Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with Dona Baker and Jeff Polovick about their experience writing books that serve very different purposes and how this led to a whole new service.
Jeff and Dona share a connection through Jeff's company, Driving Force, where Jeff's motivation for writing his book, Why Can't We?, was to document the challenges, decision-making processes, and lessons learned throughout his career.
Dona, who worked with Jeff for 12 years, reflects on her learning experiences and how they shaped her book, The Friction-Free Entrepreneur, that talks about the opportunities to maximize your energy and strengths as an entrepreneur by partnering with someone who can do the stuff you can't.
We discuss the need for storytelling, how she incorporates it into her work to engage readers, and how working through the ideas for the book led to the creation of their latest strategic HR company, Rhealize.
This is a great conversation and really highlights one of the unexpected benefits of writing a book where the focus of thinking about your ideas can reveal bigger opportunities.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
- Stuart Bell hosts a conversation with Jeff Polovick and Dona Baker, discussing the creation and growth of successful businesses and the lessons learned along the way.
- Jeff shares his experience of building a company over 46 years and writing his book "Why Can't We?" to document his business journey and the valuable lessons he's learned.
- Dona provides insight into her transition from government to the free enterprise system and the importance of organizational roles and a balanced team in entrepreneurship.
- We examine the role of storytelling in entrepreneurship, with Jeff using his book to mentor and guide new team members, and Dona expressing the importance of sharing the full spectrum of entrepreneurial experiences.
- The episode discusses the nuances of transitioning from a hands-on leadership role to a strategic board position, including the significance of coaching and clear job descriptions.
- Jeff and Dona discuss their current project, which reflects the principles they've upheld throughout their careers, aimed at influencing and aiding the next generation of entrepreneurs.
- We delve into how Jeff's and Dona's individual experiences and approaches complement each other, combining visionary thinking with attention to detail and organization.
- Dona talks about her book, "The Friction Free Entrepreneur," and the concept of entrepreneurs partnering with others to leverage their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.
- The podcast touches on the software platform Jeff and Dona are developing, which aims to improve recruitment processes based on the principles outlined in Donna's book.
- Both guests reflect on the writing process of their respective books, how it has impacted their thinking, and the role these books play in engaging with entrepreneurs and setting up conversations for their current venture.
Show notes & video: 90minutebooks.com/podcast/167
How does your book idea score against the 8 book building blocks we use here all the time: Book Blueprint Scorecard
Titles & Outline Workshops: 90MinuteBooks.com/Workshops
Ready to get started: 90MinuteBooks.com
Dona Baker:
Website: Rhealize
Book: The Friction-Free Entrepreneur
LinkedIn: Dona Baker
Jeff Polovick:
Book: Why Can't We
LinkedIn: Jeff Polovick
Questions/Feedback: Send us an email
Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Bookmore Show. It's Stuart Bell here, and today joined by Dona Baker and Jeff Polovick. Guys, how are you doing? Thank you.
Dona: Yeah, very well, thank you.
Stuart: Fantastic. I'm excited to share this story with people. The podcast recently we've shared a lot of author stories, but just the nature of the scheduling oftentimes it's people who are just finishing the process, whereas you guys had gone through it a little while ago. So I'm excited to share this story with people because you've got a little bit more longevity and have been using the book in a way for longer, which I think will give people more insights into what happens over the long term rather than the short term. Why don't we start off, though, by giving a little bit of a background share with everyone what it is that you guys do, how you know each other, and then we can move into the book part of the conversation.
Dona: I'll let you start, jeff, because you were the person that brought me into all this world.
Jeff: All right, well, I think. Just a little bit of background. First of all, I started a business 46 years ago. It's a vehicle rental, leasing and sales business Started from scratch and I had been in the industry for about five years prior to starting it, so I knew what I wanted to do and I had a firm view on what my values were and how. I thought that customer service was absolutely the most important part of growing the business. I guess very determined Failure was never going to be an option and 46 years later, we have roughly 650 employees. We're in 36 or 37 different locations in Canada and the US. Our sales are in excess of 500 million a year and the company is doing extremely well. I stepped down as the president and CEO eight years ago. I'm still a minority shareholder and I'm on the board of directors. I still care, but not as much as when I owned it all myself.
