Create Flow Before Selling Your Business

“Progress is in relationship with struggle.” — Chris M. King, CEO of Status Flow. In this episode, Chris explains what “flow” is and how to create momentum on your team and in your personal life with flow triggers. He also shares how embracing change and discomfort is pivotal to growth.

Chris discusses the law of accelerating returns, which signifies the exponential progress of technology and culture. In order to keep up with our ever-changing world, business owners must be open to pivoting their plans and products and constantly innovating.  

Being immersed in a state of “flow” is necessary for creativity and momentum. Think about a time when you were effortlessly absorbed by the task at hand because your mind was in a state of inspiration. Certain triggers, like risk and novelty, contribute to the flow state.

When organizations learn to remove flow blockages and create an environment, routines, and culture that include flow triggers, innovation and motivation will come to employees naturally.

Lastly, he shares two action items for owners:

1. Figure out what to do when you reach your goal. Continue innovating and thinking about ways to spin your products and business, or what the next project should be. The dark side of flow is that when you obtain success, there now exists a large gap that must be filled with the next journey.

2. The brain and body require rest in order to bounce back to their most creative, inventive state. When you rest, let yourself completely relax and step away from work.

Disclosure: Information presented herein is for discussion and illustrative purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the speakers are as of the date of the recording and are subject to change. These views are not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, and should not be relied on as financial, tax or legal advice. You should consult with your attorney, finance professional or accountant before implementing any transactions and/or strategies concerning your finances.

Transcript

00:00:01:26 - 00:00:30:08

Joe Seetoo

Welcome to The Ripcord Moment. I'm your host, Joe Seetoo joined by Chris Kane. He's a good friend of mine. He's also an author, a public speaker and a coach. His book, Renegotiate Your Existence, really encapsulates the kind of work that Chris does with his clients, where he facilitates journeys to allow those companies to discover what are sustainable action plans and advancements for them to really achieve their moonshots, their big, hairy, audacious goals.

00:00:30:18 - 00:00:58:25

Joe Seetoo

Chris has a particular expertise in working with women groups and women entrepreneurs, ensuring that they're optimizing not only their business, but also their personal lives as well. He's trained really with the best in flow research, including the Flow Genome Project. Dr. Andrew Huberman and also Mark Devine with the Unbeatable Mind. He also regularly trains in mental and physical endurance activities with retired U.S. Navy SEALs.

00:00:59:06 - 00:01:02:14

Joe Seetoo

Chris, I'm really looking forward to our discussion today and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:02:22 - 00:01:05:02

Chris King

Thanks, Joe. So good to be here. Appreciate it.

00:01:05:12 - 00:01:20:22

Joe Seetoo

Absolutely. So you really have developed an expertise around this concept of flow that you bring to your clients to help them catapult what's possible in their business. So talk to us a little bit about what flow really is.

00:01:21:13 - 00:01:45:20

Chris King

Yeah, flow. You know, and I am a flow junkie, so I absolutely love this stuff. Flow is a simple name for what athletes call being in the zone, or you've heard the term runner's high. It's all the same thing. And essentially what it is, is a state of consciousness where you feel your best, you perform your best, you're never stressed out, and you're using fewer resources to make this happen.

00:01:46:02 - 00:01:54:16

Chris King

So when you get into the zone, when you can get into a flow cycle, you are getting exponential increases in creativity and speed and eliminating your stress.

00:01:55:09 - 00:02:08:09

Joe Seetoo

So it sounds like you're getting them away from the analysis paralysis, the daily grind to really perform at a much higher level. How do you get someone to access that state? Just that will.

00:02:09:06 - 00:02:33:22

Joe Seetoo

Yeah, it's kind of different for everybody. Like, what gets you into flow isn't necessarily what gets me into flow in terms of like the activities. What will work for everybody is what we call 'flow triggers.' There are 22 of them that we know of. And so the opportunity is to set the conditions and the circumstances in your organization, across your team, in your own personal life with these triggers so that you can produce these flow states.

00:02:33:22 - 00:02:37:16

Chris King

And flow becomes the natural end result of setting up the triggers.

00:02:38:07 - 00:02:55:25

Joe Seetoo

So in some ways, it sounds like you're teaching them by finding these triggers, whichever they're individualized. I'm assuming per person, maybe they have two or three or whatever the number is that tends to work with those individuals to recognize them, to capitalize on them so that they can get into that state.

00:02:57:00 - 00:03:19:02

Chris King

Close. The triggers are consistent, but the way that we relate to them are different. For example, risk is a flow trigger. Okay, you need a little bit of risk involved in the activity you're doing because flow requires a certain neurochemical cocktail and if there isn't enough risk present, then you're not going to have. There's a chemical in the brain called norepinephrine.

00:03:19:02 - 00:03:36:13

Chris King

Sometimes it's called noradrenaline, but you need that in order to get into a flow state. So risk has to be present. So what's risky for you is not risky for me. And what's risky for me is not risky for you. But you need the right amount of risk in order to produce a flow state. You know, some of the other flow triggers are going to be novelty.

00:03:36:20 - 00:03:47:04

Chris King

You need things to be different. You need complete concentration. You got to be really focused on what you're doing. So the more of these flow triggers, you have in your world, the more flow you can get.

