Zach Oliva truly understands commitment and dedication to growing something you believe in. He practices active recommitting to stay on goal.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.

[Oliva Gibbs Ad]

Rick:

Told you, Brian.

Brian:

Told me what?

Rick:

This is part two of last week’s episode.

Brian:

Oh yeah. And it was getting good.

Rick:

If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas.

Stephen Semple:

Hey, it’s Stephen Semple here, and as the guys just alluded to, this is part two of an amazing podcast on Oliva Gibbs energy law. And not to give too much away, in case you don’t want to go back and listen to the first episode, although I think you should. Oliva Gibbs basically in about a 15-year period of time, went from three lawyers to now there are six offices and 60 people. And in this podcast, we are going to go down some really interesting rabbit holes. This has turned out to be one of my favorite podcasts, and I know you’re going to enjoy it.

Zach Oliva:

So I think probably for the five years before COVID, I would take these trips and it would be called a think week or weekend or whatever, and I would get a flip phone and I would go to a cabin in rural Texas.

Stephen Semple:

Well, you just dated yourself there. You got a flip phone.

Zach Oliva:

Yeah, I still have a flip phone. I have a flip phone. I use a flip phone every weekend. I’ve been using a flip phone every weekend for seven years. I would use my flip phone and I would go on these trips and I would take my dog and just hang out at this cabin. I would read a bunch of books about business strategy or investing or whatever, and I would think through issues. And I had really good ideas that would come up during those think weeks. And I think that where I failed in a lot of those was I would come back and I would try and implement those ideas completely on my own. And so I didn’t know yet the importance of getting buy-in from the team and all that stuff. And so it caused actually a lot of frustration. The great thing about Strategic Coach is now I have think weeks all the time because I just have free days where I’m taking time off. But I still use a flip phone every weekend since probably the last six or seven years. It’s amazing.

Stephen Semple:

So one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because it’s really easy to say the whole thing of, “Okay, I’m going to go and I’m going to hire some professionals, I’m going to hire some experts, but not everybody has success doing that and for a bunch of reasons.” And you’ve had great success doing it. So if you are going to give somebody advice saying, “Look, you’re going to grow your business, go out and hire some experts that are great at helping grow the business.” What advice would you have for folks in terms of, I guess, finding, selecting, and working with those professionals so that they have the type of success that you and Brad have had?

Zach Oliva:

I think where I’ve seen people fail and hiring things like advisors or coaches or things like that is they don’t understand the nature of commitment. And so when a few years ago I worked with an awesome performance coach named Christopher Doris, and he coaches professional golfers, NFL players, entrepreneurs, stuff like that. And his big thing is what does all in look like here? And why would you do anything if you’re not all in? And Stephen, do you know what the nature of commitment is?

Stephen Semple:

Well, the easy answer right now would be you have to be all in. But no, the nature of commitment is it is that all in but it is that it’s belief. I think it’s about you’ve got to have belief in the process and that the outcome is going to come.

Zach Oliva:

Can I share with you an additional maybe definition-

Stephen Semple:

Sure.

Zach Oliva:

… on the nature of commitment?

Stephen Semple:

I’d love to hear it.

Zach Oliva:

The nature of commitment is that it goes away. So you have to constantly be vigilant about when it’s going away and that is a reminder to recommit.

Stephen Semple:

What? Okay, tell me more about what you mean about that.

Zach Oliva:

I’m committed to this relationship.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Zach Oliva:

Now I’m not feeling it. Then you get recommitted.

Stephen Semple:

Okay.

Zach Oliva:

Or we’re committed to this process, it’s not working out as we thought it was going to, you recommit to the process, or I’m committed to this goal of being the best oil and gas firm in the country. We have a bad year. We recommit to that goal. So it’s just a constant process of committing and recommitting because you can psych yourself out or you can feel like the world’s falling around you and, okay, I just got to call a quits with this vendor, this whatever. What does commitment mean to you? And so I would say that to be successful in a relationship with a goal, you have to understand the nature of commitment. If you understand that the nature of commitment is that it goes away. When that commitment goes away, that’s not creating permission for you to quit and a lot of times what I see is I have a lot of friends that are business owners, entrepreneurs, et cetera. I see them quitting at the part where they actually need to double down and recommit because they’re too early in the process.

Stephen Semple:

When it gets hard?

