Chris Gutkes: Be the Best Version Of Yourself
Today, our guest is Chris Gutkes, President of Island Elevator. In this interview Chris shares his path of developing as a business owner in the elevator industry. Having been on this journey of a while, Chris has learned many lessons along the way; some of them the hard way. Though it’s not always easy to develop self awareness and empathy, these are two of the critical skills for growing as a leader.
Show Notes with Time Stamps:
0:00:00 – [0:01:26] – Introduction, Matthew Allred welcomes Chris Gutkes to discuss his path developing as a business owner in the elevator industry.
0:01:26 – [0:02:47] – Chris Gutkes discusses his experience being interviewed previously by Matthew Allred and how his perspective has evolved.
0:02:47 – [0:05:06] – Matthew Allred asks Chris Gutkes about what it takes to run a business in the elevator industry and what that experience is like.
0:05:06 – [0:10:21] – Chris Gutkes discusses the importance of self-awareness, empathy, personal growth and understanding others’ perspectives.
0:10:21 – [0:13:02] – Chris Gutkes shares examples of empathy-building exercises implemented at his company to improve communication and efficiency.
0:13:02 – [0:16:26] – Matthew Allred asks how Chris Gutkes addresses urgent requests without disruption, and Chris Gutkes outlines the process developed.
0:16:26 – [0:23:37] – They discuss leadership skills, problem-solving techniques, and overcoming fears through process development.
0:23:37 – [0:32:02] – Advice for entrepreneurs, defining one’s purpose, and building a successful business are covered.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Chris Gutkes 0:00
If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you got to keep forward momentum, right? You could cross over that line 100 times as long as you keep moving forward, you’re going to be able to get somewhere and by the time you get there, you’re a little bit better than when you started. Are you an expert? Are you going to join the Tour de France? No, you’re not right, you’re still wildly incompetent as compared to the world’s best. But you’re not looking to be the world’s best you’re looking to be your best version of yourself.
Matthew Allred 0:24
Hello, and welcome to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the all red group. I am your host, Matt alread. In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. Today, our guest is Chris Gutka is president of island elevator. In this interview, Chris shares his path of developing as a business owner in the elevator industry. Having been on this journey for a while Chris has learned many lessons along the way. Some of them the hard way, though, it’s not always easy to develop self awareness and empathy. These are two of the critical skills for growing as a leader. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Gutkes 1:12
Thanks a lot, Matt, for having me. It’s been a while I think it’s been like a year and a half. But it’s great to be back.
Matthew Allred 1:17
It’s been almost two. Yeah. So you’re you were one of my first interviews back in 2022.
Chris Gutkes 1:26
You were the first podcast I was ever on. Lots of ohms and ahhs back then when I watch that I’m like, yeah,
Matthew Allred 1:33
And now you’re a pro is just a piece of cake. Right?
Chris Gutkes 1:36
Well, I learned a lot from it. Like when we did like a pre interview, and there was like some questions and I was thinking about it. So then when we did the actual interview, what I found was all of those ohms and ahhs and those placeholders was me trying to remember the answer that I had for the question that I wrote, like four days ago. So I learned from that no more pre interviews, no more questions, let’s just let it fly. That’s where I’m at my best .
