
Unfazed Under Fire Podcast
Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast designed to help senior executives lead with greater impact, resilience, and well-being. Each episode is rooted in proven, systemic frameworks that empower leaders to achieve extraordinary results, foster high-performing cultures, and thrive in today’s complex and unpredictable business environment.
I created this podcast for two key reasons:
First, to provide executives with leadership principles and culture-enhancing frameworks that support them in turning their visions into reality and achieving their goals.
Second, to challenge and inspire the leadership development and executive coaching fields to adopt new approaches—particularly breakthroughs in neuroscience—that accelerate growth and enhance leadership effectiveness.
In a time of global crisis and unprecedented challenges, business leaders are uniquely positioned to drive change that unites rather than divides. By embodying enlightened leadership, executives can create environments that unlock the full potential of their teams and generate innovative solutions for a better future.
If you're an executive committed to this kind of leadership, this podcast is for you. Let’s shape the future of leadership together.
Unfazed Under Fire Podcast
Cultivating Legacy and Innovation: Arlen Sorensen's Journey from Farm Roots to Tech Leadership
Unlock the secrets of transformative leadership as Arlen Sorensen, a visionary in IT and ag tech, takes us on his inspiring journey from his roots as an Iowa farm boy to becoming a trailblazer in agricultural technology. Discover how Arlen's early experiences, like buying his first Apple II Plus computer, sparked a passion for technology that would revolutionize farming practices. His philosophy of servant leadership, deeply influenced by his faith and family, offers a unique perspective on guiding others from success to significance, revealing the powerful impact of authenticity in leadership.
Explore the cutting-edge advancements that have reshaped agriculture since the 1990s, from yield monitors to the role of drones in precision farming. Navigate the challenges small and medium-sized farms face integrating these innovations amidst consolidation trends and learn about the exciting future of autonomous machinery. Additionally, we discuss the entrepreneurial mindset with Arlen, who has founded over 22 businesses, shedding light on the importance of knowing when to pivot and the art of leaving a meaningful legacy through intentional planning.
The episode further delves into the evolving concept of servant leadership and the transformative power of peer groups. Uncover stories of leaders who have found identity and purpose beyond their careers, underscoring the significance of community and faith in personal growth and leadership development. Through engaging conversations, we highlight the empowering potential of peer groups in enhancing leadership capabilities, providing a blueprint for unlocking your leadership potential and crafting a legacy that transcends professional achievements.
Contact information for Alrin Sorensen:
> LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/asorensen/
> Email - asorensen@scci.com
Unfazed Under Fire Podcast - Host: David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist
Access to all our platforms:
https://www.unfazedunderfirepodcast.online
Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast designed to elevate your leadership and amplify your impact. Each episode offers valuable insights to help you transform your vision into reality, cultivate high-performing cultures that attract top talents, and navigate the complexities of today's uncertain, chaotic world with confidence and clarity. Now tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and leadership alchemist, david Craig Utz. Craig Utz.
Speaker 2:Hey and welcome back to Unphased Under Fire. I'm David Craig Utz, the leadership alchemist, your host and moderator for the show. Now again, this show is dedicated to helping executives amplify their leadership impact, gain fresh insights and build the resilience and well-being needed to thrive in today's high-stress, unpredictable world. We feature two types of guests on the show thought leaders in leadership development, organizational culture, team dynamics, health and vitality, who share strategies tailored to assist executives in leveraging their greatest opportunities and mitigating their most daunting challenges. We also invite seasoned executives on the show who embrace their own leadership development and recognize that it's people and culture that are the keys to unlocking the true potential in their organizations.
Speaker 2:At its core, this show is about pioneering breakthroughs in leadership and culture, creating environments that bring out the best in others, inspiring excellence and service to the greater good. Authentic leadership is the driving force behind this. When leaders connect deeply to their purpose and authentically engage the human spirit, what once seemed impossible doesn't just become achievable it becomes inevitable. We believe that effective leadership starts from within. True impact flows from self-mastery, which gives leaders the clarity and confidence they need to guide others and in disruptive times. Self-mastery isn't just a benefit that comes from it, it is the bedrock of one's success. When executives harness their inner resourcefulness and lead from the inside out, they unlock the full potential of collaboration, the most powerful unifying force any organization can yield. So today I have the pleasure of welcoming onto the show technology leader and peer group facilitator and expert, arlen Sorensen. Welcome to the show, arlen. Thanks for taking the time to join. Unfaced Under Fire.
