EP39 Navigating Personal Growth as a Business Owner

summary

In this conversation, Mike Scott and Simon Hareb discuss the creation of the Intentional Leaders Network, a program and community designed for business owners who have experienced success but seek to integrate intentionality into all aspects of their lives. They explore the challenges leaders face, the importance of accountability, and the process of self-discovery that the network facilitates. The conversation emphasizes the need for a supportive community and the tools that can help leaders achieve personal and professional growth.

Takeaways

• The Intentional Leaders Network aims to support business owners in integrating their personal and professional lives.
• Leaders often struggle with alignment between their values and actions, which the network seeks to address.
• Intentionality is crucial for sustainable leadership and personal growth.
• The program includes a pre-work phase to help individuals reflect on their values and goals.
• Cohorts provide a supportive environment for leaders to share experiences and hold each other accountable.
• The offsite experience is designed to facilitate deep self-reflection and clarity on personal identity.
• Participants are encouraged to confront hard truths and commit to their growth journey.
• The network is specifically for business owners who are ready to invest in their personal development.
• The process is iterative, allowing for continuous growth and adaptation to changing circumstances.
• Community and accountability are key components of the network's success.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Simon and Context of the Conversation

03:11
The Intentional Leaders Network: Concept and Purpose

06:06
Identifying the Target Audience and Their Needs

09:10
The Importance of Intentionality in Leadership

11:58
The Process of Self-Discovery and Growth

14:55
The Offsite Experience: Tools and Techniques

17:52
Building a Supportive Community for Leaders

20:59
The Role of Accountability in Personal Growth

23:49
Defining the Ideal Participant for the Network

27:09
Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Want to connect with Simon?

simon@theintentionalleaders.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonhareb?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Find out more about working with me. mike@smbmastery.com.au or https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeadamscott/

Transcript

Mike Scott (00:02.243)
Welcome back guys and girls. Good to be back. Today got a bit of a different take. It's going to be more of a conversation than an interview. I've got Simon Harrop with me just to give you a little bit of background about Simon. Simon is lethal, although super chilled. He has competed at a global international competitive level in martial arts.

Simon's also a fellow South African that's living in Adelaide, which I'll talk a little bit about later. But Simon was a very early employee and really helped build and scale a pretty significant business. It was a business in the construction industry in South Africa, which is notoriously difficult. And had about 200 FTEs, sometimes going up to about 300 headcounts. large business, difficult industry, really understands what it's like to build in a difficult environment. And he also had a successful exit from that business before moving to South Australia.

The other thing that really sort of defines Simon is, and I've observed this in Simon's life, is his deep engagement with his family. Quite often I'll say, hey, let's go do a thing, Si. And he'll be like, can't doing this with my son or can't doing this with my daughter. And I just, I love that, right? So there's this, I hate the word balance, but there is this integrated lifestyle that Simon has really done very well with, which is relevant to this conversation. So without sounding too cryptic, cause I'll introduce a little bit more context later, but.

Just for now, Simon, good to have you on the show, Thanks for coming.

Simon (01:27.202)
Thanks. for having me. Yeah. Big fan of the show. So really feel very honored to be joining you. So thank you.

Mike Scott (01:33.583)
Cool, thanks man. So if you're listening to this and going, well, what are we going to be talking about? Let me give you some context. So when Nona was acquired a couple of years ago in my business, I had to go and work for the acquiring company, which is very common. And I thought that I was going to be there for about five years. That was sort of the golden handcuffs extrapolated period. After about 18 months, we decided to part ways. It was amicable, it was fine, but it was quite sudden.

It was, I hadn't really anticipated that. And while I was in the very fortunate position that I didn't have to go and get a job or anything like that, I did have this experience where I kind of felt like I'd lost a ton of my identity. was no longer like Mike, the founder of Nona or Mike, the this or Mike, the that I was just like. Mike, like, what does that mean? So.

I took myself away for a few days and I did sort of like a personal offsite. I had a ton of experience doing offsites for companies, quarterly planning, annual planning, that sort of stuff. And I went away for a few days and I went through this really cool process where I treated myself as the asset rather than the business. And I actually recorded an episode on that. It's episode 22. You can go and check it out. So I won't get into too much detail.

