David Horsager:
Welcome to the trusted leader show. It’s David Horsager. I have a special guest. And let me tell you a little about him. First. He is the CEO and count co-founder of self esteem brands. That’s a parent company of anytime fitness, waxing the city, the bar, a base camp, fitness and stronger. You. Let me tell you about anytime quick, by the way, it’s, uh, for the seventh year in a row, anytime is the world’s fastest growing fitness club. They have, uh, revolutionized the fitness industry in 2002. They, the co-founders have become good friends of mine. Uh, he is also the author of the book. Love work. We’re gonna talk about that and leading a company through the pandemic and change and having massive growth grew to, I think, uh, 5,000 franchise locations faster than anybody’s ever done it even subway. So, uh, thanks for being on the show. Chuck Runyon

Chuck Runyon:
David it’s an honor to be here. Thanks. I, I can’t wait to talk about culture, employees, leadership, all that stuff. I love it.

David Horsager:
Well, it’s, it’s a treat. Let’s go back for a moment. I, we, we want to get into, and I think we do it faster than many podcasts takeaways and usable items and inspiration, but we, we do need to set it up here. You and Dave Mortenson started this, uh, way in kind of humble beginnings. Give us, give us just some insight into what that was like.

Chuck Runyon:
Yeah. So remember this is May, 2002. When we opened up our first, anytime fitness, we’re coming up here on our 20 year anniversary. And this is, you know, although the internet was there. I mean, this is the very first iPod came out. So if you think about technology and how pervasive it is today, it wasn’t, we didn’t have Facebook or smart phones or Instagram. So in completely different world. Um, and the technology we launched with was very, you know, revolutionary to the fitness industry, giving people 24 7 access to any club in the world. You know, at the time we didn’t have many, but it continued to grow. And so we were ahead of our time, um, the thought of like giving people access to up that sometimes wasn’t staffed. A lot of people didn’t think would work. Thankfully we had the courage to just continue on and we didn’t have much experience in franchising. So Dave and I are just constant lifelong learners and we’re okay to make mistakes. We know we don’t know everything. And, uh, here we are, you know, just trying to get better. One club, one franchisee, one community at a time. And we still think that way, you know, to us, it’s a balance of micro with macro. And, uh, here we are 5,000 locations and seven continents and still seven

David Horsager:
Continents. That’s right. Even Antarctica.

Chuck Runyon:
Yes, we are the, we are the first franchise brand history on all seven continents and the December right before COVID we were there planting the flag for time fitness and who would’ve known that, you know, two and a half months later, the entire world shut down. You know, it’s crazy.

David Horsager:
It’s just crazy. And yet, I mean, you talk about one of the industries, uh, you know, one of my best friends is CEO of a travel company that only specializes in group international airfare. I mean, you talk about a hit that was taken, but you know, other than that, and, and we can argue, everybody’s had it hard, no doubt about it, our healthcare friends, our emergency, our teachers. But I mean, the fitness industry took a wall up in as far as financially. Tell us a little bit about that at

Chuck Runyon:
Yeah, we were the first industry to close and the last to reopen and remember, 70% of the fitness industry are small business owners. Our global network is really a reflection of thousands of small business owners and, and the pandemic really hit small business owners, hard. They just don’t have the balance sheet or liquidity to, to necessarily survive something like this. So it has never, in 20 years, has our work been more important to support our franchise owners, helping them with royalty relief, rent, reductions, you know, making sure they can take advantage of every federal and state relief program out there. And quite frankly, providing the emotional support to get through this. So I’ve never been more proud of our team and how we’ve selflessly, uh, supported our owners through this. Um, we lost, you know, a lot less, uh, as a percentage of clubs than the industry did. And, you know, I, I really give credit to our team and the, the strength of this brand. And now that we’re on the other side of it, we’re just doing our best to help them bounce back quickly.

David Horsager:
And you’re almost at a hundred percent back.

Chuck Runyon:
Yes, we are. 99%. We were a hundred percent for about a two weeks. And then Hong Kong just shut down again. So we’re close. Uh, we we’ll get there soon.

