Unlocking Passion And Christmas Lights With Andrew Brummer

Skot Waldron (00:00.342)
like glitchy or something like that. It's still doing high res on your side, still doing high res on my side. Just kind of go with it. See you, you know, if you have no idea what I talked about, what I said, you know, then I can, I can edit, you know, I can edit. So, just kind of do your thing, man. But, how can I best serve you? Like what's, what's your interest? What's going on right now that I can best serve you on the show?

Andrew Brummer (00:05.475)
Okay. We're good. Cool. Good stuff.

So I have two books out. One is the book You Decide, and that's how to network and how I found you, how I met you, the whole method around that. And I have another book, "Leading Magnanimously", that I have and publishes. I was supposed to have early prints now, but they're running late. I am looking to leverage these books to create brand and to create speaking and relationship opportunities where I'm able to work with organizations, typically the executive team or the CEO or the board work with them in terms of helping facilitate, strategize, do team development, help the CEO. So what you can help me with is creating content that portrays or pulls out of me kind of what I do, how I go about doing things, the leadership characteristics that I'm driving in, the growth and leaning into the startup world. But my goal is to leverage this to try and create brand awareness.

Skot Waldron (01:23.982)
Okay. All right. Cool. Well, let's just have a good conversation and say good stuff so that, you know, it gives good soundbites and then we'll, we'll, we'll land it. You know, it'll, it'll kind of just roll. I'll do an intro and outro after the show. So you don't need to worry about that.

Andrew Brummer (01:40.11)
Okay, cool.

Skot Waldron (01:43.278)
and

Skot Waldron (02:04.984)
All right. Well, we'll just roll with it. It's all good. okay. you ready to go? All right. And it's, is it, so I'm going to say it like a German, but how do you say it? Is it Brummer? Okay. All right. So, you don't pronounce the Oomauk. Okay.

Andrew Brummer (02:18.702)
Brummer. Brummer, yep.

I know that just came too much work dealing with that.

Skot Waldron (02:27.554)
Yeah, I can, I can imagine. can imagine. And where are you from? Yeah. Okay. That's, what I. all right. Okay. I've, I lived over in Germany and Switzerland for a few years. So was kind of like, that was interesting. All right. Okay, man. Here we go.

Andrew Brummer (02:32.248)
South Africa. Yeah, my dad's from Prussia and that's where that descendancy comes from.

I remember I recall the discussion. Yeah. All right.

Skot Waldron (02:52.264)
Andrew, I'm going to try not to get distracted by all the minions in your background and just focus on the conversation at hand. So, you know if people are watching this, you'll know what I'm talking about. What's the minion fascination, man? What's up with that?

Andrew Brummer (03:07.182)
So the minions are my minions, I can't even blame them on the kids. Everything on the background behind me are gifts and they're all stories. Life is about stories around how we get to where we're at. The minions are of particular interest. This is me painted right now. One of my team members painted it for me. I have a Christmas light show I do at the end of the year and I have three minions that sing along with the lights. So it's a great fascination I have with the anonymity of these characters just present themselves.

Skot Waldron (03:37.838)
Hold on a second. You have a Christmas show that highlights singing minions. like Christmas show, meaning like it's a, it's a one event, like single event that you like sell tickets to or like, or is it just ongoing for weeks?

Andrew Brummer (03:43.106)
Yeah.

Oh no, no it's ongoing. So end of November I put up the Christmas lights. I've got about 35,000 of them that I put up at radio station. I have about 200 songs and it's just to keep me busy right in case I got bored and then they play and I play everything from Christmas to holiday to pop to rock to heavy heavy classicals and I try and mix it between countries and religions and I have a cul-de-sac and I people come park here and watch.

It's fantastic meeting people from all sorts that have, know, it's amazing what lights and music can do. Just bringing everybody together. It's just amazing.

Skot Waldron (04:27.864)
That's, that's insane. I love it. So, is it like, so I mean, are we talking like Clark Griswold's crucifixion light show kind of thing? Like, I mean, but you opted up with music and everything, right? He just does the lazy, just put the lights on the house, right? But you, do more than that.

