How Leaders Can Help Their Teams Build a Life They Love with Mike McFall

58. How Leaders Can Help Their Teams Build a Life They Love with Mike McFall

“You need to build an environment that is nurturing and supportive of the individual working in that environment.”

—Mike McFall

BIGGBY® COFFEE

Podcast Transcription

Hello. I’m Michael Kurland, CEO and co-founder of Branded Group, an award winning facility, maintenance and construction management company that services multi-site commercial properties such as retail restaurants, health care facilities and educational institutions. Welcome to the BeBetter podcast. Each week, I interview thought leaders from a variety of industries who will share their stories and the lessons they learn as they strive to be better for their clients, partners, employees and their community. Are you ready to be better?

Michael Kurland: Hello and welcome to another episode of the BeBetter podcast. I’m your host Michael Kurland. Joining me today is Mike McFall, Co-CEO, Co-Founder, Code Visionary of Biggby Coffee. Mike, welcome to the show.

Michael McFall: Thanks, Michael, it’s great to be here.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, we’re super excited to have you here. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do and your organization, your story and all that good stuff?

Michael McFall: Yeah, sure. You know, my day job is the Co-CEO, Co-founder of BIGGBY Coffee. We are a retail chain of coffee shops under the franchise business model. We’re based out of East Lansing, Michigan, and we’re doing that for a long time. We’ve been at it 26 years. So, you know, we’re having a really good moment right now in our business, and we have a lot of growth going on and some real innovation occurring, which is amazing. You know, I did start as a barista and our very first store worked, you know, open till 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. And I was at that point, I was in the process of preparing to go back to graduate school. I was working on a very specific research project at the university in East Lansing. And, you know, it was going to get published on some papers and, you know, just getting ready to apply to go back to school. And frankly, you know, two things happened. One, I fell in love with the coffee business. I fell in love with going to work in the morning. And I love the concept of making people happy. I mean, it was like the greatest gift in the world was to have somebody walk in in the morning and, you know, you could tell they were a little sluggish and, you know, barely awake and maybe not looking forward to their day and just being able to engage them in a way that they walked out with a little more energy and you could tell you had a positive influence on them. I attribute that to why I am in the business today. And then, you know, the other thing that I sensed was a real opportunity in coffee. I mean, this was back in 1996, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this thing was coming at us and so the gentleman that owned our first store, I partnered with him. We set up a new entity and then, you know, with that entity, we decided to franchise the business. And so we’ve been working hard at that ever since and we became legal to franchise in January of 1999. And you know, the business model itself is really unique and interesting. And, you know, franchising planning sometimes has some somewhat of a negative connotation in certain circles, you know, but I’ll tell you to me, it’s a remarkable business model. And yeah, I wouldn’t want to do it any other way at this point. You know, I think that the biggest thing that’s happened to us in the last five years is that we worked really, really hard and we brought in an outside coach to help us work on purpose inside of our organization. And it sounds crazy, but we spent over two years on that with him. But we came out of that with something that really aligned well with us and also with our business model, which our purpose is to support you in building a life that you love and that you pertains to anybody we come in contact with, whether it’s a customer, a barista working in one of our stores, hopefully, people listen to this podcast. You know, the idea is that we’re here to support you, whoever you are in building your life that you love. And it’s really been a powerful thing for us.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, thank you. That was a great intro. And you know, I got a lot to unpack with that. First, I want to ask this, and I hope you don’t mind sharing this story. Like how do you go from a barista on a walk in the park with the founder of the coffee company to like Co-CEO Co-owner in a conversation? How did that conversation go?

Michael McFall: Well, we had one store at that point and he had developed that store and he wanted to grow the business. And so the story goes that we sat down in a sort of traditional type interview environment where he was going to interview me about becoming a manager for his second store that he was opening. And result of that was we popped up, it was a beautiful spring day, we popped up and went for a long walk around East Lansing, you know, three and a half, four hours and the end of that, we shook hands and agreed that we wanted to partner and that we wanted to develop the brand, develop the concept BIGGBY coffee together. And we didn’t form that company for another 15 months after that conversation, but we shook hands and that was it. And the next day I went to the university and I was working there on a research project, and I resigned from that position and I just went full on into managing this business and helping grow this business. We were equal partners and, you know, at some point, I don’t even know what year it was, probably, I don’t know, 2013 we agreed that, you know, we were both managing the business. And so that’s why we took on the title Co-CEO and we’d always work together 50/50. So it was no real transition in terms of what we were doing or how we were doing it. And it was, we didn’t announce it, we didn’t make any big splash about it. We just did it. And you know, over time, it just became what it was.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s amazing. You obviously have a way with words too, you know, and you obviously knew, like you said, you saw coffee coming. So let me ask you that, you mentioned when you were in your intro, you saw that it was coming at you fast. What did you mean by that is that the coffee industry was about to explode?