00:03:48:04 - 00:04:17:01

Joe Seetoo

And how do you? I guess for controlling an environment, I would imagine it's relatively easy if you're an individual to some degree, right? Because theoretically you can set your environment up to manage those conditions as optimally as possible for those triggers, to manage those triggers accordingly. When you're dealing with multiple individuals or a group, how do you work through managing the environment to allow these triggers to, I guess, work to their benefit?

00:04:17:20 - 00:04:40:25

Chris King

It's a great question because there are sort of three levels of flow. There is personal flow like individual flow, there is team flow, and then there's like community. Like when you go to like a rave party or a rock concert or something and everybody, you know, right. It's the whole point, right? That's all that's going on. Right. So there are the triggers are going to be mostly the same.

00:04:40:25 - 00:04:57:20

Chris King

But like I mentioned, risk as a flow trigger. Well, now what we need is shared risk. We all got to be in the same boat together, right? We got to have shared goals. Right? We got to know what those are. So it's not hard. Okay? This is not complicated. Is there a better way to say it?

00:04:57:20 - 00:05:11:03

Chris King

It's not complicated. It's just not easy because so much of what we need to do in order to access a flow state is counterintuitive. The behaviors are counter-intuitive. So the tricky part about flow, frankly, is the behavior modification.

00:05:11:29 - 00:05:37:15

Joe Seetoo

So what are some of those behaviors? This is what it sounds like. What I'm hearing, if I'm reading between the lines, is what I'm hearing you correctly say is you're really trying to create alignment in teams so that they're all moving cohesively in one direction. And flow allows in some ways to help to have the sort of that oil right to the lubricant to allow the machine to move more seamlessly and smoothly.

00:05:37:28 - 00:06:01:25

Chris King

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I mean, we see this in professional athletes. We see it in teams and in particularly teams that are innovating. I think my favorite story is about the Skunkworks, Lockheed Corporation and how that came to came to be. You know, they the short version of the story is that the War Department needed to build America's first jet fighter in 1943 for World War II.

00:06:02:12 - 00:06:09:26

Chris King

Lockheed had no idea how to do it. They just keep blowing things up. We don't know how it works. And the War Department said, let's

00:06:10:03 - 00:06:10:24

Joe Seetoo

Figure it out.

00:06:11:03 - 00:06:16:11

Chris King

Right. They said, "you got 180 days to figure it out." They said "we don't have any money. We don't have any place to build it." War Department said "we don't care. Figure it out."

00:06:16:15 - 00:06:16:28

Joe Seetoo

Figure it out.

00:06:17:02 - 00:06:31:00

Chris King

So they set up what later became known as the Skunkworks. They delivered the first jet fighter, the XP 80 Shooting Star. They delivered that something like 37 days ahead of schedule because they created a team that was oriented around flow.

00:06:31:10 - 00:06:48:00

Joe Seetoo

Okay. Got it. So in some ways, it sounds like the innovation is a critical aspect to this. So do you find I mean, let me ask you this then on the on the flip side, right. And we're talking applying this to business owners. Right. Who maybe are wanting to create more enterprise value in their company. Mm hmm.

00:06:48:15 - 00:07:15:05

Joe Seetoo

For whatever reason, maybe their growth is flatline. Maybe their culture is such where they, you know, it's like, hey, we're profitable, right? Our clients are happy, status quo, they're not necessarily innovative. They've gotten sort of comfortable or complacent. How do you bring what your skills are to help maybe reinvigorate that level of innovation?

00:07:15:17 - 00:07:20:03

Chris King

Yeah, that's a great question. The first thing is to slap them.

00:07:20:20 - 00:07:21:10

Joe Seetoo

You know.

00:07:22:22 - 00:07:49:01

Chris King

Because if you're not innovating, you're dying. True. I mean, let's look at this through the world of exit strategy and planning. Okay. Normally, you're going to want to plan 3 to 5 years out, right, for your exit. Right. So that's kind of the roadmap. Sure. Now there's something called the 'law of accelerating returns.' You remember Moore's Law or the process or speed doubles every 18 months.

00:07:49:21 - 00:08:15:08

Chris King

Think of Moore's Law on steroids. Right. The law of accelerating returns shows that 1920, the year 1920 is to 2020 as 2020 is to 2030. You're going to see a hundred years of technological advancement and evolution in the next decade. Now, if you play that out even farther, you're going to see 20,000 years of evolution in the next century.

00:08:16:22 - 00:08:23:29

Chris King

To put that into perspective, that's going from the birth of agriculture to the birth of the Internet twice.

00:08:24:12 - 00:08:24:27

Joe Seetoo

Wow.

00:08:25:08 - 00:08:45:14

Chris King

So as you're planning your exit strategy in 3 to 5 years, that world does not exist. How can you guarantee that you're going to be relevant 3 to 5 years from now when you know the 1920 to 2020 thing? I mean, that's like saying, okay, we want to exit in 1923, but you're really planning for 1947, right?

00:08:46:13 - 00:09:01:12

Joe Seetoo

I love that perspective. So what you're saying is because the rate at which the world is changing and innovations happening around us, by definition, our businesses need to stay at pace and innovate, or otherwise we're obsolete.

