00:00:00 [Christene Marie]
Hello, and welcome to The Crafting Calling.
00:00:02 [Christene Marie]
I am your host, Christene Marie.
00:00:04 [Christene Marie]
Today, we are talking about how to grow your business, how to exponentially leap from being small, kinda working with within the 800,000 to around the 2 to $3,000,000 range, and what does it take to deconstruct the business so that it can effectively grow and and grow for the purpose of whether you're trying to sell or scale or have your business as a succession plan for your for your family.
00:00:30 [Christene Marie]
I am so incredibly thrilled.
00:00:31 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, thank you so much for joining us, cofounder of Reconstruct Consulting Group, where you all really work with implementing the systems and the leadership and clarity in place that's necessary to get the business to where it needs to get to.
00:00:45 [Christene Marie]
Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:00:47 [Matteo Palisca]
Absolutely.
00:00:47 [Matteo Palisca]
Glad to be here.
00:00:49 [Christene Marie]
So glad to have you.
00:00:50 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, it's it's really interesting because when we were in the Green Room, we were talking about what it is that you all are doing that really makes kind of that exponential change, and we were talking about how there's different aspects of the growth trajectory for businesses.
00:01:03 [Christene Marie]
And a lot of it is predicated on the leader.
00:01:06 [Christene Marie]
So I'd love for you to to share just a little bit more about your experience and your story that's gotten you to where you are today, and then we'll talk about some really key I I think of it as kind of core tenants, like the pillars of a building that are necessary for the business to be able to get to the next level.
00:01:24 [Christene Marie]
But first and foremost, who are you?
00:01:26 [Matteo Palisca]
Alright.
00:01:27 [Matteo Palisca]
Sounds good.
00:01:27 [Matteo Palisca]
Well, thanks for having me on.
00:01:29 [Matteo Palisca]
I was very excited and feel very aligned with the work that you're doing and focusing on the growth and prosperity of contractors and the next generation of contractors, and that means a lot to us and means a lot to me.
00:01:40 [Matteo Palisca]
So I started as many do.
00:01:44 [Matteo Palisca]
My dad was into building, and he worked more on our house and then kinda, like, would do work for other people.
00:01:50 [Matteo Palisca]
But he was, like, close to home.
00:01:52 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:01:52 [Matteo Palisca]
Because grew up not very much money.
00:01:54 [Matteo Palisca]
So my dad always said, this is what you gotta do.
00:01:56 [Matteo Palisca]
You gotta your time and your sweat is your investment.
00:02:00 [Matteo Palisca]
So he rebuilt our house, and I watched him and continued on.
00:02:03 [Matteo Palisca]
And, you know, some people just fell in love with building.
00:02:07 [Matteo Palisca]
That was not me.
00:02:08 [Matteo Palisca]
I was kinda kicking the tree, honestly.
00:02:11 [Matteo Palisca]
I didn't have anything that I was lined up that I was like, okay.
00:02:14 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm gonna go do this.
00:02:14 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm gonna go, you know, be a coder or whatever.
00:02:17 [Matteo Palisca]
I was trying to make it, trying to survive, doing the best next thing that I thought was gonna provide for the for me and provide a future.
00:02:27 [Matteo Palisca]
And so I just kept falling back into building.
00:02:31 [Matteo Palisca]
And so that lasted throughout my twenties, and eventually, I met someone who wanted to start a home services business in Hawaii.
00:02:40 [Matteo Palisca]
And, we we just went for it.
00:02:45 [Matteo Palisca]
And that's where I learned a lot of grit, determination, and just, like, grinding through long days, endless days, seven days a week.
00:02:52 [Matteo Palisca]
And we built this business, from the ground up, and we started with three guys.
00:02:57 [Matteo Palisca]
We ended, couple years later with 80 people.
00:02:59 [Matteo Palisca]
We acquired a construction company, and we were just, like, just going to the moon.
00:03:04 [Matteo Palisca]
Yeah.
00:03:05 [Matteo Palisca]
And, COVID hit.
00:03:06 [Matteo Palisca]
And so I ended up departing from that business.
00:03:09 [Matteo Palisca]
COVID hit.
00:03:10 [Matteo Palisca]
It was, like, time to be closer to home.
00:03:11 [Matteo Palisca]
I moved back to California where I'm from.
00:03:14 [Matteo Palisca]
And, but I learned business there.
00:03:16 [Matteo Palisca]
I really learned how to operate a larger company, how to scale, how to grow, and most importantly, the triage and what's important in that moment.
00:03:25 [Matteo Palisca]
A lot of times, guys starting out, they get they see a they see a flashy thing.
00:03:33 [Matteo Palisca]
They see a website that looks great.
00:03:35 [Matteo Palisca]
They see all these things that seem like the hallmarks of a great business, but at the end of the day, that might not be what gets you from here to there.
00:03:45 [Matteo Palisca]
It's just what gets you it it's what gets you recognition when you're already from here to there.
00:03:51 [Matteo Palisca]
When you've already grown, when you've already, achieved a certain level of success, then all of these things start coming.
00:03:58 [Matteo Palisca]
But to someone who is just coming up, it looks like success.
00:04:01 [Matteo Palisca]
But that's not the thing that actually moves the needle.
00:04:04 [Matteo Palisca]
And so learning to focus on what moves the needle was one of the biggest takeaways I got from that whole experience.
00:04:10 [Matteo Palisca]
And so I ended up, through a long series of events, meeting my wife, moving up to Washington state, and that's where I live now, and started doing this work for builders operating as a project manager for from within the business for custom home builders and realizing that I was just renovating their operation internally, their business structure, and starting to operate, a lot of the principles that I learned.
00:04:34 [Matteo Palisca]
And so Right.
00:04:36 [Matteo Palisca]
I kept being told by friends and family, hey.
00:04:38 [Matteo Palisca]
You should just do this.
00:04:38 [Matteo Palisca]
You should just start this company.
00:04:40 [Matteo Palisca]
You should do this full time, like, help these companies to grow, prosper, restructure.
00:04:46 [Matteo Palisca]
And I did.
00:04:47 [Matteo Palisca]
Met my cofounder, and the rest is history.
00:04:49 [Matteo Palisca]
Here we are.
00:04:51 [Christene Marie]
Love it.
00:04:51 [Christene Marie]
I I love especially that you've done the work of actually scaling the business and selling it, and now you're teaching other people how to do the same.
00:04:59 [Christene Marie]
Because, a lot of folks who are in the trades and trying to help the trades haven't actually and I should say, a lot of folks who are trying to help the trades nowadays haven't actually been in it.
00:05:10 [Christene Marie]
They don't know what it's like to have the blood, sweat, and tears, and it's just a completely different experience.
00:05:16 [Christene Marie]
Like, you said you learned grit.
00:05:18 [Christene Marie]
And one of the things that I really appreciate you saying just now is, effectively, you learned how to maintain the focus necessary.
00:05:26 [Christene Marie]
And another element to this, Matteo, and I wanna I wanna lean in here because you guys really do work with effectively new builders, folks who are kind of the next generation, not my dad, not your dad, who are, you know, in their sixties, seventies, and and really have a tenured business or tenured experience.
00:05:44 [Christene Marie]
But Yeah.
00:05:45 [Christene Marie]
It's more so, like, almost under 30, maybe under 35, these folks who are who are definitely newer.
00:05:51 [Christene Marie]
And, frankly, they're open to learning.
00:05:52 [Christene Marie]
They're open to learning the systems necessary.
00:05:54 [Christene Marie]
You know, I was talking to someone the other day, and and he was like, you know, I was working with a garage door company, and I've got all these systems that they need to put in place, and they saw no need to move out of Excel.
00:06:06 [Christene Marie]
They were they were so content to do that.
00:06:08 [Christene Marie]
So I wanna talk with you about, you know, when you're talking about focusing on one thing and really that being a one of those core tenants to a successful business, especially with how much distraction there is.
00:06:20 [Christene Marie]
It is just absolutely insane.
00:06:23 [Christene Marie]
So I I found that I found that, you know, maybe our dads don't struggle as much with distraction, but the younger generation does.