Stuart: So the opportunity to get that balance right.
Jeff: That's right. So I spend six months of my year in the Palm Desert, palm Springs area. The other half is in Canada, mostly in the Okanagan, but still many different locations where we have businesses. Edmonton is still home, and so that just sort of gives you a little bit of background. We've had a lot of great opportunities over the years, and what compelled me to write the book was really was for the benefit of my children.
Stuart: We have two children.
Jeff: They're certainly adults now.
But when I stepped down as a president and CEO, I really felt that it was important that I share, I guess, some of the life lessons and some of the things that I learned during that time where I was running the business and I think what the format of the 90-minute book concept allowed me to capture what I felt were the most important aspects of the lessons that I'd learned over the years. And now that I've completed the book, it's called why Can't we? And obviously that's one of the questions that was my driving force as we were going along I said why can't we do this? Somebody says you can't do it. Well, here we can. I just have to figure out a way around it. So I think what I did at the end of every chapter I kind of summarized some key bullet points in terms of what I felt that component of the chapter entailed. And both my kids have read it and both of my kids had given me the kind of affirmation saying you know, we didn't realize what you were going through when we were kids growing up. And I said well, that was really the reason why I wanted to write it, because I think quite often, as parents, you want to protect your children from all the hardships that you're going through or at least that was what my or what we tried to do and I think some of those lessons that the kids are running their own business now and not necessarily they're entrepreneurs, but not in the same. They don't have the same sort of views as I do, but the values are very similar. So the book has been a great tool for me to share with other people who are interested in some of the life lessons that I learned along the way and some of the values that I still believe in today. And I think I learned a lot of the things about myself through Strategic Coach, which I know you're very familiar with as well, and so I really felt that was really important.
Along the way and during the process of building the company, I got to a point where I knew that I had the ideas, but I didn't have the, let's say, the desire to look after all the details that need to be taken care of when you're working on a project, and that's how I actually got introduced to Donna. I had a specific criteria that I was looking for, and when Donna came along, here was a wonderful young lady who had worked in a government organization and I thought to myself, okay, well, she's making a choice to leave that environment to come into a free enterprise system. There's got to be something more to her than just making that decision. And sure enough, I was very pleased to be able to work with Donna for 16 years, and now more obviously since I've left. But what it really did, is it really?
She brings to the table for me a different way of looking at things. I'm probably more of an ideas person. You know you're bouncing from A to B to C to D to E or an F and whatever, and she kind of is the force that brings it all together and said well, look, let's put it in a more logical, organized fashion. And, quite frankly, that's one of the things that your 90-minute book concept did for me is it helped me to slow down and say, okay, these are the things that are important. And then finding an editor that would challenge me on the ideas that I'd captured in the book. And even still, I thought it was pretty structured, until you have someone review your work and then tell you hey, listen, why is that important?
You know it's obviously important to you, but why would it be important to me? And all of a sudden it opened up my thinking to say, okay, aha, and that's where the bullets came in. At the end of the chapter you can write the story right about the chapter and what was happening. But then what did you learn from that? And that was the part that I really enjoyed. So I hope that's maybe a little longer than what you wanted to hear, but that's the summary yeah, not at all.
Stuart: And that idea that we go through life and the ideas that we've got, particularly in the entrepreneurial realm, where you're not necessarily directly challenged on things if you're the one setting the tone of the organization and pushing out the ideas, it's not always that they're challenged. So to have to question your thinking because it is going on to a page and someone else is doesn't, isn't coming to the page with the same background that you've got to be able to question that, it does help refine those thoughts a little bit more. The interesting exercise even if the outcome wasn't a book, it would still be an interesting exercise to go through, just to think about your thinking a little bit you're right yeah, donna, from your perspective, you guys have worked together for a long time, going through the process and seeing these ideas come together.
did they all resonate? Or Jeff was saying that the kids hadn't realized some of the background to the stories. Was that the same for you?