00:09:01:26 - 00:09:29:10

Chris King

Right. You could be obsolete in 18 months while you're planning for your three year, five year exit. So you have got to put a very high focus on innovation and your ability to pivot. I love the line that Gene Kranz said. Gene Kranz was the flight director at NASA during the Apollo and the Gemini space missions. And there's a line that they highlight in the old movie Apollo 13, where Gene says, "I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do."

00:09:29:21 - 00:09:30:03

Joe Seetoo

Right.

00:09:30:03 - 00:09:40:09

Chris King

And keeping that on your radar, I understand this is why it was built, but even when I worked in tech, you know, the reason that people bought our products and the way that they used them were very different.

00:09:41:24 - 00:09:59:17

Joe Seetoo

So I want to pivot back to something, because what you're bringing up in terms of innovation requires change. And you talked about fear a minute ago. And change oftentimes, people are humans. Right? I think by definition, a lot of people don't want to change. Right.

00:09:59:17 - 00:10:02:07

Chris King

There's fear. Yeah, we're inherently resistant to it.

00:10:02:09 - 00:10:10:02

Joe Seetoo

Yeah, exactly. I think it's maybe in some ways hardwired into us. How do you necessarily make that your friend?

00:10:11:28 - 00:10:20:16

Chris King

I will quote my friends down at Unbeatable Mind, embrace the suck.

00:10:20:16 - 00:10:21:19

Joe Seetoo

I heard that before as well.

00:10:21:19 - 00:10:28:27

Chris King

Because look, struggle and progress are in relationship. You don't get progress without struggle.

00:10:29:14 - 00:10:30:00

Joe Seetoo

Wholeheartedly agree.

00:10:30:00 - 00:10:51:14

Chris King

Right. If you want bigger success, get bigger problems. I was working with a guy actually, he's really funny. He would come in with the weight of his world on his shoulders. He was a business owner. He was actually in the restaurant business going through the pandemic. And we were able to maintain him at flat revenues while everybody else was being decimated because we were able to innovate and innovate and innovate.

00:10:51:27 - 00:11:07:19

Chris King

And he would come in. And I told him this early when we first met a few years back and said, "if you want bigger success, get bigger problems." And so he would come in with the weight of his world on his shoulders and he would unload. And then I'd look at him and smile and I would say, "look at you with your cute little six figure problems."

00:11:07:19 - 00:11:27:04

Chris King

And then he would just start laughing right? Because it'd sort of lighten the mood. And then you fast forward about 18 months and the same thing would happen. He would come in with all the weight of the world on his shoulders and I'd smile. I'd look at him, go look at you with your cute little seven figure problems. You know, it's like it puts it into perspective right so you don't have to like what is going on.

00:11:27:04 - 00:11:39:27

Chris King

This is the important part. You don't have to like what is happening in order to make it work for you. If you can get out of how much you don't like it and get out of how much it sucks because this has an effect on your neurochemistry in your psychology, you go, okay, it sucks. I don't like it.

00:11:39:27 - 00:11:42:15

Chris King

And how can I make this work for me?

00:11:42:18 - 00:11:43:01

Joe Seetoo

For me.

00:11:43:04 - 00:11:50:12

Chris King

Sure. Right. Because it changes your neurochemistry and it physiologically changes the way your brain works. And this is how you come up with creative solutions.

00:11:51:14 - 00:12:13:22

Joe Seetoo

I love that. So again, I want to go back to taking this from the individual level though, to the team level or the group level. Are there any, I guess, pearls of wisdom you can share for the leaders who may be struggling with like they understand it's tough, they've embraced it. How to get the rest of the team to embrace the suck.

00:12:19:10 - 00:12:20:09

Chris King

You know, the the personality, the energy, the attitudes, the philosophies of any entity, any group, any team, any organization will be that of the person who sits on top of that organization. So it really starts with that accountable place, that leadership. You know, nobody is ever freaked out on a naval vessel because the captain always knows what to do.

00:13:38:12 - 00:13:48:09

Chris King

And when the captain doesn't know what to do, the captain always knows what to do. Like that's the idea, right? So might freaked out, right? Yeah. It is a mindset thing.

00:13:48:19 - 00:13:57:23

Joe Seetoo

So it's really going to come from the top down is what you're saying. And everyone looks to that leader to see how they're behaving and monitor to model after that.

00:13:58:14 - 00:14:16:26

Chris King

If you want to look I like to look at the Masters, right? Any time I want to learn something, who's really good at that. If you want to look at how do I protect my brand, look at look at Disney. Nobody protects their brand better than Disney. You know, whether you like the organization or not right now, if you want to look through the lens of leverage.

00:14:16:26 - 00:14:30:28

Chris King

Right, because that's what we're talking about. How do we make this work for us? How do we leverage this look no further than the United States government, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, no matter what happens in the world, how do we make it work for us? How do we make that drive our agenda and achieve our goals?

00:14:31:14 - 00:14:32:03

Chris King

Whatever those are?

00:14:32:19 - 00:14:56:24

Joe Seetoo

Okay. What else you like? What's the most to give us? Give us some maybe some more specific examples around how have you been able to move the needle for our clients? How more in-depth discussion around the flow and how you've really just seen it sort of transform organizations, again, specifically businesses that are likely to exit in the next 3 to 5 years?

00:14:57:19 - 00:15:19:04

Chris King

Yeah, I think I'm looking to my favorites because I was working with a with a B2C company and they were on a really steep growth curve. They were doubling, they were 10 million revenues and they were doubling to 20 and they were having massive growth, which at that pace creates a lot of frictions that I mean, they would literally say there are people walking down the halls that were not here yesterday.