Since that point, that was about two years ago, and I haven't really been able to let that go, that there's something here in Silicon Valley language, there's a there there. And I really wanted this thing to exist in the world, but I didn't really know what this thing is. Life had a really weird way of doing its thing. And Simon and I were actually at school together many years ago. We weren't close. We didn't even know each other that well. He was a few years ahead of me. But the next thing, totally weirdly, Simon rocks up in Adelaide. He's moved here.

And we meet up and it was one of those initial sort of interactions where it was cool and it was familiar, but I just felt like there's something more there and something is sort of evolving and growing here. So fast forward to today, Simon is actually leading a venture that we started together with a third co-founder. And that's what today's conversation is going to be about is why we think this thing needs to exist. What this thing is.

Mike Scott (03:40.031)
And hopefully as this conversation unfolds, this will resonate with you, particularly if you are a owner operator that's experiencing what we're going to be talking about today. So, you know, let's stop getting so cryptic and let's start getting into the conversation. So, okay, sorry. So I've given a little bit of context to sort of how we got to where we are, but I haven't said much about what this thing is. So it has a name. It's called the intentional leaders network, but what is this thing?

Simon (04:09.496)
Yeah, so the intentional leaders network is really, I guess it stems from that podcast episode that you did, where you applied business tools to your own personal life and then saw that that had a lot of positive effect. And you realized that this is something we could put out into the world that could have great value to people who were working under stressful environments as leaders or even just as leaders who

who wanted to level up, who knew that there was something more that they could continue their growth and not just stagnate. Because as leaders, it's really important that we consistently are improving and leveling ourselves up. And this really is the result of that. And then some of our chats walking up the mountain and some of your chats with others as well, in terms of being able to put that into something that's actually practical.

and something that can provide the support and a program or a process for leaders particularly to be able to run through from the very beginning what's important to them. So there's a really big piece on clarity in terms of making sure they understand their values, they understand what their long-term vision is as an individual, but then obviously also how that ties into their organization. And then there's obviously tie hits the road in terms of, well,

This is where I am as an individual. This is my identity in terms of my values, my vision, and where I am. We then take that and translate that into tools and those business tools that you mentioned. This is the evolution of that in terms of taking those tools and being able to then use them to get that discipline and to get the habits and the actions that get them to where they want to be in terms of just leveling themselves up.

That's all done within an environment where they go up with a cohort and the cohort allows them to explore that journey, not just as an individual, but within a group of peers who understand what they're going through, who are either in a similar situation or have been through it so they can share those learnings and who really can support them and also hold them accountable. So that's the concept. That's the idea. And yeah, really excited to see

Simon (06:35.736)
how it transitions into actual practice.

Mike Scott (06:39.075)
Cool. So what I'm hearing there, and I obviously have a context in this and a bias, but what I'm hearing there is that this is really for business owners that have had some success, but they're sitting and they're looking at their entire worlds, not just their business. And they're maybe looking at their whole lives and going, why am I able to perform in business? Why am I able to bring structure, clarity,

process, rigor, rhythm in business. And my business is getting all of this awesomeness from me. But why am I maybe not applying that to all the areas of my life? Maybe physically I'm not in great shape and I'm now starting to think about that for how am I going to be in 10, 20, 30 years time? Maybe my relationships have suffered because of my focus on business or maybe they haven't suffered, but I've just kind of taken them for granted. And I need to really inject some of the same

rigor, discipline, of like consistency into other areas of my life. So we're sort of looking at this thing and we're going, you've had some success in business, maybe a lot of success in business, maybe just a modicum of success in business, but the rest of the parts of your life aren't doing so well. So how do we integrate and work on all the parts of your life, but without giving up your ambition, without giving up your business growth, without shutting down your business and becoming a monk?

Is that, am I capturing it in your eyes, your view?

