs, we want to build good companies we want to support our families want to be there. And a lot of it for me was was, you know, unbeknownst to me at the time was about my ego as well, it made me feel good. You know, and, and then when it did become a part of my identity, like that, that was like tearing me in half when, when we sold, I ended up staying, which was different for me than some and going through a lot more, I don’t know how it would have looked if I would have would have left. I was certainly depressed and sad and lonely and scared. And I think that for me, you know, the next time now this is a big reason why we’re going employee on is there’s going to come a time where this company, whether I want to go or not needs to get rid of me like they are going to need another leader. And with an employee share ownership program and the employees on the company. It’s not just about investing money and growing your wealth, it’s also we have to create an environment and create a business that grows to support the growth of the individuals in the company, it’s really nice to tell some young gal or girl Come here, come here out of high school, and work here for 25 years, and started as a first year apprentice in an administrator. And in 25 years, that’s all you’re going to be able to do like people won’t stay and they shouldn’t. And so I have to move on at some point so that somebody else can actually take my position and they have to move on. And that kind of changes the whole thesis of business. But but for me, it’s really talk during the things that I talk a lot about and suggest other people do. It’s it’s starting to find some of those things that really fill me up and find the time to do some of it fit it in. And I recommend all entrepreneurs start that before you can planning an exit because it’s just a good thing for your life anyway.

Yeah, you know, you hit the nail on the head, so many times there. And people spend so much time thinking about where they’re coming from, right? Like, what are they coming off of? What was the life before versus looking forward at? What am I going to, and what is going to fill my cup, you know, Brian and I are actually building a different platform right now that’s completely geared towards that to like coming off of whatever identity and making sure that you have this focus, because it’s a need. I mean, it’s a massive need. And your story gives such great example to that. So I want to go back to the topic of culture because on this podcast in basically all of our programs, we have a heavy emphasis on culture. You know, there’s it’s been a little bit from from what you were talking about, but you know, all it takes is one bad leader, one bad seed, you know, one bad attitude to really cause a conundrum in a business. So what are things that you guys have done to really help prevent or minimize that from happening? Because it seems like you do. I mean, as a leader, you truly show you care. You’ve gone above and beyond. How do you make sure that applecart doesn’t get tipped over?

That is that is the hardest thing. That’s the hardest thing that we’ve faced and we and we and we’ve gone through cycles of it we’ve brought some leaders in that are technically strong, good, good, good human beings to this is this is what I learned not everybody fits every culture. Our culture is unique to us. And and you know there there are some people who come in here for pretty flat organization, in spite of the fact that, you know, we have quite a few folks working here, we make, you know, we make decisions by consensus. So shared leadership. And so that doesn’t fit for everybody. We’ve had some, we’ve had some people, and sometimes people, you know, over time change in your organization, and they, and they just get to these places where they need to move on, it’s, and it’s kind of like being in a marriage, where, you know, it’s just, it’s not bad, it’s not good, and you just need something else, you know, you one of the two, typically ends up sabotaging the relationship instead of just being being honest.