Speaker 3:It's great to be with you, David. I really appreciate the opportunity to share.
Speaker 2:Good, good. Well, before we jump in, I want to give the audience some background. You have some amazing background and Arlen's journey started as a simple Iowa farm boy, as he says, to becoming a transformative leader in IT and ag tech. The journey is nothing short of extraordinary. You're going to share more about that in a second. He grew up on a family farm and Arlen developed a strong work ethic that still defines him today. I'm sure he would put me to shame if we got out on the farm doing some work. I'm sure that we'd see his muscle and his brawn there. Over the years, he's founded 22 businesses, splitting innovation with tradition to revolutionize both tech and the agricultural sectors. We're going to hear a lot about that today.
Speaker 2:Arlen's impact goes beyond entrepreneurship, however. He's a champion of servant leadership and intentional living. He's dedicated his career to helping leaders to find their personal and business legacies, and currently Arlen serves as VP of Ecosystem Evangelism for ConnectWise and is a co-founder of Oak Road Consulting. A key focus of his work, as you'll be hearing today, is facilitating technology executive peer groups, and those groups aim to guide leaders around the world to create meaningful transitions from success to significance. His insights into strategic planning, mergers and leveraging technology for growth are invaluable, will provide valuable insights to any executives listening today who want to have lasting impact.
Speaker 2:Despite his high-profile career, arlen remains deeply grounded in his faith, his family. He and his wife, nancy, cherish a life on their Iowa farm, spending time with their four grandchildren who live nearby, and his faith in Christ has been guiding force shaping his purpose and leadership and philosophy. So, arlen, again, it's great to have you on the show today, and I mean I just shared highlights from your journey, which doesn't do it justice. So what I always like my guests to do is take the time to kind of put that together in more of a narrative story form and tell us you know the moments that kind of were turning points for you and your journey and how you ended up where you are today. If you could do that, that would be a great start.
Speaker 3:Sure Glad to do that, david. You know I consider myself a simple Iowa farm boy, but the old guy in the IT industry, so I've been around here for a long time. I graduated out of Iowa State University with a degree in farm op in 1977 and went back to the family farm and that was my plan for the future was to farm with my dad and brother and do what I had grown up learning living there. In 1982, I bought an Apple II Plus computer and you know it was a 16K dual floppy drive green screen machine with a farm accounting package.
Speaker 2:All the bones and muscles at the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that really changed my trajectory. I fell in love with that machine and what it could do and, you know, over time decided to open a little hobby business around technology and then, you know, about 10 years later decided you know there might actually be a real business here. So we started an IT company and you know, one of the decisions that we made at that point with my brother and I was we split everything 50-50. So I took the technology route, he stayed on the farming route. But because we went with the 50-50 model on everything, we weren't looking over each other's shoulders all the time wondering, you know, what was happening, and all that kind of stuff. And so that was one of the real decisions that really helped us be successful. And you know, we still work together today, you know, some 40 years later that's awesome.
Speaker 3:In 95, I started to get interested in ag tech. I started to get interested in ag tech. I tried to do some creative things with an airplane and a camera and taking NDVI pictures. We were ahead of our time. The tech wasn't quite there yet and I learned a lot, but that became part of what we did going forward as well. So, you know, over the period of running my IT company, which I did from 90 till 2012,. We grew that company through acquisitions and growth, so we had eight acquisitions. That gave us seven offices across five Midwestern states. And you know one of the things that I always like to tell people we did it in the middle of an Iowa cornfield my office is on the end of my house, out in the middle of a cornfield and we grew to over 100 people, so nobody can tell me, there's no opportunity where they live, because the only real customers I had within a mile of my house were my brother and he didn't want to pay any bills so I had to go find a business.
Speaker 3:But if you take care of the customers, there's opportunity. And you know we took advantage of that. And you know we went through a rough patch in 2000 with Y2K. I bought into the whole idea that Y2K would be the greatest event in the history of technology. So I staffed up in the late 90s, hired 13 more individuals to be part of our team to be ready, and Y2K came and went and it did not come to Iowa at all and so we ended up in Q1 of 2000 really bleeding cash and really struggling, and so we couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong and my leadership team said we just need to talk to some other people and see what the problem is. Here. We obviously are missing something. So we called three other companies that we knew across the state of Iowa and said can we get together and just compare notes and learn? And they agreed and we met and none of them had any real business going on either. So what we learned that day was the importance of really knowing, you know, a broader perspective on the industry and because of that meeting, we knew we had to go home and we had to reduce staff and had we not done that, it could have easily taken us out of business. But because we heard it from our peers, we knew we needed to take action and that was the foundation of HTG Peer Groups.