Matthew Allred 2:00
Awesome, no. I love it, it’s more natural, and just just go with it. And I’m the same way. So I wanted to bounce back. Because, obviously, you’ve been at this a while, you know, the industry, you know, a lot. And so many of the people I talked to a lot of you know, even some of my clients are either business, you know, obviously they’re business owners, if they’re clients, but a lot of the people I talked to who are not yet business owners aspire to business ownership as part of their career path, which obviously, you’ve done. And so I want to dig in that into that a little bit today. And, you know, talk to an entrepreneur, yourself, of course, and just talk about what is it? What does it take to run a business in the elevator industry? And what’s that like? Little bit so
Chris Gutkes 2:47
There’s like a couple of questions in there. So number one, I never really considered myself an entrepreneur, I always think of myself as an operator, right? So entrepreneurs got like these pie in the sky ideas and all of these problems that they’re going to solve. And they’re all a little bit space cadet at a little bit. So, but on the operator on the one where the entrepreneur turns to, and he’s like, here you go, go make this happen, because I gotta go fly off somewhere and deal with something else. So I get like enrichment out of that. As far as my path to entrepreneurship, I fell into entrepreneurship, like somebody falls into a ditch, and it hurt when I hit the bottom. Yeah, it was just, you know, I was out and it was put my hands on the equipment. One day, my old man passed away. Now I’m sitting in the big chair, trying to figure out what I’m doing because I literally have no idea what I’m doing. So that entire, that entire experience made me a better operator. But it was only when I started to practice number one, self awareness. And number two empathy. So what I preached everybody is that you have to you have to start to take the the few moments a day to kind of look yourself in the mirror and say, What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Do more of what works do less of what doesn’t work? And how do people react to me when I enter in a room? How do people respond to me when I open my mouth? And is that something that’s going to be conducive for me to be able to achieve the kind of goals that I’m trying to shoot for here? Through this
Matthew Allred 4:24
Let’s pause for just a second? Yeah, so you’re digging into to self awareness and yet when you say look in the mirror, say what am I good at? What am I not? There’s just so much there because myself and I think a lot of us I’m sometimes I’m just blind to what I’m not good at. And so what I what I heard you say was listen to how people react because I think that’s especially that that feedback. That’s like super painful. That’s the most beneficial but man it hurts to hear. Yeah. So how do you how do you really dig into self awareness if you’re gonna lead a team and Lita business what’s what’s been most helpful to really see what you don’t even want to see?
Chris Gutkes 5:06
Well, you got to start with like a point in the sky like a something that you’re actually aiming towards. So and when it comes to Criticism Criticism doesn’t really bother me like it doesn’t hurt my feelings it just energizes me and helps me to focus more on what it is that I want to be able to accomplish
Matthew Allred 5:23
with so in person to death in the first place, is that alright,
Chris Gutkes 5:27
I my father was not Mr. Cuddly Hughley, you know, come over here, son, let me sit down and explain the world to you. He was like, Don’t be sorry, you know, don’t be sorry, be better, right? That’s the the world is not around here to feel bad for you. And if you’re going to spend time feeling bad for yourself, you’re going to be the only one. So that’s something that I learned from my father, an open, honest conversation, being able to speak to each other sports, criticisms, whatever it is, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t really hurt my feelings. Because what it does is that I’ve learned, I framed my mindset around it, some people are just, or a lot of people have a tough time, not internalizing it, right? Because you have to, you have to start with who you are, and what you know, because
Matthew Allred 6:14
The default, right, by default is to lash out and say, Oh, you don’t know who I am? Well, that’s, that’s the false construct. I’ve gotten my head about who I think I am. But the jury is
Chris Gutkes 6:23
No but on the same note. No, let’s be honest, man. I mean, aside from your wife, nobody really knows who you are. Right? So for everybody to make false presumptions around you, that’s, that’s basically the status quo. So if you accept the fact, it’s almost like when I’m driving, I don’t get road rage, because I assume that there are cars on the road who are trying to run me into the in off the highway. So I, it doesn’t bother me, I’m now you know, I understand the situation that I’m living in. And then I just kind of, I get from point A to point point B. But if we wanted to talk about like self awareness and empathy, you got to start with that goal, that goal, that’s often the in the horizon, like, what exactly do you want to be? And then once you could figure out what it is that you want to be, then you can ask yourself that being that whatever that is, maybe it’s the president of the company, maybe it’s a supervisor inside the inside of your company? What does that look like? How do I define that? And then once you’re able to define that point on the horizon, you can now use self awareness to say, Okay, do I have the skills and traits? Do I have the Do I have what it takes in order to be able to get from here to there? So but I can’t be I can’t be floating around in the in the ether, pretending like I’m Einstein when I’m not, or when I need to have certain certain skill sets that I don’t have, right? So don’t, it’s not, it’s not an opportunity to try to like, give yourself a bunch of false toxic positivity and positive affirmations. This is like real deep down dirty stuff, not the stuff that’s on your social media account. So you want to really think about it. And then now, if you know where you are, and you know where you want to be, all you got to do is just go ahead and get it. So.