Dona: So my book is quite different than Jeff's because his was about his journey building a company and all of the characters that were along the way with that a company and all of the characters that were along the way with that. Mine was reflecting on what I had learned working in an entrepreneurial sales organization with Jeff and observing someone who had what I think or has what I think are natural talent for the communication and for strategy and definitely for negotiation, so that this is a person that really gave a good example of how you run an entrepreneurial business. And then how can you make that successful? By partnering with people who can do the stuff that you can't and that is the book that I wrote was the friction free entrepreneur. How do you make for yourself? Do you understand what your qualities are and lean into that? Leverage that by then finding those people that can do the things that you find sap your energies and take your attention away from the work that you do best.
Stuart: So I think Jeff had mentioned that when that perfect synergy of finding the gaps that you either can't do or don't want to do or someone's better suited to do. They kind of bring the organization together. From your perspective, on the sharing the stories, was your approach a bit more anecdotal and story-based or more along the ideas of introducing this concept to people who maybe hadn't come across the idea before?
Dona: Yes, mine was more around the theory, I would say, or talking about the ideas behind why Jeff was so successful in this partnership or any business, how you could be more successful doing that. And I think if I were to do the book again, I actually would incorporate more story than what I did, especially if it was being marketed to entrepreneurs. These are busy individuals and that they may not necessarily care that much about what the ideology is behind the company and its operation and that kind of thing or even the partnership. And I feel like Jeff's book is very effective because it is a book about story and I think that's for any writer a good thing to remember it's interesting.
Stuart:I think I put myself more on the integrator side of the fence rather than the visionary side of the fence, even kind of heading up the organization here. My background and preference is naturally towards the behind the scenes systems rather than the in front of the camera stories. So it's still a struggle for me all of these years later to include those extra elements rather than just talk about the, the facts and the systems and the details. But it, I think you're right, it does give people a opportunity to connect with the person a little bit more or put themselves in the position as it's told through a story, as opposed to just sharing some details. It's Christy who I think you probably worked with through the process.
Christy is pretty good at extracting those stories from people. She's more naturally inclined to that type of thing anyway. And, jeff, as you were talking, it was probably christy who was kind of pulling some of those elements out as well in the process. As you've gone through both of your guests, as you've seen the other person go through the process and seen the end result, the idea of how you're each intending to use the book, you went into the project with particular ideas in mind but did seeing the other person go through the process open your eyes to other opportunities or other audiences that your own individual's books might resonate with?
Jeff: Well, I think I continue to use the book and I think the company continues to use the book as an example of what the earlier days were like at Driving Force, and I think the book is used partly as an indoctrination, I think, to some of the new people that are interested.
Some aren't interested and I'm fine with that, but for me, there's lots of people that you meet in your travels that are I've always done work with as a mentor and I know there's a lot, lots of people that you meet in your travels that are I've always done work with as a mentor, and I know there's a lot of young people that I've given the book to that I've said oh, there's some ideas in here that you might find interesting and they they generally do people are quite surprised that it's not a. You know, if you quite often, if you read a book about, success is a journey, it's not a destination, but you quite often they'll read about the things that took place during those 40 years and they're going. It wasn't okay. There were lots of challenges, there were lots of things that you know, there was survival one-on-one, there was survival two-on-one, survival three-on-one.
You know where you're at a situation where it could have been the end. It could have been the end of the business If things. You're at a situation where it could have been the end of the business if things hadn't turned out the way they did. And it's not always just your ability to make a decision to change the outcome. Quite often fate and luck has a lot to do with it as well timing. But there's still situations where you're in a real tough position, totally sometimes beyond your control, such as the National Energy Program that came into effect in Canada in the early 80s. It just devastated the economy in Western Canada and to survive that, I consider that to be survival 101. And you can do all the things that you need to do from a business standpoint to survive. And then there's other situations that come. So, as I said, it wasn't always the cakewalk. There were lots of ups and downs, but nonetheless we were still moving in the right direction.