00:06:32 [Christene Marie]
So as you're focusing with this younger group of builders and contractors, How are you guiding them, and and what would you say to a young contractor who is like, man, there's such as the shiny object syndrome.
00:06:44 [Christene Marie]
What would you say to him?
00:06:48 [Matteo Palisca]
Well, it's easy to say something that's tropey, that's, like, catchy, that's okay.
00:06:55 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm just gonna give out this little piece of Dan Martel wisdom.
00:06:58 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:06:59 [Matteo Palisca]
But the trick is finding meeting them where they're at.
00:07:02 [Matteo Palisca]
So you gotta find the hook and find the entry point.
00:07:04 [Matteo Palisca]
So everyone has their own psychology they inherited from their family.
00:07:08 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:07:09 [Matteo Palisca]
So a lot of it is actually getting to know the person, actually caring about them as an individual, as a leader, finding out what makes them tick, and then reaching in there and difference between this that will take you from here to there and having something that is actually that is a lasting change because any real change happens at the level of identity.
00:07:36 [Matteo Palisca]
It doesn't happen at the level of templates.
00:07:38 [Matteo Palisca]
It doesn't happen at the level of software.
00:07:40 [Matteo Palisca]
It's identity.
00:07:41 [Matteo Palisca]
It's who you are.
00:07:42 [Matteo Palisca]
And, honestly, if you if that contractor was the kind of person who deserved to have a $5.10, $1,520,000,000 dollar business, he would have it.
00:07:54 [Matteo Palisca]
He'd be the person if he was the person.
00:07:57 [Christene Marie]
So, really, it it starts with who.
00:07:59 [Christene Marie]
It starts with who you are.
00:08:00 [Christene Marie]
And then from that place, then you kinda build on tops of perhaps even the who is the foundation.
00:08:05 [Christene Marie]
Like, when we're talking about the core tenants of a successful business, maybe the who is actually the very foundation upon which those core tenants are set.
00:08:12 [Matteo Palisca]
Yep.
00:08:12 [Matteo Palisca]
That's why we start with our our pillars.
00:08:14 [Matteo Palisca]
We start with strategize.
00:08:15 [Matteo Palisca]
So we wanna go in and see what's happening, not just in that business, but inside someone's psychology so that we have we have a foundation to build off of that is going to achieve long lasting results.
00:08:27 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:08:28 [Matteo Palisca]
So I would say to someone who's looking at the shiny object, like, focus on what matters right now.
00:08:35 [Matteo Palisca]
What moves the needle?
00:08:36 [Matteo Palisca]
What's your biggest problem?
00:08:37 [Matteo Palisca]
You have no leads?
00:08:38 [Matteo Palisca]
Okay.
00:08:38 [Matteo Palisca]
Cool.
00:08:40 [Matteo Palisca]
Anything besides active, like, focused, dedicated effort towards getting more leads is pointless.
00:08:48 [Matteo Palisca]
So now we we use the experience.
00:08:52 [Matteo Palisca]
Once we identify that problem, we use experience to determine what's the most effective strategy to solve that problem and then put the horse blinders on.
00:09:00 [Matteo Palisca]
And this is what you're focused on.
00:09:02 [Matteo Palisca]
You might have a secondary priority in there.
00:09:04 [Matteo Palisca]
You might have a third priority in there.
00:09:07 [Matteo Palisca]
But this is number one.
00:09:09 [Matteo Palisca]
This is the strategy, and now we're gonna we're here to hold you accountable.
00:09:12 [Matteo Palisca]
You just said this is the strategy.
00:09:14 [Matteo Palisca]
Now implement it.
00:09:15 [Matteo Palisca]
Now do your job.
00:09:17 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:09:17 [Matteo Palisca]
Focus.
00:09:18 [Christene Marie]
Yes.
00:09:18 [Matteo Palisca]
Don't get distracted.
00:09:19 [Matteo Palisca]
Do your job.
00:09:20 [Matteo Palisca]
And so when we meet, it's a lot of that.
00:09:22 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, I had a I had an owner who was very excited, extremely excited about getting a showroom.
00:09:29 [Matteo Palisca]
And I think for him, that was, like, a big milestone.
00:09:32 [Matteo Palisca]
There was something about being seen and recognized as being established at a certain level, and the show that's what the showroom meant to him.
00:09:39 [Matteo Palisca]
So that was gonna cost money, though.
00:09:43 [Matteo Palisca]
That wasn't gonna make money.
00:09:44 [Matteo Palisca]
It was gonna cost money in overhead and all this stuff.
00:09:47 [Matteo Palisca]
And so we really, over the course of many sessions, just had to beat it out of him.
00:09:53 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, hey, man.
00:09:54 [Matteo Palisca]
This is actually just gonna cost you money.
00:09:56 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, what's your main focus right now?
00:09:57 [Matteo Palisca]
Oh, you have two guys, neither one of which you really trust and can rely on.
00:10:01 [Matteo Palisca]
One of which is got one foot out the door, but you wanna open a showroom.
00:10:06 [Matteo Palisca]
Okay.
00:10:06 [Matteo Palisca]
Explain to me how that works.
00:10:07 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:10:08 [Matteo Palisca]
Mhmm.
00:10:08 [Matteo Palisca]
And so that seems obvious to someone on the outside.
00:10:11 [Matteo Palisca]
But when you're on the inside and you're struggling in the day to day and it feels overwhelming, you're looking for a light at the end of the tunnel that feels achievable, and it feels like it's gonna solve the internal problem that you have.
00:10:25 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:10:26 [Matteo Palisca]
That's so common.
00:10:27 [Matteo Palisca]
I just wanna feel better.
00:10:29 [Matteo Palisca]
I just want this so so we externalize that and get attached to something.
00:10:35 [Matteo Palisca]
And it could be a showroom.
00:10:37 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be an assistant.
00:10:38 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be a new, Silverado.
00:10:40 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be any one of those things.
00:10:42 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:10:43 [Matteo Palisca]
And other things besides.
00:10:45 [Matteo Palisca]
And so it's really, like, getting to the root of that, stopping that grabbing energy, and getting laser focused on what's actually gonna move the needle and making sure that the goals are aligned and it's taking you where you wanna go.
00:11:00 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, it's actually where you wanna go, not just where someone said you should be.
00:11:05 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:11:05 [Matteo Palisca]
That matters too.
00:11:07 [Christene Marie]
So good.
00:11:08 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, I wanna return to, that process.
00:11:11 [Christene Marie]
Effectively, it's identity in terms of of, like, who are you, what who what's there, and then the experience necessary, the how to get there and then put blinders on.
00:11:21 [Christene Marie]
Did I miss a step in that process?
00:11:26 [Matteo Palisca]
No.
00:11:26 [Matteo Palisca]
That's pretty that's pretty I I would sum it up a different way.
00:11:29 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm one of the stream of consciousness consciousness type people, so I I don't like to be put in a box.
00:11:34 [Matteo Palisca]
I don't like to put other people in a box.
00:11:35 [Christene Marie]
Right.
00:11:36 [Matteo Palisca]
So I always think that's something that's surprising in a different way.
00:11:39 [Matteo Palisca]
But, yeah, that encapsulates it pretty well.
00:11:42 [Christene Marie]
Good.
00:11:42 [Christene Marie]
Good.
00:11:42 [Christene Marie]
Because I wanna go back to identity.
00:11:44 [Christene Marie]
I wanna go back to psychology.
00:11:45 [Christene Marie]
You you said the sentiment.
00:11:47 [Christene Marie]
You said everyone has their own psychology that they inherit from their family.
00:11:52 [Christene Marie]
And for some, I would anticipate you know, I haven't seen many of these types of conversations in the trades before.
00:11:59 [Christene Marie]
You know, even on the podcast, most of the time, we don't get that deep into conversations like this.
00:12:05 [Christene Marie]
So while we're talking about how to get to the next level of our business, it's so apparent because you've done it.
00:12:11 [Christene Marie]
You've you're working with founders to do this.