Speaker 3:I didn't have a master plan. I didn't have a napkin with the plan written down or anything. It was just I wanted to build one group that we could get together with regularly and learn, and that's what we started out to do. But about five years in we got to 12 members, which was kind of where I had decided to cap it.
Speaker 3:And I was going to some of the industry events and people would come up and say I hear about this peer group thing you got, I want to be part of it. And I kept saying, no, we're full, we can't handle anymore, I'll put you on a waiting list. And in 2006, we had 30 companies on the waiting list and it's like, well, maybe there's an opportunity here. So we did start some additional groups and we grew that business. We sold to ConnectWise back in 2018. That's how I became VP of Ecosystem Evangelism. My job is to really educate IT company professionals on the opportunities that exist and help them learn how to grow a successful business and get to a transition that they want to achieve, and so I love what I do today. I get to help people be successful and get paid to do it, so it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, there's so much in the stories and I talk about this with everybody that does this part of the segment. It's one of the consistent segments in my show. I do it on purpose because every story seems to illuminate the same thing, especially when people have been successful who followed their nose, followed their joy, followed what the business was calling, even during those challenging times, right? So your initial vision was not to start peer groups so many years ago. Uh, you know, and and and it was a really a falling in love with the computer and what it could do for the farm. That was the first step. Right, you did that, like, even to the point. You were flying planes way before you should be doing with the camera and figuring that out, and you were learning from that, even though it probably wasn't the most successful.
Speaker 2:You know, a stab you took at something, but somehow you learned something from that that led to something else, and I think that's like if, if people could get I should just get that aspect of what it takes to live life and follow their instincts, put the hard work in, because you had that work ethic, so that was also. That was just like work on the farm. It was all added up to that because if some people would have gotten good ideas all the time but they don't have the work ethic to see it through, to try those different things, and you did that and uh, and it just it's just again the same story over again. Just, you know, I I talked to so many people that want to get to the c-suite and they're like a director or something like that, and I said, don't worry about that. Now, be as good a director as you can be. You know, we'll find out what you love doing. Focus on that. Don't focus on the ladder. You know, um, and I admit, nothing wrong with focusing on the ladder, but most people that climb a couple rungs up think that's it. They they feel empty when they get there. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So really well said and really, one of your first steps was combining IT with ag tech. It was really a visionary step for you that not a lot of people were doing that at that time you talked about the 50-50 split with your brother who was taking care of the farm and you were doing the tech and somehow I'm assuming, communicating back and forth how he could help him and how he could help you. And can you share a bit about how technology and I know this is a big question, but how technology has transformed agriculture experience and what future innovations you see coming for the farming industry in tech? That would be cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's changed agriculture significantly in the last 25 years, for sure. You know, when I got involved with it back in 95, there was very little really out there, and one of the first things that came to the market was what's called the yield monitor, which is a device that you have in the harvesting equipment the combine that measures what goes on as you go across the field. So it keeps track of what the yields are as you go across the field, and the data that comes out of there then allows you to create maps that show which areas of the field are higher producing, which ones are lower producing, and you can layer those year over year so you get a real, accurate perspective on hey, if I invest in this good ground, it's going to produce more, and if I cut back some in these areas that aren't as good, it will produce less. So you know that was kind of a foundational piece that came out in the late 90s and you know it revolutionized, because all we had before was just what we saw and what we thought we saw.
Speaker 3:We didn't have any data, and so data has become foundational to making everything happen in agriculture, and what's come out of that now is that we are able to produce maps of those fields over the winter months that tell the fertilizer application where to put more fertility in the field as it goes across and spreads it ups and downs based on potential. When we plant the seeds, it does the same thing. If it's better ground, it'll drop more seeds as it goes across the field and then less when it's not as good. So we've become way more efficient in the way that agriculture uses inputs. We've now got automated steering based on GPS technology. So everything that happens in the field today is controlled by GPS technologies and it auto steers, you know, and the accuracy is sub one inch accuracy Wow, that's crazy, far better than any human can actually drive a tractor Right.