Michael McFall: Well, the growth rates in specialty coffee were dramatic. And so there is an enormous percentage of the population that was transitioning from Maxwell House, Folgers, McDonald’s coffee to a more premium product, and it was happening in a lot of different products at that time. It was happening in bread, it was happening in beer, right? So coffee wasn’t the only industry that this concept landed and Starbucks was rolling out from Seattle to Chicago. And they were having a very successful rollout in Chicago. And so that’s what I mean, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there was going to be a lot of growth in coffee. The other piece of it, though, was, you know, I had insight into our concept and I knew that my business partner, Bob Fish, was doing things very, very differently in coffee than anybody else. And I also saw that as a real big opportunity. He was a restaurateur. He ran high volume restaurants before getting into the coffee business, and so he knew how to organize a kitchen. He knew about operational flow. He studied that stuff. He was very, very good at it. And so, you know, that made our concept different. And it’s still one of the things that we lean on today, 26 years later that makes us better is that the operational mechanism that we run day to day is more efficient.

Michael Kurland: I love it. I love how you snuck in the better right there on the BeBetter podcast. Thank you, Mike. So I mean, you obviously had the foresight you had the ability to, you know, see this coming like you said, and walk away from, you know, a research project, which I’m sure that that was like a huge hard right or left however you want to look at it in your life, but you obviously felt passionate about it. And 26 years later, you definitely made the right call.

Michael McFall: I do wonder, you know, I mean, I’m in the middle of book projects and I teach now at the university here in Ann Arbor and, you know, I think I was always meant to do that. And you know, that project that was on was really cool, and I was most likely going to be able to handpick my graduate school. So the opportunity cost of that decision was pretty significant. And, you know, looking back on it now, you know, yeah, it worked out. It worked out and my life is truly amazing. But I don’t know, like, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had stayed on that path.

Michael Kurland: Well, you came full circle and like you said, you’re teaching over at Ann Arbor, which I’ve been to a lovely campus and never been to Lansing, however. But yeah, so talk to me. You segue perfectly, you’re just like, teeing things up for me easily. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate you doing my job. Let’s talk about your books here. You know you’ve written one and you’re about to finish up a second one. So what was your first book about in the title, tell the audience and then let’s get into the segment a little bit.

Michael McFall: Yeah, thanks. Many moons ago, I had this project I wanted to write, which was I wanted to write about business development in the development of an organization. When I was doing it right, I didn’t want to wait until I was 75 years old. Looking back, you know, through rose colored glasses. And so that was really the premise of this project was, Hey, let me kind of document this thing, right? Let me document how this is going and try to bring some insight. And, you know, so most books, let me first say my the first book that I wrote that came out in 2018 is called Grind, and it’s written about business startup, it’s meant to be from the first day you commit to your new business to your first day of positive cash flow.

Michael Kurland: And so hold on one second, Mike. It’s called grind. What’s the rest of the title?

Michael McFall: It’s a no bullshit approach to take your business from concept to cash.

Michael Kurland: Come on, you asked if there was swearing on this podcast, let’s get that out of the way there.

Michael McFall: Yeah, and so, you know, the idea behind this book was, I bet, a lot of reading in the ADM space. And they’re basically entrepreneurial. Books are written by two people, two types of people, and that is academics. And then, you know, people that are over it and are, you know, I like to say, flying around on their private jets, looking back through rose colored glasses, writing, and so those books are entertaining, and I love to read about their stories, but you’re really getting a very glossy version of this story. And then academics do really important work. And but oftentimes it’s not that applicable to what’s going on for me and my business today. So I wanted to write a book that was written from the perspective of somebody that’s in it. And, you know, my business model is supporting people and building businesses. And so I get to see a lot of stuff that occurs when people are developing a business, things that work, things that don’t work, attitudes and mentality. And so that’s why I wrote book one. And you know, the first chapter of book one is something that I’ve never seen done in the world before, which is I talk about how as we start a business, we all do an enormous amount of due diligence and we study all kinds of different things. We said to study pricing models who study market share. You know, we study contracts. We, you know, write business plans, do operating agreements and so on. The one piece of due diligence I’ve never heard anybody doing is doing due diligence on yourself as the entrepreneur. And I believe most anyone can be a successful entrepreneur. So this isn’t about whether you can do it or not. What it’s about is evaluating yourself and figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are. So when you go into the business, you know where you need to supplement in, you know what areas might get in your way as an entrepreneur. And so that’s the concept. I did something called the Grind score, and it’s online. It’s a website where you go in and answer 24 questions and I’ll give you your propensity to be successful as an entrepreneur. And then it’s cool. And if you want to give me your email, I’ll give you a detailed analysis of your answers. And there’s a little video clip that goes with each question describing my take on that question. So that’s book one.

