TOP5_DefinedTalent
TOP5_DefinedTalent
Top 5 Strategies to Lead, Run & Raise a Family Without Losing Your Mind
Tara Thurber and Clark Lagemann of Avidon Health discuss balancing high performance, leadership, and personal life. Clark emphasizes dynamic balance, prioritization, and being present in each moment. He shares his journey from healthcare to founding Avid on Health, focusing on behavior change. Clark highlights strategies like ruthless prioritization, daily physical activity, clear communication, and embracing chaos. He stresses the importance of accountability, both personal and professional, and the need to define personal success. Clark also advises protecting one's calendar, being selective with commitments, and the concept of "pouring from your cup" to achieve long-term success.
Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm Tara Thurber, Founder and Director of Partnerships here at define talent. And joining me today is Clark lageman, CEO of Avidon Health, marathon runner and family man currently navigating the chaos of literally rebuilding his home. In today's episode, we're going to chat with Clark to see how he balances high performance, leadership, physical discipline and intentional parenting, all while embracing life's unpredictability, whether you're an executive, a parent or an athlete or all three. This conversation is for you or anyone trying to do big things without burning out. Hey, Clark, how are you today? How's it going?
Clark Lageman:Excited for today?
Tara Thurber:Good. Me too. So listen from running a company to running marathons to running after your kids. Talk to me, What does balance really look like for you right now? And how do you define success across all areas of your life?
Clark Lageman:Yeah, I mean, balance for me, is not a fixed point, it's dynamic, right? So there's times when you feel imbalance, or it's time to feel really attuned. For me, it's some weeks I'm crushing it as a CEO, other weeks, they're from my daughter's swim lessons. For me, one of the top priorities I always focus in on and how I really think I succeed is to be present in the moments that I'm there for. So for me, it's success is like I need to be aligned on the activity. So if I'm focused on this conversation or conversation my team, I'm going to be the best CEO I possibly could be. But at 6pm at night, when I'm having family time with my my kids, they don't need me to the best CEO. They need me to be the best father. So I'm always making sure I'm I'm very present in the moment. I'm at whether it be at work with my family or even this morning, early morning, I went in and did something for myself. I went out for a run early in the morning. No distractions, no phone. I just got after it. So it's like, I'm just always trying to fixate on that task at hand, and how do I be the best at that task at hand? I love that Clark. And let me just dial it back a little bit. I would love for you to just give the audience a little bit about you and your background. Yes. So I was an executive for a healthcare company. I saw the inefficiencies of healthcare. I bitched and moan about the efficiencies in healthcare for a long time, and finally I was like, You know what? No one's doing this. Let me stop complaining and let me do something about it. So I put my money where my mouth was, and I built a company. Went out and raised some money from friends and family. They believed in me. It was great. Built a business that never really got over the hurdle, but I learned a lot from that, and eventually built the second company that has grown into what it is today, multiple Time, Inc, 5000 award winner. We've won a variety of different honors in our business. It's really exciting. And we focus on behavior change, helping people create lasting, healthy habits. We do that for organizations as well. That's phenomenal. I think that it's so needed right now and and, you know, just to be able to make those shifts and to learn and make those changes, everybody is in need. So congrats on on building that. And you know, the excitement that comes behind it all as your company grows excitement and challenges. I mean, just like being a father or being a husband, it's just there's great moments and it's very difficult moments, and being able to be again, how we start the conversation, balanced in those moments and successful in those moments require you to be there for those moments. And it's, it's not it's not easy. Every day. It's difficult, but it's very rewarding, though, well, and I really like the point where you, you say, being present for those moments. And you know, this morning you, you went for a run, no phone, no nothing. I mean that I feel is huge, because even as individuals, I mean, for myself, I run with my phone and then I'm getting dinged as I'm in the middle of, like, I'm in Mile four, and I'm getting dinged so I'm looking at my phone while I'm running. So the fact that you can just being present and kind of, I guess, individually bucketing those present moments. It seems like, Yeah, well, even like, I mean, first thing in the morning, my alarm is set for 545, I can't remember the last time it went off, honestly, like, I get it before my alarm goes off. I'm misconditioned. Yeah, I don't go to my phone other than to turn off the alarm. That's the only time I touch my phone. I go, what I need to do? I already have my clothes prepared so I know what I'm gonna wear. I don't have any excuses not to get moving. I go and do all my activities. I come back. I make my my nutritious smoothie, anti inflammatory drink, I drink every morning. Shout out to mark common for that great recipe. But I have this. I'm dialed in. My kids are probably by that point getting up, or at least awake. I'm hanging out with them.