Speaker 3:So you know it has just increased efficiency and ultimately yields significantly. So we're getting more per acre than we were before. So the next thing that we got involved with is grain management systems. So we get all this grain out of the field and we put it in grain bins, you know. But there was a lot of issues with keeping that grain in condition so that it wouldn't spoil as we went through the winter months, and so today we drop cables into these grain bins. It monitors the moisture, it monitors, you know, all kinds of the heat and all those kind of things, and so it automatically now will start and stop the fans that control how things stay in condition and really creates much better quality product that goes to market when we're ready to sell it.
Speaker 3:And you know what's coming in the future. David is autonomy. So we've got some of that working today. Where there's vehicles in the field that there's no humans in the actual machine helping drive it. There'll be a lot more of that coming over the next decade, for sure. All the major manufacturers are working on that today and you know the tech is really there. It's things like insurance that haven't quite figured out. How do we really address this thing If it kind of like gets lost and does?
Speaker 3:something it shouldn't be doing. A tractor gets lost. Yeah, I guess it gets off, gets lost and does something it shouldn't be doing um so it's lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's off. It's a bite of a.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean a runaway tractor would be a bad thing to have.
Speaker 3:You know it could drive over a car, it could drive through a house. I mean, it's just, uh, there's some risks that that insurance companies haven't quite figured out how to work with yet, but it's common, just like it's coming in cars and other areas. So, right, there's a lot going on right now. The latest thing that's hit is drones. Um, so you know, uh, we sell drone technology for the, for the farm, so it does all the, the scouting of what's going on in the field.
Speaker 3:Literally, we can, when we plant, plant the, a drone can fly across the field and it can count what the seeds per acre are, so we know what the stand looks like. It's amazing technology. We now have spray drones that we can send out to spray particular areas of the field. Before that, we had to use airplanes, which was a blanket coverage of everything, whether there was an issue or a need or not. Now we can be very precise in what we do and how we do it. So it just continues to get better and better and better and is really an amazing set of technologies that is going to help us feed the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. We want to thank all the farmers out there for all the work they do to feed us. I mean thank goodness for that, for all you and what you're up to and what you do for us. I am curious if you know it's been kind of sad to see a small and medium-sized farmer being so pressed and you have, like these big ag companies and you may have those as your customers. I'm not trying to bad bad math, your bad mouth, anybody here, but do you see, uh, you know, do you see some of this technology empowering the smaller, medium-sized farms to be able to keep up a little bit more with those larger producers? It because to me, it seems to me that and maybe I'm extrapolating here with the little bit I know so you can correct me here but it seems like healthier food would come from smaller, medium-sized farms and you know the same seed in every place. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on any of that.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, you know there's certainly been a consolidation in agriculture in some states, for sure, I mean, fortunately Iowa was very proactive in trying to limit how much of that can happen in the state. But you know it's an interesting question because you know a lot of people get hung up on GMO and some of the genetic modification stuff that happens with seeds. The reality is that without that technology, you know, we wouldn't be able to feed the world. It has completely changed our ability to raise crops, so there's trade-offs there. But you know, certainly I think that government has figured out that they don't want to let all the agriculture land get consolidated, that the family farm is still an important part of feeding the world and providing quality outcomes, and so I think that there'll be more and more protection put around. That that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, good, well, thanks for sharing that. You founded and led over 22 businesses, as I innovated in the introduction, and I'm curious what motivates you to innovate in those new, to keep the innovation going in those new ventures? What is behind that and how do you know when to pivot or persist in a business idea? What have you learned about that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I wish I was a recovering serial entrepreneur, but I'm still a serial entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Can't get it out of your system. I can't get it out of my system.
Speaker 3:It's the way I'm wired. I have started 22 different business units and companies over the years. The way I look at them, about a third of them turned out really well. A third of them were okay and a third of them I should have left that idea in the drawer, but you know that's the way that you really make progress right, you got to try things.
Speaker 3:I've learned over time that you fail fast. If you're going to fail, you don't keep riding the horse if it's going to run out of gas. But you know, when I look around, david, I see opportunity all over the place, and that's always been the way I've been wired. And so you know I'm a risk taker. As a farmer, you know I often tell people your odds are better going to Vegas than they are trying to farm, where you put a seed in the ground and hope the heck it rains, and if you get something out of it, you don't control the market. So you're at the mercy of the markets. Farmers have so little control over the outcome. It's all about having a lot of faith and taking a big risk. But you know I want to try things. I typically am trying to solve a little problem that I see or an opportunity that I see, and you know I'm willing to take some risk and try some things. It drives the people around me crazy because they're constantly trying. While I'm trying things out, they uh they kind of they get.