Zach Oliva:

Yeah, when it gets hard. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Well, and look, this is, as you know, one of the biggest conversations that I have with customers when I’m bringing on a client for doing their marketing is here’s the point in the process where things are going to get hard, and this is when I need you to soldier through to get through to the other side. This many months out, this is going to feel this way and you’re going to want to quit and I need you not to quit. But what I like better now, the language is instead of talking about them quitting, this is when I need you to recommit. I’m actually going to change how I talk to somebody on this because I really like this is when we need to sit down and recommit to what it is that we’re doing because it’s going to feel really hard at this point, and this is when we recommit. I like that. I really like that language.

Zach Oliva:

And it’s also like there’s so many emotions that come in with goals, especially business goals, and probably especially if you’re working with a founder of a company, right?

Stephen Semple:

Oh, yeah.

Zach Oliva:

Yeah. And so what I’m trying to reinforce here is like, all right, our goal of being the best law firm in the oil and gas industry is there’s no difference between that and having that goal. There’s no difference between that and my wife, who’s very pregnant right now. If she asked me to go to the grocery store and get chocolate milk, maybe when I’m driving to go get that chocolate milk, there are things that I have to remember to do like get my keys, look what I’m backing out of the driveway, whatever. Maybe I need to be alert a little bit because there’s a kid on a bike, maybe there’s a construction zone that I need to go a different way. Maybe I get off at the wrong exit and oh, I’m such an idiot. I got off at the wrong exit. I got to circle back around.

Oh God. Those are just things that happen and we are the ones who attach meaning to those things that happen, good or bad. But the more neutral you can be about everything in life, which is a constant practice, the more neutral you can be. Well, we hired this company, we expected to get this result, and it didn’t happen. Okay, well why does that have to be a bad thing? What opportunities can come out of this? And so the more neutral that you can get about everything, it’s so much easier to accomplish things and life gets a thousand times easier in my opinion.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Well, and there’s a lot of physiology to support that.

Zach Oliva:

So if you look at everything that happens as an opportunity to support your own learning and that’s the lens that you look at things through, then you really bring a level of enthusiasm to it that makes it much more likely to achieve your goals. And I’ll go back to your original question, what do I think is important for people? It’s just, it’s the nature of commitment, knowing that it goes away and also you got to put in the work. Sometimes you have to put in a lot of work. Sometimes that person that you hired is there because to pull something out of you or to give you a different perspective and you have to put in the work. If you hire a personal trainer, they’re not going to lift the weights for you.

Stephen Semple:

No. They’re just going to show you the weight to do it and give you the motivation and the schedule.

Zach Oliva:

They’re going to show you the way to do it, maybe provide a little bit of accountability. You got to put in the work though.

Stephen Semple:

So stepping back to this whole idea of how does this recommitment manifest itself in terms of how you work with professionals and how you’ve been able to get the results that you’ve gotten from those professional relationships. Can you give me an example of what that recommitment looks like?

Dave Young:

Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.

[Empire Builders Ad]

Dave Young:

Let’s pick up our story where we left off. And trust me, you haven’t missed a thing.

Stephen Semple:

So stepping back to this whole idea of how does this recommitment manifests itself in terms of how you work with professionals and how you’ve been able to get the results that you’ve gotten from those professional relationships. Can you give me an example of what that recommitment looks like?

Zach Oliva:

It’s hard. I think that is probably the hardest thing that I have realized over the years is part of my job keeping everyone committed and neutral.

Stephen Semple:

Committed and neutral.

Zach Oliva:

Because there are some situations where we’ve brought in folks from the outside and it got hard and there were a lot of emotions involved, and I was unable to get people neutral and I was unable to get them to understand the bigger picture and why commitment is important. I think you run into bad habits. So when I was growing up, I had amazing, amazing parents. They let me quit anything that I didn’t like to do whenever I wanted to. And I was also a bright kid. And so high school was an absolute breeze for me. Not top of the class, but pretty close, very easy for me and I got to college and it was an absolute nightmare. I got rocked in college the first two years because I just didn’t show up to stuff I didn’t care about or I didn’t like.

Maybe I was like, oh, this professor’s an asshole, whatever. And it was just an uphill battle for me to learn about committing to things. And I think that sometimes I worry that I could see how organizations can develop that habit of it gets a little bit too hard or this relationship isn’t perfect and so let’s just quit because of that. And so I think the nature of commitment is incredibly important for success. And I don’t know how to just impress upon people that I think it’s the most important thing and 50% commitment doesn’t work. It’s got to be a hundred percent.

Stephen Semple:

Right. And 98 doesn’t even work. It’s got to be a hundred.

Zach Oliva:

Right. Right. Imagine you telling your wife, I’m 50% committed to you. Good luck having a great marriage, right?