Andrew Brummer (04:37.026)
Yeah, no, it's full on. So there are RGB lights, so they dance to the music and there are patterns and the whole house cascades and runs and plays with the show. And, you know, it's a great space to share in a celebratory window. And for me, I use it as a mind release as part of just you got to have hobbies, right? Life is not just about work. You've got to have hobbies that excite you and keep you going. So it's one of my hobbies.

And then I have the privilege of meeting all these people. The traditions, I've been doing it since about 2016. So the traditions that are formed around my house, the families that come here and the kids have their end of school cycle that they know and when they do certain things, they get to come here. And it's amazing the traditions and the people I've met. It's a privilege. Yeah, it's a privilege.

Skot Waldron (05:28.43)
That's so cool. So you seem like a natural networker here. Is that intentional? Are you?

Andrew Brummer (05:35.276)
No, I'm actually an introvert. I'm a master introvert, yeah. I'm an extrovert when it comes to places that I know well or domains I'm really good at that I know like the cul-de-sac with the lights in that are mine when I get into leadership forums or executive forums where the topic is a domain I'm comfortable with, can, I'll nail it. I'm just absolutely, I'm very comfortable. I'm very passionate. I love doing what I do. I love working with people. I love the topic. I love impacting lives put me in a conference center with trying to tell me to go walk up to someone and say hi, you know, I just freeze up. So I just, yeah, it's quite.

Skot Waldron (06:09.304)
You know, you know, Andrew, what I've noticed is I've, know, as a, as a speaker and going across the country and speaking at conferences everywhere, you know, part of my, my thing and, being more introverted myself too. It's like, that challenge of like, you know, getting out and it's, want to meet people. want to network. want them to get to know me before I go up on the stage so that there's some trust built already. so I'll try to do that quite a bit, but what I have found as I've done this more and more and more and more and Okay. What I have found.

Is that people are like pretty welcoming. Like I literally can walk up into a group of people that are just standing at a table and just say, Hey, do you mind if I hang out with y'all for a second? And they're like, sure. Like every single time nobody's been like, no, this, this table's closed, man. There's no room for you. You know? So I don't know. It's, it's kind of like, but now I used to get afraid of like the surface level conversations. I didn't want to have like talks about the weather and all that stuff.

Andrew Brummer (07:07.214)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (07:08.536)
Somebody said to me one time, Skot, that you have to walk through the shallow end to get to the deep end, you know? And I'm like, that's so good. So.

Andrew Brummer (07:17.582)
Yeah, it's part of the journey I've been on as well. With the LinkedIn campaign program, I figured out how to leverage these technologies. So I meet about 15 to 20 new faces every week. And doing on Zoom and that, I'm fine with. And one of people I met with, one of the gentlemen, he said to me, Andrew, everybody's as nervous as you are.

They're all kind of just waiting for someone to say hi. So just walk up to them, put your hand up and say, Hey, my name's Andrew. I don't know that we've met. And since I started practicing that just really embarrassingly five, six months ago, the world has changed for me. And face to face networking has become, I wouldn't say it's easy as visual video networking, but it's become a hell of a lot easier. And the rewards out of it are astronomical because you break all the barriers and you get to meet the people that you meet on video and it just changes everything.

Skot Waldron (08:06.606)
Yeah. So, so your book, um, your book, you decide, it, it, is it about this topic? Like, I mean, what is that? Why you wrote the book? It was that really for you? I mean, a lot of people say that the author writes the book for themselves, right? But I mean, I don't know. Why'd you write the book?

Andrew Brummer (08:21.634)
Now. So what ended up happening is March of last year, I got the Dear Johnny discussion and was fortunate that it's a soft landing and I'm safe and the company is still going and things are all right. But I had a pretty few hard look in the mirrors at night and I looked at myself and like I'm successful to where I'm at. And now what? You know, we've isolated, we've gone in corners, we don't keep in touch with our LinkedIn network because life is comfortable. And then from March of last year, I went on a growth path where I had to rediscover myself, rediscover, rebuild the network and learned a lot.