Stuart: It's interesting. It gives people the behind the scenes of just seeing the success as it is now. It's looking at behind the scenes of the challenges and then lessons to be learned and taken away from your experience of those. It gives people more of an opportunity to see where they are in the current position and just draw from and pull from the various pieces that are out there in the world and try and make their best decision in the moment, but inspired or informed by what other people have gone through. I think if too many people see just the upsides of it, it's kind of like the social mediafication of everything. You kind of only see the glossy end product and it's valuable to see the, the messy under the surface work from from time to time. Donna, what about you in terms of kind of the access to the sharing the book with certain groups of people? Did that idea broaden either from when you started the project or haven't seen the way that jeff and the company are using their version of the book?
Dona: I was most interested about collecting my thoughts and then being able to understand, like, what is the aspects of an entrepreneur that need to come together in order for them to be successful.
And so you know, just recounting of these. Those early days of his company were perhaps more cowboy, but as he matured and, like as he says, as he learned, there became more structure in that organization, and when I joined the company in 2009, there was a banking crisis going on across North America and a stock market meltdown, and so I watched how he used the discipline of the structure and also this entrepreneurism and some very brave decisions in order to keep the company afloat again during a very challenging time, and so, for me, it was the art and the discipline of the business, that of running that business, that I felt like needed to be documented. And it isn't a story about Jeff's company, about driving force. It's more of a story about what are the things that an entrepreneur needs to balance in order for them to have a robust business, and I didn't just use my own observations about that. There's a lot of references to other people that Simon Sinek, and there's Christopher Gray, who you may be familiar with.
He's a British psychologist who writes on organizations, so there's people that we have referenced within the book. I feel like the end of the book was the thing that spurred the current business that Jeff and I are working in. We have a consulting business that helps organizations through succession and other transitions. We work with leadership teams in helping them to understand their own makeup and how they can work more productively together and avoid conflicts and these sorts of things, but we also are building a software platform that is helping them to recruit more effectively as well, and those ideas of how that software platform work came out of a distillation process that I used to write the book.
Stuart: It was one of the things that we were talking about off as we were scheduling the podcast this idea that, from the ideas that you were able to capture and that extra time to think about the thinking and bring it all together, really jump-started or kick-started a little bit this new organization. How do you have that as was it the seed of an idea going into the project, the book project, or was it really as a process of? Oh, now I've brought all of these things together and something is very clearly coming out of it. Which was it? Chicken and egg kind of? Which came first?
Dona: I believe that it was probably the egg that grew the idea. There was some other things that happened after that. Jeff is the first person that gave me an opportunity to work on organizational learning. Before coming into his company, I had been working in government, it's true, and I also worked in other kind of more administrative roles, and they were not aligned with what my interests were.
I really wanted to work in the human resources area. I had that education, I had developed skills in presentation and I knew I wanted to be someone who was heading up learning and development and helping an organization progress that way. So he looked beyond the fact that I hadn't worked in that specifically and allowed me to learn within driving force and to find my way. He's very much a supporter of people learning that way, so long as they, you know, like it's not a free for all. We had to come to him and explain our ideas and have some backing on that before we. We just sort of set off. But I did figure out working there that there was better ways to recruit, that we were failing in some ways because of some things we could do better, and it just when 2020 happened. Like everyone else, it was a good time and there was a leadership change also happening in the company and it just felt like the right time to do something different.
Stuart: Right, jeff, from your perspective, kind of step away from the day-to-day operations in the original company and then seeing Donna bring this together, was it an easy step to kind of get back involved to the degree that you're involved, or was it? Was she very persuasive at cajoling you into being involved?
Jeff: no, actually, when I stepped down as the president, ceo donna remained in the organization. It was no surprise that she wanted to do something outside of what what she'd been doing at driving, and also I told her that if you find something that you're interested in, I would like to continue to work with her in some capacity, and so that's really what happened out of this whole scenario as well. I mean, her ability, her analytical ability, her ability to put her ideas in a meaningful way, has always impressed me, and I do believe that the jury's still out in terms of whether the software will actually do what I hope it'll do. However, I think all indications are that it should be. If you can make the transition between requiring someone and finding the right person, it's the right fit is really critical in my opinion, and one of the things that I believe that I do have a good ability is to be able to assess people and judge people, and I think any success that we as an organization had is that we had good people, and you know our current president and CEO.