00:12:13 [Christene Marie]
It's so apparent and and proven that, actually, it's predicated on who we are.
00:12:17 [Christene Marie]
So we have to talk about the identity piece.
00:12:19 [Christene Marie]
We have to talk about psychologically.
00:12:21 [Christene Marie]
Can you talk about that?
00:12:22 [Christene Marie]
You said we have our own psychology inherited from our family.
00:12:25 [Christene Marie]
What does that mean?
00:12:28 [Matteo Palisca]
Alright.
00:12:28 [Matteo Palisca]
This is one of my favorite topics.
00:12:30 [Matteo Palisca]
So everyone's born into a family, and I'm of the belief that we're born into that family for reasons.
00:12:39 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:12:39 [Matteo Palisca]
Or maybe not we're born into them for reasons, but it's helpful in development to put meaning into things.
00:12:49 [Matteo Palisca]
Whether it has meaning or not is kind of irrelevant.
00:12:51 [Matteo Palisca]
So if I have a father who's very strict and who's got kind of that military style discipline and all that stuff, like, there's a reason I can make a meaning.
00:13:01 [Matteo Palisca]
I can make a reason why he was he was the dad that I got and why like, what are the benefits?
00:13:08 [Matteo Palisca]
What's the silver lining?
00:13:09 [Matteo Palisca]
There's also gonna be some challenges that you inherit from that.
00:13:13 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:13:13 [Matteo Palisca]
So looking at it with eyes wide open, the good and the bad and kinda separating out, the hurt feelings from what could be beneficial or what could be harmful, and then learning to integrate that so that we don't see it as a curse or something that we are victimized by, but we use it by looking straight at the truth to empower us to make better decisions and to be the best version we can be.
00:13:44 [Matteo Palisca]
Otherwise, what happens is you live shrouded in in falsehood, in misconceptions about yourself and about this thing's happening to me or this always happens or I'm I act this way and I can't help it.
00:13:57 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, any of these stories that are less than empowered, that are less than full of agency, we wanna eradicate that.
00:14:05 [Matteo Palisca]
And so a lot of this, it's interesting because you I'd like there to be a set process where, like, you answer these 47 questions, and I'll tell you your psychology.
00:14:13 [Matteo Palisca]
And I found it doesn't really work like that.
00:14:16 [Matteo Palisca]
I look for entry points and hooks.
00:14:18 [Matteo Palisca]
So I'm looking for a spot where someone says something, and in the back of my brain somewhere, it clicks.
00:14:25 [Matteo Palisca]
And it says, oh, okay.
00:14:26 [Matteo Palisca]
This is there's something here.
00:14:28 [Matteo Palisca]
Let's drill into this.
00:14:29 [Matteo Palisca]
Let's talk more about this.
00:14:30 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:14:31 [Matteo Palisca]
Because Right.
00:14:32 [Matteo Palisca]
They're if they come to us, they're subconsciously, they made up their mind that they want something different.
00:14:38 [Matteo Palisca]
I've never found an exception to that rule.
00:14:40 [Matteo Palisca]
If they come to us, they may they've already made up their mind.
00:14:44 [Matteo Palisca]
Subconsciously, they want something different.
00:14:46 [Matteo Palisca]
So even if they don't intend it, oftentimes, they bring stuff up that gives me that hook, that gives me that entry point into their psychology, and they're not even meaning to do it.
00:14:56 [Matteo Palisca]
But because subconsciously, they already made the decision, this is the same subconscious at work that if you never if you never look at it, if you never examine our motivations and how we're put together and why we're made the way we're made, that's gonna cause you to run a successful business into the ground because you feel like you don't deserve it.
00:15:14 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:15:14 [Matteo Palisca]
It's the same thing, same dynamic at play.
00:15:18 [Matteo Palisca]
So we harness that for the benefit of the individual by examining these, inherited beliefs and then helping to remove the toxic ones and install healthy patterns in their place.
00:15:34 [Christene Marie]
I love the it's like, let's look at the inherited and then install new.
00:15:38 [Christene Marie]
It's, like, it's so intentional because, honestly, otherwise, we're operating on default.
00:15:45 [Christene Marie]
We're operating on autopilot in so many ways.
00:15:49 [Christene Marie]
And it's not just in terms of our behavior.
00:15:51 [Christene Marie]
It's like, how can you drive home and then not remember how you got there?
00:15:54 [Christene Marie]
It's like, wait.
00:15:54 [Christene Marie]
I actually have driven this way so many times, but I if I was to give directions, I actually don't really know if I know how I got there.
00:16:01 [Christene Marie]
And so it's kind of like that with our thinking.
00:16:03 [Christene Marie]
We have these very core instilled stories in in and about ourselves, about other people, about success, about finances, about the world at large.
00:16:14 [Christene Marie]
And so if we're not doing the work to actually encounter and and kind of face those and and square off with those, they very well could be in the driver's seat and potentially limiting us from the ability to get to that next level and the ability to experience real change.
00:16:31 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, I wanna and you're frozen on my end, so I don't know I don't know if it's my Internet or yours, but I I will just keep going until you cut me off, and, hopefully, you can hear me.
00:16:44 [Christene Marie]
I I'd love to I'd love to lean into how we can you talked about entry points and hooks.
00:16:51 [Christene Marie]
And one of the things that I have found that's most helpful for me to be able to kind of identify what are those what are those narratives, what are those stories that I inherited, One of the best ways for me to do that is by actually taking dedicating space in my life whenever I encounter some kind of discomfort.
00:17:13 [Christene Marie]
And any type of emotion that comes up that catches me by surprise, that's usually a sign that something's wrong.
00:17:20 [Christene Marie]
And a lot of times, we see especially in male dominated areas, we see anger expressed in a very, in a very intense and aggressive way that kind of catches both parties off off guard.
00:17:33 [Christene Marie]
And what's interesting about this and for those listening and who can't see, Matteo has left the building, and so I'm hoping he will join again, but I'm just gonna keep going, because this topic is so important.
00:17:44 [Christene Marie]
And for for the most part, we don't talk about this too much on the craft and calling, but it is really core to being able to get our business to the next level and also getting clarity on what is it that you want to do.
00:17:56 [Christene Marie]
What is it that you're called to do?
00:17:58 [Christene Marie]
Because when we talk about are you trying to scale your business, sell your business, or have it for succession, We actually need to handle the way that we operate the business differently based on what we want.
00:18:09 [Christene Marie]
And if we're not clear on that, it's going to be really easy, for example, that garage door company to say, oh, we'll stick with Excel.
00:18:16 [Christene Marie]
We'll stick with handwritten notes and not actually do the work and kind of experience the pain that is necessary to implement a new system that will allow for you to get to that next level.
00:18:27 [Christene Marie]
But even just in me saying do the work and take the responsibility to get to that level, that can actually come from a core inner narrative of maybe it's complacency, maybe it's fear of failure, maybe it's the discomfort at trying something new, and and I don't know what this process is gonna look like.
00:18:45 [Christene Marie]
Here's something that's really important, and I'll get back to the anger point in just a moment.
00:18:49 [Christene Marie]
Though, it is it is human nature to avoid discomfort.
00:18:54 [Christene Marie]
We would rather choose the certainty of misery than the uncertainty of perhaps something better and something new, but we're not absolutely sure about what it will look and feel like at the end, what exactly will the process be to get there.
00:19:10 [Christene Marie]
Even if we knew that we would have a $5,000,000 business, a $1,020,000,000 dollar business, but we're not exactly sure of how to get there.
00:19:17 [Christene Marie]
We'd rather stay content with our with our million dollar business that is driving angst and anger in us because we're not at the 20,000,000, but we're actually not willing to do what it takes because of the fear of what it might take.
00:19:31 [Christene Marie]
So with this whole question of, well, okay.
00:19:35 [Christene Marie]
How do I identify the inherited beliefs?
00:19:38 [Christene Marie]
That that concept of really identifying and sitting with what what emotions take you by surprise, what catches you off guard.
00:19:46 [Christene Marie]
And it could be an emotion.
00:19:47 [Christene Marie]
It could also be a thought.