00:15:19:04 - 00:15:39:17

Chris King

I have no idea who that is. Right. Just so there was this massive growth curve and it became a question of culture. Right. So how do we how do we maintain our company culture and how do we, you know, rolling smoothly said, okay, first of all, you don't. Right. That's the first problem that you have is a $20 million company is not the same place as a $10 million company.

00:15:39:27 - 00:15:58:03

Chris King

So you can hang on to your values, but the culture is invariably going to have some have some wobble in it, you know? Absolutely right. And then you throw in something like the pandemic and remote workers and all this kind of stuff. Now you're in a digital environment. So the question is, how do we shift the vision and how do we align with that vision, right?

00:15:58:03 - 00:16:16:21

Chris King

As opposed to how do we keep what we had? You don't keep what you had. Right now, evolution is a process, not an event. So it's you got to go through this process with as much ease and grace as possible. But that that company did really well because their their idea and it was a first time CEO. She was very young, 36 at the time.

00:16:16:21 - 00:16:39:11

Chris King

And, you know, it was we want to change the industry or we want to be out and sell this thing for 100 million in the next three years and be done right. So but working with them with with the part with with very specific what I'll call pivot points in the organization. Okay. Because there's kind of two org charts in an organization.

00:16:39:11 - 00:16:56:07

Chris King

There's the one with the titles and who reports to who and then there's the influencers, right? There are certainly and they're not necessarily the same. Yeah. And so as I sort of took an audit of this organization, I'm like, where can I have the most influence in this place? Okay, I see. I need this person. I need this person need this because this connects to that.

00:16:56:11 - 00:17:10:09

Chris King

And here's the CEO and this is called Operation and it and just putting the whole map together and by working with those points of in flux, you know, those pivot points, we were able to get things moving a lot more smoothly so that there was a lot less friction through a steep growth curve.

00:17:10:21 - 00:17:38:00

Joe Seetoo

Well, it sounds like Reed said there about the idea of two word charts and getting the buy in from those who are maybe not based on title, but based on sort of their interaction, their camaraderie, their influence, obviously within the company, getting them on board with this idea of flow and the vision and the values, you're able to have a much greater impact in the kind of work that you're doing with your clients.

00:17:38:14 - 00:18:00:25

Chris King

Absolutely. And recognizing that what you're offering as an organization is of such a benefit to your staff, like because it's not just going to be beneficial to the organization, it's going to benefit them as as individuals, as humans. Right. And so this is such a huge benefit to them and their personal lives, which you get to provide for them.

00:18:01:09 - 00:18:17:24

Joe Seetoo

Maybe we can pivot the conversation there because that Chris, that I love that. And how do you take some of this concept that you talk about in flow and apply it to whether it's the owner, the staff, the care or the, you know, the employees in their personal lives?

00:18:17:24 - 00:18:27:07

Chris King

Well, flow is what we call an auto telling experience, which is just a fancy science word for addictive. Because in the science community, they don't like that. Oh.

00:18:28:02 - 00:18:29:05

Joe Seetoo

Gee, I wonder why.

00:18:29:06 - 00:18:46:23

Chris King

Right. It's addictive, but it is, you know, like people like the extreme athletes, for example, like the X Games or whatever they say, oh, they're adrenaline junkies. They're not adrenaline junkies. They're flow junkies. It's a completely different thing. Yeah. And I'll tell you, you've experienced this, Joe, and so is anybody listening? At least a low level flow state.

00:18:46:23 - 00:19:12:08

Chris King

Think back to maybe not too long ago when you were working on something at work or maybe even in college, you were working on a midterm and you got so focused on what you were doing that everything else sort of disappeared. There was no distraction, there was no sense of even the self. There was just the thing you were working on and it felt like 30 minutes went by, but when you looked up it was like 3 hours and you had this incredible work product in front of you.

00:19:12:17 - 00:19:27:29

Chris King

Yeah, that's a low level flow state and it's so it feels so good. Like, how do I do that again? Right. Right. And this is how and again, emotional regulation and de-stress and better performance. And it's like these people just start operating better and it's all thanks to you and your organization.

00:19:28:12 - 00:20:02:04

Joe Seetoo

Yeah. Now I love what you're doing because it's I think people are looking for greater meaning at work. They don't want to just be task masters. They want to feel like they're making meaningful contributions but doing in a way that they enjoy. Right. And so you're really bringing that to the surface and teaching them, I think, a disciplined way around how to access on a regular basis, not just on sort of one of these one offs, which ultimately, if you can infuse the culture with that, creates tremendous enterprise value for for an owner, if they're ultimately lucky to have some sort of transition event.

00:20:02:13 - 00:20:32:23

Joe Seetoo

And that sort of brings us full circle here, right? We call this The Ripcord Moment, which I'm a firm believer. I've been working with a lot of business owners over the last couple of years, aligning their business plan with their personal financial plan. And, you know, all too often we have found owners, right? Just having created a master plan that helps the client really close that wealth gap between what they need to live their optimal life financially outside of the business and what the transferable enterprise value of the business truly is.