Speaker 3:They get a little tense when you say you have an idea or something like that, they do, they do. Then you really get tense and, uh, you know, we, we, we came up with this strategy some years ago, um, when my management team said we don't want any more of your ideas, uh, we'll give you three manneulligans a year, okay, so we have a business plan. If it's important enough to you that you want to use a mulligan, then we will rewrite our business plan to accommodate what your idea is. That's fair.
Speaker 3:You know, it was great because it caused me to slow down and really think about it. Is this something I'm willing to really put effort in and make it successful? And you know, we ran with that concept for probably five or six years toward the end of HTS, and I didn't throw a lot of ideas out. I was very careful about it and it was good for everybody because I was just causing disruption with all my ideas. And so, um, you know, having a system that really kind of reigned me in is a good thing for us anything that increases our self-awareness is a good thing.
Speaker 2:Right, it could close this down a little bit and says is this really where I want to put my attention right now? This is a good thing, right? Exactly, yeah, and swinging into another area, which I think is really where a lot of your passion lies, is really helping people define their personal and business legacy. You have, I think, success to significance. This is just a general suggestion.
Speaker 2:Ask for advice that you give executives that are out there, that they're not in the farming industry. They could be in it, they could be in it, could be in retail, they could be, you know, in a professional services company. Uh, what? What advice do you give to those people that are truly coming face to face with? I? Don't want this just to be a job that I show up to every day and you know, and I'm pretty good at building my team and my people like working for me. It's not that I'm a bad leader, but I want to create something meaningful, a meaningful legacy. How do you, how would you start? What would you tell them to do? To start thinking about that and how to move from that sense of being in a job and successful to significance?
Speaker 3:well, you know, I think. I think it starts with the reality that we all are going to leave a legacy. It's not really a question of if we'll leave a legacy. The question is what kind of legacy will leave. I said, will it be intentional, where we're really planning it and in control, or is it going to be accidental? If we don't create our own legacy, somebody else is going to create it for us, right? The government will do it or somebody else will. But so you know, the one truth I can tell you for sure is we're all going to die. So it's not a question of if, it's a matter of when.
Speaker 3:And you know, as I've really focused on this, david, what I've learned is that it's one of the greatest gifts we can leave for our family and the people that we care and love. I mean, legacy can be one of those things that is really impactful, can be generational, can go on for time after time, or it can be one of those nightmares that a family has to go through when they're trying to undo and figure out what's gone on and what's happened. So I'm a big proponent of being very intentional. And you know, it starts with what do you want to leave as a legacy. You know, covey said begin with the end in mind, and for legacy, that's really the way I'd like to approach it. We just had our recent S2S peer groups. You know, they're focused on this legacy concept and what I had them do was to write their own obituary. What do you want your obituary to say when you're no longer here? And you know, at first it was like oh, that's a dumb idea. Well, it really isn't, it's important.
Speaker 3:And as people began to write things down, it was like well, you know, if I want to have that be the outcome, I got to do some things today to make sure that's what really happens. And so, you know, there's all the necessary legal documents and stuff that everybody should have in place a will, trust, you know, power of attorneys, those kind of things. But then there's the impactful part of legacy, and that's the part we need to think about and really begin to position and have ready. When we shift from success, which is really all about us, to significance, which is about other people, that helps us get our mind frame set right and then we can really focus on what it means to create a legacy that can last for generations. And that's really what I try to encourage people is don't just think about how people are going to feel at your funeral. Think about the generational impact you can have by setting things up correctly today and really creating with intention what you want to have happen in the future.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I think when people get nervous about asking that question, I think that's a silly question. I don't want to answer that question because I'm going to have to look at the end times. They probably feel uncomfortable. That's what they do with it, right. But then when you sit with that, there's a weight to it, but it's not a heavy weight.