00:19:49 [Christene Marie]
So those thoughts that run when someone going into a boardroom, going to a job site, even honestly, we see this with our families.
00:19:59 [Christene Marie]
What are the narratives we have about other people?
00:20:03 [Christene Marie]
Because so often, we end up having them about ourselves.
00:20:06 [Christene Marie]
The way that we judge others is usually a reflection of the way we judge ourselves.
00:20:11 [Christene Marie]
So sitting with the discomfort, sitting with the anger, and then asking why and felt following the why like a yellow brick road down to the core story, the origin story.
00:20:20 [Christene Marie]
Usually, there's a there's a story of what happened that led to us inheriting that narrative to begin with.
00:20:25 [Christene Marie]
So Matteo's back.
00:20:27 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, thank you for for joining us again.
00:20:29 [Christene Marie]
I was just sharing a little bit.
00:20:30 [Christene Marie]
I I took your tangent and ran with it about, about the the inherited belief.
00:20:35 [Christene Marie]
So thank you for for that.
00:20:37 [Christene Marie]
I was sharing a bit about my experience of working to identify what are the narratives for me that have come up, and how do I actually get to the root.
00:20:46 [Christene Marie]
And really asking why has been incredibly helpful to just really sit with what is the core story that catapulted the narrative to begin.
00:20:55 [Christene Marie]
Was it modeled for me, you know, the the viewpoint on the world or the narrative on the world, or was it something I actually experienced as a child that lended to me having a narrative of, oh, I'm alone.
00:21:06 [Christene Marie]
I have to do this on my self.
00:21:08 [Christene Marie]
And now it's in adulthood, it's really hard to receive help, for example.
00:21:12 [Christene Marie]
Anything else you wanna add to that?
00:21:16 [Matteo Palisca]
This touches everybody.
00:21:18 [Matteo Palisca]
There's no one who's exempt from these dynamics.
00:21:21 [Matteo Palisca]
We just some people just have learned how to work with them better than others or were born in a situation that through the roll of the dice or however you wanna look at it, had certain advantages, and it's not no one tried to give it to them.
00:21:37 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, for example, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, there's a handful of others.
00:21:42 [Matteo Palisca]
They're all born within a year of each other, and they all had significant, advantages when it came to the access to computers at their schools.
00:21:52 [Matteo Palisca]
This is a function of timing, a function of proximity to the school, not necessarily the best school, but the school that adopted computers at the right time when they were the right age to be able to accelerate their timing.
00:22:04 [Matteo Palisca]
So some people are born into a family of builders, and they also had psychology implanted from their parents that was conducive to them doing the thing.
00:22:12 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:22:12 [Matteo Palisca]
They also probably had some darker sides of that, some downsides of the psychology that was implanted, both both on purpose and on accident that, they contend with as well.
00:22:26 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, nothing is all good and nothing is all bad.
00:22:29 [Matteo Palisca]
So I think that's the more we can integrate and learn from learn from, what we inherit, the more capable we are and the more we're actually, like, looking at reality.
00:22:40 [Matteo Palisca]
Mhmm.
00:22:41 [Christene Marie]
And I just I love this.
00:22:43 [Christene Marie]
So when it comes to okay.
00:22:45 [Christene Marie]
That's kinda part one is analyze, understand what's inherited, and then two, it's install.
00:22:50 [Christene Marie]
So, obviously, Matteo, you guys this is your zone of genius in so many ways.
00:22:55 [Christene Marie]
For those listening, you know, we'll talk at the very end about what it might look like if they wanna come work with you guys.
00:23:00 [Christene Marie]
But for those listening who are driving right now between jobs and are like, okay.
00:23:05 [Christene Marie]
I actually am intrigued by this.
00:23:07 [Christene Marie]
You know, let me do the first part, which is asking why of the emotions that come up and and analyze what's the story, what's the narrative there, how do I view the world, but how do I then install a new narrative in its place?
00:23:19 [Christene Marie]
How do I you know, we don't just wanna take out the bad, but how do we implant something good?
00:23:24 [Christene Marie]
There's a there's a book, it's very short, called As a Man Thinketh, and I love that book.
00:23:29 [Christene Marie]
It it's it's almost like the book of Proverbs in the Bible.
00:23:32 [Christene Marie]
It's just like all these good little sayings about the the mind is like a garden.
00:23:36 [Christene Marie]
And so if we plant pull something out, well, if it just remains as it is, it might grow back weeds.
00:23:42 [Christene Marie]
So we can't just pull something out.
00:23:44 [Christene Marie]
We need to plant something new with intention and install a new program.
00:23:47 [Christene Marie]
So how do we go about doing that?
00:23:50 [Matteo Palisca]
Well, it's interesting question.
00:23:55 [Matteo Palisca]
There's two frames for this.
00:23:56 [Matteo Palisca]
One is you're doing it alone or what feels like alone, and two is with mentorship.
00:24:01 [Matteo Palisca]
So mentorship is the accelerant.
00:24:03 [Matteo Palisca]
There's a lot of ways to get that.
00:24:05 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be your uncle.
00:24:06 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be probably not your parent.
00:24:09 [Matteo Palisca]
Maybe it is your parent, but could maybe not be depending because they had a really key hand in in building the dynamics.
00:24:17 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:24:18 [Matteo Palisca]
So it can be really helpful to have that be someone external, to those relationships.
00:24:23 [Matteo Palisca]
But you never know.
00:24:24 [Matteo Palisca]
Sometimes it it's the parent is the right one in later in life as adults.
00:24:29 [Matteo Palisca]
So there's that part of it that's like having intentional conversations with people who have your best interest at heart, who don't have an ulterior motive, and who see who are able to see you clearly and see your patterns.
00:24:44 [Matteo Palisca]
And then this is someone that you can also be vulnerable with about the things that you struggle with.
00:24:49 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:24:49 [Matteo Palisca]
So it's that reliance on our on our peer group or on our mentorship.
00:24:55 [Matteo Palisca]
Church is often a place where that's found.
00:24:58 [Matteo Palisca]
You can find people who you wanna be like.
00:25:00 [Matteo Palisca]
And number one criteria for that is that you wanna be more like that person.
00:25:04 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:25:05 [Matteo Palisca]
Definitely, that's number one.
00:25:09 [Matteo Palisca]
Then the other is for the someone who feels like they're doing it alone.
00:25:13 [Matteo Palisca]
They're not actually doing it alone because you can go and get mentorship from other people in the form of books, in the form of podcasts.
00:25:21 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:25:21 [Matteo Palisca]
So it really comes down to intentionality.
00:25:23 [Matteo Palisca]
So why are we doing that?
00:25:25 [Matteo Palisca]
Why are we, consuming this media?
00:25:28 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:25:28 [Matteo Palisca]
You'll scroll Instagram all day long, and you read something on Instagram about business and think that that actually changed you.
00:25:34 [Matteo Palisca]
But it doesn't.
00:25:35 [Matteo Palisca]
We're just consuming something that we could regurgitate later, but it doesn't go in deep enough to actually change a person.
00:25:42 [Matteo Palisca]
That's why these books and even longer form podcasts are helpful.
00:25:45 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, if you feel yourself if the emotion doesn't swell with it, then it's not deep enough.
00:25:52 [Matteo Palisca]
And if if it doesn't, like, make you uncomfortable or make you wanna cry or make you, like, react in a visceral way, it's not you're not operating at the identity level.
00:26:03 [Matteo Palisca]
You're just conceptualizing it and thinking about it, but that's not enough.
00:26:07 [Matteo Palisca]
You've been thinking about all sorts of things your whole life, but until you you accept it into your identity, it doesn't create meaningful change.
00:26:16 [Matteo Palisca]
So I would say if someone is feeling alone in their journey, one really cool way to do to solve for this is to, like, read autobiographies of people who have struggled.
00:26:29 [Matteo Palisca]
So, like, get inside the mind of someone who has struggled.
00:26:32 [Matteo Palisca]
And that could be listening.
00:26:33 [Matteo Palisca]
I used to listen on job sites all the time.