00:20:32:23 - 00:20:49:25

Joe Seetoo

And so I'm a firm believer that when they go to transition their business, they have to have their ripcord ready, their parachute can't fail. And so, Chris, what would you say to the audience, two action items that an owner should contemplate sooner than later around this idea flow?

00:20:51:17 - 00:21:10:19

Chris King

Well, I think the first thing you need to be very clear on is what then once the sale happens, what then? Like, what will you be doing? Well, you know, because there's a lot that happens, especially during the sales, you're probably going to work long hours. You can have a lot of focus on this. It's going to take a lot of your time and energy when this is done.

00:21:11:03 - 00:21:24:03

Chris King

How do you make a big hole left behind? Right. So and the danger of that, especially if you've gotten into a flow state, there actually is a dark side of flow. But the danger that.

00:21:24:22 - 00:21:27:01

Joe Seetoo

Comes let's let's go into that. What is that dark side?

00:21:28:21 - 00:21:47:20

Chris King

Okay. So there's well, in the case of an athlete, remember when I said flow involves risk? Yep. Okay. So I'm a mountain bike guy, right? So let's say and I'm pretty good mountain biker. I can jump a 20, 24 foot gap. That's pretty, pretty far. So the problem is that Mark. Right, that's a good jump right in your three feet up and 20 feet long.

00:21:47:20 - 00:22:03:16

Chris King

That's a good job. So yeah, I haven't figured out that I'm not 15 anymore, but what do you think happens now? Remember, risk is a flow trigger. What do you think happens after I've made that jump? 20 times, 30 times, 40 times.

00:22:03:27 - 00:22:06:00

Joe Seetoo

You get complacent about risk.

00:22:06:08 - 00:22:07:28

Chris King

The risk is gone. It's okay.

00:22:08:29 - 00:22:10:06

Joe Seetoo

Right? Yeah.

00:22:10:13 - 00:22:29:13

Chris King

So what do I need? Right. So what do I need to do? Just to stretch it to 25 feet? 20, is that right? So. So in the case of extreme athletes, flow can get you killed because the guys that are really good at this, you know, the snowboarders that are jumping ten foot gaps or something, that's like your life is on the line right now, literally.

00:22:29:13 - 00:22:52:10

Chris King

So you're kind of chasing that high. The other thing about flow is that you need to learn how to train out of it, just as you need to learn how to train into it. Because what ends up happening is that if you ride a flow wave too long, you're going to burn out all of your feel good. Note Neurochemistry because flow is just a euphoric experience and there's a lot of chemistry going on right?

00:22:52:10 - 00:22:58:21

Chris King

So what happens on the back end of a flow state is you feel really bummed out. It sounds like you're.

00:22:58:21 - 00:23:00:18

Joe Seetoo

Coming off of like almost like a hangover. Right?

00:23:00:18 - 00:23:17:00

Chris King

And it's like I like approaching. I love how astute you are. I actually call it the flow hangover here. Okay. So so you have to understand that and this is the hardest thing to do, especially because we work with a lot of high performers. High performers don't want to stop. They want to keep going.

00:23:17:02 - 00:23:17:28

Joe Seetoo

Keep going. Right.

00:23:18:09 - 00:23:46:24

Chris King

Right. But you've got to train. You've got to recover. Yeah. If you're not training in recovery, if you're not giving yourself a break, look, your hobbies, your recreational activities, your weekends, your barbecues, if you are emailing me from the beach in Hawaii, you might as well be in the office. You are where you're headed. So you've got to have strong boundaries because just like the body needs to recover from a workout, so does your brain, so that you can be more creative and get things done right.

00:23:47:02 - 00:23:50:27

Chris King

So you got to learn how to train yourself out of flow as well as train yourself into it.

00:23:50:27 - 00:24:15:19

Joe Seetoo

So it sounds like you're saying is for them to take the time to as they're going through and actually really think about after the transaction, taking the time to really get that identity clear. And I've heard this numerous times and I think this is one of the biggest things owners don't do, unfortunately. Right. But then also you're saying is really take the time to set boundaries probably while you're to the extent you can, while you're building the business.

00:24:15:19 - 00:24:36:00

Joe Seetoo

And obviously, you know, it's tough when you're going through a transaction because everyone's going to gazillion miles an hour to get the deal done, due diligence, all of that. But to the extent that they understand this is not a sustainable long term stated that they have to have downtime to allow their body to recover their mind, to recover their spirit, to recover, so that they can then eventually get back into that state.

00:24:36:00 - 00:24:37:15

Joe Seetoo

It's going to it ebbs and flows.

00:24:38:01 - 00:24:55:17

Chris King

Right. So that's the first thing is you got to know what's next and then you got to keep the other mistakes. You got to keep innovating. You have to innovate through your exit the same way you were innovating when you got the company started. Right. Because again, the world you're selling, you're selling doesn't exist. You're selling into doesn't exist yet.

00:24:55:17 - 00:25:13:24

Chris King

And so it can be really helpful to you set the intention to keep the doors open as you're doing things as you're heading towards this exit. Right. So what's going on like. Oh yeah, we've got this widget that we're selling, but again, what else could it do or what can we spin off of that think, oh, like a like a TV show.

00:25:13:24 - 00:25:17:13

Chris King

What's the spin off when they throw in the what's the spin on, what's the next.

00:25:17:13 - 00:25:17:27

Joe Seetoo

Story.

