Hey now, welcome to another edition of the inside BS show My name is Dave Lorenzo. And what if your life was exactly the way you wanted it to be wouldn't that be great? I know I know you're thinking this is some pie in the sky idea that your life can't be Exactly the way you want it to be. What if every workday went exactly as you wanted it to go? Well, we know that's never gonna happen but what if you were prepared when the adversity came up to embrace the Adversity and to leverage the adversity to be a competitive advantage My guest today is going to help us understand how to do these things and after our time together Your life may not be perfect But you will have some additional tools to use to make it better to make it more Efficient and to make it more effective our guest today is dr.

Linda Brennan and she is a life engineer And she's gonna help us with these topics and so much more. Please join me in welcoming her to the inside BS show Linda welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today.

I really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much Dave. I Admire you and I'm deeply honored that you asked me to be here.

Oh, you're too kind Tell us what a life engineer is Tell us what a life engineer does and then I want to know how you became a life engineer. Okay Well, I taking an inspiration from you as the godfather of growth. I thought I need a good handle and I had been a business coach and I'm not a life coach and I help people Not just executives.

So I didn't fit into any of those slots. So I thought hmm. I'll be a life engineer I actually have an engineering background.

So I feel comfortable claiming that and What I do I help people Untangle their schedules Manage their energy And really simplify their lives. So I like to think it's a holistic approach. I don't believe in Work-life balance.

I think you have to integrate it and People tend to be very fragmented and the things that are important to them become The residual claimant if there's time left over, you know Tackle things that are their gladness that give them the energy that they need, you know I'm so happy to hear you say that because I I spend so much time struggling with friends colleagues and clients who who just lament about Not having work-life balance and I look at them and I say well How many lives do you have and they say they only have one life? And I say and you've got the same 24 hours in a day that everybody else has Why wouldn't you take a business call when you're on vacation? Why wouldn't you structure your workday so that you can leave at 2 p.m. And watch your kid play soccer or tennis, you know Why wouldn't you find some quiet time on a Saturday to read that paper or that brief that you know? You're associate prepared. I just I feel like we create these artificial barriers to our own productivity and happiness Linda when you when you meet with an executive or when you meet with a business owner or when you just meet with somebody who's overscheduled is do you find it to be a Problem from a decisiveness point of view or a problem from a job structure point of view or a combination of both the way I think about it Dave is it's a boundaries issue and then Probably falling pretty close behind that is a general sense of perfectionism I At this point in my life. I really just want to work with highly motivated individuals The problem with highly motivated individuals though is They've got too many things that they want to accomplish.

And of course, they all have to be a plus so my starting point is really a To make sure that they want to make a change and then be really help them visualize What that would look like I? I try to do that in two different ways. I'm a very verbal person So, you know when I do something like this for myself, it's a matrix, right? But you know, I have a vision board tool that helps people with the different dimensions of their life So, you know What do you want it to be? where are you now and and do you really want to make the changes that you need to do and a lot of it is is boundaries not that you work nine-to-five and then after five is for your family, but it's Let me put it this way. I was I I guess I am a working mom I still am a mother but you know when my son was school-age.

I Was I was satisfied if we had we started the week with fresh fruit and clean laundry Specifically clean underwear You know, you can't necessarily have a home-cooked meal Every night, you know those sorts of things that we expect and impose on ourselves You have to Reign that in a little bit and be realistic so it sounds like so much of this is about guilt on the part of the person who You know either doesn't want to say no to a personal commitment or to a work commitment Is part of what you do helping people understand that they have permission to say no to some things Yes, I like to focus more on what they can say. Yes, too. But to a point that you made a little bit ago people Think that they have to work more to accomplish more and I find that's why I talk about Managing energy.

I don't believe in managing your time managing your energy is so important because if you Take care of yourself if you work and and allow you yourself to Be in a space of gladness that restores you and it enables you to do the deep work that you need to do As long as you're not multitasking which is a whole nother subject yeah, so I you know, I the the analogy you gave or the the avatar that you put forward about the you know, The hard-charging perfectionist and they come both in male and female I think and I tend to think that women especially women who try to balance you know, they're Raising their kids and you know doing things at home and a career. I think that the the it's it's easy for us to feel I Use the term guilt because I grew up in a Catholic household and guilt guilt Guilt is it's just an everyday occurrence, but it's a love language Yeah, I mean so, you know, I would feel you know I feel bad. So I'll give you an example, right? And again, I'll display my vulnerability here in the interest of our audience So last week I had I had two interviews with people who are very hard for me to schedule It was tough for me to get them scheduled and my wife brings in my son's tennis Schedule and my son when we started the year he wasn't one of the top five tennis players So he often wouldn't get into matches.