00:26:35 [Matteo Palisca]
Just constant repeat different different, audio books that were helpful.
00:26:41 [Matteo Palisca]
On job sites when I'm doing, you know, I'm mudding a room.
00:26:45 [Matteo Palisca]
There's nothing else to do besides mud the room, so might as well be, like, enriching myself with some of this and, allowing it to sink in.
00:26:54 [Matteo Palisca]
And a lot of it comes down to intentionality, but I I often find that when someone feels like they're in it alone, and then they put the intention out there to start to uncover some of these patterns, start to work through it, they often attract someone who can support them in doing the work.
00:27:11 [Christene Marie]
So so interesting.
00:27:13 [Christene Marie]
Your point about the emotion, I just had this while you were talking, I just had, like, this little visual of effectively, like, drilling into the earth.
00:27:20 [Christene Marie]
Like, you're drilling through the logical mind and drilling, drilling, drilling.
00:27:24 [Christene Marie]
And then when you hit the emotion, you've hit oil.
00:27:26 [Christene Marie]
Now you know you've gone deep enough.
00:27:28 [Christene Marie]
And until we hit that level of emotion, it's the integration of intellectual intelligence with emotional intelligence that allows for real change.
00:27:37 [Christene Marie]
It's like they have to come together, and the emotion has to be sparked.
00:27:40 [Christene Marie]
Otherwise, it's just head knowledge.
00:27:42 [Christene Marie]
It's not heart.
00:27:42 [Christene Marie]
Like like, the real heart impact allows for heart change and thus life change.
00:27:47 [Christene Marie]
So I I love that you said that.
00:27:49 [Christene Marie]
Emiteo, there's something about you saying that coming from the male perspective.
00:27:53 [Christene Marie]
You know, I think that a lot of times because the IQ is more so in the left hemisphere, which is more so what we deem as masculine or male traits, versus the feminine, which is more so the nurturing and the care in the right hemisphere, which is where our emotions live.
00:28:10 [Christene Marie]
Yet people buy off of emotions.
00:28:12 [Christene Marie]
Harvard found that to be true.
00:28:13 [Christene Marie]
And so we can't just be operating in in just the logic for the sake of our businesses, but also for the sake of ourselves.
00:28:20 [Christene Marie]
Like, we're cutting off 50% of the human being if we're not allowing our emotions to have a seat at the table.
00:28:25 [Christene Marie]
And, Matteo, I viewed historically, I viewed emotions as weakness ever since I was a child.
00:28:30 [Christene Marie]
Like, I saw the damage emotions did.
00:28:36 [Christene Marie]
I saw, you know, someone being so angry, and then I also saw the lack of being able to challenge that anger.
00:28:44 [Christene Marie]
You know?
00:28:44 [Christene Marie]
It it it was really chaotic on an emotional level.
00:28:48 [Christene Marie]
So it was chaotic in anger, but then it was also chaotic in the response, which was a lot of tears.
00:28:54 [Christene Marie]
So I'm sitting there as a kid watching anger versus tears, and I'm like, nothing none of this is effective.
00:28:59 [Christene Marie]
Let me just shut down and not you know?
00:29:02 [Christene Marie]
And then I saw even someone else, their reaction was just complete and total being cold.
00:29:07 [Christene Marie]
So for many of us, I think we have those childhood moments and talk about narratives.
00:29:12 [Christene Marie]
The narrative we may have around even the thought of accessing our emotions is an inherited program or an inherited narrative.
00:29:21 [Christene Marie]
So to install something new, it's almost like we have to be willing to confront the emotion of that thought in even in and of itself.
00:29:29 [Christene Marie]
Like, am I willing to experience an emotion?
00:29:32 [Christene Marie]
Because for, I think, a lot of us, we have, almost like a misattributed, thought and feeling around emotion in and of itself that it is weakness.
00:29:42 [Christene Marie]
How did you get to the point of being able to access your emotions and and kinda be be brave enough to do that, but also recognize that this is actually core and and, essence essential to change?
00:29:57 [Matteo Palisca]
That's interesting.
00:29:59 [Matteo Palisca]
So there's something fascinating about this because I think that for for me, in my experience, men and women process emotions differently.
00:30:09 [Matteo Palisca]
So, like, the core under the core of what it is is very similar.
00:30:14 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:30:14 [Matteo Palisca]
If if I'm sad and you're sad, that's similar.
00:30:17 [Matteo Palisca]
But I lean back on historical models and the way that men and women have operated and conducted themselves differently over time.
00:30:29 [Matteo Palisca]
And this isn't true of every culture, and there's a lot of nuance here.
00:30:33 [Matteo Palisca]
But in general, men are missing connection with other men in a significant way in this society and a model by which to process through the things that occurred.
00:30:44 [Matteo Palisca]
And there's this idea from, what looks to me like an attempted homogenization of the world of feelings that, like, if if if a man is having this feeling and a woman's having this feeling or someone who is more feminine is having this feeling and first more masculine, we treat them the same.
00:31:06 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, I don't treat my my emotions the same way I treat my wife's emotions.
00:31:12 [Matteo Palisca]
Totally different.
00:31:13 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:31:14 [Matteo Palisca]
And when I'm hurt, when I'm upset, when anything else is going on internally for me, like, I don't wanna run to someone for a hug.
00:31:21 [Matteo Palisca]
That's just not how I operate.
00:31:23 [Matteo Palisca]
Well, that doesn't mean that I just shove everything down.
00:31:26 [Matteo Palisca]
So So it's like being willing to look at what's there and then learning what the appropriate way that you work with those emotions is.
00:31:35 [Matteo Palisca]
Yeah.
00:31:35 [Matteo Palisca]
And it's different for different people.
00:31:37 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, I'm not the guy who's just gonna go, like, cry to my wife.
00:31:41 [Matteo Palisca]
If you need to do that, that's up to you.
00:31:44 [Matteo Palisca]
But I'm more likely to call one of my bros and be like, hey, man.
00:31:48 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm super struggling with this thing.
00:31:50 [Matteo Palisca]
Can we talk this out?
00:31:51 [Matteo Palisca]
And then he's gonna listen, and he's probably going to red team my position on whatever.
00:31:57 [Matteo Palisca]
He's gonna come in and, like, attack where I'm weak and be like, what, dude?
00:32:02 [Matteo Palisca]
You're not seeing the whole picture.
00:32:03 [Christene Marie]
Right.
00:32:04 [Matteo Palisca]
And he's not gonna sit there and be like, yeah.
00:32:06 [Matteo Palisca]
Tell me more about your feelings with this and, like, cry it out.
00:32:09 [Matteo Palisca]
That's just not that's not how we operate.
00:32:12 [Matteo Palisca]
So he's gonna red team my position and be like, dude, you're breaking this.
00:32:16 [Matteo Palisca]
You're screwing up right here.
00:32:18 [Matteo Palisca]
This is a problem.
00:32:19 [Matteo Palisca]
You gotta see this as a problem.
00:32:21 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm like, okay.
00:32:21 [Matteo Palisca]
Cool.
00:32:22 [Matteo Palisca]
I see this as a problem.
00:32:23 [Matteo Palisca]
You broke down my defenses and, like, all the ways that I thought I was right.
00:32:28 [Matteo Palisca]
And that's I got a healthy dynamic.
00:32:31 [Matteo Palisca]
It's steel sharpened steel.
00:32:33 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:32:33 [Matteo Palisca]
That's that's the way that I look at, operating through a lot of these emotions from the masculine polarity.
00:32:40 [Christene Marie]
Good.
00:32:41 [Christene Marie]
I
00:32:41 [Matteo Palisca]
don't mind my wife that way.
00:32:43 [Christene Marie]
Yeah.
00:32:43 [Christene Marie]
You're like, let me be clear.
00:32:45 [Matteo Palisca]
Different from them.
00:32:46 [Matteo Palisca]
But when we're looking at this world, like, it's a very similar it's a very similar thing that plays out when you're working on the identity level because you're you're not dealing with the child anymore.
00:32:58 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, when we're working these problems, you're dealing with an adult.