A lot of people helped me with insights and knowledge. then as part of my networking, I started networking extensively with people and started training people on what I was doing because I was having great results and using the technologies that are available. I was having really, really good results. I have great results. And I had a lot of people just saying, can you teach us? Can you show us? Can you help us? Can you show us? So I started training people. And then one of the people on one of the videos training sessions that I did said, well, why don't you write a book and pass your knowledge on? Because I do it for free. I pass the knowledge and coach as much as possible. So for me it was very much almost a thank you to the people that have helped me kind of find my feet and helped me get my soul back and the networking and putting it in a form that I can give to other people and then once a month using the book I run a free seminar or session on you know using the LinkedIn and that and do a training session to help walk people through how to how to leverage these tools You know in a like you're a human being and instead of trying to be this Homebot robot that you know pictures out there and you know one of those emails we all receive every day But is selling everything we don't need and how do you leverage that technology to get past that noise and maximize? I've now didn't write I wrote I now use it for brand because I didn't realize how well people were gonna absorb the book and adopt it and the commentary I've got back is amazing. So now I'm using it for brand, but the initial intent was to pass on what I've learned and what's been shared with me.

Skot Waldron (10:18.808)
Hmm. Because, I mean, it's, it's almost seems like a side gig from what you like do for like a real, real job. You know, like how many side gigs you have? Yeah. Christmas lights and LinkedIn networking. Like, I mean, what

Andrew Brummer (10:33.902)
Yeah, I got it.

I got a few. I also do a lot of volunteer work. So all the way from Iraq to Rwanda, Botswana, Kenyan, Uzbekistan, Dominican, UK, India, I do a lot of mentoring, coaching, one-on-one coaching. I do that pro bono for people that don't have access to folks like us. And so pass it forward. do a lot of, I'm involved in the local Thai, Atlanta Thai group, where I'm privileged to be one of the mentors there and work with minority startups there to do coaching for there that I've written leading magnanimously and that codifies what I learned in what it means to create autonomous teams and how you do that in a very caring way. And then I'm also a fractional COO for a company, a co-founder for another company and COO for a company called LifeQ. That has been my pride and joy for the past nine years. Yeah, a little bit.

Skot Waldron (11:23.63)
goodness. I feel, I feel super lazy. Andrew, man, I feel like I got to get on it. I got, you know, I wrote my book. was like, gosh, how was that? And then, but now I have to write another one. And then I've got like, I gotta get like 12 different offered volunteer opportunities, not just in America. Now, Andrew, I've got to go all over the world and get some, you know,

Andrew Brummer (11:45.582)
So the reason I went down that, the volunteer stuff was super important for me to help find myself. So as I lifted my head in March...

We all kind of, we all look in the mirror like, well, what to do with myself now? And the volunteer stuff helped me engage with people who could, who there was no chance that I could speak anything out of, obtain anything out of. All I was doing was giving knowledge forward. There was no way they could pay me, hire me, use nothing. It's just absolutely no way. So what it turned out to be is a fantastic way for me to find my feet and what I'm really good at, what I'm just naturally great at and push forward. So I leveraged the volunteer and as commercial opportunities come in I'll rotate the volunteer out with commercial opportunities and then rotate it back. I will say I'm just very fortunate my mom must have dropped me into a pot of caffeine when I was a kid because I just have endless energy so I have the ability to just go and go and go and you know my family my kids say dad just stop you know to take a breath for me I'm like heck no I love this I love just getting and going and helping and serving and moving forward and growing.

Skot Waldron (12:51.872)
I there's something interesting about this idea of giving. So my brother was an addict for decades and has been sober now for seven, eight years and has turned his whole life into service. He has his day job, but really the heart and soul of what he does and how he probably, I'm not going to say probably.

How he came out of addiction was through service and it wasn't through an AA program or anything like that, but it was through service and serving others. And through that, because you're the only option you have is to be selfless and those situations. Cause I mean, a homeless person on the street, like how are they going to serve you back? You know? And so his ability to give, give, give, give, give, I think he found his worth.

Andrew Brummer (13:37.582)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (13:45.652)
And I think that through addiction and their, whatever reason, there's a lot of things where people beat themselves up and don't feel worthy and don't feel, whatever they, they feel at that time, but that, that ability to find his superpower, to find his heart, to find his gift was, was incredible. And I, that really adds to, think that, that, you know, talks about what you're talking about. So in, in that process, you know, you can, you can comment on that, but I want to know what did you find about yourself through that process.

Andrew Brummer (14:17.96)
now we're going to get philosophical and deep right now we're getting deep.