David Horsager:
So, you know, we’re gonna jump around and that’s okay. It’s the way we do things, but I just want to go where I, my audience wants to go and they wanna listen and hear from you. But if we think about this, you know, some people call the great resignation. Certainly employees have more power than they’ve had in a long time, maybe ever in many ways, I know over at any time and in, uh, self-esteem brands, you have an employee value proposition, and then you have the employer value proposition. Of course we can think of the employer. What’s what are you gonna bring to the table? But the employee value proposition of what is it what’s gonna make unique? How am I gonna get the best talent? How am I gonna keep the best talent? What are are you doing? And how are you thinking about that these days?

Chuck Runyon:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And very top of mind for us right now, cause we are, we are modifying our employee value proposition as we get people back to work and think about this new hybrid environment. And, you know, to be clear, I actually love this, what I would call great resignation, this opportunity where employees have more leverage than ever before, because now, or you don’t have to work at a job. You don’t love. I mean, you, you are now for, for most, you know, knowledge workers. They can work anywhere for any company. They can pick a professional industry they’re curious about or passionate about, and they can go to work. And so I love that because I just think as an individual, you know, we devote half our waking hours to work. We should really like enjoy. We should be emotionally invested it in the work that we do.

Chuck Runyon:
And so I want people who love their work, and there’s no reason now to drive to a job that you don’t enjoy. So for an employee perspective, I love it for an employer. Look, we can now hire people from anywhere in the world too. And so now it’s, it’s no longer restricted to like our, you know, a commute time of say 45 minutes. You know, we can hire people from a different country. We can hire people from a different states. So look, it’s equal playing field and the best culture wins. So I’m quite confident in what, how we attract and retain our team with a high profile Orman’s culture with not just your traditional benefits, but a, a, a culture that really cares about their personal and professional growth. We’ve always for a long time invested in the whole self development of our team. And so we want our people getting healthier. We want them growing. We want them taking guitar lessons or doing marathons, or, you know, having a balanced life and making sure they’re coaching in little league with their kids. These are things we talk about. These are values. We care about when they are here. We want them to unlock their potential and we put money and time behind that. So I, you know, you know, go ahead. Yeah,

David Horsager:
You did that before. A lot of people did. And by the way, before all this I’ve been to your offices, I gotta say some of the best corporate offices and the nicest and the coolest. And of course there’s the fitness facility, but there’s a whole lot more, and it is a, just a beautiful, uh, place to work and to be together. Um, you know, we’re, we’re seeing some of the data where not everything virtual is it went up for a little bit, but actually there is some very, the data shows being together in person connecting, actually seeing each other still does matter in, in many ways. But what are the, some of the unique things you do to create this high trust, motivated culture? Um, what have you been doing? How are you, because we can say, I mean, the employees, I, I can hear some CEOs listening, saying, yeah, the employees have all the power now. They want to get paid more. I can’t pay that much more. They want to have, you know, free, uh, you know, a spread SOS at every break. I, I can’t do. I’m just trying to make this company work. They want to have every possible benefit that anybody has and it’s, it’s hard to do. So what are you doing that others could do to, to really create a, um, high performing culture?

Chuck Runyon:
Well, as you know, our four PS, what, what we center our culture on is what we call people, purpose, profits, and play, and think about those four components. I mean, we’re investing in our team. As I mentioned, that whole self development, helping them unlock their potential as both an individual, as well as a professional, um, purpose. We talk a lot about making sure they have a direct line of sight to how we impact people around the world. And again, our people are passionate about that. They care about improving lives, you know, profits, high performance. People want to be able to move the needle on metrics. They want autonomy. They want to know they’re impacting the company in, in many ways, and then play, you know, Dave and I are very intentional about making sure that our company feels that sense of play competitiveness, creativity, collaboration.

Chuck Runyon:
And so we are intentional about bringing those four P’s to life in our day to day environment with our team, whether we’re on zoom or whether we are in the office. And I think if we bring those four together, those are the four ingredients of a high performance team. And now we’re not perfect. You know, we’re not for everybody, but we also make no apologies for our culture and what we believe in and people either fit into that or they don’t. Um, and, uh, you know, again, we want to have fair pay will never be the highest we want to have great benefits, but you know, if you look at our full holistic and employee value prop, we are emotionally and physically and mentally engaging them at a deeper level than our competitors.