Matthew Allred 8:11
So I’m just curious what you what you have found to be most helpful in navigating that journey. Because from from the work I’ve done, it’s not an easy journey, to really change some of those things, that it’s a habit, right? And maybe maybe you’ll look at a meeting that you were in, and wow, that was certainly not a CEO thing to say. And now people are upset with me. And, you know, I’m not making the progress that I’m hoping for, what do you find most useful, most helpful?
Chris Gutkes 8:42
So, you, you definitely have to be a little bit of a realist, is it hard work? Yes. If it was easy, then everybody would be doing it. So if you’re planning on doing something that’s challenging, you have to accept the fact that you are going to fail, you’re going to fail yourself and you’re gonna fail, you’re on mission that this failure means stop, it doesn’t mean stop. It just means we got to move around this a little bit, we took a little step back, we’re gonna stick step four, which that happens to me all the time. So the next thing that you probably need to exercise yourself on this journey is a little self forgiveness, right? Just understand that, Chris, you are going to you’re trying to get there, you are better today than you were yesterday. You’re not as good as you’re gonna be tomorrow, not where you need to be if you want to be respected as a CEO, or whatever the hell it is that you’re shooting for. So practice self forgiveness.
Matthew Allred 9:34
Right, right. And I yeah, for myself, it’s self compassion. And I kind of look at myself like a five year old on a bike or a four year old or however it’s like, you know, well, how many times do you cross the line? Well, as long as you keep crossing that line, you can learn to balance but but I’m not going to be perfectly on that line. And I’m gonna I’m gonna sway this way and that way and this way and that way, and, you know,
Chris Gutkes 9:55
learning is that if you want to learn how to ride a bike you got to keep for Word momentum, right? You could cross over that line 100 times, as long as you keep moving forward, you’re gonna be able to get somewhere. And by the time you get there, you’re a little bit better than when you started. Are you an expert? Are you going to join the Tour de France? No, you’re not right. You’re still wildly incompetent as compared to the world’s best. But you’re not looking to be the world’s best, you’re looking to be your best version of yourself.
Matthew Allred 10:21
Yeah. So we’ve talked about some self awareness, the empathy piece. How do you? How do you find that within yourself?
Chris Gutkes 10:30
You want to talk about tough, self awareness is tough. Empathy is just as tough if not tougher. Because when you’re somebody like me, I grew up, I was the firstborn child in my family, not just my mother’s family. It was like on both sides, my mother’s side of the family. And my father’s side of the family. I was the first nephew grandson oldest. So as I’m growing up, everything that comes out of my mouth, people are like, Oh, my God, this is the most brilliant thing. You know, this kid is so curious about Baba Baba, and it like eight ingrains in your head, that everything that I’m doing a special rule. Not only that, on me, the whole world, I can’t believe it, I finally made it, you know what I mean? The whole world revolves around me. So it is a rough, it is a rough transition, when you start to realize that all of that, that, that goodness, that kind of informed this sense of self competence that you have, is, it’s not exactly how the world works, because everybody else thinks that the world revolves around them also. So what I’m trying, so when we’re talking about empathy, it’s really about it’s not about sympathizing with somebody, it’s not about, it’s really about putting yourself in their shoes, like what does it feel, if I was sitting there performing that task, and then somebody comes over and interrupts me, though, it probably feels like a little frustrating. So by practicing empathy, what I do is I try to find a way to engage, or have people engage with each other, so that they are not upsetting the balance that gives them confidence that makes them feel good about what they do, and allows them to consider reciprocal generosity, right? So if I
Matthew Allred 12:12
Give me a little, like a specific example, you’re it sounds like, you’re saying, Okay, if you two are rubbing each other wrong, you want to punch each other in the face, go spend some time together his way is what I heard.
Chris Gutkes 12:24
Yes, spending time together could be that time that you spent punching each other in the face, though, you really have to be able to spend time getting to know the other person, what is their story? What is their? What stresses them out? What is What are they worried about when they’re not worried about stuff at work, so and then once you’re able to tap into that, you’re able to say, okay, this person doesn’t like to be talked to like this, they like to be talked to like this in these terms, more logistical terms. So by meeting them where they are, you have to understand where they are first, and then you can meet them where they are. And then you can have some sort of effective communication and relationship building.