He was working in Whitehorse and he had a master's degree in computing sciences, and you know he fixed a software problem for an associate of mine that I ended up buying his company, and prior to that Ayman actually had joined our company as well. So I had met him three years before that and I said if you're ever unhappy, let me know. And one day I got a call out of the blue from him saying I'm not happy anymore. And so you know, it's about planting seeds, I think, and it's a networking, and when you find the right person, you know you've got to just kind of make a move on it. For sure.
We were very fortunate over the years to have people like that that. I think we've hired some very good people. When you're small, you can do things quicker, faster. When you get larger, to be a larger company, it doesn't quite work that way anymore, and so that's one of the things that I believe that what Donna and Lisa and I are working on now are going to be able to bring that small concept of finding the right person at the right time, and I think that's one of the things that this new company is going to do, and that's why I'm excited about working with Donna and Lisa.
Stuart: Yeah, donna, from your perspective the book was the kind of egg for the new idea. Is it still relevant as a conversation starter in the new world, or has it kind of served its purpose to a certain degree? And now you're on to slightly different things where it's not not ideal, for how transferable is what you've created already into the new company?
Dona: it's all still relevant because it's talking about the underpinnings of like. What is the rationale, why do we do it this way? And so that is helpful. I think that you have to be a person that that likes to read about those sorts of topics, like are you interested in thinking about, like the structure of an organization and what makes that tick Because it? And then getting into some questions that I have for a person hiring anyone, what is it that you're wanting that person to do and how much responsibility do they have? Those are the sorts of HR kind of things that we would ask somebody in order to make sure we got a good fit. So I think that it serves that purpose.
Still, I've had feedback from people who have bought the book and they found they got value out of it for that. But if it, if you're an entrepreneur more like Jeff and you're kind of, you know, looking for the story, then I think that Jeff's book is more fitting for that. We certainly need both of us in order to do the other work that we do with the consulting, that there is a facilitation and, you know, some process involved with that, and that's definitely the area where I have interest and I feel like I have. That's where I bring my skill right.
Stuart: It's so that balance of both perspectives of broadening the we often talk about books as conversation starting books and the idea that the two of them hit give more opportunities to start conversations with people who are in either the more detail-oriented integrator role to use eras language versus the visionary, slash, add type, moving fast role. The idea that they both serve a purpose and help people, help you get into conversations with the people that they might be working from the different channels. It's an opportunity that not everyone has got and I think it will work well because it does. The books themselves are often the starting point in the conversation but whether or not people read them or read them completely or just kind of get to feel that they're in the right place, they want to continue the conversation elsewhere. It doing its job of helping identify visible prospects and allow people to raise their hand.
And going to Jeff's point on the recruitment and the connection with people, I'm sure the situations where people read something years in the past, the seed of the idea sticks, but it's not for a long period of time until they kind of get to the point where they need to engage with you guys on the new company was kind of born out of the ideas that were within the book. The new technology is a subset of that as a capability within that. The types of people that you're trying to engage with, then, are they in particular niches or are they across across industries, but they're suffering from a particular problem.
Dona: When I've done the, of course, the research on it. Looking back over the companies that we have worked with, it's really funny that they have often been in financial business they're looking to improve. Many times it's been an owner-led business and they're looking to pass it on to a management group or perhaps to family members and they want to ready the people that they have from this stage of depending on the owner or the principal and they know that they have to exit out and they want to make sure that the people are prepared for all of that responsibility and accountability that they're going to have when that individual is out of the picture, mostly like they may be on the board still or they may be there for advice but they're not going to be there in the day to day. And I feel like that's where we really can lend some great insight and we can really help develop people so that they are feeling that they are ready.
Stuart: Right, and Jeff, was that your experience as you stepped away from the day-to-day stuff? Were you still somewhat involved in the organization or did you kind of step away completely?