Tara Thurber:Everyone gets shipped off, I grab my phone. Nothing needs to happen before eight in the morning, like my family's there, my units there. I don't need to be on my phone, because you know what I'm gonna do, exactly that scroll through endlessly. I'm gonna go on social. I'm gonna go reply back to emails that can be handled at eight o'clock. And then again, I'm present for the moments that are important to me right there. Wow. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do that starting tomorrow, because I tend to grab my phone, turn my alarm off, but then it's around the entire morning as I'm getting the kids ready, you know, trying to get my workout in, trying to do all of that. So, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lead by that intention for sure? Um, yeah, I want to dive into your top five strategies for showing up as a strong leader, a present parent and a grounded human, you know, especially when things can feel unstable. Um, what has helped you to stay steady. Top
Clark Lageman:priority for me is prioritization, like I call it ruthless prioritization. So I have some non negotiables. There's some family time that's non negotiables. Certainly when I'm there for my team, it's a non negotiable. This meeting today, we were talking. I set the stage to be successful. My phone is off. I made sure the house is quiet. Luckily, we selected time. There's no kids, because if you came back at 230 might be a different story, right? Right? Story going crazy in the background. But like, I prioritize this meeting because it was important to me. So that's one of the top things people can do, because most times we're half and half out. So like, I have my phone here, I'm looking at something, emails going off. Like, I'm distracted. I'm giving you 80% of my best self. Like, that's just not good for you. It's not good for me. If I give 100% in activity, I expect a person to give me back 100% and ultimately, will private great outcome from that conversation. That's number one. Second thing I do is just try to sweat on a daily basis. For me, activity and competition is great in business. I love it, but oftentimes in business, you don't have a finish line, so that's very difficult. It's very difficult for like, performers that like to achieve and like to be acknowledged for their achievements in a business, it's like, you have to sell your company before people like, Wow, he really blew it out, or she blew it out. Like, it was great. So for me, I just want to do racist competition. Get up in the morning, get moving. It just clears out my head. And it's, again, just, it's something for me, like it's selfish. On me, I'm selfishly taking the time for myself. That's that's number two, going back to what we talked about for is, is being present, like, wherever my feet have landed, like I'm there, like I'm there for this conversation. I'm there for my kids. I don't want to screw around when it's something else, because, again, I'm just going to get 40% 60% effort across these different these different activities, which is just not good for anyone. Next thing I tend to do at a fault, my wife will tell me, if you had her on here, is I communicate clearly and often. Is how I describe it clearly and abrasively, maybe how my wife would describe it, but setting expectations being real, communicating like my availability when I'm not there, what I like, what I don't like. My mother used to joke, it's like, they'd give us Christmas presents and that, and then she would walk back home, leave the house with, like, five of them. I'm like, I just, I just don't like it. I want to make sure, you know, so next year probably it's three. The following year is probably two, and it's one. And I try to set that expectation with my kids as well. If you don't like something, that's fine. You just need to communicate the right way to share that information with others. Because Tara, if you are giving me something, you give it to me with all your heart, and you want me to have this great experience. If I don't like it and I don't communicate that to you, do I have to blame you, or I have to blame myself. It's myself. Because next time you're gonna do the same activity and say, This is the same thing, Clark really liked it last time, I'm like, five years later, I finally dropped the bomb on you that I don't like doing right? You're like, Dude, why do you tell me five years earlier, I just wasted all this money, all this time, and actually, like, I don't even like doing this crap, but I did it for you. And you're like, we just wasted all this crap, all this time. Like, again, like, time is so important to me. If I'm not prioritizing what I want, what I need with, who I need it with, then I am known to blame, but myself. That's the fourth one. Most people just they want to, they want to make everyone feel good. But the way you make someone really feel good is by telling them the truth and then giving them real acknowledgement as to what they've done. If you had something in your teeth, I want to tell you, because you want to know this information. Yes. And lastly, like, you started it, I mean, like, I'm rebuilding a house is 11 month plus construction project. Running a company got two small kids. I was driving them 45 minutes every day to school. It's not ideal, not fun. I tend to have this mindset is that chaos creates opportunities. So I'm always okay with being in the rinse, in the mix, because I can't just have certainty all the time. It's certainly not. As a parent, you absolutely cannot. You never know what to expect when your kids are around. So being able to be comfortable in that, in that situation, I think, is also good the mindset that I'm gonna get a little dirty, have a little dust on my floors. Yeah, it just was complained to the contract.