Simon (08:11.512)
Yeah, absolutely. and, you know, I think also the individual has to be open to the work that needs to go in, in order for them to get a net result at the end. You know, they have to be willing to confront certain hard truths to ask and answer some difficult questions. They've obviously got to be able to commit to the consistency. And you're right, it could be someone who's had a recent life event where they've been in a position that perhaps they moved out of the day to grind, and they just rethought

where their priorities lie and seeing potentially that they need to move some focus. It could be just that their business is actually evolving and they just want clarity on how to adapt to that as leaders and also as individuals. And I think it's why we'll also be really intentional about who will be the right fit for the network because the network itself is actually also quite critical to the program's success. So it's ready for any leader that wants to take control of their growth.

who understands that real progress is often quite hard and it can be uncomfortable. And the other piece of that is that it is ever evolving. So yeah, if you're an owner operator, you've built something that's really successful and you can sense that there's room for growth. Sometimes you might not even be conscious of the fact because you've just slipped into a, you know, I know when I talk from personal perspective, when I started out particularly as managing director and my responsibilities increased,

I sort of felt I had everything under control and then slowly, and this was probably a large chunk due to my own inability to let things go, but I slowly started to work longer hours. I slowly started to, you know, just have this overwhelm of people standing outside my office, asking questions. It got to the point where I was working quite late into the night. My sleep cycle was absolutely messed up. And I think, you know, it's the thrill of that because you're almost

Certainly in my instance, I was almost energized by that. But then it suddenly got to the point where I wouldn't say I was overwhelmed by it, but it certainly wasn't healthy for me. being able, and that's actually where martial arts really kicked in for me at quite a critical time because the discipline, it just reminded me and brought me back to that discipline that we need and the value that we get from having a disciplined existence.

Simon (10:39.094)
in the personal life. then at the same time, sort of a little bit earlier, we were working really hard to get our business to be a system driven business rather than a reactive business. And this is really what we're talking about here. We're talking about as a human, as an individual, that you're taking yourself from being reactive, where you're working really, really hard. But sometimes you're doing that without the effectiveness that you would if you were just a little bit more

intentional about what you were doing. And in order to get to that point, the research is pretty clear that you actually need to remove yourself from that environment so that you can get a different perspective. And that's really where we're at, is saying, let's get high-performing leaders out of their environment to a place where they can get clarity on things like their vision, things like their value. And from that, they are then able to look at alignment, make sure that the actions

that they're taking are in line with the things that are important to them, both in professional and personal lives. And from that point, we're then able to start looking at that, looking at the data and saying, OK, well, this is what we thought, this is what we found. What are the refinements we can do? And then how do we stack and build on top of that?

Mike Scott (11:58.799)
also just like, where do you want to go? Right. Because I have this lens that I can have these conversations all the time with people in a very confidential environment. And very rarely can people answer me quite succinctly, like, where do I want to be? What are the behaviors that I want to exhibit in the world? What does success actually look like? It's kind of just on autopilot. And, you know, that's why we call it this thing, the intentional leaders network is that

When we bring more intention into stuff, we become more focused, we become more prioritized, we make better decisions, we say no to more of the things that we shouldn't do, we say yes to more of the things that we should do, but now it's in service of what, right? In service of this thing. And in business, most of us will be pretty clear on this stuff. We set quarterly goals or OKRs or ROCs, we have annual plans, we have three-year strategies, we do this rigor and this planning, we have values that we live by. But in our personal lives, my observation anyway, is that

Most of us don't. Our personal lives are almost like we get the leftovers of our brain power. We get the leftovers of our prioritization muscle and we just kind of take it for granted. Whatever it is, whether it's your body, whether it's your mental health, whether it's your relationships, your kids, your friends, like whatever it is, it's, it's the leftovers. But there's this thing that just happens. It's almost a cliche that like, once you've won the business game, like your life becomes pretty empty often, not always, but it's the thing that I

Simon (13:21.069)
Yeah.

Mike Scott (13:22.171)
I have lot of these conversations, you after my exit, it's completely counterintuitive, but it was one of the lowest points of my life emotionally and mentally. can't even explain why, but I've spoken to a lot of people that have exited and there's this post exit slump, existential crisis. You lose your identity. You have all of these things that you think are going to be great, but they don't. And I think this stuff can be avoided. Right. So I want to bring it down to like, you know, a core question, like

What problem are we looking to solve with this thing through your eyes?