Jeff: I didn't want to be that go-to person where all of the leaders would come to me for because I would typically have the answer at the tip of my fingers so you're going well. It'd be better if I wasn't there. So, although I'm still, I still was involved, but more at a board level. Rather than helping people find out what motivates themselves, which I still believe in I think I probably played maybe more of a role of a cheerleader rather rather than a motivator, because I don't think you motivate anybody. You help people motivate themselves, but and I still do some of that but I do think that I'm more of a cheerleader than I am a motivator does that translate sorry?
go ahead. Sorry, carry on I was just gonna does yeah, story, it's your podcast.
Stuart: I was saying as we just started the podcast. I'm down at the office in florida as opposed to home in pennsylvania, so the extra satellite delay is obviously just catching us out a little bit. I was gonna say the that experience of stepping away. Does that inform, inform the relationships that Donna was talking about, of helping other organizations as they're planning that transition? Have you found that most people are in that position where they're thinking about stepping away and therefore your experience kind of reinforces an existing belief? Or do most people find it difficult to make that transition and they've kind of got their fingers still in various bits in the pie and perhaps your perspective of needing to make that separation is a conversation that they haven't had before?
Jeff: I'll let you answer that, donna, because you probably look at it through a different set of eyes than I would.
Dona: I certainly utilize Jeff as an example in that to, to the extent that it. You know that I'm not being annoying, and because every situation is different and so the extent that a person needs to be there to support may be situational depending on the organization, but certainly we help the individual to understand that the mindset of being a board member and the role of being a board member that literal we actually write a literal job description for them because they sometimes have to see that document to go okay, yeah, remember, you're there to guide the CEO, but really not the CFO or the people that work inside the business and you're no longer in operations, and so that they do actually have to make this mental shift.
Stuart: And that requires coaching and it requires some structure yeah, I imagine it's so difficult, particularly for organizations where they've got the longevity and they've been there for so long. Not is it a job, but it's also what they do day in, day out. And then, as Geoff was saying, the fact that you do have the answers at your fingertips because of all of that 40 years of experience, and it almost seems like it would just be so quick to answer the question but to have the realisation that for the organisational good it is beneficial to step back and almost have to go through the pain but whilst you're still around, if the worst were to happen or if it was a very pressing question, but to kind of orchestrate that transition rather than just let it kind of tick over and all of the problems that that brings up. It's a it's a good insight that I imagine that a lot of people would find benefit from, actually not just theoretically being told it, but hearing it from someone who had been the mill of that.
Time always goes fast on the podcast, I could think I kind of I end every podcast by saying the same thing, so it shouldn't catch me out, but every time I look at the clock it goes fast. I want to wrap up, I guess by just looking at the two books, because oftentimes we're just talking to one person and we're in that one particular model. What I really like about this show is it's given the balance of the two approaches, but I think there's a similarity and a job of work that sits underneath both of them in this idea of a conversation starting book, and the two approaches are different, but it allows you to start conversations with those people. So is there anything that now you're a little bit past writing? Then obviously there's always the opportunity to make changes, but is there anything that if you were starting again from today, you would come to the project with a different mindset or try and get a different outcome from it?
Jeff: Donna, why don't you go? I'll finish, because there's a couple of things that I'd like to comment on, but I know, donna, you're much more analytical than I am.
Dona: So I do want to hear your thoughts.
Yeah, I think I would employ more of a marketing mindset and I would think, okay, if my audience is an entrepreneur, then I'm going to get more into the mind of that person and I'm going to write a book that's going to be helpful and appeal to them. And so I tend to tended in this book to start from my base of knowledge and that's not the way an entrepreneur thinks about their business. So then I would incorporate more language, so talk to entrepreneurs and ask them, like, what are the problems you're trying to solve, and then write the book that helps with that. So that would be now the approach I would take yeah it's so difficult, isn't it?
Stuart: because we all come to it with our own experience and it's difficult to kind of mentally switch that to the the different perspective. Jeff, what were you saying? Sorry?
Jeff: I think the one thing you know, you is critical and I think it's part of even looking at your format for a 90 minute book is who's your audience? Who's your audience and why are you writing it? And so for me, from my standpoint, my audience were my children, and I really wanted to have a strong message for the kids in terms of what actually took place over those years, and I think the book accomplished that for sure. And there's a lot of carryover because there's a lot of people who I think are entrepreneurs that think that there's things that happen that just fall into place. Well, nothing really falls into place unless you make it. So I think that message comes across really well in that book.