Unknown:My guys. It's like, I got dust all over my plates right now. We need this right now. But I'm okay with it. Did it upset me? I'm like, I have to stop for it now. Like, let me go clean the situation. Let me go make it better for my kids when they get back home today. Yeah, no, I love it. And it's, it's finding different opportunities, right? Um, you know, chaos and children, I think go hand in hand,
Tara Thurber:whether we want them to go hand in hand or not. And I think that as a parent myself, that's one of the biggest things that, not that I had to get used to, but I had to embrace, was the fact of being comfortable in the uncomfortable, being comfortable in the chaos, and embracing the chaos, even as as as a mom, as you know, a business owner, and just life in general, I definitely agree with the whole aspect of chaos. I'm not if, if my life was the same thing every single day, I would not be living to my fullest potential. Because, you know, I think the craziness is, is, is part of the fun.
Clark Lageman:Yeah, I think one of my favorite parenting stories, it happened to me. So I can say that this was a favorite parenting story, and I tell it. So we had my daughter. She's now six years old, and one of our first pediatrician appointments, maybe it was her first. I don't remember it was. It was very early on. And of course, you know, you're there, you're nervous, you're you have all your crappy you know, my wife had the book bag gone with, like, 30 things, and, like, all this stuff. And we're prepared for everything, multiple towels, diapers, and so my daughter's like, you know, a little uncomfortable crying a little bit in the waiting room. So I pick her up out of her carrier, like holding her, and I just had her, like, on my lap, and, you know, she was, she was wearing her diapers and everything. I'm like, oh, you know she just peed. And the way I knew she disappeared because my pants were soaked, yeah, so the diaper wasn't on right or correctly, we didn't know. It's like, pee all over. So I remember, like, I'm going in to see this pediatrician for the first time, and I'm like, My daughter just peed on me, and she literally didn't care. She was like, this is parenting, dude. Like, pray over yourself and just focused on my daughter. I'm like, Whoa. Like, what an aha moment for me is that she was used to seeing that and experiencing it. I was so concerned, I had to give a justification. I'm like, Well, this is just what it's going to be like, man. Like you have to get over yourself, and you have to lower your guard, and you have to accept that this is now your new reality. Luckily, I was only peed on once, puked on many times. Was a one time deal, and so my son came around, which there was other surprises. When you have a when you have a boy versus a girl, it's a different type of battle you're fighting, but it just, it kind of just just that the small moments in your personal life, you can tie the Back to Business learnings too. But just that's like, one of those stories parents probably all go through like, oh, yeah, wow. Let me recalibrate myself for a second here and not think that the world is ending because I got a little tinkle on me, you know, right? It's not that important, right? And, you know, I think back in the day as a first time parent, you're you think about that, you know, you bring that stress out. But then it just now, it's like, yeah, okay, it's part of it's part of the plan, right? It's part of the day. 100% Yeah. Um, so Clark, just kind of diving into Avedon health. I know avid on health focuses on well being and behavior change. How do you apply that mission to your own life. And how does your physical training, like, like marathon running, support your mindset as a CEO and a dad? Yeah. I mean, changing behavior is hard. Yeah, most people are going to fail. I failed myself. I fail. I still fail. So this is not that I've solved it. I failed because it's not a destination, it's a journey. So it's a lot of steps you're going to take along the process. So our business is centered on helping people break unhealthy habits, so smoking, sleep, issues, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, substance use. And how do we do that process? So there's these cognitive behavioral training principles we apply. And a lot of the times, we develop courses, we develop challenges, we develop content. So all these these learning modalities to help our people correct these behaviors or to change these behaviors. So oftentimes I drink my own Kool Aid, my team and I, so we test a lot of these principles. We use a lot of these content. We use a lot of the content first to see if it resonates. So I often go through similar struggles that the people that are using our product are going through, and I try my best to remind myself that it's not I'm going to solve it forever. It's I need consistent training, consistent structure. And oftentimes. Consistent accountability to get to the goals that I have for myself. So just like you started, you started the conversation with, I'm training for races and events, right? I prioritize that because it's important to me. But I get up in the morning I have a habit. So as I started with, I turn off my alarm, usually before it gets off. My clothes already picked out for me, so that's a habit stacking. So I don't need to think about these things. I just go and I just I set myself up for success, because everything is laid out for me, and I have my goals set up already for the week, so I know this week. I know all the days I'm running, I'm new, all the days I'm recovering, I know all the activities I'm going to do. And I'm also holding myself accountable, because I'm telling people about this. So here's my routine, here's what I plan on doing, and here's all the people who are going to hold me accountable my social circle, that's going to say, did you really do your main this morning? Did you get out of your mind? Hell yeah, I got out of did my run? Because I'm training for this activity, and I want you to know that I may fall down sometimes, but if you're there to hold me accountable, I'm more likely to push in those difficult times. So it's that discipline and the patience is just so incredibly important for any type of goal setting, rate type of activities you're trying to achieve,