Skot Waldron (14:20.843)
huh, yeah we're gonna go deep man, we're going deep.

Andrew Brummer (14:23.726)
So what I find about myself is I actually dinkumly deeply care about human beings. I care about people. I care about helping people find who they were designed to be, not what society or their parents or their grandparents or the work environment taught them to be. I really care about helping people find their feet and helping people that are hungry to move forward. I am the worst when it comes to being patient with victim mode and people that in situations and I don't mean that somebody is a victim of a situation, but we have as humans, we have the ability to self-prepare perpetuate and make the victim mode almost a career lifelong kind of mission. So I don't have time for that but working with people that are hungry to grow what it brought out to me is passion for people.

I am very charismatic when it comes to engaging with people and drawing people out. I neutralize situations really quickly. I help create safe spaces, not to use the cliched word, but I create a space where people can pull the masks down and just be human and engage in a human nature. And then I found out that the calling for me is you know, working with young adults and helping them find in this quagmire of this world that we're living in, helping them find their kind of guiding light, where they're going and why they're doing what they're doing, and how do you help them be self accountable to propel themselves forward? I think I learned a lot about that for a long time of the world, you know, in arriving in the US and going through the immigration process, for me, it was very much self-serving and self-preservation. And then in March of last year, I kind of looked in the mirror and didn't quite know what to do and what's bubbled out there is, if you look at my calendar, probably about 50-60 % of my time is both during work hours and after work hours is dedicated to helping people and never going to be able to pay anything back.

Skot Waldron (16:08.014)
And so how, how do you pay your bills? I mean, cause you've got to be able to live a life, Andrew, know, giving away 56 % of your time to charity isn't, you know, going to be always sustainable. So.

Andrew Brummer (16:14.688)
Should I get a spritz? Yeah, along with that.

Yes, but on time, fortunately doing that, while I am expanding and creating a network, I think we as the last five, six years of society, we've lost touch with creating networks and being human with humans. We get onto these zoom scheduled calls where we have a scheduled meeting around a scheduled topic and we forget to be human, which is why this decoration behind me is there is it helps create discussion topics for people to talk with and create a neutralized environment. So, I've got revenue coming in. But as I find more opportunities, is as I move further into the fractional space and get into more of a working as a contributor towards these small companies and startups in generating revenue, as I move and mature my consulting practices, as I move out of the networking and start using the networking to drive revenue, I will probably have to reduce the amount of time that I'm putting towards pro bono work. But I think it's been pivotal.

For me in the learning, I tried to sell in March, April. had the false start in March, April last year because I was trying to sell. I was in that point of looking for stuff, looking for stuff. And I found that that doesn't work. You need to network. We've stepped so far away from relationships with people that we've become these clone tech bots that get on calls. We talk about one another's careers. We solve a problem and we move on. And the relationship factor is gone. People hire and recommend people they know and like.

So I got into that for the last seven months but now I'm into revenue creation now which will eat into the volunteer time.

Skot Waldron (17:51.918)
Sure. that's totally understandable. And when, when you're going out there looking for companies, talking to companies, working, in your fractional, role and what you're doing there, what, when you go into serve and you know, I, I see that you have this passion for people. And when you're going into an organization, what's the thing that you think is holding organizations back from really maybe connecting with their people well.

Andrew Brummer (18:27.296)
I busy lives, eh?

Controversial topic is we've got a generation of leaders and young adults that are growing through and have not been through the quagmire of learning how to work with people. There's a new way of working using social media and connectivity and remote stuff and all that. But I think the art of being human with people is lost on a lot of people that are founders in companies now, as well as the leadership that companies are hiring. The experience is not there. I think, and with the world being so busy and everything, so transactional. think people are spending so much time getting deliverables done. We forget that culture is the culture and people are the most important part. I have a basic mantra, look after your people. People will look after your customers and your customers will look after your company. And I think if you get that right... then you can start transitioning a company into being autonomous and where the company is self-driving, where the team starts driving itself. Because that's not just looking after the people from a salary point of view. It's the discussions, it's the safe space, it's the growth, it's the careers, it's the evolution of individuality. It's making time and being deliberate and present with individuals. And when you do that, they then pass that on. And then that becomes so getting people to recognize that and hit the pause button and understanding is not just about product throughput. That's tough.