But to Donna's point, I also think that you could probably do I could have done more of a how-to. Some of the feedback I got from some of the members of the staff who read it that knew me quite well, said I'm really your book didn't go into enough detail. It's 190 pages or whatever it is. I wish it was 300 pages. I wish it was 400 pages because you know you've got so many great stories that you know they know me and they could almost hear me talking to them as they were reading it, and so if I were to have done that over.
I think the book I wrote was accomplished. What I wanted to do, the next one that I do I want to actually, this is pure entertainment, but it's also the book that I'm going to write is about humor and why humor is the great equalizer in any situation where there's all kinds of tension, and I think that was one of the things that I really was able to do. Well, but not from a marketing standpoint, but just from a pure, from a pure easy listening or easy reading and entertaining from it. I'd like to write a book that entertains you from some of the incredibly you know, incredible family stories that have taken place, and not only just family, but what I consider family, through work and situations that you cannot, you can't imagine the most bizarre and I have a sick sense of humor and I think I think people like reading something that's going to make them laugh and some of those situations and stories that I've been fortunate enough to experience in my lifetime. I just want to share that with people because there's some great stories.
Stuart: And that's the great opportunity, isn't it, To be able to capture those things and get them down in a way that other people can consume. It's so difficult, or such an unfortunate scenario. We had a good friend down here who unfortunately passed away, must be three or four years ago now, just at the beginning of not related to COVID, but at the beginning of COVID. Dick Holland was his name and he had such a wealth of fantastically hilarious stories and we even doing what we do. We were saying for years that we should get them documented and captured, but we never quite got around to it. So hopefully no one on the call or listening is about to shuffle off in the way that dick did, but it's a reminder to kind of capture them and get them down as quick as possible. Plus, I think you and I the three of us we share a kind of commonwealth sense of humor, which is much more hilarious than an american sense absolutely absolutely not wanting to offend half or three quarters of the audience.
I've really enjoyed this, guys, like I. Like I say every podcast, the time just goes so fast. It'd be really great at some point in the not too distant future to maybe do a follow-up show and just talk a little bit more in some detail. I want to make sure that people have got the opportunity to follow along with the journey and find out more about what you guys do. So where would be a good place to point people to?
Jeff: And I can make sure that there's a link in the show notes Amazon, and why can't? We is the name of the book and my name. That's all you need to do. Just google it on Amazon, you'll find it. Yes, I'm on Amazon as well.
Dona: Yeah, I was going to say I'm on Amazon as well. We both took well 90 minute books, helped us to set up our books in the Kindle app and on the Amazon site, so that was. I would have hated to have had to have figured out that process on my own. So we thank I'm very thankful for that. We also we do have our website, rhealize.com, and Rhealize is spelled R-H-E-A-L-I-Z-E beg your pardon, that it's. It's spelled that way because it's based on the mythical lady Rhea, who was the mother of Zeus, the Greek god, and Rhea was a person that used her intellect and her wily ways in order to solve her problems rather than using the power she had as a god, and so we felt that was kind of a very fitting and she was also the.
She was also the goddess over midwifery and why I felt that was appropriate for me as a person is I actually refer to myself as a midwife for entrepreneurial ideas, because I find that I can actually help bring that out of and yeah, but I don't stick around to like, raise the child, I just help them to get born and I move on that's okay.
Stuart: It's good to, like Jeff was saying before, it's good to know your specialties and your skills and then leave the rest to other people definitely an implementer, not a pro, you know, a program runner right, yeah, I'm, yeah, I have similar tendencies.
That's fantastic. I'll make sure there's a link in the show notes to those sources for people, everyone as you're listening. I think we've heard a couple of examples today. Both kind of tie into this idea of conversation, starting books, and whether it's a personal story that you're telling, or whether it's more of a how to, or whether it's more of a framework, just the opportunity to get this in front of people and move the world forward by starting more meaningful conversations. These guys have had a great example of that. So, donna, jeff, thank you very much for your time. Everyone, thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next one very much.