Tara Thurber:that's really fantastic. Because, you know, I know for myself, there's been a lot of different habits that have been broken, and I like the idea of having setting yourself up with accountability, right? And you know who, who do you have to help you hold yourself accountable? And I think that that's really important too for for any leader that's out there to make sure that they've got people to hold them accountable.
Clark Lageman:And do you find, do you get your team? Do you get your family involved, who are kind of your accountability partners to help you find that success? Yeah, I mean, it's dependent on the activity. Sometimes it's my daughter that holds me accountable, like being a good dad. So you and I had a conversation recently while we were out, and we talked about a goal that you might want to pursue, and I made a mental note of that, and damn sure, I'm going to hold you accountable if you want me to, because ultimately, you have to be open to have this conversation, right? Otherwise, it just you have this, this, this nuisance that's pushing you for a goal that's no longer important to you, which is fine, like goals change, like my goal today may be different than my goal in three years from now, but certainly from a business perspective. So a tangible business step that we've taken in our company, we've introduced OKRs, objectives and key results. We do this publicly, so everyone on my team sees my goals, my objectives that I'm going to deliver on for this quarter. I don't hit all them every week. I check in the team. Can review it on the dashboard, so it's very clear. It's very transparent. I can also see what they're doing. So as an executive, I can look down and say, What are you doing, or more as as a team, and I can say, How can I help you, and what are you doing? So it's a very different way that we kind of treat our our business activities, and then as a parent or as a father, it's the same sort of thing. It's like, I'm doing this goal, and maybe it's a social circle, so I'm doing the race and training for right now, right? And a lot of my friends, they know I'm doing it, but the accountability partners are different. They're people that are doing more competition and athletics, because they kind of get it. They're holding me accountable the way that need to be held accountable. And also they're doing their own goals and their own objectives and their own training for their races. I'm like, Well, that's pretty awesome. So like, it's kind of like we're trying to go after it together.
Tara Thurber:I love that because, yes, I I have found one that I want to do in November and but I do find too even though I've brought it to my family, I think I need to step outside of that and find other accountability partners to push me a little bit further. Because, sure, I've got the unconditional love of, yeah, Mom, that's great, you know, but they don't, they get that. It's great. And they'll see me in November, and they're like, cool, we're gonna have a really cool weekend, and we're gonna watch you run that marathon. They don't get that. I need to start working towards that now. Yeah, exactly. And I think something so true to form of your kids, your kids. I mean, I It's like, I hold a mirror up to myself every single day with my with my two girls. And, you know, one thing that I really want to start doing is stretching at night more. And, you know, my my youngest came to me the other day. I was working late and I was multi, multi tasking all over the place, talking to her, finishing up some emails. I had said that I was really far behind, but yet I was trying to get dinner on the table. And she was like, Mom, I need you to stop for a second. And I'm like, What do you mean? And she had gone off to do something, and she's like, Just come with me for a minute. So of course, I'm like, okay, so what is it? Right? I drop everything, which brings me upstairs to my bedroom, and I'm like, What are we doing? She opens the door, and she had put down my yoga mat, and she had grabbed my phone and she went on to my pillow. Ton app, and she found a five minute standing yoga class, and she says, we're doing this together right now. It's awesome. And I, I kind of, I dropped everything. I said, it's five minutes. Let's do it. It changed the rest of my night. Tears, yeah, tears from your eyes. Like, that's pretty awesome. That's the first thing you do. Like, I did great, and then she wants to rip your face off 10 minutes later, by the way, that was an incredible moment. Yeah, oh, it was such an incredible moment. And I needed that. I needed to see that. And you know it, it came back to me, and I just looked at her, and I hugged her afterwards, and I said, you just completely changed the rest of the evening for us, it was almost like it was a reset for me, and, you know, little things like that. So this morning, I said, cedar, I really want to start stretching every single night. Do you think you can hold me accountable and do it with me? And she's like, I got you. So I feel that, and I feel the accountability and I need you know, I think even for for leaders that are out there, sure you've got your team, but leaders that are potentially on the on the same path or on the same levels too, I think are important to have accountability partners, because founders and leaders, I feel that it could be extremely isolating at times and, and, you know, you need that extra push from somebody outside of your bubble. Absolutely amazing. It's a lonely journey. Lonely journey. Yeah, it definitely is. It definitely is, you know, coming back to family and sacrifice, right? I think there's also a belief that you have to sacrifice family or yourself to make it professionally. What would you say to leaders struggling with guilt, burnout or feeling like they're always behind in some part of life?