And we understand it's commercial because at end of the day you can be as passionate about something and care about something as much as you want. If the commercials are not there then you don't have anything. So it's a tough balance to play.

Skot Waldron (19:54.892)
Yeah, I've been talking more and more the way, the way I'm seeing companies interact and do things. It's, it seems like a lot of it's boiling. It's like coming to like a boiling point, you know, like we've been prepping for new generations and these generations are now taken over into the workforce and the leadership positions and, there's still those older generations that are holding on. So I see a lot of generational conflict happening. there's a lot of trust.

Erosion, I think inside of organizations. Um, I think it all boils down to communication problems that erode the trust in the first place. Cause if we all communicated well, we'd probably have more trust within organizations, but, can you talk to the trust piece a little bit? Are you seeing any of that?

Andrew Brummer (20:42.754)
Yeah, absolutely. and the problem is trust erodes not by the big mistakes we make. Trust erodes through the small, jibes-like comments we make. When somebody says something, it's the roll of the eyes or the lift of the eyebrow. know, zoom range is a thing, right? It's when somebody's talking and you have that physiological reaction that demonstrates to someone that, you know what, that wasn't quite right on the money. And the problem is those small little things, those small little behaviors, we don't recognize that we're doing them on Zoom. We wouldn't do them face to face. We'd be very mindful about doing them face to face if I standing in front of somebody. But on Zoom, we almost feel like we're in the car. there's, you know, like car rage and Zoom rage kind of steps in where you don't, you're not paying attention to the micro behaviors, the micro physiological behaviors and the micro words you're using. And those micro words, you can give somebody the best autonomy you want and then turn around to them and say, right, you have full autonomy. However, if I was doing this job, this is probably how I'd go about doing it, but I'll leave the decision to you. And what you've done there is you can't give autonomy and then have that kind of language that puts out, because that just destroys trust. destroys the ability and trust takes a long time to repair itself, to create itself. And we forget that you could spend, 10 things positive, do one negative thing and that one negative thing will negate the 10 things, especially if there's a history of trust abuse where people say they trust one another.

You've got to say what you mean, mean what you say and do what you said you're going to do. And if you can do that persistently, trust will self develop. know, Kavi wrote around speed of trust. It's all just one small step at a time. There's no magnanimous big step that takes place that says I'm not trusting you. They're all small things. And we look at these big projects and say, well, I gave the big project. So surely that demonstrates that I trust you. But inside the micro behaviors, everything I'm saying and doing demonstrates I don't. And when I don't have the face to face times or remote and at Zoom, I have no ability to create rapport with you that helps you understand that the words I'm using, they're not directed at you. They're just words I use. But because they're transactional meetings, you don't get to know the human. So it's really difficult to discern. These small little micro words that I'm using, are they aimed at me as a human being because you don't really trust me and you really are trying to micromanage me? Or is it just the nature of how you engage when you're targeted meetings, you can't get through that. You can't find those. You can't socially learn that. Your emotional muscles can't find those exercises.

Skot Waldron (23:08.344)
Yeah, there's a, I used to, I often talk about when I did a brand strategy work for companies externally, right? Marketing and design work for companies and working in the brand strategy space. was, you know, this, this thing I talked about called either brand heaven or brand hell and, and, and working up to that point where companies almost demanded loyalty from their, customers. And they were like, people just aren't loyal anymore. Right. Now.

What we're hearing is leaders saying that. And so what I do is I take that whole thing and I put it on internal, cause I work only with internal teams now on their culture and teams. And when I'm working with them, I'm like, you're demanding loyalty instantly from, from your people and that they trust you instantly. old school thinking was that way. Industrial age thinking was.

I come in, my boss automatically starts with an A because they've been there. They, I respect them immediately because their positional power, et cetera, et cetera. Now generations walk in from the gen gen Xers and down, and we start looking at them and saying, yeah, you start with maybe a C you got to earn a B you got to earn an A with me. and, and when we worked through this, you know, transition to brand heaven, it all starts with first impressions. Then I talk about moving on to consistency.

Then talk about moving on to credibility, authenticity. And then finally we can get into the trust space. after you've checked all those boxes, you know, moving into the trust space, then we'll determine if I'm loyal to you or not. And, there's, don't, I, I think the impatience of today is leading us to this, like false idea that people should just be loyal immediately.