Stephen Semple:

Here’s the question I think is going to be going through people’s minds on this, and then this is the last tough question I’m going to ask of you and then we’ll wrap things up. But this has been awesome. There’s also got to be a certain point where it’s maybe not the right person. It’s maybe not the right strategy, it’s maybe not the right idea, it’s maybe not the right fit. So there’s always that it’s not working. I need to recommit. How do you determine whether it’s a recommit or whether it’s just a bad idea or a bad fit? How do you manage your weight to that?

Zach Oliva:

That’s [inaudible 00:14:06]-

Stephen Semple:

That’s where I bet you people’s brains are right now. But hold on a second. There’s also this whole idea of sometimes it’s just not working right?

Zach Oliva:

It’s a great question. Yeah, it’s a great question. I can only share my own personal experience on this.

Stephen Semple:

That’s what I want to hear is your personal experience on it.

Zach Oliva:

So there was another business that I started about four years ago, and I recently decided to shut down that business. And I looked at it and I said, “Look, it’s been four years.” So that’s my time now for what commitment means to me. I guess it’s four years, right? It’s been four years of working on this. It just isn’t working. It’s not objectively working the way that I envisioned. It’s not working how I thought it was going to be working. It’s not working in a way that’s serving me and it took me about a year to get neutral and by neutral, I mean emotionally detached, but not detached from it. Just like in a neutral, I’m not making this out of a place of fear. I’m not making this out of a place of what if I fail?

I’m not making this out of a place of what will people think, just like a pure neutrality. It took me about a year to get neutral on shutting down that business and then I decided that I was going to shut it down. And so I first started with how am I adding to the problem here and what can I do better, etc. And when I had exhausted all of the options, I talked to some people about it, but I think getting neutral on it was really important and really contemplating on ending it. Because when you kill something, you kill off all the potential fruits that could happen in the future. You kill off an alternative timeline for yourself.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Zach Oliva:

There is a future that if you follow that thing that you’re trying to kill, you kill off that thing’s life. Right?

Stephen Semple:

Interesting.

Zach Oliva:

And so there are relationships that I have with people that are decades old that are just now getting really interesting in a great way, in a very loving, great way. And there were hard times in those relationships. And for whatever reason, I had intuition and I decided to just keep it going and they’re getting really interesting. There’s projects that I’ve worked on for years that are just now getting really interesting. You got to have a little bit of intuition too.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. But I think what I’m hearing from you, if I may, is that the error that’s more often made, the error is often not sticking with something too long. The error more likely that is made is, or to you use your word recommitting to things. It’s not that you go too long, it’s probably the mistake is usually too short. But I think the other thing that you discovered when we talk about intuition with this other business because we talked about it a little bit before we’re getting on, is something changed. It’s stopped being fun for you where you used to enjoy doing it, you stopped enjoying doing it, which is a major… That’s not a minor shift. That’s a major shift because now that takes more energy, takes more of this. That’s not a minor pivot for a business owner when all of a sudden something goes from this is not fun anymore. Right?

Zach Oliva:

Yeah, for sure.

Stephen Semple:

That’s not a minor shift. That’s a big deal.

Zach Oliva:

And I think when it comes to working with professionals, so you have an investing background, Stephen, and you know the role that everyone screws up all the time is they sell their winners, right? And I’ve made many investing mistakes where I’ve sold my winners and I’m like, “That was stupid.”

Stephen Semple:

But the weird flip side, they keep their winners too long. They actually commit to their winners and dump their losers. This is the weird part of it.

Zach Oliva:

So when I see people, I talk to other owners of companies, a lot of them, the first thing they ask about is price with, okay, who are you working with? What’s the price? And I think that that is such a short-sighted way of thinking because you’re making an investment in yourself and your business by hiring professionals. And so you want to get someone who’s the best at what they do because if you’re going to invest in yourself, would you only invest a little bit of money? And then people are shocked when I didn’t get the results that I thought I would, even though I went with the cheapest… The guy who was a hundred dollars cheaper or a thousand dollars cheaper or whatever. And so I would say that to your point earlier, just pick winners.