Clark Lageman:You're not behind. You're human. So first off, like I find with with all this, it's guilt thrives in comparison. So I recently wrote an article for Inc talking about embracing the dad bod. And it's like the dad bod. It's like middle age. I got this dad bod. I researched this topic. I mean, I'm in the behavior change process. I work with hundreds of 1000s of people around health and wellness, helping them live their most optimal self. And I thought of myself like I've trained for multiple Ironmans. That's a 17 hour race. It's a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike race followed by a marathon. You have 17 hours to complete it. So that's what I was doing for a period of time. And during those like and I had no kids at the time as well, it was I was extreme trainer. I was doing everything eating right, and I never had the quintessential six pack abs. I never had, like what I see in these magazines or on the TV shows or in the movies. And I started realizing and reading is that what we are being fed oftentimes, is a completely unrealistic, unattainable representation of what we think perfect should be. And then I studied the topic a little more for this article, and basically what I learned was, oftentimes like that. Dad Bod performance isn't equated to the visual representation of what performance needs to look like. So Tom Brady, arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, arguably, maybe with the greatest NFL player of all time, multiple Super Bowl rings, every piece, etc. Pete didn't have the chiseled abs like he had Dad Bod and he just won. He was a performer. So you need to define your own success. If you're feeling guilt, I felt there. If you're feeling shame and embarrassment, I've been there. I felt that you're not alone. It's normal. But when you start to recalibrate yourself as to what success needs to look like, I think that's what's going to help anyone feel that they could be the best parent, the best husband, the best partner, the best executive. It's just about what matters. And how do you define success in that, that arena that you're playing in, right? And do you feel that it's it's all personalized as well? Because the way that I feel success is going to be different from the way you would feel success, of course, and also success is different each day, right? Like, I mean, if you're going through transition in your life, you're going through relationship changes, if you're going through construction in your home, I am not going to be as successful as I can be with my house being done. It's a physical impossibility. I have at least a portion of my brain turned off thinking about the contractors, thinking about the work, or if my kids are sick, a portion of my ear is always attuned to is my daughter crying. But yet, people expect 100% performance every day. It's just not realistic and practical necessarily. I can tethered together multiple days like and I will have. Ask myself, Is my pace sustainable, right? If it isn't stable, let's go. Let's keep getting after it. But it's not step back. Do a recovery. Give it back. Give it a 60% day. And 60% doesn't need be. Everything across the board goes 60% like my relationship, it goes 60. Parenting goes 60 executive because 60, maybe it's 80, 2040, okay, now I'm into the range of like, what's sustainable for what my body can handle, what my mind can handle, and ultimately, what I can do successfully for my team and for my loved ones. That's fantastic. Clark, I feel that by talking about it that way, it also allows people to not get down on themselves if they're not as successful as they're trying to be, or needing to portray themselves to be, in allowing,
Tara Thurber:giving yourself that sense of, Hey, it's okay, right? It's, it's okay that to not be playing at 150%
Clark Lageman:five, seven days a week, because then you will burn out, right and and that's when it could even be more detrimental to your life, whether it's your personal life or your professional life. Most people don't. They never pick up on that mentally, emotionally, you don't. It's it's harder, but physically, it's easy. So like my physical example, I had an injury in October of last year, I tore my hamstring working out, doing whatever I was doing, and I kind of, I didn't treat the right way the first time, but I got better, and I was then going back to athletics and competition, and I was fine. I wasn't. I had a little nagging book wasn't too big of a deal. Then I started saying, I need to take it ratchet up. So I need to take it to the next level for an event I'm preparing for. And then I was like, I hit the hit the threshold, and I was done, and I had to go and take it back so far, back to where I was months behind schedule because I didn't treat it that moment. And oftentimes you don't, you can't ever recognize that emotionally or mentally. You usually like, oh, there was this one thing that happened. It's like, it's a collection of things that happen, but physically, you oftentimes can go back to that one point that triggered all these others inevitabilities because you didn't address it. It's easy to identify, but performance and emotional kind of fortitude, and it's just much harder to identify that trigger point that gets you there. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Tara Thurber:What advice do you have for the next generation of professionals who want to build big things without losing sight of the little moments that matter most?