Michael Kurland: What’s the website for that? Can we share that?

Michael McFall: Yeah, sure. It’s called the Grind Score.

Michael McFall: Well, let’s say you’ll send me an email, right? So that was book one. And I enjoyed writing it. It was for me, you know, I’m really through that stage of my business, there’s no doubt. But then I wanted to get into, OK, well, what’s next? You know, you’ve got your first day cash flow. It looks like the business is going to work. And so how do we go from cash flowing your first day cash flow to sustainability? And that’s what we’re all striving for is sustainability. And how I’m defining sustainability is that you, as the entrepreneur, could get run over by a bus tomorrow and the business would continue to thrive even if you’re gone. And to me, that’s the definition of sustainability. So that’s book two. I’m super excited to get that one out. That’ll come out either late summer or early fall this year. We’ll have to see how much the editor wants to engage, which is probably a lot, right? But anyway, book two will come out and that’s it’s really a book on business management and how to approach, you know, it’s a you go through a transition as an entrepreneur. I mean, when you hit your first day of cash flow, you’re still bootstrapped and you’re still doing almost everything. You’re in the middle of just about anything that happens day to day in the business and then you’ve got to go through and transition all the way to the other side of that, which is sort of irrelevant to the day to day operations of the business. And you could get run over by a bus and the team would be able to carry the business forward. So it’s a really big transition and most entrepreneurs struggle to make that transition.

Michael Kurland: And again, thank you for going into that. I can tell you from my personal experience that was the hardest part for me because I am. I’m the visionary. My business partner, Jon, is the operator. He came in about two and a half years after I had done the grind, got everything up and running. You know, some of it well, some of it not so well. And then he took over things. I didn’t do well and I started losing purpose. I started feeling like, I, you know, I’m lazy. Am I not contributing enough, like, what am I doing here? And my ego got really bruised and we started fighting a lot, and in retrospect, I won’t put on my rose colored glasses. It caused a lot of issues because I couldn’t, he came in and his ego got inflated because he felt like he saved the business. Not that we were on the verge of, like ever losing to this, but he turned the business around. And I step back and I’m like, Wow, I could not handle these portions of the business correctly. And now, you know, we’re like two brothers and it’s great. But you know, there was a good six month period where I walked into a room and I saw him. It took everything I had, and that’s when it was not hit him in the mouth.

Michael McFall: So well, I’ll tell you, you know, the thing that that gets in people’s way and it’s so hard to think about this if you’re not in it, but when you bring people on board, it sounds to me like this is what happened for you as you bring people on board and they start doing the job and they may be doing it differently than you would, and it might not work perfectly, just like how you were going to do it might not have worked perfectly. But when it doesn’t work perfectly and somebody else is doing it, you can, you know, it’s hard to let that happen. Right? It’s hard to let somebody else take control, take control of things and start to do their own, you know, work their own way and then not intervene. Right? Like that is a really hard thing to do, and I still live it today. There’s no doubt in, you know, I’m pretty deep into this process.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, I can tell you there was a good time during that six month process that we were going through. I pretty much intervened every day and I would just be like, can you just let me do my job? And I was like, you know that that makes sense. I should just let you do your job. You don’t interfere with sales. So let me get out of your way. And that shifted everything. And that got us to cash flow. And then where we’ve gone since cash flow is now like, I mean, I’m honestly working less hours now than I’ve ever in my life. I’m loving it. That’s it. Echo your sentiments. I am living a very blessed life and I’m very happy and now I have free time to do this podcast and work on my book. So, yes, definitely understand where we’re at with that. So you mentioned pre-show, we were talking about building, supporting and nurturing concepts in the environments in the workplace. Let’s talk a little bit about that because you were super passionate about that. So tell the audience your thoughts on that.