00:25:18:02 - 00:25:40:10

Chris King

Thing, right? What's the next storyline? Because even if nothing comes of it, what you're doing is physiologically changing the brain works, you're changing your neurochemistry, you're coming up with creative ideas, right? Even if you stretch out into the fantastic, ridiculous and the absurd, something you would never do, you're changing your brain. And what happens is viable elements and viable ideas start to slip into the fantasy.

00:25:40:16 - 00:25:53:01

Chris King

Yeah. So. So that's how you keep yourself fresh. That's how you keep the ideas flowing, right? And it's just more fun that way. And feelings drive actions, right? If you're enjoying what you do, you're going to do a better job of basic neuroscience.

00:25:53:04 - 00:26:05:13

Joe Seetoo

It sounds true, Chris. Feelings drive action, so we'll always agree. I love our conversation. This has been fantastic. If somebody in the audience wanted to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to reach you?

00:26:05:25 - 00:26:23:06

Chris King

Yeah, you can get us on our website status flow dot net. It is dot net because the guy that owns dot com wants to sell it for five grand and I'm just not paying that for a word that's flow dot net. You can get us on Instagram at the status flow. You can email me Chris at status flow dot net.

00:26:23:21 - 00:26:33:12

Joe Seetoo

Perfect Cresswell thanks again for taking the time to be with us to share your pearls of wisdom about flow and how to hit a 20 foot mountain bike jump.

00:26:33:27 - 00:26:36:21

Chris King

I'll take any time. You want to go, that's all.

00:26:36:21 - 00:26:45:18

Joe Seetoo

Set that up so we'll go and sign off. This is Joe Jose from the Ripcord moment and we'll see you next time. Thanks, Chris.

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;29;26

Joe Seetoo

You know, the personality, the energy, the attitudes, the philosophies of any entity, any group, any team, any organization will be that of the person who sits on top of that organization. So it really starts with that accountable place, that leadership. Nobody is ever freaked out on a naval vessel because the captain always knows what to do. And when the captain doesn't know what to do, the captain always knows what to do.

00;00;29;26 - 00;00;34;23

Joe Seetoo

Like that's the idea, right, when he freaks out, right? Yeah. So it is a mindset thing.

00;00;35;04 - 00;00;44;07

Chris King

So it's really going to come from the top down is what you're saying. And everyone looks to that leader to see how they're behaving and try to model after that.

00;00;44;28 - 00;01;03;13

Joe Seetoo

I like to look at the masters. Right. Anytime I want to learn something- who's really good at that? If you want to look at how do I protect my brand, look at Disney. Nobody protects their brand better than Disney. You know, whether you like the organization or not. Now, if you want to look through the lens of leverage.

00;01;03;13 - 00;01;17;14

Joe Seetoo

Right, because that's what we're talking about. How do we make this work for us? How do we leverage this? Look no further than the United States government, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, no matter what happens in the world, how do we make it work for us? How do we make that drive our agenda and achieve our goals?

00;01;18;00 - 00;01;18;18

Joe Seetoo

Whatever those are?

00;01;19;04 - 00;01;43;09

Chris King

Okay. What else? Give us some maybe some more specific examples around how you've been able to move the needle for our clients, how more in-depth discussion around the flow and how you've really just seen it sort of transform organizations, again, specifically businesses that are likely to exit in the next 3 to 5 years.

00;01;44;04 - 00;02;05;21

Joe Seetoo

Yeah, I think I'm looking to my favorites because I was working with a B2C company and they were on a really steep growth curve. They were doubling, they were 10 million revenue and they were doubling to 20 and they were having massive growth, which at that pace creates a lot of frictions. I mean, they would literally say there are people walking down the halls that were not here yesterday.

00;02;05;21 - 00;02;26;02

Joe Seetoo

I have no idea who that is. Right. Just so there was this massive growth curve and it became a question of culture. Right. So how do we maintain our company culture and how do we, you know, rolling smoothly said, okay, first of all, you don't. Right. That's the first problem that you have is a $20 million company is not the same place as a $10 million company.

00;02;26;14 - 00;02;44;19

Joe Seetoo

So you can hang on to your values, but the culture is invariably going to have some have some wobble in it, you know? Absolutely right. And then you throw in something like the pandemic and remote workers and all this kind of stuff. Now you're in a digital environment. So the question is, how do we shift the vision and how do we align with that vision, right?

00;02;44;19 - 00;03;00;23

Joe Seetoo

As opposed to how do we keep what we had? You don't keep what you had. Right? Well, you know, evolution is a process, not an event. So it's you got to go through this process with as much ease and grace as possible. But that company did really well because of their idea and it was a first time CEO.

00;03;00;23 - 00;03;20;14

Joe Seetoo

She was very young, 36 at the time. And, you know, it was we want to change the industry or we want to be out and sell this thing for 100 million in the next three years and be done, right? But working with them with very specific what I'll call pivot points in the organization.

00;03;20;14 - 00;03;39;15

Joe Seetoo

Okay. Because there's kind of two org charts in an organization. There's the one with the titles and who reports to who and then there's the influencers, right? And, they're not necessarily the same. Yeah. And so as I sort of took an audit of this organization, I'm like, where can I have the most influence in this place?