Clark Lageman:The thing I wish it is much better at early on, although I didn't have quite the same responsibility to do today, is being very protective of my calendar. I would oftentimes, which I do. Now, here's a link book a time that works for you, but I was giving, like, basically everything, every time I had, and I was like, just always prioritizing someone else's agenda and priorities over my own. So for any one starting out, you need to, again, protect what's important to you, which is your time. You can't get that back, whether it be time for your family, time for your business, that's number one. Second thing I would say is, during that process, you need to choose your nose wisely. So I say yes to a lot of things, because I just love experiences, and you never know where they can lead you. But if I said yes to everything, I will never get back to what's important to me. So as I told you before, I set my goals for the week, I know what I'm going to work on if I said yes to every obligation or opportunity. So those are two things, things I have to do, things that maybe I want to do, I'll never get to the goal I set myself back in January, so I kind of say No, at the right times, at the right moments, so those two skills that you can integrate into your daily activities right now would pay you massive dividends in the future.
Tara Thurber:And I think to coming back with the saying yes, a lot also, in my mind, I'm also hearing the being able to say, I don't like things, or, yeah, you know, it kind of goes hand in hand, because a lot of times people are just going to say yes to and do it, just to be nice, right? Or, or just to get that added bonus, whereas, if you know, if somebody's giving you a gift, and you keep saying thank you and that you love it, but really you're taking it home and putting it in a closet, it, it kind of goes hand in hand. And I feel, do you feel people that are just starting out, they're gonna, they're going to say, yes, a lot more and forget about that aspect. And therefore that's going to it could be detrimental if they forget about that aspect. Yeah. I mean, it's distracting, so it's, you don't know it's so entrepreneurship is so damn hard because you don't have someone telling you exactly how do it. Yeah.
Clark Lageman:1000 people telling you how to do it, and maybe all those examples are wrong, and there's 1001 is actually the right example. So it's much more difficult for you to get invited out to something or to do an activity by someone. You think that's more successful than you, because, again, everyone has these social proofing they're pushing out their chest, like, look at my IG, look at my LinkedIn, person doing so you don't really know. Are they burning through capital? Do they have a massive amount of debt? Are they firing their employees? Are they really they have a poor family life at home? Their kids don't like them? You don't know. So it's so hard in those situations to say, Well, I'm just going to shut it down and just focus on myself for right now. There's a great, great person I talked to many years ago that said to me he had a business coach, and the business coach was talking about how he's always giving so he's always pouring from his cup, pouring from his cup, pouring from his cup, and his business was not succeeding like he was just meandering along like good guy, good to his community, but like, it was just always like this. And so his business coach to him said, Well, it's a porn from your cup. Let's think about it differently. Why don't it's important from your cup? Why you let your cup spill over and let everyone drink from the excess? And it was like, wow. His eyes just hip. He's like, Yes, I need to perform. I need to do what's best for myself. And by by proxy for that, I'm going to have all this excess that's going to come over my cup to give to all these other people that are asking me for and I saw him make this notable shift. He was less active in some places, much more active in other places, and his goals were starting to get hit. And I'm very proud of the work he's done, and that kind of mindset of saying like it was just so simple, he was still giving back. He was giving back in a different way, but it helped him achieve the success that he needed and he was looking for, which was important to him. It was about his goals and his success. I love that, Clark and you and I had talked about that a couple of months ago, and that has stuck with me so deeply, all all the way up until, you know, people will say, Oh, well, I feel like I'm being selfish. By doing for myself and giving to myself, I've switched it, and it's now you're being self full. You have to be self full so that you can then take what you've got and give the access. Let, let whatever is pouring out to be what you're giving out to others. Did we file that? That trademark cell phone? Because if I'm gonna go