00:33:00 [Matteo Palisca]
So there's a temptation that's like, well, I need I need to, like, access my inner child or whatever story that is.
00:33:06 [Matteo Palisca]
It's like, no.
00:33:07 [Matteo Palisca]
You need to parent your inner child.
00:33:09 [Matteo Palisca]
Yes.
00:33:09 [Matteo Palisca]
You are now an adult, and you are parenting a hurt child.
00:33:13 [Matteo Palisca]
So, like, be that means, like, be tender with oneself when you're at an edge that feels like, I don't know where this could go, or it's scary, or it's difficult, or whatever.
00:33:24 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:33:25 [Matteo Palisca]
Give one's grace, but that does not give you permission to act like a child.
00:33:30 [Matteo Palisca]
These are two different things.
00:33:32 [Matteo Palisca]
Be the parent.
00:33:33 [Christene Marie]
Oh, good.
00:33:34 [Matteo Palisca]
You're an adult.
00:33:35 [Matteo Palisca]
Act like it.
00:33:37 [Matteo Palisca]
And if you need there's there's proper places to express whatever emotions are bottled up within.
00:33:45 [Matteo Palisca]
This is not a reason to, like, not cry or not experience grief.
00:33:48 [Matteo Palisca]
I lost my mom when I was young.
00:33:50 [Matteo Palisca]
I had a lot of grief to experience, but I found that, safe place with, like, my aunties and, you know, people who could support and hold that in an appropriate way to where it was, like, processed through and not being externalized on the world or externalized on my my relationships.
00:34:13 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:34:13 [Matteo Palisca]
Where that would often come out.
00:34:14 [Matteo Palisca]
You lose a parent young.
00:34:16 [Matteo Palisca]
You I'll I'll lose my mom young.
00:34:19 [Matteo Palisca]
Creates a interesting dynamic when it comes to having relationships because I have all this grief and trauma.
00:34:23 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:34:23 [Matteo Palisca]
That's what I've inherited.
00:34:26 [Matteo Palisca]
So processing through that well thoroughly and fully, now I I'm in a relationship that
00:34:39 [Christene Marie]
It looks like Matteo froze again.
00:34:41 [Christene Marie]
It it's interesting just listening to that reflection.
00:34:46 [Christene Marie]
You know, it's not just that we it's not just that we need to process this in terms of who we are and and go back to the inherited, areas of our of our lives in terms of narratives, the way that we see the world beliefs.
00:35:00 [Christene Marie]
But, really, it's man, we lead from that place.
00:35:04 [Christene Marie]
Matteo talking about, you know, we need to be the parent to that child.
00:35:07 [Christene Marie]
We also need to be able to be the leader in the boardroom and be the leader in the bedroom.
00:35:11 [Christene Marie]
You know, we want to actually be consistent in how we show up across every level of analysis regardless of of who we're engaging with.
00:35:19 [Christene Marie]
Now to his point, having the ability to almost adjust and temper delivery for his wife versus his COO.
00:35:31 [Christene Marie]
But what is so important is that he emotionally is able to be able to take care of that little kid and have that little kid under effectively the the charge of the parent.
00:35:41 [Christene Marie]
Because when we see the lashing out, when we see the uproars and anger, I experienced that as a kid, and other people have experienced that both as a child and on the job site.
00:35:52 [Christene Marie]
But in order to keep that under control, it's so important that we do this work because, otherwise, that little kid is gonna be the one in the driver's seat, not us as the parent who is the the real leader that we want to be.
00:36:05 [Christene Marie]
And so when we're talking about installing these new behaviors, I I love the part.
00:36:10 [Christene Marie]
I I wanna add one thing to it.
00:36:11 [Christene Marie]
So he said two things.
00:36:13 [Christene Marie]
Men are are really missing relationship with men.
00:36:15 [Christene Marie]
It's that accountability that Matteo said when he would be able to call his buddy and be like, hey.
00:36:19 [Christene Marie]
I'm processing through this.
00:36:20 [Christene Marie]
I'm moving through this.
00:36:22 [Christene Marie]
And then his his buddy can be like, hey.
00:36:24 [Christene Marie]
You know, you're missing these elements.
00:36:26 [Christene Marie]
And I know Matteo and his partner, cofounder Adam, they they offer this as a part of what they do for businesses.
00:36:32 [Christene Marie]
So one, relationships with men, that's a way to do it.
00:36:36 [Christene Marie]
And second, it's the model to process emotions through.
00:36:39 [Christene Marie]
And one thing that I really appreciate is he said the to process emotions through, emotion is like a tunnel, and we have to move through it to get to the other side.
00:36:48 [Christene Marie]
Otherwise, we stay on the outskirts or we stay stuck in the emotion.
00:36:52 [Christene Marie]
We suppress or it's stuck, and it's still within us.
00:36:56 [Christene Marie]
But in order to move through it and in order to get out of it, in order to effectively leave it behind and not have it have control over us, we need that model.
00:37:05 [Christene Marie]
And and I really, really love the the element around being able to process with another person.
00:37:10 [Christene Marie]
And then the third thing I would say too, and this is a a conversation I have with another gentleman, on the Knowing Show.
00:37:17 [Christene Marie]
He said it's so he said the number one thing it's so important for men to do is jiu jitsu or some type of physical activity to actually release the energy in their body.
00:37:27 [Christene Marie]
He said that's the number one thing.
00:37:28 [Christene Marie]
He he coaches men, and he said that is the number one thing I would encourage men to do as an emotional release.
00:37:31 [Christene Marie]
And he said aggression is like the pathway to a man's soul.
00:37:34 [Christene Marie]
Release.
00:37:34 [Christene Marie]
And he said, aggression is, like, the pathway to a man's soul, which that line wow.
00:37:39 [Christene Marie]
That's powerful.
00:37:40 [Christene Marie]
So so, really, when it comes to men moving through emotion and I and I will say, you know, I actually, as a woman, I do not process emotions in in that way.
00:37:51 [Christene Marie]
I I'd actually don't like talking to another person, whether it's crying with them or just talking through it.
00:37:58 [Christene Marie]
I actually need to go inward and really figure out and I kinda have my own model and process of moving through emotions, but it's really important because I don't wanna linger there.
00:38:08 [Christene Marie]
So a question I think for all of us is, what is my ideal?
00:38:12 [Christene Marie]
What do I want?
00:38:13 [Christene Marie]
How do I want to show up emotionally with my family, with my kids, with, honestly, even with my team, with my partners, cofounders?
00:38:23 [Christene Marie]
Because y'all when we think about legacy and what we leave behind, it's the financial piece.
00:38:28 [Christene Marie]
It's also, yes, hopefully, a business, but it's also the relationships that we build along the way.
00:38:32 [Christene Marie]
Legacy is financial and legacy is relational.
00:38:36 [Christene Marie]
So it it really actually comes down to what do you want your relationships to look like, feel like, sound like, and then working backwards from there.
00:38:44 [Christene Marie]
Okay.
00:38:44 [Christene Marie]
Well, then who do I need to be in order to deliver that kind of experience?
00:38:49 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, I I wanted to move to the next piece of this, which is experience, you know, how to get to the next level.
00:38:55 [Christene Marie]
So it's kind of like, okay.
00:38:56 [Christene Marie]
Internal.
00:38:57 [Christene Marie]
This is some of the work we need to do.
00:38:59 [Christene Marie]
Okay.
00:38:59 [Christene Marie]
External.
00:38:59 [Christene Marie]
What are some some real practical tactics that you have employed, employed for your your clients, your customers in the past?
00:39:10 [Christene Marie]
What are some of the things that have really moved the needle for them to grow their business?
00:39:15 [Matteo Palisca]
So what's really moved the needle the most, I touched on this earlier, is really zeroing in on what the next right thing is to do.
00:39:24 [Matteo Palisca]
So a lot of people I see distributed focus is probably the one is the single biggest thing.
00:39:31 [Matteo Palisca]
And then half measures is another one.
00:39:33 [Matteo Palisca]
I mean, there's a lot of things.