He would just play exhibitions and stuff, but she brings me a schedule He's now in the top five. She brings me a schedule and it's the same. He has a match.

That's a makeup from a rainout That's the same day as these two interviews So now I've got do I do I you know, turn these people away and say hey, listen I know it was hard to schedule. I know we went back and forth quite a bit and tell him no or do I tell my son that I can't be there for his match because you know, he yeah, I just came up out of the blue and You know for me for years the reason I started my business was to spend more time with my family so all of that is weighing on me and I looked at my schedule. I have travel next week.

I have traveled the beginning of April I'll never be able to reschedule these people if they'll even agree to let to let me reschedule them So I sat down with my son and I said listen, I'm really sorry I'm not gonna be able to be at your match because I got these two interviews and he turned to me said dad Don't worry about it. He's like you've come to every single match and some of them. I didn't even play and he said it's it's fine and You know when he said that it was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders because he you know He gets it.

Yeah, he understands and I think all of us are looking for that permission Call it permission to Make choices that are that we believe are in our but our own best interests and Sometimes it can I think it's sometimes it can be as simple as having somebody like you To discuss those things with and having you say hey listen, you know, those are tough choices But you made the choice that was best for you in that moment I think it sometimes it all it takes is having somebody like you to help us think through That process to make the guilt go away to a certain extent. What are your what are your thoughts on that? well Several first of all, I'm not going to tell a client what's more important to them But I will ask the questions about their thinking process so it sounds like these people you are interviewing are important to you and your practice So if we frame that in the context of your business goals It sounds pretty important and you know in the Eisenhower matrix of urgent versus important You know that kind of hits quadrant one urgent and important Your son. How old is your son 13? He'll be 14.

He's 13 13 and a half. Yeah he gets it and I don't I Don't think it's necessarily great for our kids that were there every time for everything You might disagree, you know, but I called it benign neglect and To me the more important issue is when you are with your child you're fully present That's such a great point. Yeah Yeah, I mean, yes quantity of time matters but you know He's old enough to understand how You have to juggle these things, you know, I mean, hopefully he'll be a good husband and dad someday and you know, there's there's a good life lesson in there, but I think the most important part for you is that you Had a conversation with him about it and you were authentic.

Yeah. No, but your point about Being fully present is is so valuable because I see you know I don't I said to my wife years ago. I don't want to be the iPad iPad dad, right? So for example, my my daughter would go to dance competitions and I would tell people all the time There's three types of dads, right? There's the there's the drink in the parking lot dad Well, I'm not that guy and drinking in the parking lot until you know, the wife texts him Oh, she's going on stage in five minutes.

That's not me. There's the The dad who runs to Chick-fil-a and gets everybody lunch and then there's the iPad dad who's like in the back of the auditorium constantly on his iPad or you know writing an article or you know and Misses 90% of what's going on, right? So I chose to be the Chick-fil-a dad I chose to be the guy who you know, I go out and get the fast food for the kids in between You know dances and you know, I try to do everything I can to be as present as I can and You know if I miss something at work, I miss something at work is there's you know I I tell my wife all the time. There's plenty of clients, but we only have two kids You know, I'll replace the client the client leaves because I'm on a Girl Scout camp out and I can't get back to him for four Days, so be it, you know, I did everything I could that's what that's all there is to it And I I don't have any regrets about that where I feel like I would have regrets on the other side I agree.

I agree and oh gosh, that just breaks my heart when I see a family out to eat and Most if not, all of them are plugged into something and I think oh my gosh, you don't realize how fast it goes I I tell my son all the time. You used to be so cute. Now you're big and hairy 28 he's married.