Just make it so that you’re working with people that are awesome at what they do. They know what they’re talking about. Show up and do the work and try and surround yourself with people that you want to build long-term relationships with. I mean, there’s people on our team and folks that we work with who are outside of the business that are in advisor roles that I truly hope that we work together for the next 40 years because I see such a strong future. They’re just constantly learning new stuff. They’re constantly helping us come up with great ideas. They’re constantly challenging us with stuff and I remember I was listening to this investor podcast one day and there was this guy who was talking about Warren Buffett, and he was like, Warren Buffett only surrounds himself with people who are really great at what they do because then you don’t really… Life is a breeze.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. And I think the part that I really like, and then we sort of need to wrap up here, and I’m just going to ask you one last thing. But I think the other part, what I like on the commitment, and I’ve learned this the hard way myself when I’ve hired professionals, if I look at that person and I think I might be hesitant to take their advice, I know I don’t have the right person. When I reach the stage where I go, you know what? I don’t need to hear any more explanation. I’m just going to do what you tell me to do. Then I know I have the right person and I’m just going to do what they tell me to do. I may have questions.

Okay, so why are we doing that? But those questions aren’t because of resistance. Those questions are because of curiosity. So when my questions then the source becomes curiosity, not resistance. I know I’ve now found the right person and I’m just going to do what they say. And when I’ve done that, it’s worked. When I make the mistake of hiring somebody and I’m not emotionally at that and I’m still actually resisting a little bit and what I’m learning here, I’m not a hundred percent committed. That’s when it hasn’t worked-

Zach Oliva:

You’re not committed.

Stephen Semple:

That’s when it hasn’t worked. I’m like 98%, but you got to get to that hundred.

Zach Oliva:

Because look at that energy that you’re putting out.

Stephen Semple:

Right.

Zach Oliva:

It’s not only going to be all in commitment, it’s got to be all in commitment with enthusiasm.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Zach Oliva:

Because when people win championships, when they win the World Series, when they win the NBA championship, when they win the Super Bowl, they never come out of that saying, “Hey, you just won the Super Bowl. How was it?” “Oh man, it was a grind. It was a grind.”

Stephen Semple:

No, right.

Zach Oliva:

It was fun. Fun and enthusiasm are the highest level of intelligence. So when you’re having fun and when you’re enthusiastic about things, you don’t shut down ideas when you’re enthusiastic about something and you’re completely pot committed. And so that’s the only way that you can make things work is if you’re completely committed. If you’re not completely committed, then you’re going to look at it and find all the cracks in the walls.

Stephen Semple:

But it’s that fun, enthusias, being completely committed. And look, there’s a certain degree that also means, I believe that you’re saying is that you also want to find professionals that you actually like spending some time with them too. Let’s not discount the importance of buying as well.

Zach Oliva:

Totally. Totally. And even if you call it quits after a period of time, it’s so much easier to do it when you say you went all in like, man, I left everything on the field and it didn’t work. I left everything out there and it just didn’t work. Then there’s no, you’re not losing sleep at night. What could have been, what should have been? What if we did this? What if we did that? And it doesn’t take time to be caught pot committed. It just takes courage.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. You’re so right on that. For me, the most frustrating, even when I’m doing sort of with clients, some marketing experiments, and if we do a marketing experiment where we trim back on it a little bit and it doesn’t work, it drives me nuts because when you go all in and it doesn’t work, what you know definitively, well, that was a bad idea.

Zach Oliva:

Yeah, for sure.

Stephen Semple:

And there’s a value to that. There’s a value to actually being able, even though it costs more, it’s actually the answer is more valuable because you got a definitive answer to the question. The worst answer is maybe.

Zach Oliva:

Right. Right.

Stephen Semple:

Right. So Zach, this has been fun. I never thought this is the direction that we would end up going. This has been cool-

Zach Oliva:

Yeah. It’s been a great conversation.

Stephen Semple:

… and it’s been super insightful and I know what we’re going to do is in a couple years time, we’re going to get back on and we’re going to talk about the next stage of growth that has happened for you guys, because there’s a lot of interesting things that you and Brad are up to in terms of what you’re building and what you guys have committed to. It’s going to be a fun ride. If you’re going to leave people with one last thought, is it just commitment and the fun? Is there one last thought that you want to leave listeners with? And it’s okay, even if we want to just leave it at where it is.

Zach Oliva:

Just go all in.

Stephen Semple:

Go all in. Yeah.

Zach Oliva:

The all in life is a great life.

Stephen Semple:

Awesome. Awesome. That’s just a great thought to end on. Hey man, this has been great. Thanks. Look, thank you for taking the time.

Zach Oliva:

It’s been wonderful. Thanks for the invitation. This has been a great conversation.

Stephen Semple:

Perfect. Thanks man.

Zach Oliva:

All right, Stephen, have a good one.

Dave Young:

Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big fat juicy five-star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute Empire Building session, you can do it at Empirebuildingprogram.com.