00:39:34 [Matteo Palisca]
It gets it gets a little complicated.
00:39:36 [Matteo Palisca]
The model is simple for the most part.
00:39:38 [Matteo Palisca]
Construction model, it's not like massive corporations.
00:39:42 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, it is not that complicated.
00:39:44 [Matteo Palisca]
But the execution of the model thoroughly and properly is complicated because you're dealing with people and you're dealing with something that already exists.
00:39:51 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:39:52 [Matteo Palisca]
I don't get people who have never been in a business, like, coming to me and saying, hey.
00:39:57 [Matteo Palisca]
I've got $50,000 in the bank.
00:39:59 [Matteo Palisca]
I wanna set up the business the right way.
00:40:01 [Matteo Palisca]
How do I do that?
00:40:02 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, that doesn't happen very frequently.
00:40:04 [Matteo Palisca]
If that's you, reach out because we can make something great very easily.
00:40:09 [Matteo Palisca]
But most often, there's an inherited set of circumstances that we get.
00:40:14 [Matteo Palisca]
And so it's about parsing through that and finding what is the biggest point of leverage right now.
00:40:20 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be a team restructure.
00:40:22 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be, finding a way to get more leads.
00:40:26 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be fixing production problems.
00:40:28 [Matteo Palisca]
It could be hiring.
00:40:29 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, it really is individual.
00:40:31 [Matteo Palisca]
That's why template packs don't work.
00:40:32 [Matteo Palisca]
That's why one size fits all models.
00:40:35 [Matteo Palisca]
And like a lot of the coaching that's out there, it's not as effective because they're not taking into account, like, what the actual person is experiencing.
00:40:45 [Matteo Palisca]
Mhmm.
00:40:45 [Matteo Palisca]
There's definitely tons of coaches that are great out there.
00:40:48 [Matteo Palisca]
There.
00:40:48 [Matteo Palisca]
I don't wanna throw shade on the there's great coaches out there.
00:40:51 [Matteo Palisca]
But I'll what they're gonna do is they're going to talk with you until they understand where your actual problems are, find the point of biggest leverage, lever on that with everything you have.
00:41:01 [Matteo Palisca]
It's like Elon Musk talks about this all the time.
00:41:04 [Matteo Palisca]
You gotta find the smallest point you can to apply pressure to that has the maximum impact and then put all your force on that.
00:41:14 [Christene Marie]
What have you found that a lot of people, like, miss or forget or overlook?
00:41:20 [Christene Marie]
A lot of times, that smallest point of impact that can have the biggest leverage, honestly, it's not sexy.
00:41:27 [Christene Marie]
It's not flashy.
00:41:28 [Christene Marie]
It's kind of boring.
00:41:29 [Christene Marie]
It's usually the very thing that built your business in the first place.
00:41:33 [Christene Marie]
So I love this point.
00:41:34 [Christene Marie]
What what are you seeing that these companies are kinda returning to?
00:41:40 [Matteo Palisca]
Well, I spent an hour and a half with the client couple days ago.
00:41:45 [Matteo Palisca]
That I told them to write down their roles and responsibilities of four there's four key leaders in this business.
00:41:51 [Matteo Palisca]
So we're working not just with one owner.
00:41:54 [Matteo Palisca]
There's three owners and another key individual.
00:41:56 [Matteo Palisca]
And I told them to write down their list of roles and responsibilities of what they're supposed to do, And then we reviewed it in a meeting, and I went through and picked it apart line by line of what their roles and responsibilities are.
00:42:07 [Matteo Palisca]
And just because they had never got that down on paper, they've been operating for three years, and they've been fighting about who's responsible for what because there was no clear rules and responsibilities of, okay, I'm gonna take this, and I'm gonna I'm gonna own it, and it's mine.
00:42:20 [Matteo Palisca]
And if the ball drops with this, that's my fault.
00:42:24 [Matteo Palisca]
And you're gonna own that.
00:42:26 [Matteo Palisca]
And if the ball I trust you to do your job.
00:42:29 [Matteo Palisca]
And if it fails, I know you're gonna feel bad.
00:42:32 [Matteo Palisca]
I'm not gonna beat you up.
00:42:33 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, if if you there's a failure.
00:42:35 [Matteo Palisca]
So, like, clear roles and responsibilities.
00:42:37 [Matteo Palisca]
You do this.
00:42:38 [Matteo Palisca]
I do this.
00:42:38 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:42:39 [Matteo Palisca]
So for a lot of businesses, just being able to literally map out, write down pen and paper.
00:42:45 [Matteo Palisca]
This is not complicated.
00:42:46 [Matteo Palisca]
They spend all this time on Chat two p t looking for a tool to create an org chart to map out roles and responsibilities instead of grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, and just writing it out.
00:42:56 [Matteo Palisca]
And that's someone who uses AI all the time, but, like, you don't need fancy tools to do this.
00:43:01 [Matteo Palisca]
You just gotta get back to basics, get organized, get it out on paper, and then operate in that model and then tweak and adjust as you go.
00:43:10 [Matteo Palisca]
But it's not it's not sexy at all.
00:43:14 [Christene Marie]
No.
00:43:14 [Christene Marie]
It's not sexy.
00:43:15 [Christene Marie]
And it's, you know, I think about I I call it the three c's.
00:43:19 [Christene Marie]
Our competitors, our colleagues, and even our customers, so often, they're the ones driving the ship.
00:43:25 [Christene Marie]
You know, and and we're actually not the ones in the driver's seat.
00:43:28 [Christene Marie]
It's we're listening to everybody else.
00:43:29 [Christene Marie]
It's all external versus internal, and I'm excited to have your your cofounder on here, Adam, to to talk about kind of the internal drivers versus external.
00:43:38 [Christene Marie]
So I'll save that conversation.
00:43:40 [Christene Marie]
But to to this to this conversation, man, it's it's wild how much we're reactive versus proactive.
00:43:47 [Christene Marie]
Even grabbing that sheet of paper, writing down your roles and responsibilities, now you're the one actually taking charge of your business rather than just putting out fires all the time.
00:43:55 [Matteo Palisca]
Definitely.
00:43:55 [Matteo Palisca]
Definitely.
00:43:55 [Matteo Palisca]
So that's a big one.
00:43:58 [Matteo Palisca]
And then there's a narrative around hiring that there's no good people and all people suck, and it's, like, really, like, depressing narrative.
00:44:06 [Matteo Palisca]
And that's just not true.
00:44:09 [Matteo Palisca]
It's not true.
00:44:09 [Matteo Palisca]
It's a very good reason why you can't grow your business.
00:44:13 [Matteo Palisca]
It's a very good excuse why you can't grow your business.
00:44:15 [Matteo Palisca]
It's actually not true.
00:44:17 [Matteo Palisca]
There's great people all over the place.
00:44:18 [Matteo Palisca]
They're already working for someone else.
00:44:20 [Matteo Palisca]
How do you think that house over there that's getting built that looks amazing is getting done?
00:44:24 [Matteo Palisca]
It's because they got great people.
00:44:26 [Matteo Palisca]
There's, like, this this whole narrative, and a lot of it, you could sum it up to misconceptions about reality.
00:44:32 [Matteo Palisca]
They're like, okay.
00:44:33 [Matteo Palisca]
This is you know, there's no work.
00:44:36 [Matteo Palisca]
There's no good people.
00:44:38 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, all of this defeatist mentality, which stems back to that identity level stuff.
00:44:42 [Matteo Palisca]
That's why you have to fix it at that level because it all trickles down.
00:44:46 [Matteo Palisca]
From the leadership, that mindset trickles down.
00:44:49 [Matteo Palisca]
So then that brings me to another key point, which is culture and, like, what are you actually building?
00:44:54 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:44:54 [Matteo Palisca]
Mhmm.
00:44:55 [Matteo Palisca]
Allowing toxicity to remain inside of a team Mhmm.
00:45:00 [Matteo Palisca]
Absolute failure.
00:45:01 [Matteo Palisca]
Absolute failure.
00:45:03 [Matteo Palisca]
So policing one's culture so that we we create an environment in which high performers will thrive.