look for it right now, just wanna make sure you take care of that before this thing posts, you better get on it right. Right. Clark, this has been awesome. I want to just kind of, as we start to wrap up our conversation here, there's, I think, two questions that are a little bonus questions I'd love to throw at you, if that's okay, yeah, all right. So I think number one is, I'm trying to pick from a couple that I'm digging for. You know, I'm going to say, what gets you out the door for a run, even when you're tired and you're exhausted, or have a morning where you just don't want to get up in the morning, what gets you out of the door? Oh, man, I'm accountable to my goals, and I'm accountable to people. So I've told a lot of people a goal I have, which is to run this 100 mile race. And I set myself up for being very transparent on I plan on doing this, and the only way I can do that is I have to do the hard work when no one is looking so no one saw me this morning, at 545 getting up and getting out of bed, no one saw me while it's still dark outside, running, put my little my best on that has the reflectors. It just work. But yeah, they will see me when I do my event, or they will ask about how my event went. They see the end product, but not the hard work putting into it. But I have to put the hard work in, otherwise I can't give the end result. Excellent. Excellent. You, and you feel it in your gut too. You've got those the you've got them talking to you in the back of your head, right? Oh, yeah, you don't let them down. Let them down. Excellent. And then what, what is a a mantra or mindset that keeps you moving forward in your personal and your professional life? Love this question. So one of my first jobs out of college, I got hired at ADP, so the payroll company, yeah, to basically, I was wearing a suit and tie. Knock on doors selling payroll. It was such a tough grind, so much, so hard, such such a fun and also difficult time at the same at the same moment. And one of the quotes I found at the time is this quote by Babe Ruth, at least it's a tribute to him, and it says it's hard to beat the person that doesn't give up. So I printed this thing out, I put it up on my board. So if I just outworked you, I would probably win. So I just had that mindset about everything. If I just gave five minutes more than you, I'd probably be five minutes better than you. If I spent one day after doing this activity, I'd probably be better than you. Because. I was out working, so if I gave up, if I stopped working, you would likely beat me. And I just said, That's my mindset that have for everything, physical activities, for performance in business, for being a good father. Like I just if you give up and you walk away from that, if you walk away from the argument with a loved one, I think that's giving up in my the way I view myself is giving up. So agree. I will talk until three o'clock in the morning if I have to, because it's incredibly important that we work through this together. So yeah, it's hard to beat a person that never gives up. Try to beat me if you want to, if I don't give up, you can't, because I'm never going to stop. I love that. I think I need to print that out and put that on my board. I think it definitely rings true. And thank you. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Alright, so I would love just to go back really quickly to bring our audience back to your top five strategies, if you could just go through them, one through five, and then we'll wrap up our awesome call today. Yep, start with prioritization, so making sure you are focused on what matters the most. For you, second thing I talked about is getting active every day. For me, it's just a finish line that I need. Whether you're just running a one mile, you're doing 10 push ups a day, you need success. So if you're sweating, you're getting moving, that's a great way to be successful, in my opinion. Be present where you are, so wherever you land. Be grounded in whatever the activity is, being a good father, a good spouse, a good executive. Next thing is, I talk about how I communicate so very transparently, transparently. Can hurt you? Give me a gift. You may you may get hurt with what you hear, but you're going to know what really matters to me, and ultimately, together, our relationship will be better. So whether that be in business personal life, I think it's just so incredibly important. And lastly, it's going to be chaos in your world, whether you're running a company or being a parent or being a spouse. You just need to accept that and be okay with that and just again, go back to these other skills of like being the best version of yourself in that moment can't control everything. Beautiful Clark, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure having you on.
Tara Thurber:We are defined talent coming to you at top five, make it a great day. You.