Simon (13:58.52)
Yeah, so I guess it really addresses the reality that high level leadership is demanding. And as you mentioned, and I think you raised a couple of good points there, it's very hard to sustain it without intentional effort. So if you're entering into everyday in a reactive mode where you're just keeping up with what needs to happen, but you're not consciously driving, as you said, towards a vision, you're not conscious.

consistently driving towards something on your personal side, but also then as a professional, at a professional level. You struggle with a couple of things. One of the things is that you struggle with alignment. And I think this process forces you to find that alignment and to actually say and do the things that are important to you. So once your focus is clear in terms of what is important to you,

and what you're hoping to achieve or where you plan to be within three years or one year or even your big, hairy audacious goal that you love to talk about. You have a plan and you have a strategy, but more than that, you actually have focus and intention. So your focus will then open you up to a lot of opportunities, but it will also clarify, as you said, what you can say yes to, what you can potentially delegate because it actually doesn't need you to do it. then

ruthlessly what you can say no to. So definitely it addresses the fact that it is very difficult and demanding to sustain that level without having a very good idea of where you're going, what's important. And that needs to be holistic. So can't just be on an organizational level. It has to address the human who is either operating or owning that business and has a big say in the day-to-day running and the knock-on effect on the employees and

the community as a whole. So what I found was that the funny thing was that as I grew with the business that I was part of for 20 odd years, as your responsibilities increase, the pool appears you can really get honest, unfiltered feedback tends to shrink. In fact, from being honest.

Simon (16:22.796)
the amount of people who can actually add value tends to shrink. And in order to keep evolving and to have that clarity and that focus and the discipline habits that we spoke about, you really need to be intentional. So those two are the really large, sorry, let me start that again.

Those two would be the two main problems that I think we solve. solving a problem that you need to be able to sharp consistently, and you need to be able to sharpen in a way that's sustainable. And then creating a pool of or a cohort of peers that you can grow with, who you can have those difficult discussions with, who you can share learnings with.

and who can help you to consistently grow because as I'd said before, the more you grow as a leader, the easier it is for you to then inspire and to bring your team along with you.

Mike Scott (17:23.631)
You know, there's an African proverb that's become quite famous around the world. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I love that enough experience that I'm a shortcut kind of guy. Like I'm always like, how do I do it the quickest way, the fastest way, shoot first, ask questions later. And I need people around me in my experience that slow me down and help me to see that sometimes the quick way is actually the long way. And, you know, I think just to share my experience here.

My view of the problem here, in my experience, is that I hear two things said in different ways from almost every person I work with. And the first one is a version of...

Mike Scott (18:09.215)
Where are all the other people like me? Right? Where are all the other people that are going through what I'm going through that have the ambition that I've got, that have got the context that I've got and want to grow and learn the way that I do. There's, it comes up at some point with almost every person that I work with in a one-on-one basis is like, how do I spend more time with people?

that are going to impact me in the way that I want to be impacted with. You know, there's a famous thing that everyone talks about. You are a product of the five people you spend the most time with. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, but there's parts of that that I do agree with it. But number one, just knowing that you're not alone can be incredibly powerful. So the one part of the product is like, the problem is there are no people like me. Where are they? There are actually lots of people like you, if you're listening to this, right?

It's scary to speak up. So one of the things we're trying to solve here is to create a honeypot, to attract people of a certain type and a certain context, to be able to grow and to hold each other accountable and to challenge each other and to learn together. And along the way, there'll be business opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. But really it's about this, creating a community of intentional leaders. And leaders, by my definition, when I think about this, is usually the context of being a business owner operator, because it's a very specific context.

The other problem that I see a lot that at least I wanted to address with doing this is this problem where a certain type of personality is able to give their business a lot of love, a lot of attention, a lot of rigor, a lot of process, a lot of measurability, a lot of accountability, but for some reason that doesn't permeate into their personal lives. So the problem is like,

I can give my business all of this love and rigor, but I don't know how to give that to my personal life. And we're aiming to solve and support a lot of that through the former, through cohort based accountability, through being in groups where people get it, that they get that there's always a fire to put out as a business owner, that they get that you never turn off as a business owner. Like there's no such thing as off time for a business owner in most contexts. You're kind of always on even when you're off.

Mike Scott (20:28.597)
And yeah, sorry, jump in.

Simon (20:28.814)
Absolutely.

was going to say absolutely. And I think part of the genius, and I'm not sure if it's something you did intentionally or if it's just something that has evolved to be this way. But the genius of it is, as you referred back to that podcast where you went and did it yourself, what you did was you took business tools that are used in a business environment and I'll try it and test it. And you've now applied this to this process. And for me, I...