David Horsager:
So let’s, let’s go a little bit deeper on that, by the way, you, everybody can read more. I think I was one of the endorsers on the book. I loved it. Uh, love, work, love work, and it talks all about those four P’s and what you were doing way before the pandemic, which is why you’re bouncing back so fast, I think, but let’s talk about those specifically. Okay. We can say people, we, we can say probably we can say we’re into the individual and we allow them to play guitar lessons, but then when, when it’s time to work, it’s like, Hey, get off your guitar. We need this thing done. So what, what, what do we action let’s take and, and give me an actionable, under a couple of those of what do you do to actually show you focus on the people?

Chuck Runyon:
Well, you know, I just didn’t exercise where I ask every single employee in our organization to email me directly. We put together a survey is to, we, we have four pillars of work here, like, uh, you know, where we’re, we’re focused on. And I wanted to know the metrics they are prioritized on. And I wanted to know a very human story on the outcome of their work. And I gotta tell you, I loved it. It was an incredible exercise. I read hundred, I read every single employee response. And so it’s, we have an opportunity to prioritize more and make sure people have visibility to their business metrics and human impact. But I was quite proud of the business they were describing. And so, you know, we really look at this as a partnership. It’s like, how do they want to grow? How see the company improving, you know, at the end of the day, people just want to like weigh in with their point of view and their experience.

Chuck Runyon:
They want to know that they’re shaping this company and shaping the culture. So it’s very collaborative. You know, we, we kinda ask them, where can we help you grow? Where do you think you can help the company? So for us, you know, we try to be a company of leaders and, you know, we’re all we, he is asking people to weigh in to like, um, not be told what to do, but tell us what you think, ask why, I mean, shape it with us. And so I just think when people feel a part of that, they actually just feel part of the company. They, they feel part of the mission

David Horsager:
When they feel listened to and they get to be a part of the change. I think this is, you know, another one of our, uh, for Ren companies here in Minnesota, especially when they were number two to tar, uh, to Starbucks. One of the unique things about caribou coffee is they really were, and they still are coming back to it. I love what John butchers doing there right now, uh, as, as CEO of caribou. But they, uh, they really had a way a pathway for a frontline almost minimum way. J coffee barista, listen, listening to them. What do they think? That’s why if you have all the cool phrases that everybody’s ripped off, thanks a latte and all those kind of things. A lot of those great ideas came from the front line barista. Yep. It was 25 years old or 17 years old because they had a pathway, many, many companies, all their gold.

David Horsager:
They’re not listening to their gold on the front line. And so getting feedback because, and what, what does that do? It engages them because, Hey, look, I matter, I, that look at that, that thinks a lot. They think that’s on every napkin, look at that idea that I had at 17 years old or whatever it is. Right. So, um, very cool. What’s what’s is there just to drill deeper, any feedback you’ve taken from somebody out in the field that now is a part of the organization, it’s part of the culture, because you were listening to people, maybe one of your fitness, you know, one of, one of the, any times in Germany or whatever.

Chuck Runyon:
Oh, you know, franchisee feedback is a hallmark of successful franchise systems. And so we are constantly getting a feedback loop of, you know, how consumers are different. What we can do with the digital experience operational practices needed, uh, you know, reports needed. I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, our job is we have a flood of information coming at us from various stakeholders. We just need to help counter prioritize that. So again, we are, the feedback is so valuable, but we allow, because we’re in so many different countries, we allow this, what we call glocal like a global brand that has been localized. And so it’s our job to listen to franchise owners, our partners, and find out like, what modifications do we need to make to the brand in terms of colors and design and offering and services to now make it like valuable to the consumers. And so I think our entire job is about listening and then making those adaptations to, you know, make sure the brand is thriving in, in that marketplace. So, you know, if you visit at anytime fitness in Japan, you’ll know it’s at time fitness, but you’ll see some changes and color schemes or club design that are different than here.

David Horsager:
That’s funny. I think of that for even my first book trust edge, when it got put into J uh, Chinese, you know, you know, red, our color scheme stands for death in, in China. So it’s, uh, or Korea. So it’s, it’s, it’s blue. They had to change a whole color scheme to make it relevant there. Like, what does this mean there? So we had to think about that kind of thing. You know, one of the ways I see that you show, uh, or people show their commitment to you, and this is pretty cool. I wanna hear the story behind it. I I’ve been to your headquarters. Of course I’ve been a, uh, an anytime member. Um, but, uh, you know, what about that tattoo?