He's an attorney, you know But he also has already texted me this morning and that's because of the investment I made To be fully present for him when we spent time together. Yeah, I mean that's I tell you it's I Think you know one event a week where you're fully present is better than seven events a week where you're Glancing down at the phone and looking up. Oh, is he up at bat? Is it you know, is it time yet? It's just I I completely and and totally agree, you know, you mentioned something I think that's a really important point to make you you're qualified to Consult in many areas of business and obviously many areas of life But you don't give Necessarily an opinion you ask questions that brings out what the brings clarity to your clients explain to folks the difference between coaching and Consulting and explain what you do and how it's different from you know This is what you must do and these are the five steps to this and these are the three steps to that explain the difference To people please.

Thanks for asking. It's a great question. A lot of people don't understand the distinction So I'm glad you brought it up coaches work to help you challenge your mental models I Talked about perfectionism I often think we have expectations that Might not be realistic, you know, if you expect this of yourself and You are adamant about that.

That is your choice, but I'm gonna probe at it a little bit Is it really that important that you know every meal you? Actually, let me let me get away from the home stuff I have a client who's an attorney and she gives her clients her private cell phone number and then she Will complain because they call her Right or you know, she and I will be in the middle of a coaching session and she's like Oh, just give me a minute. I have to respond to this You know Maybe if you're in the middle of a trial things are that timely but That's not necessary. You know, you talked about your four-day Girl Scout retreat, which is a really interesting visual, but that's another conversation.

I I Look, I look good in Greenland. I really do The the important thing is to manage expectations Right, that's what you did with your son about the tennis match. You tell your clients you're gonna be out of pocket for a few days.

I Think that's perfectly reasonable. But you you know, that's my opinion, right? so I try really hard not I try to help people think of the possibilities and to Question, you know, well What would happen if you didn't answer that phone on Sunday? Right Another client. I did a hundred and fifty emails a day Okay, what are different options of what you can do so you're not so overwhelmed and you know for this particular client part of the problem was She was so covered up that people would stack the emails, right? Like I haven't heard from you and normally I hear from you in an hour so I'm sending you another email and another email and another email and It Perpetuates it's a unvirtuous cycle, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, you know your Your philosophy of managing energy versus managing time I want to I want to get into that a little bit and I want to specifically ask you in The business world and we can talk about it in the personal world, too But let's start with the business world because it'll be people will and I think will embrace it more I want you to help us with let's start with client selection or employee selection and Help us understand The clients we select have a big Input on the amount of energy we have in our work So if you work with a and I want you to help people you can you can explain this better than I can You know help people understand if you select clients that energize you You're gonna love what you do you're gonna bring your work is gonna be better It's gonna be more fulfilling if you select clients that just suck the life out of you That's gonna come through and I want you to help people with that with the decision process and how that is a multiplier versus, you know a Detractor and I want you to do it in just one second Linda because what I need to do right now is I need to remind people that we are brought to you by Sandrowski corporate advisors for 35 years We're over 35 years Sandrowski has helped people Reduce their tax exposure. They've helped them with business valuations and with litigation support And I want to talk about litigation support in Sandrowski right now I refer Sandrowski to my clients who try cases and the reason I refer Sandrowski to them is because you never know when you're going to need someone to review the financials in a contentious litigation matter and In addition to reviewing the financials in a contentious litigation matter You also need these folks to be able to explain the numbers and what they mean to people who don't understand the numbers people like me who could be on a jury or Perhaps a judge who went to law school.

He or she didn't go to business school So they don't understand the balance sheet. They don't understand the income statement They don't understand where the funds should have been and how they got to where they are now Well Sandrowski can help you with that There is a gentleman named John Alfonsi who works for Sandrowski corporate advisors who heads up their business valuation program and he is not only Fantastic at helping with business valuations, but just like Linda Brennan he's also a college professor so he can help people by breaking down complex subjects and Making them easy to understand. So if you find yourself Looking at numbers in a case and you need help I want you to call Sandrowski corporate advisors and you can do that by calling 866 717 160 7 8 6 6 7 1 7 1 6 0 7 Sandrowski corporate advisors is a CPA firm with a different perspective.

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We're talking to Linda Brennan. She's a life engineer If you want to reach out to her you can call her at four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety four seven eight four Six one twenty six ninety. Okay, Linda Energy suckers or energy energizers.