And I'd love to hear your opinion on this, but I just think it's such a clever way to incorporate, firstly, tools that they've used. I would expect most businesses, and if they haven't and they're joining, it would be great for them to see how one uses it in personal context and then they could apply it to their business. But I would expect that most likely they've used these tools within their businesses and they've seen the importance of things like values. They've seen the importance of having a vision in a business context.

Now that they're taking it and applying it to their personal lives or in their personal context, where as you've already mentioned, often they are a distant second or third or fourth to their business, they're then able to apply that same rigor that they would to their business to themselves because of the context that they've been applied to and because they understand that they work. And it's almost a business method or a business protocol that they can now see

they understand the benefit of it and going through that process for them makes sense and works in a framework that they understand.

Mike Scott (22:04.335)
Well, it's familiar, right? It's familiar because like, you know, this is the thing about this is there are a lot of like wellness retreats out there and they're great. Don't get me wrong. I love them. I'm a total, I'm a closet hippie and I love this kind of stuff. You know, I love the meditation retreats and I've done Vipassanas and I've done silent retreats I've done these things. They're amazing. But that's not what this is. This is about what is familiar.

to these kinds of people. And this is not for everyone. We'll talk about who this is for in a minute, but this is not for everyone. It's not gonna appeal to everyone, but those that it is gonna appeal to, it's because these things are familiar. As you say, annual planning is familiar. Bringing accountability and scorecards are familiar. Having deep values and behaviors are familiar. Performance is familiar, but weirdly, for this type of person that this thing is being built for, it's only familiar in a business context. So...

As you've seen there, there's this thing going, you almost have this moment of, well, I had this moment of like, why the hell haven't I been doing this in my personal life? I know how to do this stuff. And like most things in life, this is not education. This is not, you can't do this on your own. You probably can do this on your own. This is more about you probably won't do this on your own. So come and join a cohort of people that get it, that...

Simon (23:20.302)
Yeah.

Mike Scott (23:20.619)
that will bring you along with them. You want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. This is the together part, right? It's not, this is not a course. This is not a, this is not an education piece. This is a community that needs to exist, right? And I think the stuff exists everywhere in parts. I think the, the, the gap that exists here that we want to fill is it's hard to put a net, like a number to it, but there are amazing organizations like

the entrepreneurs organization. was part of them for seven years. I'll probably join them again. It's it's a fantastically powerful and useful organization. What I've noticed though, and this is a good example is like EO is phenomenally powerful. And it was really helped me in my journey going from the entry threshold of about 1 million US dollars revenue to it's not a number, but I'm just going to say around $5 million of revenue when you're, you're, you're sort of your problems change and mature and what have you. And you kind of go from being

the dumbest guy or girl in the room, which is amazing. That's what you want because you're just learning from people to kind of like the smartest guy or girl in the room where you now like you've been through all of those things and you're not really getting much anymore. You're now giving and that's awesome. But I'm not at a point in my life yet where I'm just giving back all the time. I'm not there yet. I'm still learning. I'm still growing, but it kind of tapers off the value. And then there's this huge jump to when you're like, I don't know.

20, 25 million, and then you can join things like YPO and these bigger networks. But then those are more about networking. There's this thing in the middle, which is like an established business, not a huge business, but an established business that wants to sort of level up from a business perspective, but also a life perspective. And there's a bit of a void that I guess we found there. And that's why this is a particular context, right? And to do that alone is possible, but it's much harder.

Much, much, much hotter.

Simon (25:17.23)
I think it's also, while it's a network, it's also a program. And it's very difficult to ask yourself the difficult questions on your own. To do it either with somebody guiding you or to do it within a group environment really allows the interrogation of that, which again is something that either you just won't do because you just won't ever get around to it, or it's something that actually is just quite difficult to do as an individual on your own.