Chuck Runyon:
Yeah, we are the, I think the only corporate headquarters in the world that I know of that as a full time tattoo room now at our first annual conference in 2005, one of our franchise owners, this is in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota wanted to get the running man tattoo on his shoulder and he went and did it. And I’m like, dude, like you literally bleed purple. And ever since then, it’s gone viral within our network. And we have thousands of people, employees, members, franchisees, vendors, who’ve gotten, they personalize the, any time fitness running man tattoo on their skin. And now at our annual conferences and training events, we have like five tattoo artists giving tattoos and, and you know what it goes back to. It’s always like a very deep purpose. It’s never about, Hey, because we have more treadmills. We’re open 24 hours. It’s actually never, even because I made so much money with time fitness. It’s about life change. Like I change my life or I help someone change their life. It always trails back to purpose.

David Horsager:
The story is amazing. And I think that’s one of the things you notice when you come into your headquarters is I, Dave took me around for the first time, your co-founder and president. And just story after story of this was the change that happened to ask person. This was that person that got tattooed here. That’s the story. This is the story behind this. So, um, I think

Chuck Runyon:
I get goosebumps here almost every day, and I bet you, I get like a lump in my throat, like at least once a, a week or twice a week because of the stories that are going on in this network. It’s, it’s unbelievable.

David Horsager:
Well, what I love about you guys too, is you live it out. You both look and are fit and, and care about it. And so you work hard and you do all these things. I, I know lots of people that are even, even, uh, C-suite folks of health organizations that don’t look any like you’d want to be. Right. Um, so you, you guys seek to live that out on stage and off stage, go backwards for a moment with me because, you know, people don’t know it because there’s so many other gyms that do 24 hour now, and it caught on so big, but you, you were back in these early days, you had this kind of wacky idea, uh, you know, how did that even come to be?

Chuck Runyon:
We were working at, you know, Dave and I worked at larger clubs. We did consulting work. We actually owned some big clubs that we were taking over. And we realized the pain points, which is, you know, we had 40, 50,000 square foot clubs that were being underutilized. We, we understood the staffing pain points and we’re like, how do we allow members like to come in wherever they want and not have staffing? So quite honestly, we were trying to solve a problem of payroll and, and access for our members. And that’s why we came up with the idea for anytime fitness. I was traveling to a club we were working with down in Oklahoma and we were promoting it at the time and they were giving away like a hardware key, like a little key. And so I remember calling Dave and my partner at the time saying, guys, I like, this is the difference maker. Like, imagine if we could operationalize this scale, it, uh, with franchising. And that’s really how it started. And that conversation happened back in 2001. And then we just, you know, opened up our first one in 2002. And here we are.

David Horsager:
And how many have copied you?

Chuck Runyon:
Uh, a lot, but you know what, um, what we’ve done a better job is, is, you know, our franchisees are so passionate about their communities. We continue to layer on efficient services that are repeatable, and then we harness the passion they have for their people in their communities and their, in their job. And we just do that better than most.

David Horsager:
What about virtual? You guys, you pivoted, and I even saw a recent video about how you, you you’re even outta time coaching from coaching people in their own home. Right? Tell, tell me about that.

Chuck Runyon:
Yeah. So you mentioned fitness earlier. I mean, fitness is found in a health club. Health is found everywhere else. And so we’re really trying to be more holistic in our health services. We’re offering nutrition with the acquisition stronger. You, we have fitness, we have recovery. And so, you know, people are picking up their mobile phone now sixty, seventy, eighty times a day. It’s our job now is to help them live healthier behaviors, to get that recovery, get that sleep, eat better, move better outside the club. And so what I love about technology is we can be anytime, anywhere, anyone, and not just a bricks and mortar, but we can actually provide better services to our members to help them live a healthier life. And I, I love that opportunity.

David Horsager:
And are there some, is there a product now where you, you might not even go to the club, but you get a coach on eating and that kind of thing. Just tell me quick

Chuck Runyon:
About that. Cause

David Horsager:
That’s very innovative.