Matthew Allred 13:02
What are the what are some of the tools you use to to help people get to that level? Because my experience is it’s, it’s super challenging, and maybe in a workplace where you’re the, you’re the boss, and you’re like, hey, you to, you know, sit in timeout, and you’re gonna write a little story or whatever, then you gotta read each other’s stories. I’m just curious how that plays out in your business?
Chris Gutkes 13:22
Well, you got two parts. Number one is how do I practice empathy for myself, what I had to find out after a while, is that people were being nice to me, and placating me and saying yes, to me giving me counterfeit yeses, because of the seat that I sit in. And that didn’t help anybody. So what I need to do when I’m practicing empathy is trying to break down those barriers. So that we can create a high level of relatability. So that we can actually have an honest conversation, because let’s be honest, when you when you run an organization, it doesn’t matter if it’s two people, four people, 10 people or more. The people that are closest to the customer are the people that actually know what’s going on in the company. Everybody else is just lying to themselves, right and looking at the numbers. So that’s something that’s an example of empathy and my experience and an example of empathy or trying to train through empathy. In a through the company at Island elevator, we do a couple of different empathy building exercises. So for one, we do an operations meeting three times a week, on the Monday operations meetings, we talk about what we did over the weekend. So by understanding what somebody is doing, when they’re not at work, you’re actually building a little bit more of a relationship with them. Usually, either Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Wednesdays or Fridays, we’ll also do stress level tests. So we’ll go around the room and I’ll say, Okay, what is your stress level between one and five, five being the highest? And people will tell us so if anybody gives us a number that’s three or higher? The the follow up question is Why Why are you stressed out most of the time is, you know, I’m spending a lot of time on this and I really need to spend time on that. Okay. Everybody understands what Bill Over here are struggling with, can somebody volunteer to take this responsibility for a couple of hours so that he can catch up over here. And now all of a sudden, it doesn’t create empathy, but it also creates team building. And the third exercise, we just did this recently, where we basically took everybody, we had a big problem in the office where everybody, we call them drive bys. So anybody that kind of comes through, right has something in their head, stops at the office interrupts what you’re doing, and it gives you a task. And we’re like, and it pulls people completely out of what they’re doing. And makes everybody really kind of like a little bit scattered, super inefficient. And for the most part, you’re a little unhappy, too. So we had a whole exercise where we were like, Okay, this is how we define a drive by, this is what it looks like when you perform a drive by. And then as we’re going around the room, I’m not I’m not writing the stuff on the board, I’m getting input from everybody in the room, they put it up on the board so that they have ownership of it. And then the last column is how do you feel when somebody does a drive by on you frustrated, mad, angry, upset this that in the third, so people didn’t even know that they were creating that, that energy, just by zipping through and then you know, dropping a bomb on him. And this was going all the way through the organization from admins, all the way up to president of the company I was doing drive bys to and people were, we were able to, to create a an environment where people were able to really share how frustrated they were going to get when that happens.
Matthew Allred 16:26
So what I’m curious to know, is what, you know, what did you implement so that I can get this urgent point? You know, maybe I’m driving by why? Because I’m on my way to do X, Y, and Z? How do you get that and get the attention that it needs without kind of throwing everybody off?
Chris Gutkes 16:43
So what we have to do is we have to start with how do you define urgent, right? So we’re saying, Okay, what isn’t acceptable drive by, somebody calls him with a service call, somebody calls in, they’re stuck inside the elevator, somebody calls in, it’s a brand new customer lead. But it turned out that there were only four things. So we were like, Alright, anything that is not these four things, you are not allowed to do it, then we gave everybody a different method of communication based with timelines. So if you send a internal DM, direct message through our gmail email stuff, then that is something that you’re looking for a response within two hours. And then the person on the other side can finish their task, and then go over there and give you the answers that you’re looking for. If it doesn’t happen there, then send an email. And don’t forget that you have meetings, everybody has a minimum of three meetings with their direct super. So can it wait 24 hours. So what we’re doing is we’re kind of pushing things down, people just get very excited, and they want to be able to help out the customer. So by kind of putting things in perspective and reframing it, they understand that the things that they thought was an emergency actually can wait, and the customer will still be happy.