Michael McFall: Well, I mean all of this is in book two and I’m in the middle of that right now. But as leaders, what’s just really critical is that we and this is so pertinent today around the Great Resignation and why people are jumping from one company to another that you know you need to build an environment that is nurturing and supportive of the individual working in that environment. And I think that what we need to do is we need to invest in people before they invest in us, and that’s backwards thinking from a traditional perspective. Traditionally, you expected them to be loyal to you because you wrote them a check that, by the way, they could get pretty much anywhere else in the world. But because you’re writing them a check to show up and do a job, you expected loyalty. You expect their best efforts, you expect them to show up every day and have a good attitude and so on and so forth. Well, you know, I think that there’s a lot of fallacy in all that. And so what I advocate is as the employer, as the manager, you have to invest in them first and then you build trust. And with that trust, you end up in a place where they will commit to you. They will be loyal, they will want to work hard, to bring their best stuff every day and so on. And so I, you know, I think that in so many ways, the world is changing and you know, we need to be approaching our people from the perspective that, you know, I love the idea of when you think about your employees, they’re somebody’s child. And what would it be, you know, if that was your child? 24 years old coming out of college, maybe it’s my first job. How would you want them to be treated? What kind of environment would you want your child to be in? And shouldn’t we all be creating those environments where we’re investing deeply in people? And, you know, in our organization, we do quite a few different things to try to make this happen. I mean, one thing that we do is we have individualized coaching for every employee and they get an hour a month with a dedicated coach that works with them. And it isn’t about making them better at their task or their job. It’s life coaching, and it’s about supporting them and building a life that they love, helping them figure out their passions, pursuing their passions and so on. And people leave. Frankly, if you believe based on the fact that they decide that they want to open a cupcake shop or, you know, they want to move to Denver and in Skidmore or whatever it might be. And so we do lose people around that. And I think from a more traditional perspective, it would be heresy here. You’re piling resources into somebody and then and then you support them leaving and doing something else. But the long run on that is that when somebody goes through a process and we’ve got processes in place to help people walk through this idea of understanding and pursuing their passions and building a life that they love when they go through all of that and they get to the end of that in BIGGBY Coffee is a part of a life that they love and that they want to be there and they are an integral part of their life and so on. And they deliberately decided that that person is a superhero, right? They’re just incredibly dedicated to their position, their job, the people they work with and so on. And so this concept of building a supportive and nurturing environment for the people that work for you. I think good managers throughout history have always done this right. You think back and you got managers that you think are awesome and you got managers that you just couldn’t stand working for. I bet you go back and you understand the managers that were awesome and you think about them. I think this is the stuff great managers have been doing forever.

Michael Kurland: Yeah. Wow. I mean, I just want to go back to you. You give an hour a month of coaching to every one of your employees. I love that. That’s so forward thinking and especially with everything that’s going on right now. And you know, do you know if they want to leave and go be a ski bum or, you know, they’ve got some negative conditions, they want to leave and go be a skier? That’s, you know, that’s their dream and you support it, you live what you say, support you in building the life you love, right? But if they, like your point, stick around, it’s because they actually really love BIGGBY Coffee and they aren’t going anywhere. So you’ve just created this place for them to be themselves and kind of, you know, grow into that grow into that loyalty. Loyalty doesn’t come from a check anymore. To your point, I really like that. And I think to your point as well, when I left to start Branded Group and we wanted to be better. And the reason we wanted to be better is because of exactly what you just said. And I’ve never actually been able to connect those dots before. But there was management. There were two managers, two big managers overarching in my previous company and one managed by fear. He was whipping. You know, he would whip. He was like riding his horses until they would die. And I did not get along with him. And then we had another guy who just managed, you know, with letting people play on their strengths and then didn’t maybe focus so much on their weaknesses and gave the weaknesses to other people that were strong in that aspect. And I learned so much from that. And that’s why, you know, we’ve put that in the place, that Branded Group. So anyway, I’m digressing here.

Michael McFall: But that’s exactly what I’m talking about, right? Like, you know, and you know, another thing that we do in our organization is for every five months or I’m sorry, every five years you work with us, you get a three month paid sabbatical. So every five years we will have to take all your Biggby technology and hand it in so your computer, your phone. We change all your passwords so you can’t physically work anymore. And then you have three months to pursue anything.