Chuck Runyon:
I, I look, we’re trying to what we say, democratize pro health coaching, you know, right now in, in, in medicine, you know, they’re either delaying, say in knee surgery or back surgery until someone loses weight, or they’re saying, look your three months from now, but you gotta go lose weight before we do that surgery. Where does that person go? And so we, we wanna offer some health coaching for people to like be preventative, you know, help with nutrition, help with fitness, just help live a healthier life. So you’re a hundred percent. I, I think your opportunity in the future is gonna be more about digital coaching and less reliant than ours and mortar experience.

David Horsager:
I wish I knew who I could quote. I, I read this just yesterday or this morning in a book I’m reading. And they quoted somebody and said, basically you’ve got a, uh, four rubber balls or excuse me, one, uh, one rubber ball in life and four glass balls. And your rubber ball is work. If you drop it once a, in a while, actually it’ll bounce back. But if you drop the glass ball of health, spiritual family, uh, or something else emotional or something like that, if you, you, it’s scarred, it’s scar, you drop your health one that’s scar. That’s gonna leave some damage. And those are all glass balls. And yet we often put most of our end energy and everything else into the work ball that would bounce back. In fact,

Chuck Runyon:
We tell our team here, um, don’t live to work, work, to live and same thing with your health. I mean, you, your health is just really it. Health is a power source. It’s either power giving source for power draining source. And at the end of the day, let, let it be a power giving source to, to, you know, fuel of your life. If you’re not, it’s draining from your life. So at the end of the day, you can’t have it either way. You’re not, you’re not just staying still. You’ve gotta give power giving.

David Horsager:
Well, as we, as we land the plane soon, I want to get to you personally. But before we do, I have one more question on the company. How, what are some of the ways, and we didn’t get talk about this much ahead of time, but I know you’ve done some things there just coming from first full circle around the company. What are some other things that leaders could do to attract and maintain people that are specific, uh, in this new world that we live in? How can we better attract and retain employees?

Chuck Runyon:
Um, you know, we are designing, as I mentioned, we are gonna be hybrid. You know, we want to make sure prior to the pandemic, we had unlimited personal time off. Um, we are actually going to go to no Fridays in, uh, the summer. So Memorial day through September, you know, you’re not expected to be on email. You’re not expected to work. Fridays are off. And, you know, especially being here in Minnesota, we know like, you know, to enjoy summer and enjoy time with your kids during the summer break is important. So we’re just recognizing that, you know, it’s not just pay our employees need, they need some time off. They need some forced balance. They need some guardrails or on like when they like, when you’re off for the weekend, you’re off for the weekend. I mean, at the end of the day, we don’t expect you to respond an email Saturday and Sunday.

Chuck Runyon:
So, you know, what we’re saying is, look, we expect high performance outta you, but we don’t own your Saturdays and Sundays. And so what I think people want is they want purposeful work. They wanna be paired, uh, uh, paid fairly, but they also wanna like optimize both home life and their, their business life. And so we’re trying to help ’em do that. Cuz otherwise if we’re, if we constantly encroach on their life seven days a week, they’re gonna be burnt out and they’re gonna get resentful. So we, we’re almost forcing them to say, look, do not engage with work during these days of the week.

David Horsager:
Hmm. Amazing. Powerful. Well, let’s go to purse, Chuck. You know, what I’ve noticed about great leaders is they have some habits themselves that keep them healthy and it might be fitness. It might be spiritual. It might be family, but what are some of your habits that, I mean, at least we say around here all the time, if you’re gonna lead others, you gotta work at leading yourself and totally imperfectly. But how are you leading yourself? What are some of your daily routines that keep you healthy? Uh, in some of those core ways?

Chuck Runyon:
Well, you know, my glass balls, if I think about how, you know, if we think about ourselves as like an operating system, like what keeps our algorithms right? Working at high level, first of all, I’m a, I’m a seven hours a night sleep guy. I’ll take eight, you know, but at the end of the day I need, I need seven hours of sleep consistently. I need to work out almost every day and it’s gotta be a decent intensity. Right. And those two things manage my mood, my energy, my stress, it, mental acuity. I mean sleep and, and physical fitness are linked directly to mental acuity. So there’s no way, and I’m not that smart in the first place. So I need all the help I can get. Right. So those two things are big. I I’m a bit of an ambivert, which means I need a little bit of alone time.