00;03;39;15 - 00;03;56;25

Joe Seetoo

Okay, I see. I need this person. I need this person. I need this because this connects to that. And here's the COO and this is because operations and just putting the whole map together and by working with those points of influx, you know, those pivot points, we were able to get things moving a lot more smoothly so that there was a lot less friction through a steep growth curve.

00;03;57;06 - 00;04;25;01

Chris King

Well, it sounds like I love what you said there about the idea of two word charts and getting the buy-in from those who are maybe not based on title, but based on sort of their interaction, their camaraderie, their influence, obviously within the company, getting them on board with this idea flow and the vision and the values, you're able to have a much greater impact in the kind of work that you're doing with your clients.

00;04;25;01 - 00;04;47;10

Joe Seetoo

Absolutely. And recognizing that what you're offering as an organization is of such a benefit to your staff, like because it's not just going to be beneficial to the organization, it's going to benefit them as individuals, as humans. Right. And so this is such a huge benefit to them and their personal lives, which you get to provide for them.

00;04;47;25 - 00;05;04;11

Chris King

Maybe we can pivot the conversation there because that Chris, that I love that. And how do you take some of this concept that you talk about in flow and apply it to whether it's the owner, the staff, the you know, the employees in their personal lives?

00;05;04;11 - 00;05;14;03

Joe Seetoo

Well, flow is what we call an autotelic experience, which is just a fancy science word for addictive, because in the science community, they don't like that word.

00;05;14;03 - 00;05;16;03

Chris King

Oh, gee, I wonder why.

00;05;16;03 - 00;05;46;02

Joe Seetoo

Right? It's like it's addictive, but it is, you know, like people like the extreme athletes, for example, like the X-Games or whatever they say, oh, they're adrenaline junkies. They're not adrenaline junkies. They're flow junkies. It's a completely different thing. Yeah. And I'll tell you, you've experienced this, Joe, and so is anybody listening. At least a low level flow state. Think back to maybe not too long ago when you were working on something at work or maybe even in college, you were working on a midterm and you got so focused on what you were doing that everything else sort of disappeared.

00;05;46;08 - 00;06;03;02

Joe Seetoo

There was no distraction, there was no sense of even the self. There was just the thing you were working on and it felt like 30 minutes went by, but when you looked up it was like 3 hours and you had this incredible work product in front of you. Yeah, that's a low level flow state and it feels so good.

00;06;03;02 - 00;06;14;17

Joe Seetoo

Like, how do I do that again? Right. And this is how and again, emotional regulation and distress and better performance. And it's like these people just start operating better and it's all thanks to you and your organization.

00;06;14;28 - 00;06;48;20

Chris King

Yeah. Now I love what you're doing because I think people are looking for greater meaning at work. They don't want to just be task masters. They want to feel like they're making meaningful contributions, but doing it in a way that they enjoy. Right. And so you're really bringing that to the surface and teaching them, I think, a disciplined way around how to access on a regular basis, not just on sort of one of these one offs, which ultimately, if you can infuse the culture with that, creates tremendous enterprise value for an owner, if they're ultimately lucky to have some sort of transition event.

00;06;48;29 - 00;07;19;10

Chris King

And that sort of brings us full circle here, right? We call this The Ripcord Moment, which I'm a firm believer. I've been working with a lot of business owners over the last several years, aligning their business plan with their personal financial plan and all too often we have found owners, right, just having created a master plan that helps the client really close that wealth gap between what they need to live their optimal life financially outside of the business, and what the transferable enterprise value of the business truly is.

00;07;19;10 - 00;07;36;12

Chris King

And so I'm a firm believer that when they go to transition that business, they have to have their ripcord ready, their parachute can't fail. And so, Chris, what would you say to the audience or two action items that an owner should contemplate sooner than later around this idea of flow?

00;07;38;04 - 00;07;57;05

Joe Seetoo

Well, I think the first thing you need to be very clear on is what then? Once the sale happens, what then? Like, what will you be doing? Because there's a lot that happens, especially during the sales, you're probably going to work long hours. You can have a lot of focus on this. It's going to take a lot of your time and energy. When this is done,

00;07;57;22 - 00;08;10;25

Joe Seetoo

there's going to be a big hole left behind right? And the danger of that, especially if you've gotten into a flow state, there actually is a dark side of flow. But the danger of that. Well.

00;08;11;03 - 00;08;13;19

Chris King

Let's pause. Let's go into that. What is that dark side?

00;08;15;10 - 00;08;34;07

Joe Seetoo

Okay. So there's well, in the case of an athlete, remember when I said flow involves risk? Yep. Okay. So I'm a mountain bike guy, right? I'm a pretty good mountain biker, I can jump a 20, 24 foot gap. That's pretty, pretty far. That's very far. Right, that's a good jump right, you're three feet up and 20 feet long.

00;08;34;07 - 00;08;50;03

Joe Seetoo

That's a good jump. So yeah, I haven't figured out that I'm not 15 anymore, but what do you think happens now? Remember, risk is a flow trigger. What do you think happens after I've made that jump? 20 times, 30 times? 40 times?

00;08;50;13 - 00;08;51;10

Chris King

You get complacent

00;08;51;25 - 00;08;55;18

Joe Seetoo

about risk. The risk is gone. It's okay. Sure.

00;08;56;03 - 00;08;56;22

Chris King

It's. Yeah.