And so we’ve saw some of that. And it’s tough because, you know, we get challenged a lot in SharePoint on we care when, you know, when we discipline somebody, but somebody go, you know, it’s pretty easy to throw out all you say you care and, and, you know, we get called fraud sometimes, and, and, you know, I’ve had that I’ve had to kind of take that and be like, Okay, well, we we care means that we’re going to do the right thing, it means we’re going to have the tough conversations, it means we’re going to, we’re going to talk to the folks that are fit part fitting in. And the other thing if you truly care about a human being, and I think this is something that we learned, and I learned it the hard way, be honest sooner, you know, we have saw opportunities for people to change. But if somebody’s coming into your organization, or into your life and doing the same thing over and over and over again, and you’re not, you’re not bringing any awareness to it. And then one day, you’re like, this thing sucks, everybody’s quit. And because, you know, Johnny’s a deck, and then you go get rid of Johnny, because you lost the people, and then it just it becomes schizophrenic. And all of a sudden, nobody knows what like, okay, he’s always been that way. And, and we have made the mistake of hanging on to people too long, that just didn’t fit in a lot of times because, you know, they drove significant amount of revenue or, or they’ve been here a long time, there’s a loyalty. And today, it’s more like, what would have happened with some of them, if we would have on it like data, like real honest conversation isn’t what I mean, like, sit in the room and let them know that that this is how they’re being perceived. This is how they’re making people feel that this, this is a problem because it doesn’t fit our values. And that’s something that we’re really working on as an organization, because we have saw some people flat, there are some conversations I’ve had where people are like, that’s how I’m being perceived. Are you kidding me? I don’t believe anybody gets up in the morning, like anybody, even the people who are truly, you know, out there being assets, they don’t have to look in the mirror and say, I’m gonna go out and ruin people’s day. Most people don’t even have the awareness to understand how they’re being perceived. I have a friend who says often I’m not much, but I’m all I think about. And that like, that is me to a tee. And that is most human beings, you know, we get up, and we, we have this image of ourselves. And it’s and so now I say, it’s extremely unkind of us. And, and it goes totally against our values. When we move somebody out of the organization, and they get caught off guard, they were shocked. It’s also extremely unfair to every person in our company into our team and our family, if we allow somebody to stick around, who continues to cause issues after you’ve given them the awareness, and, and I learned this from a life coach years ago, he was art was his name. He’s an older guy. And he said, Trevor, and I was struggling with some stuff. And some things were coming off. And I was feeling guilty about some things. And he said, he said, Trevor, nothing. You can’t change anything in your life until you become aware of it like nothing. You can’t, you can’t fix a problem you’re unaware of. He said, and here’s the nice, great thing about awareness once once you’re aware, you’re aware. But here’s the other thing, once you’re aware, you can never become unaware. And, and he said, You can pretend, he said and then there’s three A’s that any change in life, there’s awareness, there’s acceptance, and there’s action. And if I think about everything in my life, every time I’ve made a change, those are the three steps that have happened, whether whether I accept that whether I’ve made it or not, or even even knew it, but he said, he said, You have to become aware of something and then you have to make a choice. Do you accept that, you know, when you’re talking about a human being that’s maybe a culture killer, and we give them the information so that he’s aware, now you have to accept that information. And then you have to go to work. So there’s awareness and then there’s acceptance, which is, which is a choice. And then there’s action, which is work and he said it to me like this? He said, so anything that you did before you became aware let it go like you just just didn’t know now you do. Now everything if you continue to do that now you’re not you’re not accepting and he said he any analogy that really stuck, he said, he said do you like Disneyland? He’s sending a lot. I love Disneyland. He said, Well, you’re with your family. You live in Edmonton but you’re on the log ride at Disneyland with your family and and your house. Your house is flooding. Do you worry about it? Like, absolutely nobody calls to tell you, do you worry, but how you feeling on the log, right? I’m like I loved a lot, right? I’m excited. He goes, exactly. You’re not aware. Now you finish your time at this level. And if you fly home, you come home in the middle of the night, you open the door, you step in your house, and your feet get wet. And you live in a bungalow. He says, now, now your feet are wet, you know, there’s some sort of a problem, he said, so you’re aware that there’s water on your on your upper floor. Now, now you have a choice, you can accept that you have a problem. Or you can pretend that you now have an indoor swimming pool, you can buy a dinghy and a six pack of air you can float around in your basement till your foundation falls in on your head. And he said, That’s how you’re living your life. He said, or you can accept that you have a problem you can you can suck the water out, you can bring somebody and you can get it all cleaned up, you can get somebody to rebuild the foundation make it better than it’s ever been. But he said now that you’re aware, it’s all up to you. And, and I believe that we as human beings, and as leaders have such a hard time being I still do, I still have a hard time being honest with people. Because I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And I want to be nice. And so I’m trying to reframe that just for myself, and our team will be honest with you, I would way rather No, you know, somebody’s disappointed in me, then keep doing what I’m doing.

Amen. And, you know, there’s so much value in what you just said to Trevor, because I think I think we’ve all struggled with that. I mean, if you’re in business, you’re a leader, you’re a founder, owner, you know, whatever that that title, that role is, we’ve all dealt with times that are so challenging when it comes to team members where we have let people stay on too long. We’ve had the guilt of well, they’ve been loyal to me for for this long. And one thing that we talk about a lot on this podcast is how you know what got you here won’t get you there. And I think you completely capture the essence of that on so many levels and what you just shared in that it doesn’t just mean the people, but it’s also your own awareness. It’s how you show up. It’s what you commit to, and it’s what you stand for going forward. So it’s like this multi faceted approach to making sure that you’re really leveling up in life, and that you’re holding yourself accountable along with your team members, along with the performance factor and all the things in between. So, Trevor, you have seriously dropped so much value. And I always think it’s interesting because, you know, when you’re in your own industry, we all think our problems are anomalies. Like we think our industry is the hardest, we think our problems are the worst, we think our opportunities are the best, and we can’t become so siloed. So that’s what we love about bringing on people that are completely outside of our realm. So that the advisors that are listening and tuning in can truly feel seen and heard and understand that they’re not alone, that we all have these challenges that we face. And regardless, it’s an uphill battle, but there’s a ton of reward at the same time. So, Trevor, before we wrap up, I want you to share and I believe we talked a little bit about this on the podcast interview under the dream architect life, but value alignment, you talked about a few different scenarios in your life and how the entrepreneur entrepreneur can get so caught up in themselves their business, that they kind of let life go. So how do you define your values now with all the lessons that you’ve had in life, what’s value alignment mean to you?