Matthew Allred 17:51
And if it really is an emergency, well, great, let’s Let’s rally the troops to solve this emergency. But let’s do it. When it doesn’t, doesn’t matter.
Chris Gutkes 18:00
But as a team, right? If Matt worked here, me and me and Matt have to come to an agreeable definition of what an emergency is, so that I’m not dropping my emergencies on you. And you’re not dropping your emergencies on me. We understand that an island elevated this consider emergency and everything else can wait. ,
Matthew Allred 18:18
Yeah, no, I love that. He reminds me when my when my oldest son was it was kind of two we started talking and he loved trucks and he would drive by and Mom, mom, she’s like, a big truck. And he would do that over and over Ma Ma Ma Mom, why? big truck, you know, big truck. Nobody loved this truck. So obviously, he wouldn’t have known that that process. But I love that you were able to, to put that process in place.
Chris Gutkes 18:45
And I think that your story also helps to illustrate that we are all two year olds in our brains, right? Our primitive brain sees things we get excited about it, we want to be able to kind of like bring that to the attention of other people that we love. So we’re trying to quiet down our two year old brain and let our 45 year old brain do the thinking for us.
Matthew Allred 19:05
Right. Right. So I mean, to me, it sounds like some of these things you’ve learned, as far as you know, the empathy the team building. These are, I don’t know, are they advanced skills as far as leadership goes? Because? I mean, I don’t know do what about somebody who’s I mean, when you were just starting out as a brand new CEO, and I don’t know how long it’s been exactly how long has it been since you started sitting?
Chris Gutkes 19:33
It’s been in March on March 6, it will have been eight years. Okay. So how did I learn these techniques? I think that it all starts from where what it is that you want to be what it is that you want to accomplish. So I want it to be better. I wanted to be a really good CEO and leader inside the organization. So what you find is that when you want to be good at something you wanted to be good at baseball statistics, you consume a lot of baseball statistics. So when I want to be good at leadership and leading an empathy building, I can, I’m consuming books and podcasts and having conversations with people as it pertains to that. And I think that another thing that kind of helped me out big time is the peer groups that I was associated to the CEO group. So I’ve got Vistage, which was from 2019, up until 2023, they were really good, except they were just a little bit too high level for me. So if it was a bigger organization, maybe they some of the lessons would have resonated a little bit better. So I kind of stepped it down just a little bit. Now I’m part of another group called Data key advisors. And he was nice, because he specifically he chairs his group, it’s a little bit smaller, a bit more regional, He chairs the group specifically around strategic thinking and process development. So what I exercise over there, as far as being able to define a problem and a process and a level and a bunch of solutions, for people to be able to understand what the problem is, and then how to work inside the confines of solving this for other people. I think that a lot of that knowledge was gained just through the exposure of understanding process development and, and how to be able to bring that to your people in order to improve communication. ,
Matthew Allred 21:18
Right, right. No, it’s, it’s great. And it’s, I think it’s awesome that you found resources that are helpful, and that you’re able to digest them at a at high speed, because it sounds like the analogy I use is, you know, you’re changing out the tires at 65 miles an hour. Because the business was running, right, and it’s like, Alright, dude, you’re now driving Oh, and, and by the way, you need to learn and adopt and implement these skills in these processes, while you’re flying down the freeway. And that, that’s got to be a tough spot to be in.
Chris Gutkes 21:50
It’s always a tough spot to be in. But this, it makes so much sense that it’s almost it, it, you’re silly, if you don’t take a pause, right. So most people don’t feel comfortable taking a pause because they think that everything is just going to cave in on itself and disappear the next day, once I was able to get over that fear, so a lot of this is fear based stuff, you’re gonna get over the fear. And I understand that if we stop, we reorganize, come up with a better plan and process, and then we relaunch again. And these are, these are micro stops. So maybe it’s a stop over the course of one day, a month, or one week, a quarter, or 60 day stretch or something like that, in order to get something done. The, I can’t explain to you how relieved number one people get, just by starting the conversation about Listen, this is not the best we can do, we can do better, I have a plan for us, right? They feel so much better, because they don’t feel like they have to run through a wall and run around in circles all the time. And then number two, once you get their buy in once they’re part of the process development and the participate participation in launching it right especially to be able to describe where certain problems happen in the process and then editing the process so that they don’t have to deal with those problems anymore. And then they take that and then they push that forward. It’s like they fell in love with their job a second time. It’s so much. It’s if you’re even thinking about taking if you’re having if you’re having problems in your company, don’t blame the person blaming the process, sit down and really analyze what it is that you’re not just what it is that you’re doing, but how you’re doing it. Right and and the communication levels that are in there. If you can start with that, then you’re basically rebuilding your foundation and it doesn’t take a big time commitment.