Michael Kurland: Do what you want.

Michael McFall: Yeah, and that’s, I mean, it’s awesome. I’m actually taking my sabbatical this May for the first time.

Michael Kurland: So where are you going?

Michael McFall: I’m going to stay here in Ann Arbor, but I’m going to write my third book. That’s the idea.

Michael Kurland: And what’s the third book going to be about?

Michael McFall: It’s going to be called Grace. And the premise is that, OK, so now you have a sustainable operation, sustainable business. You know, by definition, you’ve got resources, meaning you have people, you probably have pretty significant wealth. And so now what? The end game is not, you know, a third house in Florida and a private jet. That’s not the end game. The end game is how do you improve the human condition? How do you take what you have and you’ve built so successfully and apply that to improving what’s going on in the world? And to me, that’s leadership. And that’s the premise of the third book: let’s transition our thinking and leadership to it isn’t just about building an organization and getting rich that that isn’t. I mean, to me, that’s not leadership. Leadership is your great build. That’s awesome. And hats off to anybody that can do that. But then what’s it all for, right?

Michael Kurland: And I’m aligning with what you’re saying, so tell me like, what does that mean to you? Like, what do you want to do to create a better humankind support for the life that the people live, that you want to help?

Michael McFall: Permission to go a little out there.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, well, I mean, yes, we go out there.

Michael McFall: So here’s the theory premise that we’re working under, that the leading cause of death in the United States is chronic disease. Right? The leading cause of chronic disease is stress and anxiety, right?

Michael Kurland: And lack of sleep. Yep.

Michael McFall: The leading cause of stress and anxiety is but one financial to workplace. So we believe there’s a direct correlation between workplace culture and the leading cause of death in the United States 100 percent. And if we, you know, if we can take an influence from the world in some way where workplace cultures can improve, become supportive and nurturing. When you leave work at night, you go home invigorated. You probably don’t go to, you know, the first step in the door, go to the bar and pour yourself a drink. You probably don’t go grab a gummy, right? Your conversation at the dinner table is probably significantly better with your spouse and your children. And so what we’re up to is to improve workplace culture in the United States and really take on the fact that the workplace has a dramatic impact on people’s daily lives, and we want to change that.

Michael Kurland: Agreed so much we spend more time in-office than we do at home with our families now. You know, I’m sure for you guys, you have to obviously provide in-person service to say they’re still going to the coffee shop. But for us, we all work from home now. Granted, you know, how can we make that a better place? And we actually just finished our wellness survey because we do it every year, and it was eye opening this year of the things that the people wanted and that we’re going to make changes on.

Michael McFall: What were the results? I mean, has it improved?

Michael Kurland: It’s shifted, right? Because we went from being in this office 40 hours, if you were lucky, a week from March 2020. And now we haven’t been back since. So this is a really, you know, first survey after a full year of not freaking out about the pandemic as much and still kind of settling into the new routines. So it’s been eye opening. People still want to go to the gym, but what does the gym mean anymore? Like, are you going to a big-box retail location or your home gym? And like, we offer gym reimbursement. But does that gym reimbursement only count if you go to said big box? No. So we have to rethink all these things. So we’re like, we’ve got a bunch of Pelotoners that I know myself included and they want to get credit for their Peloton, you know, riding the Peloton because their subscription is about the same as a gym membership, right? So these are kind of like nuances of the new way we’re thinking, but it’s been eye opening, and I literally haven’t even got a chance to push through all the results yet. But I can tell you, like, they’re different that I can tell you starkly different than any year we’ve ever done it before.

Michael McFall: It’s going to be fascinating to look at. That’s going to be really fascinating.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, totally. So I’m excited to dig into that and I love everything you guys stand for and what you talk about. Like, I thought I was doing culture well, but you just schooled me on a few things here, and clearly, you know, you’re 100 percent right. And I don’t think, I mean, I’ve never put all those in a blockchain right where, you know, the chronic disease of stress and financials and it starts in the workplace, right? But it’s so simple. So I love what you’re doing. So what do you think you can do? How do you think you can affect the change besides just the culture? What are some ideas if you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear them.