And as you said, I think you hit the nail on the head there. This is not, you can understand the theory behind why this works, but this is very much a process that you have to go through in order to get the value out of it. So you really need to go through the process and by doing that in a network and in a group with people who have gone through this process themselves, have tried it and have tested it and have an understanding of the results that we get and why.

your net result is going to be certainly a lot quicker. And for me on a personal level, one of the things that really attracts me to this whole idea is being able to learn lessons faster. So in my personal experience, I grew with the business. didn't get to go to university and study a business degree and understand how systems work and how business works. I literally had to learn.

by getting it wrong enough times to learn that there's a better way and then moving on to a better way. What this does is it creates an environment to share those learnings as quickly as possible. So when we're talking about leveling up, we're talking about leveling up with, as you said, people who are going through what you're going through. So yes, it's not just about understanding that there are other people who have the same problems as you and you're not alone, but it's also about sharing solutions.

understanding what has worked historically and what hasn't. It's a far quicker way to reach success than just trying to figure it out all on your own. So yeah.

Mike Scott (27:19.363)
Yeah, this is a big thing and I want to jump in there. I think it's a good segue. So we've sort of spoken up until now about like the what. Okay. And I think a lot of people will be listening to this and going, yeah, there's nothing new here. And I resonate with this stuff, but how, how do you address this? So I think let's get into, as you just said, now, like you have to go through the process and it is a program as much as it's a community, it's a program that we're trying to build here because that's how we think we address this. So let's get

Let's get practical now, Somebody's listening to this and they're going, yes, I resonate. You're describing me. I need this in my life. What is this? What is the process that we're building and designing to help people navigate this stuff? What is the program? What does it look like practically?

Simon (28:07.594)
Right, so firstly, it starts with an invitation. So either you're invited or somebody from one of the founders invites you because as we've discussed, the actual network itself is a lot of the value and we need to make sure that it's the right fit both for the network and for the individual as well. So that process is really important. And then it's about actually giving business leaders

giving them opportunity to give themselves permission to focus on themselves. And we're not talking for a short amount, for a long amount of time. We're talking for a short period of time where they can actually step away. And it's really important that they do that so that they can get that clarity and that intentionality around things like their values. the program takes them through a series of questions. That's done as what we call pre-work.

So that's generally done either one-on-one or they can do it remotely on their own if they feel that that's a better suit to them because some of these questions are quite personal and people might not feel ready to share it with somebody else. At that point, we would encourage them to do it in a one-on-one setting because then we can actually, we can challenge them and we can help them to potentially progress their thinking along some of the questions.

And what that does is it just starts getting them thinking about, firstly, what's important to them, and secondly, potentially where they need to move focus in order to be able to actually level up. So.

You spoke earlier about balance and that equation, and we know that balance is great, but it's not always what's going to propel you to the next level. Sometimes you actually just need to batten down and focus on a certain aspect of your life so that you can move forward in other aspects. And what this program does is it really does give you the fluidity to have your own journey. So nobody's journey will be the same.

Simon (30:16.586)
Even though our intention is that this is an annual process with quarterly check-ins, we expect that your answers, even if they were the same questions each time, your answers would change because we evolve. So your external factors evolve, your business is changing. As a human, you have different priorities in your life cycle and your seasons of life change. And you have to be able to accommodate and adapt to that.

Without an intentional process to do that, it's very, very difficult to always bring those things top of mind so that you can have that focus that can then dictate the decisions that you make around how you spend your time and how you spend your energy.

Mike Scott (30:55.119)
Okay, so there's this really beginning of getting really intentional. It's the pre-work. What does that lead to next?

Simon (31:03.448)
Then we have what we call the offsite. So the offsite is where we bring your cohort together. The cohorts normally between six and eight members. And the cohort then run through those questions again on an individual as individuals. And then we have certain.

Simon (31:23.973)
Give me a sec, you mind?

Mike Scott (31:25.229)
No problem.

Simon (31:29.902)
So the process takes them to the offsite and the offsite then runs through those questions again. And as a group and as individuals, we put a little bit of pressure on them. So we really start to interrogate, firstly, what is it that you say is important to you? Secondly, what is it that you're actually doing? Is there alignment there? So is there alignment between what you say is important currently and what you're actually doing? And that's all the identity piece in terms of really understanding

what you want, where you want to be and where you are currently.

Mike Scott (32:03.343)
I think it's deeper than that. I think it's, it's, and this was a kicker for me when I started really getting into Joe Dispenza's work and Eckhart Tolle's work. And this really, this is confronting for me, but in a very good way, it's not just about what you are doing. It's actually about who you are. If you, if you look at yourself, talk, anyone listening to this, it's seldom that you go, I don't know, I am doing this bad habit.