Matthew Allred 23:37
Right? When you said I have a plan kind of went through my went through my head was okay, I may not have the answer. But what I have is a plan to at least sit down and let’s let’s look at what’s going on because that’s the beauty.
Chris Gutkes 23:49
That’s the beauty about process development is that we all understand that the first process is not the final process. So I always tell them, Listen, we’re going to put this together. We’re going to try it for a week. We’re going to try it for two weeks. We’re going to come back, we’re going to edit it. Two more weeks, come back and we’ll edit it until we finally until we sharpen the stone, right? Until we get that knife, that blade perfect.
Matthew Allred 24:12
So do you ever find yourself in a situation where maybe you’re overanalyzing things, and maybe maybe throwing too many Knoop Oh, hey, we’re gonna do this on top of this, on top of this, have you ever like overwhelmed people with oh my gosh, Chris, stop gay this, you know, we let’s get one down before we pile six more on?
Chris Gutkes 24:30
Yes. And most of it is tied and an anchor to my ego, right. And it’s usually stuck on high level thinking. That’s where process development is nice because it really is about the person that we’re developing the process for. It’s actually to make your job and your life easier. But I’ve definitely come at my team with a bunch of just highfalutin books that they were like, What the heck are you talking about? We haven’t even finished the last three things that you asked us to do. Now you want us to do something else? And God knows you, we can’t have you going to any more of these meetings, right? Every time you come back from a meeting, you got another idea. So I totally and I didn’t have empathy, right? So again, my empathy muscles are stronger now than they were. But they still weren’t that good at the time. When they finally, when the team finally just broke down and said, Listen, you got to stop the nonsense, right? So I appreciate them for being honest with me. And it’s something that you kind of learned over time. What, you know, what, what, when is the right time to actually do this
Matthew Allred 25:34
Oh, and kudos to you for having the humility to just say, oh, okay, I guess I guess I need to listen to my team. Instead of being so bullheaded and prideful that I’m just going to keep running over them until they figure it out.
Chris Gutkes 25:47
It’s really you got to remind yourself who you work for, right? A lot of these CEO types and these execs and over there, they think that the whole world works for them. That’s my people. That’s my this. That’s the you know, they work for me. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. why don’t why, right. The truth, the right answer is that you work for them. Right? I work for the people that that decide to dedicate 1/3 of their lives come here, and put in the time and effort and energy into Island elevator, I work for the customers, right? That’s who I work for. We all work for somebody. But if you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that everybody works for you, or no, you don’t work for anybody, then then it’s going to be nearly impossible for you to exercise the type of humility that it would take to listen to somebody that you believe is it perceived lesser down the hierarchy? Right? Yeah.
Matthew Allred 26:40
Yeah. So what would you say to, to somebody who wants to take this leap into entrepreneurship? You know, maybe they want to be a contractor, like you maybe don’t want to, you know, start a consulting firm. And I’m seeing like sale? A lot of these a lot of folks wanting to do that. Some have the courage, some maybe not yet. But where would you start?