Let's say what do we do to make sure that we fill our life with people who replenish our energy who make us feel good and You know those decisions can be difficult help us with some with some guidance on how to make those decisions Well, first of all Dave I have to say you have a voice for radio and a face for TV. So great job on your Infomercials and I will download that app to be sure okay, so there's two ways to look at this and You've got you know, I love there's two people two kinds of people in the world People who divide things into two categories and people who don't right? So you've got Task oriented and Relationship oriented so for the relationship oriented people you The people who as you put it suck the life out of the room it's I Think very often a victor victim mentality, so victors are proactive Victims are not Victors see opportunities victims see burdens and so What if you're interviewing someone? You know you can probe around that you can come up with a hypothetical Situation that you know, do you see the opportunity in it or do you only focus on the problem and I Think that that's huge. I mentioned earlier I really just work with highly motivated clients when I Want I want to see change right? I want them to be happy I I don't you know, I don't want to spend my time on something that you know It's just therapy, you know, I'm just a sounding board.

So with The need to change there's this really interesting thing called Gleicher's formula and It's just three components to overcome that inertia You have to be Dissatisfied so I probe that's kind of why we do part of why we do the visioning is you know Here's where I am. Now. Here's where I want to be.

So you have to have enough of that dissatisfaction that There's tension for change Now it can be too big right like a rubber band. It's gonna snap. It's not motivating So, you know, how do we get that to be just the right level of tension if you need the dissatisfaction We work really hard around having clarity the vision, you know if You want to grow your revenues a why and Be how is it going to change your life? How is it gonna affect your business? You know, you don't say you want to grow 10% just because you think you should grow 10%, right? I'm sure you see that all the time with your work on helping companies grow and the last thing and I think this is where I really Can add some value is so you need the dissatisfaction the vision and then you need to have first steps You don't have to have everything laid out But how do you start to get some traction and People are very overwhelmed.

And since I'm based in Chicago, I like to put it in terms of a pizza metaphor Okay, you might buy a whole pizza, but you don't eat it as a whole pizza, right? You cut it into slices and Then how do you eat it one bite at a time? So that's the process I try to on an ongoing basis as I'm trying to provide Encouragement is to help people say, okay What is the next slice that I'm going to take and then how do I break that into you know, the individual bites? the other side of that so that's to me the relational kinds of things, you know that they're Victors, not victims and they're motivated on the task-oriented side and this is more For my clients, but of course I apply it as well There's this very simple paradigm that extroverts Get energy from being around other people introverts Need time by themselves to recharge So Are you making that time? Are you allowing yourself to just go out with friends or You know have a family dinner game night on Friday nights, whatever, you know, whatever restores your soul I'm actually one of those introverts. That's not shy, you know I'm fairly outgoing but after talking to you for an hour I'm just gonna have to go take a nap after under my desk So, you know, are you that's the question I ask are you making enough time? one of the things I recommend is You color-code your calendar so you can see who you know I'm I've got a big meeting Or a net for me networking meetings can be really draining I do I like them, but I'm tired afterwards. And so if I Look at my calendar and I've got five green meetings in one day, which is my color code I'm gonna be hmm Maybe I shouldn't cram another thing into that day or maybe the next day I should you know, have a quieter day and work on some things that you know are deep work so task-oriented Relationship oriented.

Fantastic. I hope that answer. No, that was so great In 50-minute bursts.

I'm trying to bring it in. That was so that was so great. No, that was that was really really good Linda I need you to talk about the danger of comparison, right I See and I used to fall into this trap myself we look at other people and You know, I think it's human nature to say Well, I work as hard as that person or I'm as smart as that person or I see this with lawyers constantly I'm as good a lawyer as that person.

Why don't I have the boat? Why can't I take my family to? Paris why is you know, why are they getting this? Accolade and I'm not Talk to folks now because I try to do it and I don't know sometimes I just can't break through what are some of the questions that you ask people to get them out of the mindset of Comparing themselves to other people because I think that's a really dangerous place to be You couldn't you could not be more right? And I think you're also right in that. It's human nature. I Think it might even be, you know primal back to our caveman days where you Examine other people and you know You look at them as either other or one of yours and if they're other they're threat So yeah, it's human nature.