Andrew Brummer (24:56.142)
Yeah, it takes time. I inherited a team in 2020 and it took me a good 18 months to get to the point that there was a sense of self-created and self-sustaining passion. Because along with loyalty is one piece, but if you can strike passion inside of loyalty, you almost have a Nirvana type team because you have people that are loyal to a cause and passionate to doing, to executing and following through and that passion and loyalty will drive, you know, drives remarkable outcomes.

But it's a journey to get there and you have to be patient. You can't rush it and every one of your team members that you start coaching in that direction, they have their own journey they need to go through. And some people are ready to embrace it sooner and some later.

But what's really cool is, know, common sense prevails. When people see that common sense and logic prevails, can prevail, it will prevail. They will allow it. But you then as the leader, you have to create the space to facilitate that surviving. You can't create it, but not really. You can't create it under your rules. You have to create it under the general social contract. I have some basic rules with my team. One, don't let me ever get caught with my pants down. I don't care what breaks.

I'll catch you, I'll keep things safe and I'll protect you. I'll make sure things are okay and we'll walk through and fix whatever got broke. Own what you do, just own it. Don't blame other people for what's happened, just own it and move forward. Go do it, I'm not here to do your job. Go do your job. If you need help moving boulders, I'll help you move boulders, I'll move things out your way. That's tough when you do that level of absolute autonomy and trust that people actually find they don't really want it or they're not ready for it is a better statement. And to coach them on being okay with that autonomy and to lean into the fact that they're trusted. People say they want to be trusted, they want trust, they want to be trusted. But being trusted also comes with responsibilities that you need to execute, you need to decide, you need to move forward, you need to move forward safely in the team around you, you need to look after you. So there's a lot of moving parts that come with it. There's no magical one that puts it all in place. It's time, time, words and behavior.

Skot Waldron (27:00.344)
Time, words, behavior. what's the one that's hardest you think for people?

Andrew Brummer (27:11.106)
I think one would think behavior, but I think that comes over time, it's natural. I think it's words. Because words matter. know, the old adage of sticks and stones break my bones, but words will never harm me. I don't think ever a bigger lie was ever said. I think words are so damaging and the micro words that we use can be so long-lasting damaging. They can put people into careers, behavioral norms that they are not, but they're doing it because they know the words.

They understand the consequence of the word. They understand the consequence of behavior. And they're the micro words. And the micro words are not the words that you go into a meeting and say, right, you messed up, you did bad, let's fix it and move forward. They're the words that you go home at night with your significant other and you ponder and like, what the hell happened today? What did I do? What did I say? What did miss? Those are things that you don't have answers for, that you muddle around. The small words matter. So think the hardest for us to do is, as a leader, when you're under pressure, how do you behave?

When you're under pressure and the proverbial paper's gonna hit the fan, how do you behave in a way that is identical to the way you would behave when you're celebrating and having a good time? And I don't mean the party and the euphoric, I don't mean to be dismissal, but I mean how are you calm, collected, present of mind, deliberate, careful of the words you're using, inspiring, encouraging, how are you that in the worst of scenarios? Because when you can find that balance as a leader, that's tough.

So think the words are the hardest part in those three.

Skot Waldron (28:41.038)
That makes sense. I thought you were going to say time. I really did.

Andrew Brummer (28:46.424)
Time is beautiful. Time heals everything. Time gives. You know, some people embrace change quickly. Some people take a long time. But the beauty of life that I've experienced is when you find people that want to, when you give them space to want to, and you make it okay for them to want to do something different and be something different, and there's no consequence. Time is amazing. Time is, you know, it's an antidote. It's an antibiotic. It's an amazing thing. People who resist today, give them time, give them the right insights, give them the right words, and time will be your the magic pull that brings them along. You can't rush them and everybody to their own. No one knows what I've been through and my journey. No one knows your journey. And the key is for it to work and work with people through the sum of the journey, not trying to interrupt the journey. You've got to work with the sum of what you've got. And if that's not sufficient, then you need to consider whether you should be working with that person or not.