00:45:12 [Matteo Palisca]
And we focus on finding, hiring, training, and retaining high performers.
00:45:17 [Matteo Palisca]
That's another just, like, worth its weight in gold.
00:45:22 [Christene Marie]
So good.
00:45:23 [Christene Marie]
The the the time to really train because to your point, it's the top down.
00:45:28 [Christene Marie]
I actually had, my brother on the crafting calling a little bit ago, and and we were likening, you know, the leadership team to commanders on the on the field of battle.
00:45:37 [Christene Marie]
You know?
00:45:37 [Christene Marie]
Who are your generals?
00:45:39 [Christene Marie]
You know?
00:45:39 [Christene Marie]
And and who are the the PMs are effectively like the colonels, and you've got this the these people who are really, like, the representative of the founder, owner, brand and it's the brand.
00:45:50 [Christene Marie]
You know?
00:45:50 [Christene Marie]
So really being clear on, okay.
00:45:52 [Christene Marie]
Well, who do we wanna be?
00:45:53 [Christene Marie]
Because the same analogy, the same conversation around, you know, what's the foundation of the who as the individual is also the same concept of, well, who is the brand?
00:46:04 [Christene Marie]
What are the values?
00:46:05 [Christene Marie]
What's the mission?
00:46:06 [Christene Marie]
Why are we getting out of bed every morning?
00:46:08 [Christene Marie]
It's the same it's the same kinda thing.
00:46:09 [Christene Marie]
Like, we need to know who we are personally and as a company.
00:46:13 [Christene Marie]
Because otherwise, there's going to be, man, just so much inconsistency into your point, the bad apple that can be highly, highly man, it can be poisonous.
00:46:22 [Christene Marie]
You know?
00:46:22 [Christene Marie]
It, like, permeates throughout the entire team.
00:46:25 [Matteo Palisca]
So is another fun one because most builders, especially new ones, are like build house.
00:46:31 [Matteo Palisca]
That's the brand.
00:46:32 [Matteo Palisca]
Yeah.
00:46:33 [Matteo Palisca]
I build build house brand.
00:46:36 [Matteo Palisca]
It's, like, the last thing to think about.
00:46:38 [Matteo Palisca]
But building trust, building repeat clients, that kind of thing, it matters.
00:46:42 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, having that name, definitely matters.
00:46:46 [Matteo Palisca]
But this is where you get back into the details.
00:46:48 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:46:49 [Matteo Palisca]
Devil's in the details.
00:46:50 [Matteo Palisca]
Does the brand matter?
00:46:51 [Matteo Palisca]
Absolutely.
00:46:52 [Matteo Palisca]
Does it matter if you're a one man shop who's trying to find work next week?
00:46:56 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, probably don't focus on that.
00:46:59 [Matteo Palisca]
You need to focus on on the long term, on the medium term for sure.
00:47:02 [Matteo Palisca]
But when it comes down to what do we do tomorrow, that's where it's like, this matters.
00:47:08 [Matteo Palisca]
And, honestly, one of my favorite parts of my job is shepherding people from the, like, $300,000 range and getting that breakthrough to building an actual team and from here to there because that's really where you see a carpenter turn into a business owner.
00:47:23 [Matteo Palisca]
You just you can do it in at that range, and they just grow and grow and grow from there.
00:47:28 [Matteo Palisca]
A lot of times people fall into it and end up having a $2,000,000 business without having to do that transition through a series of circumstances that occurred where it just it's basically luck.
00:47:40 [Matteo Palisca]
It just falls into the lap.
00:47:41 [Matteo Palisca]
They're so good at the production.
00:47:43 [Matteo Palisca]
They're so good at doing the work that it just it just happens.
00:47:47 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:47:47 [Matteo Palisca]
But the back end is terrible.
00:47:49 [Matteo Palisca]
They couldn't get a business loan if their life depended on it.
00:47:51 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, none of the other stuff is actually working, and they're getting home at seven or eight at night.
00:47:56 [Matteo Palisca]
That's another factor.
00:47:57 [Matteo Palisca]
It's just like home life balance or work life balance is in over a years term.
00:48:03 [Matteo Palisca]
But that's a goal for a lot of our clients is to be able to get to the games, to get home before dinner, that kind of thing.
00:48:10 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, that only happens with systems.
00:48:12 [Matteo Palisca]
It only happens with a team you can rely on.
00:48:14 [Matteo Palisca]
And, if you're up all night worrying about some toxic player on your team that you don't have the guts to fire, like
00:48:21 [Christene Marie]
Yes.
00:48:21 [Matteo Palisca]
That's not that's not a life I wanna live.
00:48:24 [Matteo Palisca]
Like, how do we how do we move through that?
00:48:26 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:48:26 [Matteo Palisca]
What what how do we change ourselves to create a different reality?
00:48:30 [Matteo Palisca]
Fundamentally, that's the question.
00:48:32 [Matteo Palisca]
It's always the question.
00:48:34 [Christene Marie]
And there's so much power in that.
00:48:36 [Christene Marie]
There's so much power.
00:48:37 [Christene Marie]
Man, I, I as we're looking at twenty twenty six, one question, one practice, some what's one thing that those listening can do to identify what's my one thing?
00:48:53 [Matteo Palisca]
Write down all the things.
00:48:56 [Matteo Palisca]
Prior and all the things you think are important for the business, prioritize that list, and then prioritize that list once a day until that prioritization doesn't change.
00:49:07 [Matteo Palisca]
Continue to think about it.
00:49:09 [Matteo Palisca]
And once a day, look at that list of all the things.
00:49:11 [Matteo Palisca]
Okay.
00:49:11 [Matteo Palisca]
So I need leads.
00:49:12 [Matteo Palisca]
I need to hire someone.
00:49:14 [Matteo Palisca]
I need to do this, that, the other.
00:49:15 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:49:16 [Matteo Palisca]
All the things that you gotta do in your business, make it exhaustive, and check that priority list and make sure that thing doesn't change.
00:49:22 [Matteo Palisca]
And then only do the top three things on the list until they're solved for.
00:49:28 [Matteo Palisca]
And then it Yeah.
00:49:29 [Matteo Palisca]
Keeps continues on, changes again.
00:49:32 [Christene Marie]
Good.
00:49:32 [Christene Marie]
Love it.
00:49:33 [Christene Marie]
Love it.
00:49:33 [Christene Marie]
Get it all out of your head.
00:49:36 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, thank you so much.
00:49:38 [Matteo Palisca]
These people have everything they need in order to continue on and in order to create a beautiful business.
00:49:42 [Matteo Palisca]
Right?
00:49:43 [Matteo Palisca]
You have what you need.
00:49:44 [Matteo Palisca]
Yes.
00:49:45 [Christene Marie]
So good.
00:49:45 [Christene Marie]
Matteo, how can folks work with you and Adam and and your company?
00:49:49 [Matteo Palisca]
So reconstructconsultinggroup.com is our website.
00:49:52 [Matteo Palisca]
You can go on there.
00:49:52 [Matteo Palisca]
There's a booking link on there.
00:49:54 [Matteo Palisca]
And, we're on Instagram.
00:49:55 [Matteo Palisca]
We're on LinkedIn.
00:49:56 [Matteo Palisca]
We're on Facebook.
00:49:57 [Matteo Palisca]
So you can find us anywhere under Reconstruct Consulting Group.
00:50:00 [Christene Marie]
Wonderful.
00:50:01 [Christene Marie]
Y'all these guys, they're really making big change in the business, and and I'm so privileged and grateful to have you here today, Matteo.
00:50:07 [Christene Marie]
Thank you so much.
00:50:08 [Christene Marie]
And, is there anything else you'd wanna add before we jump?
00:50:14 [Matteo Palisca]
That's it.
00:50:14 [Matteo Palisca]
You can do it.
00:50:16 [Christene Marie]
You can do it.
00:50:16 [Christene Marie]
Nice.
00:50:17 [Christene Marie]
Y'all, thank you so much for joining us on the Crafting Calling, and we will see you next time.