I think it's important to have that awareness that you're doing it and You know, that's where a coach can be helpful to hold up that mirror and say Why? but in my world You want a boat? All right. Let's talk about how you can get a boat and what are you know? What does that boat look like? How is that going to give you the life that you want? And then what are those steps that you're going to need to take to move you towards that goal? The stronger the visualization behind a particular goal and the emotional attachment to it The much more likely you're going to be to succeed. Yeah, I think that's great I think that's you know, and you you mentioned the the vision board exercise, I think you mentioned that at the beginning of our of our conversation today and There's there are a few things I have found that are as valuable or as motivating as that You know, I think about so I have one here in my office.

My wife has one. She chose to put it This wasn't my idea, but she chose to put it We have this like a dressing area dressing room off of our master bedroom And she put hers there and I spend more time looking Vision And I do mine. I think that's why I have a good marriage now because you know her her vision is is totally embedded in my psyche, but the visualization process is Incredibly powerful and incredibly valuable.

We're speaking with Linda Brennan She's a life engineer. If you want to reach out to her, you can call her at four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety Linda in the Minutes, we have left. I want to talk to you about Ethics and leadership because I know I know you in the past you've taught a class I don't know if you're teaching this class now, but you teach a class on ethics and leadership Do you It I have several questions in this area So I'm gonna I'm gonna try and pick the most important ones to me Do you think that people are inherently ethical or unethical or can people who've made bad? Decisions from an ethics perspective.

Can they get back on track? Is there redemption or are people just lousy? Well First of all, I get the questions right? I I give the text and the tests all right, so I Aspire to grow old without becoming cynical So I'm not gonna say that people are inherently unethical I think people are inherently Self-interested but in the context of ethics and the way I teach it is I say the first thing you have to do is get clarity around your values Okay, I'm not going to tell you what your values are, but I am going to be adamant that You need to know what those are Before you're presented with a tough situation Then on top of your values, it's the idea of to be a good leader Which to me is all about having influence people have to trust you and That's comes from you living your values now I can go off on a tangent where you could be You could have different values than I do and you still have integrity because you live by your values But I don't like your values so I don't trust you. But you know let's let's Stay in the main lane. So you have your values the people around you trust you Then tough situations come up and there's really two different kinds, right? There's what I would call a moral temptation or right versus wrong decision You know that this doesn't really go with your values But you really want to do it, you know that self-interest is is pulling you and you make that choice You know, what? How do you? How do you decide that? You're going to Go against your values You know people talk about the sunshine test if if other people knew about it, would you still make that decision, you know? Does it? Pass the gut check and of course, you know, is it legal? So those are sort of the Okay, I'm gonna yield to a moral temptation.

I liken it to You're trying to lose weight, but then there's this bag of peanut M&Ms calling your name, right? not really part of my values, but You know, it's certainly not illegal The other kind of ethical challenge is what is Typically referred to as an ethical dilemma and that's a right versus right choice and those are in my opinion much harder and There's generally, you know, it could be a short-term versus long-term. This is better in the short term This is better in the long term and we see that all the time in the business world, right? Am I going to boost? short-term profits or You know invest in something that has a lower lifetime cost You have you know individual versus community is what's What's good for one person? Right for the larger community or do I do what's best for everyone even though it has a negative impact on You know an individual Other ones justice versus mercy mercy and truth versus loyalty and the truth versus loyalty when I'm talking to Students particularly undergrads I say, okay, so, you know, someone's violated a friend of yours violated the honor code truth or loyalty Right, right. They yield it with a moral temptation.

Now. What do you do? Right, right Yeah, all that to finish the question the problem with being unethical There well, there's one you have to be aware that people have other values So what you might consider ethical isn't necessarily something that they would view as ethical But the other thing is, you know, there's a saying that I'm paraphrasing It takes a lifetime to establish trust and only seconds to break it So if you've crossed over into that realm where people view you as trustworthy It's gonna be really hard to come back from that. Yeah, I'll tell you it is I I didn't so when I when I was a kid I was presented with a dilemma early on that helped me understand about embedded values and then Down the road in in business I feel like the line got blurred and it took us another situation in order to bring me back and I'll explain what I mean by That and you know, we can we can kind of have a dialogue around it.

So when I was when I was a Late teenager. I was in I was born and raised around New York City And we were five of us were gonna take the subway from one place to the next we were Going downtown to go out and meet girls and have a few drinks and do what people do and My friends just ran we were late and the subway the subway was pulling into the platform Oh my friends ran and hopped the turnstile the four of them ran and hopped the turnstile at what used to be Tell what is now Times Square Station, which is now a very brightly lit and very nice station back then. It was a seedy Disgusting pit and so they hopped the turnstile.