Chris Gutkes 27:01
Well, this is what I can tell you. Number one, you’re going to start at the same place that I told you that we’re going to start before you gotta pick a spot on the horizon, you have to define that spot on the horizon, you have to say I want to be blank, just like blank, but definitely not like blank. So you want to be able to pick where you want to be, who is a close approximation to what it is that you want to be, and who is the exact opposite the antithesis of what is that you want to be. So for me, it was I want to be president of island elevator, just like Bobby Schaefer, president of DND, elevator, but nothing like those donkeys that run that elevator company down the block for me, right. So where I know where I want to be, I know what it looks like, when I get there, I know what it looks like, if I’m going in the wrong direction. So you have to be able to define that first. Once you’re there, then you need to be able to do what I call sharpening the axe, right. Abe Lincoln said that if you give me six hours to chop down a tree, I’ll spend the first four hours sharpening my axe. So you’ve got to be able to practice a little self awareness, a little empathy, and then start to bring in all of these resources that are going to be necessary for you to be able to make that leap. So if I was talking to prospective entrepreneurs out there, I would definitely give them a couple of books. One would be Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the E Myth, especially if you’re coming out from a technician standpoint, this is marketing by Seth Godin, and never split the difference by Chris Voss. Right. So those four books, they’re written really simply, they’re written to teach. So yeah, and you could take them down in lessons. And really, what it will do is help adjust your mindset and then continue to set you down the path for success. Because too many of these businesses fail. And it’s not because the people are idiots is because they just don’t have the exposure necessary to be able to, or the cash flow to make enough mistakes and learn on learn on the fly, which is basically where I was at. So does that help?
Matthew Allred 29:05
Oh, yeah, no, that’s, I think so. Right. I’m not starting my own business right now, in the industry, but I think it’s great advice. In fact, I want to, I’m gonna get some of those books myself, some of those that I haven’t read,
Chris Gutkes 29:19
you also gotta so you get through those books, and you don’t have to read them. Like, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, they’ve got the entire audio book on YouTube. Seth Godin, this is marketing, they got the entire audio book on YouTube, you don’t even have to buy it. So you just got to take the time and hit it 30 minutes at a time when you’re in the car. But the other things you want to do is want to be able to stand for something. So you can’t just go out there and say, Oh, well, I’m going to fix elevators. Well, I don’t care about that. Because lots of people don’t have fixed elevators. Why are you different? Why are you special? What is going to make you different? What is going to make you special? Because if you can’t message, what it is that you do, how you do it differently, why it is that you’re special, then you’re not going to be able to tell prospective customers you’re not gonna be able to tell prospective teammates. And then at a certain point, you’re going to kind of lose yourself like, what am I actually doing this for? What is my my grand scheme of things? For me, for the most part, and it takes years to kind of figure it out, because they’re always like, Oh, what’s your seven second pitch? Can you do it in like 10 words or less, and all this other shit. So I’ve learned, you know, I heard that type of stuff back in 2018 19. And I still been thinking about it. And I would say that probably the closest approximation of what I do is that I am sick of owners and executives shitting on their customers shitting on their people and calling it business, it’s not business business is about solving problems. So that’s what I stand for. So when I say that people understand it, and then they either create an association to it, or they tell me to go kick rocks, which I’m fine with, because I don’t need everybody. I just need the people that believe what I believe.
Matthew Allred 30:52
So would you say that that’s kind of the motto of violin element? M Do you have that defined for Ireland?
Chris Gutkes 30:59
It’s hard to say about the Moto, I think that I’m constantly refining my communication in order to make it tighter, more clear, more emotional, continue to elevate it, as soon as you turn it into a moto, and then you start throwing it on documents and on the back of T shirts. If I changed my mind at six months, it kind of makes it a little bit more difficult. So no, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t attach it to the company, I really attach it to my why.
Matthew Allred 31:24
Okay, so so that is your why then more than more than the company per se
Chris Gutkes 31:30
Well they say that every great organization was built in the shadow of one man or woman. So it has to start with you. If you’re thinking about going out on your own and entrepreneurship, you have to be able to define yourself and own your space because nobody is going to want to go with you. And you need people to go with you. You can’t do shit unless you have people, right. So if you want people to go with you, they have to understand where you’re going and what you believe in, you need to be able to communicate that so my Y is very strongly relevant to what what it is that we do here at Island all better.
Matthew Allred 32:02
Hear You. Thank you. Appreciate you being on with me today, Chris. It’s always a pleasure.
Chris Gutkes 32:07
Thank you very much for having me.
Matthew Allred 32:09
Thank you. Thank you for listening to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the all red group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. You can check us out online at elevator careers dotnet please subscribe and until next time, stay safe