00;08;56;29 - 00;09;16;01

Joe Seetoo

So what do I need? Right. So what do I need to do to stretch it to 25 feet? 20. Is it right? So in the case of extreme athletes, flow can get you killed because the guys that are really good at this, you know, the snowboards that are jumping 110 foot gaps or something, that's like your life is on the line right now, literally.

00;09;16;01 - 00;09;38;20

Joe Seetoo

So you're kind of chasing that high. The other thing about flow is that you need to learn how to train out of it, just as you need to learn how to train into it. Because what ends up happening is that if you ride a flow wave too long, you're going to burn out all of your feel good neurochemistry because flow is just a euphoric experience and there's a lot of chemistry going on, right?

00;09;38;27 - 00;09;43;26

Joe Seetoo

So what happens on the back end of a flow state is you feel really bummed out.

00;09;44;20 - 00;09;47;05

Chris King

It sounds like you're coming off of like almost like a hangover. Right?

00;09;47;05 - 00;09;48;04

Joe Seetoo

And it's like I.

00;09;48;16 - 00;09;49;14

Chris King

Like you're crashing.

00;09;49;24 - 00;10;03;14

Joe Seetoo

I love Alice Stewart. You are. I actually call it the flow hangover. Right. Okay. So you have to understand that and this is the hardest thing to do, especially because we work with a lot of high performers. High performers don't want to stop. They want to keep going.

00;10;03;17 - 00;10;04;14

Chris King

Keep going. Right.

00;10;04;24 - 00;10;33;09

Joe Seetoo

Right. But you've got to train. You've got to recover. Yeah. If you're not training in recovery, if you're not giving yourself a break, look, your hobbies, your recreational activities, your weekends, your barbecues, if you are emailing me from the beach in Hawaii, you might as well be in the office. You are where your head is. So you've got to have strong boundaries because just like the body needs to recover from a workout, so does your brain, so that you can be more creative and get things done.

00;10;33;17 - 00;10;37;12

Joe Seetoo

So you got to learn how to train yourself out of flow as well as train yourself into it.

00;10;37;12 - 00;11;02;06

Chris King

So it sounds like you're saying is for them to take the time to as they're going through and exit, really think about after the transaction, taking the time to really get that identity clear. And I've heard this numerous times and I do think this is one of the biggest things owners don't do, unfortunately. Right. But then also you're saying is really take the time to set boundaries probably to the extent you can, while you're building the business.

00;11;02;06 - 00;11;22;17

Chris King

And obviously, you know, it's tough while you're going through a transaction because everyone's going up a zillion miles an hour to get the deal done, due diligence, all of that. But to the extent that they understand this is not a sustainable long term state. They have to have downtime to allow their body to recover, their mind to recover, their spirit to recover, so that they can then eventually get back into that state.

00;11;22;17 - 00;11;24;02

Chris King

It ebbs and flows.

00;11;24;17 - 00;11;42;02

Joe Seetoo

Right. So that's the first thing is you got to know what's next and then you got to keep the other mistakes. You got to keep innovating. You have to innovate through your exit the same way you were innovating when you got the company started right. Because again, the world you're selling into doesn't exist yet.

00;11;42;02 - 00;12;00;11

Joe Seetoo

And so it can be really helpful to set the intention to keep the doors open as you're doing things, as you're heading towards this exit. Right. So what's going on like? Oh yeah, we've got this widget that we're selling again. What else could it do or what can we spin off of that? Think, oh, like a, like a TV show.

00;12;00;11 - 00;12;03;13

Joe Seetoo

What's the spin off when they throw ends? What's the spin.

00;12;03;13 - 00;12;04;28

Chris King

Off? What's the next story?

00;12;04;29 - 00;12;26;26

Joe Seetoo

Right. What's the next storyline? Because even if nothing comes of it, what you're doing is physiologically changing how the brain works, you're changing your neurochemistry, you're coming up with creative ideas, right? Even if you stretch out into the fantastic, ridiculous and the absurd, something you would never do, you're changing your brain. And what happens is viable elements and viable ideas start to slip into the fantasy.

00;12;27;02 - 00;12;39;16

Joe Seetoo

Yeah. So that's how you keep yourself fresh. That's how you keep the ideas flowing, right? And it's just more fun that way. And feelings drive actions, right? If you're enjoying what you do, you're going to do it better. Basic neuroscience.

00;12;39;21 - 00;12;51;29

Chris King

It's so true, Chris. Feelings drive action. I love our conversation. This has been fantastic. If somebody in the audience wanted to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to reach you?

00;12;52;10 - 00;13;09;23

Joe Seetoo

Yeah, you can get us on our website, statusflow.net. It is dot net because the guy that owns dot com wants to sell it for five grand and I'm just not paying that for a word. That's statusflow.net. You can get us on Instagram at the status flow. You can email me, chris@statusflow.net

00;13;10;09 - 00;13;19;28

Chris King

Perfect. Chris, well, thanks again for taking the time to be with us to share your pearls of wisdom about flow and how to hit a 20 foot mountain bike jump.

00;13;20;14 - 00;13;21;28

Joe Seetoo

I'll take you any time you want to go.

00;13;21;28 - 00;13;32;03

Chris King

We'll set that up so we'll go and sign off. This is Joe Seetoo from The Ripcord Moment and we'll see you next time. Thanks, Chris.