I stopped it smelled horrible I stopped and got a token and put the token in the turnstile and went and I turned the corner and there were my friends in handcuffs and I was shocked and so, you know Basically, that's a that's a nuisance violation. But at the time the transit police that's what they did was they they got they you know Arrested homeless people and people who were fair beaters and so my friends went to the police station and they got what's called the desk Appearance ticket. They just let him go It's not like they threw him in jail and we're walking back to the Train that would take us home because that was pretty much the end of the night at that point because it took hours for this To play out and they said why didn't you? Hop the turnstile and I had no answer and it wasn't until years later that I realized it was you know It was my it was the embedded values.

It was how I was just brought up I just it wasn't something I would ever consider doing it just wasn't like then the fact that they did it had no Influence or persuasion over me fast forward now to just you know, maybe five or six years ago I'm working with a client and I couldn't get the client to do something that was in their best interest I couldn't get him to do it. I couldn't get him to do it and they're on my back for not getting results and so I told a lie to the client to motivate him to do what he had to do and I didn't feel good about lying to the client But the client did what he had to do as a result of me telling him the lie He found out that I lied to him and that destroyed our relationship Regardless of whether he got the result. He did get the result he wanted and it was good for his business I felt terrible having to do it because it violated who I was as a person and you know It was a very it was a de minimis.

It was a small thing, but the fact that I violated that trust Destroyed our relationship now. I've since made it up and I've done everything I can to you know to Try and win him back over but it still feels terrible that I did that So that's my point about our embedded values and how the line can be blurred in business My question to you Linda after telling that very long story, which I think will resonate with people is What questions should we be asking ourselves beyond is this legal is this moral is this ethical? Is this gonna harm someone? How do we remind ourselves of what our values are in those moments of truth Amen, I have been in that subway station. I might have seen you there, but I don't remember anybody in You know both of the situations you described are what I would call a moral temptations and Like you said you had embedded values as a youth and It didn't pass your gut check to jump the ticket turnstile It obviously didn't pass a legal test So you made the quote-unquote correct right decision in that moment of truth, right? The What what I am intuiting based on the second situation you talked about is You Really Struggled I mean you're a man of integrity But you your value of producing results for your client is so strong That you yielded to that rather than you know, I Tell a lie, which I'm sure was not a big lie, but you know you You did what you could to persuade somebody else to Make a better choice and you know, that would be the end justifies the means You know, I I get that you don't feel good about it, but I would also say it's not that of it You know, yeah.

No, I understand. No idea. I I get it it just was not it was the kind of thing where you know, I I Wish and I there are people who are listening who are watching who are in these situations every day if you you know For example, if you work in if you work in finance, there's gonna be that temptation every day if you you know if you have a if you have a compensation program or an evaluation process, which is outcome focused and You work for someone who is you know, whose mantra is by any means necessary Then you're gonna feel like you're in that spot every day And those are people that you and I can both counsel to go and move on and do other things But when you work for yourself You know, there's there's really no like if so I I sat down and I did kind of a personal inventory and I thought to myself well, you know Why did I do this? I wasn't you know, if this person didn't get those results, it would be easily explainable because they didn't take the action there was nobody forcing me to get a result for this person other than me and what I came to understand Linda was that my my value my pride in having told to being able to tell people I will help you get results no matter what Overcame the value of Always operating with the highest level of integrity So, you know and and maybe it was laziness to maybe it was I don't want to have to explain to this person again Why doing this is so important.

They're just not gonna get it If I tell them this it's gonna light a fire under them to do that. So maybe it was laziness Maybe it was my own pride. Maybe it was a combination of both I think it's important that we have that mental framework so that we can very quickly Think to ourselves look if you do that This is not gonna it's you're not you sleeping at night is more important than this person getting the result by any means necessary Right, that should that that's the you know, that's the guidance.