Michael McFall: I mean, it’s been a real journey. I mean, we’ve been at it now three years and we’re learning a lot. And one of the things that we learned just recently is that there’s a, I forget her name, but there’s a researcher at Harvard that talks about that. A lot of research around signal antennas. Right. So you send a signal. But if it doesn’t match up with the frequencies in the antenna, it doesn’t matter what you’re saying, they can’t hear you. And so what we were finding is that we were approaching people from a different language, a different perspective that wasn’t matching up with their antennas. And we’ve just realized this in the last probably 30-60 days. And so some of the things that we’re doing, we have a full curriculum built out. It’s called The Life You Love curriculum. It’s four classes, and anybody that works in our organization can go through them for free. And they really address some fundamental issues in relation to, you know, kind of what we think people should be. Have a good foundation built, right, and so, you know, one is personal vitality, right? I mean, are you a vital person like if you’re not, if you don’t have vitality, then it’s going to be difficult to pursue a life that you love. And so you know, that can be physical, that can be emotional, that could be spiritual. You know, there’s a lot of different forms of vitality, but you know, and that’s a good example. People are like vitality, what? So we’ve been working on that. You know, another foundation is knowing who you want to be. And that’s a whole course envisioning that I think should be a mandatory curriculum in every high school in America.

Michael Kurland: That’s how to be financially sound as well. I mean, I don’t know how we will go.

Michael McFall: Well, that’s the next one, which is cool being able to. Yeah, the third one is exceeding your basic needs, which is all financial. Right? Financial planning and how to save and how to think about money from a different perspective. And then the last one is having a sense of belonging, and that is you. Everybody needs their tribe, right? Everybody needs their people. And so those are the four classes that we’ve developed. They’re pretty awesome. And we get a lot of great feedback from people on that. And that’s one of the things that we’re doing. We’re pursuing it. You know, my book project is a lot about this concept, right? So, you know, that’s a big part of what I’m doing is bringing I hope this content into the world and in a in a conversation and in a way that leaders can understand it and not be put off by it in that that they can accept the rationale and that the theories behind it, you know. And so I’m learning better how to communicate so I don’t put people off. I’ve definitely had my days where people are like, Dude, whatever man, you get lost. You know, like, it’s one of the theories on how familiar with something called conscious capitalism. But it’s one of the things that I struggle with conscious capitalism about this guy. Go talk to people about conscious capitalism.

Michael Kurland: You know that I am a member of the L.A. chapter. I’m actually trying to start the Orange County chapter, and that book is part of what inspired my journey in the blog mafia. So yes, I do know conscious capitalism very well.

Michael McFall: Yeah. Cool. So, that’s what I mean, that’s what we’re up to. There’s all kinds of other details, but the big things are this curriculum and then some of our policies internally like sabbatical.

Michael Kurland: Yeah, I mean, I love it. I can’t, you know, I’m trying to wrap my head around how we can give a sabbatical to our employees. I don’t know if we could make it work for three months, but you know, it’s not a bad idea. It’s not that idea at all. I’m sure that it goes by in a split second.

Michael McFall: It’s remarkable. Somebody leaves and you’re like, I can’t imagine what we’re going to do for three months without this person.

Michael Kurland: And then you’re like, Oh, you’re so cool.

Michael McFall: And it’s really a powerful thing.

Michael Kurland: It is. It’s life changing. That’s life changing. You say, Hey, you worked for me for five years. I mean, obviously, it inspires loyalty and other things, but you get to go on the sabbatical and you do whatever you want. You can write a book about sailing around the world, which you’ve done. So yeah, that’s awesome. Well, listen, Mike, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. It’s been great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. If the audience wants to get a hold of you, how can they do so?

Michael McFall: You know, I think the most efficient way is LinkedIn with this reach out to me on LinkedIn. You know, there’s other social media platforms and so on, but that’s the one I actually kind of pay attention to. And so LinkedIn and then my email is Mike at Biggby dot com. It’s B I two G’s B as in Boy Wired.com. And that’s also a pretty efficient way to get a hold of me. And you know, if you want to engage me, that’s what I do. This is what I work on, day in and day out, and I love talking about it.

Michael Kurland: All right. Well, it’s been great, Mike and the audience until next time.

Michael Kurland: Thank you for tuning in. I hope that today’s episode inspired you to become a purpose driven leader in your career or your community. There’s no doubt that when we lead with purpose, we can change lives. If you enjoyed today’s show, I’d be grateful if you would take a moment to rate us on your preferred listening platform to learn more about Brandon groups you better experience and how we provide industry leading On-Demand facility maintenance, construction management and special project implementation. Visit us at www.branded-group.com. Be sure to follow us on social media and you can also reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. Until next time, be better.