Simon (32:22.67)
That's a big.

Mike Scott (32:32.843)
What'll happen is you'll say, I am a failure. I am anxious. I am scared. I am a loser. I am not enough. And that's your identity that's created. And most of us, until we're prompted, we don't think like that. But those limiting beliefs are just that. They're limiting. And this pre-work that we're doing is really exposing to us

the identity that we have created. And let's be very, very clear about this. We have created the identity that we have, but that should be both a concerning thought or confronting thought and a liberating thought, because what it also means is we can recreate who we want to become. So at the top level of this, and maybe I'll jump in here, Sy, because this is a model that is, I've spoken about on this podcast before. I use it a lot to support the clients that I work with. And most importantly for me, I use it on myself. And the model is quite simple.

Change starts at identity. Who am I moving away from being? And who am I moving towards becoming? That work alone can be life-changing, absolutely life-changing when you can sit and acknowledge how you identify, acknowledge that it's created, and then choose a new identity. If you want to go deep and nerd out on the stuff, check out Joe Dispenza's work. There's a lot of stuff, but he really breaks it down. Then the next layer down is our environment.

Right. So once we've done this pre-work and we're now sitting in this cohort and we're sharing deeply, and we realize that we're not the only person going through this difficulty, we start asking the question, okay, well, in order to become the person that you believe you can become, what do you need to change around your environment? Because a lot of that stuff is within your control. Some of it isn't, but most of it is. People you spend time with, where you are a lot, what you're putting in your body. Right. And we go deep on the offsite into really going, who do I want to become? Who do want to let go of? What do need to change around my environment?

And then the last layer of change is what are the habits and behaviors that I need to exhibit to give evidence and to build towards becoming this new version of myself, which is completely possible. Like I said, we have created our identities, which means we can recreate our identities, but we'll be doing it in the context and in the presence of other people like us, not alone, with support, with guidance. And the offsite, the way that I think about it,

Mike Scott (34:57.535)
aims to deliver those three things. Sounds simple, not easy. And almost impossible, not impossible, but almost impossible to do it effectively and continue doing it effectively on your own. This work is exponentially more powerful when it's done in a group for many, many reasons. So I asked Sai the question and then I jumped in. I'm pretty passionate about this, right? And I'm going to bring it back to Simon in a minute, but if you're listening to this...

I like to oversimplify stuff and that's how I think about this oversimplified. How we do this, the tools we use, the process we go through, the deliverable for the offsite is clarity on the identity we want to adopt and let go of. What are we going to change about our environment? What are the habits that are going to prove that? That's kind of like the equivalent of your strategy for a business, right? Doing it in a cohort with things. So I jump in and Tommy, what I've missed there.

Simon (35:47.426)
Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. And it is your superpowers in it to be able to take something that's fairly complex and pull it out the weeds and really be quite succinct about it. You know, the other big takeaway from that offsite is that you hit the ground running the minute you leave. So when you leave, you have fairly clear outcomes. You have a plan, as you said, that you can begin implementing from day one.

And that's really powerful because it not only gets you to a position where you understand the psychology behind what it takes to have lasting change, but you also have some tools and some equipment that you can really just kick into gear immediately. And I find that set of tools really does become quite powerful.

for that net result. we've seen, I know you've seen certainly with an individual who we've done a bit of a test on this, that he came out of it and he's had some amazing transformations in terms of physical health and some of the things that he wanted to focus on. And I think that's the power is that it's not just about you, the individual within your organization, it's about you, the individual and how that impacts your organization. And a lot of the time, you know, when we talk about people who

don't want leaders who don't make this time or don't treat their personal lives in the same way that they treat their businesses. Unfortunately, often what tends to happen, you when we talk about sustainability is that they think that they are not focusing on these things in service of their business. But actually what they're doing is they're not focusing on these things to the detriment of their business. Because when you're not fully intentional and fully aligned,

you might be working really hard, but there's a better way of doing it. And if you can find that, you can be more efficient, you can be more effective. And that's really what we're talking about as leaders is how do you set the tone for everybody else in terms of what's expected and what deliverables and how you implement them.