I think we need to we need to tell ourselves When you so when you when you teach ethics Do you do you find that Do you find that people come away with more questions than answers? Absolutely because Well, first of all small rant our educational system Gets students to think inside the box right there is a right answer and The thing about ethics is there's more than one right answer and as You mature you realize that life is full of trade-offs, right just about every decision you make Represents some kind of a trade-off So when we talk about particularly the ethical dilemmas, we I just said it's a right versus right You know truth is a really good thing Loyalty is a really good thing So that's why you have to internalize those values before you're faced with a tough situation otherwise You won't have any sense of where to go What when I'm going through this with clients, you know, I Say well, you know, there's bad on both. There's good in both You know, what does the most good for the most people if you did this for one person? Would you do it for every person? You know, these are general, you know Ethical resolution principles, you know, so there's there's different ways to look at it And you know, hopefully what you do is you hold up these different lenses and you start to see Solutions converging on one particular answer Hopefully that's driven by your values and and not by some, you know Expediency or an external force putting pressure on you, which is which is which is very difficult Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Let's um, let's take a moment now Linda I want you to think of three things that people should take away from our time together I mean we covered a lot of ground There's a lot more we could cover but we'll save that for another another show Give us three things that people should take away from our time together. I'm gonna give you a minute to think about that Well, I remind everybody that we're brought to you by some drowsy corporate advisors They are a CPA firm that works all over the United States.

They're based in the Midwest They do litigation support forensic accounting risk management dispute advisory business valuation. You name it They can save you money on your taxes If you listen to the show at all, you've heard me talk about the qualified small business tax exemption This is something that every time I talk to Harry Sandrowski, who's the managing principal of Sandrowski corporate advisors? He loves to highlight this. What is it? Well If your business is in a handful of industries if it's structured the appropriate way when you go to sell your business You can insulate some of those profits from taxes That means that they you will not pay capital gains on a portion of the taxes if your business is structured appropriately It's called the qualified small business tax exemption and the big four accounting firms They don't focus on this because for them it's small potatoes.

But for Sandrowski, this is their bread and butter This is what they do every day so if you're thinking of selling your business in the next five to ten years you gotta give Sandrowski a call because there's a five-year look-back period Where Sandrowski can help you restructure your business and then five years later you go to sell and all of a sudden the 20 million Dollars you get well, maybe half of it. You don't have to pay taxes on it. Think about that for a minute That's real money.

Give Sandrowski a call today 8 6 6 7 1 7 1 6 0 7 8 6 6 7 1 7 1 6 0 7 Sandrowski corporate advisors is a CPA firm with a different perspective. Also, I don't know what you're waiting for I've been talking to Linda now for 50 minutes and you still haven't downloaded your revenue roadmap guide Go to that website now go to revenue roadmap guide comm enter your contact info download your business development guide today It's the same one I use with my clients. It's your gift.

It's a gift I'm giving to you for listening or watching whatever you choose to do if you're not watching you're really missing out because Linda is makes a striking appearance on video So if you if you're listening to this, you got to go to video and watch this episode again. Alright Linda, so What are the three things by the way if you want to reach out to Linda before she gives you the three things you need To call her four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety Linda What are the three things you want folks to take away from our time together today? First of all, I would say schedule time with yourself It could be take a walk take a nap Work on a pet project Catch up with yourself, whatever but block that time every week To give yourself some breathing room second Disconnect Whether you are of a religious faith or not Take a Sabbath You know and it doesn't even have to be a whole day but Give yourself the benefit of not being interrupted and being fully present the last thing I would say is You invest your money Why wouldn't you invest your time and get that return on time invested? I love the Cheshire cat and Alice in Wonderland, you know If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't much matter how you get there. Well Invest that time to get to where you want to be.

All right, great advice I encourage everyone who's listening if you want to take your game to the next level you need to contact Linda Brennan You can call her at four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety I'm also gonna put her email address and her website down in the show notes If you want to check her out, you can go to her website. You can email her her phone number again Four seven eight four six one twenty six ninety Linda Brennan. Thank you so much.

It was such a pleasure I really enjoyed our conversation. Likewise. Thank you Dave.

Alrighty folks. That'll do it for this episode of the inside BS show You know, we love your comments. So if you have a comment on this episode, please go down to the comment section whether you're on Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Play or YouTube leave us some feedback on the show.

Even if you just say hey now Dave. Hey now Linda We love your comments. We love your feedback.

Go to the comment section. Leave us some feedback today We'll be back here again tomorrow with another edition of our show until then I'm Dave Lorenzo, and here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life