Chuck Runyon:
I need to close my office door and I need time to read, write, or just think, um, I, you know, and I to recharge, I don’t, I don’t charge up around people. I need to charge up alone. And then it’s, it’s about, uh, you know, the people I work with, you know, as a leader, remember we get to draft and select our own team. So hopefully I like really enjoy these people. And then I’m invigorated by our work cuz everything we do helps people. So now in a mix of that throughout the week, I’m with family, I’m with friends, um, you know, I’m doing things on my hobbies. I’m doing things that I enjoy, but without a doubt, what are a couple hobbies? What’s that?

David Horsager:
What are a couple hobbies,

Chuck Runyon:
Uh, tequila drinking that helps too. Um, you and Dave, absolutely. Right. You know, I, as, uh, as I said, I’m a lifelong Minnesota. I have a cabin in Northern Minnesota. I still get up there 30 to 45 days, uh, a week. In fact I’m going there this weekend. I love it in the winter. I love it this summer. So to me, cabin is a massive opportunity to like recharge and get out in nature and get that sunshine and be on a boat. So I love the cabin. I love golf. And then, uh, you know, just working out, those are probably the three things I do the most.

David Horsager:
What’s your workout? What, what’s your common workout? You go in, what do you do? A normal day of workout and Chuck.

Chuck Runyon:
So one of our, one of our brands is base camp fitness. It’s a 35 minute hit, high intensity and herbal training. I love that thing cuz I can shut my, like my brain shuts off. I’m not checking my phone and I’m just going after it cuz it’s a group led by an instructor and that baby is still, I think the best workout in the industry and it pushes me harder than I push myself. And I need that. And

David Horsager:
Is that, is that one of the ones you can do from anywhere? Is that through video? How does that work? No,

Chuck Runyon:
You can do we have a, it’s a studio experience in a bricks and mortar. We do offer virtual, but, but this is just me now as a consumer, I push myself harder in a group environment, uh, than I do at home and I just, so I just prefer to drive the studio. So to me, that’s number one. And then number two, I go to, uh, anytime fitness and do strength training. As you get older, you gotta watch your decline and, and uh, lean muscle mass. And so it’s important for all of us that every Regener and every age to continue with some strength training. So those are the two big things I do the most often.

David Horsager:
When do you do the quiet time read, write, think like, do you have a consistent time? Like that’s always first thing in the morning. It’s after lunch. It’s

Chuck Runyon:
Always first thing in the morning. Uh, when I wake up a cup of coffee and I get caught up on the world, you know, I’ll read some of the news, I love Twitter for articles. I’ll catch up on things. And then usually right when I get in, I’ll grab my coffee too. Just make sure my day is set. So to me it’s that morning time, which really sets me up for a good day.

David Horsager:
Hmm. Love it. What are you learning now? What’s the what’s what’s what’s the big, what are you curious about right now?

Chuck Runyon:
Uh, everything digital. Um, and so we are trying to be, you know, we were born in 2002, right? So not really a digital native company. And so we’re an analog company trying to become, we’re trying to think digital first. So if you think about our future, based on digital engagement and data, you know, we, we call ourselves like rich dad, poor dad, right? Digital analytics and data. And so at the end of the day, I’m trying to learn as much as I can to help us lean first with digital.

David Horsager:
What, what does se brands look like in five years?

Chuck Runyon:
That’s a great question. Uh, we will have, uh, you know, 6,000 locations around the world and we will have far deeper engagement regularly with our consumers around the world in a digital way. And so those services will allow them to see better behaviors and outcomes. And where I want to get two is I want to be consumer health outcome first. So at the end of the day, let’s prove it. I mean, if you join one of our brands, we are gonna show you that you’re living healthier behaviors and we’re gonna quantify your outcome and we’re gonna collect that data to help you live a healthier life and coach you and nudge you along the way.

David Horsager:
Love it. Well, you got an amazing family. We both, both have four kids. You got an amazing wife. Tell me what you, what do you do to keep that home front strong?

Chuck Runyon:
You know, my kids are in age where they’re 15 to 23 years of age. Um, they are very active. They are very busy. Uh they’re in academics. And so at the end of it, you know, you just want to make sure you’re engaging with them. Um, I’m trying to attend all their games. Um, my son just opened up one of our base camp Fitnesses. He’s a franchisee within our, our network. Again, he chose to do that. I did not push him and my daughter’s studying abroad. So it’s just a wonderful time in life that they are going through. And we’re just trying to like enjoy the moment. You know, it’s only a few, my son, who’s 15, it’s only a few more years between they’re gonna be adults and going on. So we’re just trying to soak in all those little opportunities you have to like, they’re still kids.