Skot Waldron (29:39.15)
So leading Magnam Magnam Magnanimously, you picked a great title, man. Leading Magnam Magnam Magnanimously. was sitting here, I was practicing before the show to try to say the word. And that whole idea of that book is what for you.

Andrew Brummer (29:39.509)
I don't know. You.

It's about this, about being humble. So I decided to take all of the wisdoms that I've learned from Simon and Drucker and all of brand, just all of these beautiful people out there that have put some amazing words out there. I said, I want to put something together that's a transactional use guide that people could pick the book up and say, what did Andrew mean when he said be kind or be loved or be loving or be vulnerable, be transparent? So a guide. So what I did is I said, what are the behavioral characteristics? And I worked with my team to say, what are the behavioral characteristics that resonate in our team? What are the things we're doing that are causing you to want to come to work on Monday morning? You know, we had the unfortunate situation. We had to let a bunch of people go and the people that we let go want to come back into the company. They want to come back to the culture that we created into the energy.

What I wanted to do was put that down and say to people instead of saying, this is the theory you need to work towards. I wanted to give people transactional things that they could look at and small words like this. Point out things like these small words that people say matter. You know, when you go to someone and say, yeah, you've got the jobs, your responsibility. If I was doing it, you know, don't listen to me. But if I was doing it, this is what I would do.

Putting some examples like that in there that help people recognize that if you want to have a team, you're driving towards, if you are driving towards a trusted environment, if you're trying to get to autonomous, if you're trying to get to a team that is self-motivated and self-executing, and you're trying to get to a team that means what they say, say what they mean, and does what they said they're gonna do, then there are certain behaviors you as a leader have to do. There are certain things you have to emulate in how you engage with that team, and the book is about that. It's about how do you turn a team from a really good high powered productive team into something magnanimous, something larger than itself, something that delivers bigger than what it's capable of doing in a way that is larger than the sum of the characters? How do you do that? So you have to want to go there because that takes, it's a deliberate journey to go down that path.

Skot Waldron (32:04.206)
It is, and I talk a lot about intentionality and things, you know, sometimes can happen by accident, but you're much likely to have some success if you, put some effort in and be more intentional about that thing. So.

Andrew Brummer (32:18.478)
It's also decision to do. You can be a manager, can be a leader, or can be something different. Being a leader, carrying the leader title doesn't mean you are creating what you think you are. There are levels of which you can, not got to. You have the opportunity to step in and infect people's lives and help them become something. One of my team members, they found the quote on one of the social channels and it basically says, having a work environment, I'm gonna get this wrong and she'll slap me for getting it wrong. Having a work environment, loving work is about going to sleep, being excited about waking up tomorrow morning and going to work. How do you create that subculture that allows you to want to get back to work, that allows you to want to be in the office, to not be remote, that allows you to be excited? And as a leader, how do you do that? And that's what this book is about, is how do you go through that journey? It's a book that reflects on my journey going through it and the things I did and the team did with me to get there and it's a self-reflection journey of again playing it forward to say this is how I got it to work and I'd invite anyone to kind of pick the pieces up and apply what's relevant and go figure out how they make their version of their journey true.

Skot Waldron (33:33.774)
Very cool. If people want to get ahold of any of your books, they want to get ahold of you. What's going on? How'd they do it?

Andrew Brummer (33:40.526)
So the website is Ardunan.com, it's A-R-D-U-N-A-N.com, all contact details, emails, and everything's in there. I'll have the books listed up there as well. You decide is there. Leading Magnaminously will go up as soon as I've got it available. But would love to chat with anyone. I don't profess to have the answers. I've got a lot of scars. As with you, burned a lot of fingers, made a lot of mistakes. But been very fortunate that I've had the space and the fortitude and the upbringing to help me go in the right direction and see if I can take something usable and pass it forward. My team, Lovitz, and the teams, the people that engage with Lovitz, how do you pass that forward? How do you make it larger than you?

Skot Waldron (34:23.352)
Yeah. Yeah. Good message, man. Good message. Keep, keep spreading the goodness, know, keep, keep spreading the Christmas cheer and, know, living up your minions and whatever else you got to do, but, pre appreciate you being on the show. Thanks for all your insights.

Andrew Brummer (34:38.83)
Thank you Skot, I appreciate you and your time. I appreciate what you've put together here.