So for me, it came down to actually coming up with some values, some core values and personal core values. And, and I had the luxury of, you know, working with some amazing leaders and coaches and different people in my life. And so so when we sold SharePoint and I shared in the last that chat that we had, you know, what had happened to me in my life and how I got my perspective on life. And, and so, if you if you look at SharePoint, and I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody, if you look at SharePoint and the values that we have, and the direction, we’re going, they, they, they align very much with my personal, my personal core values as well. And, and I think the hardest part for me and I shared this last time, and it might be something that resonates with other folks is because these because these businesses are our business becomes so much of our identity that we that we lose all other parts of our identity, or we forget I forgotten who I was, I was so lost, I was so lonely. The only thing that I had the only thing that I felt was worthwhile. The only thing that I felt was you know that I contributed in life was was tied to this business and and it took me to a really really dark spot today. I still struggle with balance I still struggle I still go through times of have anxiety I just actually you know had a really tough couple of weeks and had to work through some things and and nothing nothing really major going on in my life. That’s a stressor, but just a little bit of stuff and I stopped doing the things that are important for me to stay mentally and emotionally healthy. And and I usually pick up on those signs go occur and do it. You know, for me it’s it’s, it’s, it’s exploring, it’s doing different things, it’s, you know, taking up yoga because somebody recommended it and trying not and going hiking with friends and, and doing a bunch of different stuff and I have to schedule those things in every second Sunday. If I don’t schedule a walk in with friends, I just don’t do it because I ended up focusing on on this and and I think is as, as human beings, entrepreneurs, leaders, you know, husbands wives, with with, with families, we have to get over this notion that doing things that are good for ourselves that are healthy for us taking the time to do that stuff for us is selfish, because it’s actually not, it was a tough thing for me to learn. But I realized today that I was given permission by Dr. Nance to be selfishly selfless, and it’s made a big difference in my life. And so I’m not sure that answer your question and kind of rambled,
know, it 100% answers the question. And, you know, it does go back to it’s like, pausing, it’s taking that breather, and really looking at what’s most important. And you know, there’s the question at the end of the day is, you know, what do you want to be known for? What do you want on your eulogy? I know, it’s a morbid thought, but it’s like, oh, you know, he or she worked herself to death or himself to death? Well, I don’t really want that to be in my
in, honestly, you know, so that’s another thing that I did. And I did it with our team. And I think we will get me to do quite a few years ago, I said, and I didn’t make it about the eulogy. Because people look at that as morbid reflection, I don’t anymore, I actually, that’s what helps ground me to realize that I have a finite amount of time. And I don’t know how much that is that, that that helps ground me, it’s like what matters most I mean, all of this stuff that we do, that we have, we have so many seconds, we don’t know how many we have. And so I hope that I spend more time of them doing things that matter most in my life. And it doesn’t mean I don’t have to do work, and some stuff I don’t like, but it should all add up to something greater than me. And, and I we did this, you know, what do you want to be known for? If, if, on your exit on a SharePoint, you know what is right, you’re right, the speech that somebody else would say about you if you weren’t in the room, when, when you were done? And, and I revisited that about four weeks ago, and was like, you know, I, I am living my life more towards that than not, you know, certainly certainly not perfect in any way here. But I think those are all all good things. And I think the other thing is, for me, especially early on, I had to schedule a dis schedule my Meantime, just like it did any other meeting. Yeah, I had to get over the guilt. Like when I would go hiking with the buddy on a Saturday for two hours where I could have been at work or I could have been spending time with my, with my wife, as soon as we both realized that I’m a better human being when I do that. And so instead of me stealing from the joy of moments that she would have, instead of being a martyr in everything I did with her. I come into it healthy and patient and I bring more to that experience instead of take away from it. My friend called me an emotional thief. You’re constantly feeling joy.

That’s a good motivator. Rap is don’t be a joyful. You took away nothing else don’t enjoy. Well, Trevor, if anybody wants to get a hold of you follow you maybe learn about the Sunday today initiative? How would they do that?

Yeah, the easiest way to get me is on LinkedIn, just under tremor mirror, look up SharePoint group, you’re gonna find a lot of things on the different things that we talked about. A lot of our community stuff is there someday today is there. And and if you if anybody shoots me a note on LinkedIn, anybody, I’ll connect with them. And if they want to chat, I’ll share my email address with them if they’re if they’re interested in it. For sure. If anybody has any questions or, or comments or wants to learn a little bit more about, you know, what we’ve what we’ve done, because it’s been a journey here, and it will continue to be I know one thing we will, we will continue to make mistakes and we’ll continue to learn and grow.

So good and so true. Well, Trevor, it has been a great pleasure talking to you again, and the amount of value like I said, that you’ve shared and this whatever 45-50 minutes that we’ve been together has been wonderful. So do you have if you could only say one closing comments, like less than three sentences, what would it be
you know, I’ve kind of come down to this and it is I I’m really big on authenticity, find who you are and and then and then be brave enough to be you and I think I said it at the at the last one too. Like it’s okay to be you. The world needs you.

Amen. Well, Trevor, I’m in such gratitude for you taking the time today time is the only commodity we can’t get back. So thank you sincerely for sharing with us today.

I like likewise, Brittany. Loved our chats and thank you for inviting me back.

Brittany Anderson:

Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our Ultimate Advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimateadvisorpodcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimateadvisormastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the Ultimate Advisor community, and we look forward to a continued relationship.