David Horsager:
Yeah. And you got a daughter that needs to play, play basketball. Is it tonight for,

Chuck Runyon:
At the end of the basketball season, second finals, a huge game. And she’s having all wonderful season. It’s been, that’s been one of the joys of parenthood is coaching and watching my kids play sports

David Horsager:
Really fun. Very cool. Hey, one last piece of advice or recommendation of a book or, or, uh, resource for, uh, for those listening today.

Chuck Runyon:
Well, I’m not, uh, kissing up here. I love the work you’ve done. We have a, an acronym, which you’ve probably heard from Dave that we use at the corporate office. All of our breadcrumbs of problems come down to cats. And this is an acronym we use here all the time, like communication, alignment or trust. So if somehow we pick a strategy and we’ve got tactics, we put resources and you know, we check in three months later and it’s not going well. We’re like, all right, where did we fail to communicate the objectives? You know, what’s going on here? Where did the breakdown happen? Where are we not aligned strategically or culturally cuz strategically we could be aligned. But culturally, like if we’re dealing with our Japan, masters is a culture issue. Like is it are teams just not getting along like, like align, do we have aligned objectives? And do we agree on those and then trust. So that’s what I think I’m excited to get people back to work here, David cuz like the hybrid environment, zoom is great, but great teams run on trust and you can build that faster in person, all the verbal nonverbal, the caring. And so our cap, our communication.

David Horsager:
Are you listening? Kent? All right. He’ll we’ll just cut that. Maybe he’ll come back. We’re just about done. See if he can pop back in quick to wrap.

Speaker 3:
Yeah, let me see all the way

David Horsager:
I’m

Chuck Runyon:
Not hello. I’m

David Horsager:
Not sure what, Hey, I never had that happen before. Sorry. Yeah, that was good. So, uh, he’ll he, you know, that’s a good thing. He’s got everything he can edit and cut up and everything. So basically he’ll cut all, all that out, but it was really interesting. We got this. Have you said C a T? You said us, but then you just saying our cat. So just

Chuck Runyon:
Start wherever you want. Yeah. Our cat is going to improve as we come back in this hybrid environment. Even if we’re getting people in here two to three times a week, our in-person teamwork, our being a high performance team because of the communication alignment truck is, is gonna continue to be the hallmark of our, of our growth going forward and what we’ve been leaving. So, and I know that is everything about what you teach. And uh, so I’ve been to one of your seminars. There’s one coming up here in April. I’m gonna, we’re gonna send portion to our team there cuz without trust you, you cannot have high performance. And so those three things are what we talk about here all the time.

David Horsager:
Yeah. Well we love what you do and we love your, your pre presence around the world. But your presence here in the twin cities in Minneapolis St Paul you’re, uh, you and your founder are just amazing humans. And uh, we’ve just enjoyed the friendship, but also just the light you’re shining and, and really an example of building a high performing culture on trust, the four PS, which you talk about in the book, everybody that needs to know it, love work is the book. And we’re gonna put that in the show notes. We’ll put all the other inform information in the show notes, how you can find what anytime, what CE brands, what are se brands and, uh, what Chuck’s up to. But where’s the number one place they could find out about you Chuck,

Chuck Runyon:
Uh, either our website self-esteem brand.com, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, any of those

David Horsager:
Self-esteem brands.com and we’ll put all the links to Chuck and uh, all of his social media, other places. This is the last question we ask everybody only one question. This is it, Chuck uhoh. It is, uh, so trust the leader show, who is a leader you trust and why?

Chuck Runyon:
Oh wow. That’s a wonderful question. Um, our, our board member is the CEO of Sephora and he used to work at Starbucks and McDonald or Nike and burger king. And, uh, man, we got lucky with this guy. He is fantastic and him and I talk frequently and I really try Tim admire him. He’s smart as hack.

David Horsager:
All right, thanks so much for that, Chuck, thank you once again for just, uh, this time for sharing with our audience. Thanks. Most of all for being my friend and uh, just the light you’re shining. This has been the trusted leader show until next time. Stay trusted.