Mike Scott (38:05.229)
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that's, that's maybe where we should begin to wrap up with the final sort of theme, which is like, you know, Seth Godin has this great question that a third co-founder who's not on the call talks about a lot, which is like, when you think about product market fit, there's this really simple question. And, and, know, this is something I work a lot with my clients and we're in our, you know, eating our own dog food here, which is like, who is this for? This is not for everyone. Right. A lot of people will not get benefit from this. A lot of people are not ready.

for this. A lot of people are not willing to invest what's required into this. So when I think about who is this for, this is what comes up for me. This is for business owner operators of businesses that have had some success, whatever that means to people. In other words, you're not just struggling to keep your business even afloat. Like you've had some success. This is not for the ultra wealthy or ultra high net worth. It's not about that. It's that you've had some success in your business. If you like numbers, probably somewhere

from $2 million in revenue upwards is what I would sort of guess, right? You've got some success in business, but you are ready to level up your life in a way that doesn't make you give up on your ambition and your growth. And the kicker here is that you are ready to do the work. The work is asking the hard questions. The work is being willing to and leaning into accountability. The work is getting your ego out of the way for the sake of growth. The work is prioritization.

That's what the work is. So what would you add or take away from that?

Simon (39:36.472)
No, I think that's pretty encompassing in terms of what we're trying to achieve. This is a work in progress. So it will iterate. We will consistently look at it with the same lens that we're asking people to look at themselves in terms of how we can keep making it better and how we can keep adapting it to keep it relevant. What I really love about this whole process is that it's

It's consistent. It is for a specific group of people because of the requirements of the network. But really, I think it can add value to anybody. So anyone who made use of these tools could get value out of it if they were just to do it in their personal capacity. But at the level that we're talking about and the reasons why people would want to do it in terms of how we are implementing it, I feel that you really hit the nail there.

Mike Scott (40:29.923)
So Sai, if people are listening to this and they're sort of engaged, we've jumped around a lot. want to ask you just in succinct as possible, what is the one thing that you would want anyone listening to this conversation right now to take away from this conversation?

Simon (40:46.894)
Yeah, I really think if you if you're just wanting to reclaim your time and really sharpen your your leadership and just impact that the you know, if you can. So I'm gonna start that again. I think if you. If you want to reclaim your time and really sharpen your leadership and amplify the impact of your decisions, then you should explore the intentional leaders network and see if it's a good fit for you, because I do believe that there's a lot of value that we can offer.

Mike Scott (41:15.903)
And if people want to get hold of you, Si, or to find out more, how can they get hold of you?

Simon (41:20.258)
Yeah, so LinkedIn's probably the best way. It's Simon. The surname is H-A-R-E-B. Reach out to me, connect with me, otherwise through you, obviously, if they wanted to get a connection through you. At the moment, they could also pop me an email. That's simon at the intentionalleaders.com.

Mike Scott (41:46.575)
Thanks, I think just to the listeners, you I've never done a podcast like this before. And while you might be sitting thinking, sure, this is quite salesy or marketingy, I guess it is. But it is because I think this thing really needs to exist. This is not driven by a commercial interest, right? This will be a commercial venture because it needs to be sustainable, but this needs to exist in the world. I needed this. I still need this. Simon needed this. He needs this. Troy Wallet, our other third co-finder, he needed this. He still needs it.

This is a thing that needs to exist in the world. If it is commercially sustainable, it exists for longer. I've never done a promotional interview like this before. And it's for that reason, is that there's a reason why I'm doing this, right? It's because it is our purpose, our vision is to have a significant ripple effect on the world through helping people to be more intentional, be more deliberate, raise their level of consciousness, but without giving up on their ambition.

This is not a wellness retreat. We are not meditation gurus and retreat facilitators. All three of us are people that have messed up a lot, failed a lot, but figured out a way to build and scale and successfully exit a business, to build healthy family life, to stay reasonably fit and healthy. And we want to bring more people around us like this and to build this community and to share what's worked and what hasn't worked and to grow together. So I really would urge you, if this is something that you think

you're a fit for, get in touch with Simon, Simon Harrab on LinkedIn, or the email address will be dropped in the links below. And as always, I hope it was valuable and share this with whoever you think needs to hear it. Thanks again, Cy, thanks for coming on and sharing.

Simon (43:26.624)
Awesome, thanks for having me.