Speaker 2:It gets you to think more deeply and really what you just said a moment ago points to your passion around servant leadership, that this is not just about what I'm getting from it, and to me, the transfer into leadership is a transfer from me to we. I always talk about this is the. I know a good leader when I talk to them and they talk about their people rather than themselves. Right, they're talking about. I love seeing my people develop and you emphasize this issue of servant leadership. What does servant leadership mean to you, and how do executives adopt this in these high-pressure environments they're in that are constantly demanding what did you do for me yesterday? It doesn't matter what you did for me yesterday, what are you going to do for me tomorrow? Kind of thing it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:What you did for me yesterday, what are you going to do for me tomorrow, kind of thing, right? Well, the way I think about it in my simple Iowa farm boy mind is it's an upside down triangle, right? The traditional leadership thing is you've got the CEO at the top, and then you've got some leadership team, and then you've got the masses. I think about it the other way around. I think of my role as a CEO or leader at the bottom of the triangle, holding people up and empowering them. And it's not top down, it's bottom up. And my job as a leader is to empower and equip them so that they can do their job and be effective.
Speaker 3:You know, my experience over the years is that most employees want to do their job well. They're not coming to work in the morning thinking about how they can not do what they've been asked to do. So while there has to be accountability, you also have to create an environment where they can be successful, and so my role as a leader is to equip people, to empower people and then hold them accountable. But where I find the breakdown often happens is there isn't clarity, you know, there's not complete understanding of what we're asking people to do, and so I think it's really important that we set them up for success, and when there isn't success, more often than not it's leadership that failed, not necessarily the employee.
Speaker 3:So my mindset is that my role as a leader is to hold people up and help them be successful, and if they're struggling, accountability to me is not I'm standing there with a baseball bat and I'm going to whack you upside the head if you're not doing what you're supposed to do. It's I never let it get to that point. I come alongside you, I help you be successful, because when you're successful, we're all successful, and so that's kind of the way I think about it. It's typically failure to have the right resources or skills or empowerment that prevent people from doing their jobs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you say, I think you know 99.9% of people come to work not trying to get away with something. They're trying to figure out how to do a job and if they're not as you say, it's because they don't have the resources, the training or the empowerment. I love that, and the empowerment piece is important because they may come from a background that never gave them that. You might be the first person in their life to give them that, which is a huge gift. I tell this to leaders talk to leaders. All the time that I work with you know, yeah, you're impacting the business. That's your job. You're impacting the results of the business. You're moving the cheese. You're you're impacting the results of the events. That's your. You're moving the cheese. You're moving the cheese, right, but there's, there's a side effect that you have that actually probably has greater impact than any any number on a P&L, and that's the people that you touch and the people that you impact that can go out and multiply you in the world.
Speaker 2:You know so, wow, world. You know so, wow, yeah, absolutely yeah. So, after decades of experience, how do you keep evolving as a leader and how do you find sources for inspiration and growth? Because you, you know, you get to a level. Let's see to me, the leadership is an un uh, it's, it's a bottomless, or it's it's an ever-expanding possibility, um, yeah, and it never stops. So what do you do to keep evolving as a leader yourself?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I agree with you 100%. You know, as soon as you think you know what you're doing, there's a whole other set of things you need to learn to be a better leader. So I read, I more and more listen to podcasts, like you're doing today. You know we can learn so much from others if we just listen. You know God gave us two ears and one mouth and we need to make sure we're doing a lot of listening.
Speaker 3:But you know, peer groups are really one of the biggest ways that I learned today, david, and you know either when I'm facilitating or participating in peer groups, you know we can learn so much from each other's mistakes. I often tell people we don't have to make every mistake ourselves. It's OK if we learn what others have done and we can apply the lessons to our own lives and learn that way. So that's my most beneficial way of learning today is to just surround myself with other leaders and have conversation and learn the things that they've done wrong and the things they've done right and focus on how I can apply that to my own life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so funny because I think you know, in one hand, living life is very simple. We tend to over-complexify it, right? I'm not saying that there are complex things we face that we don't understand, that there is sometimes confusion before you. Confusion is a sign you're learning, but sometimes it's not the most comfortable part of learning. But there's simple fundamental principles that we can track every day and it's not overly complicated.
Speaker 2:You know, golden rule being one of them them right, doing others as you would do unto yourself. So uh and uh and I want to get into this peer group conversation in a second I want to ask more. One more question about a dedicated power of people and your quote-unquote patch, as you call it, to lead themselves and others. What, what practices do you engage or recommend to executives that have been most impactful to you for empowering your teams and getting them to operate at a high level?
Speaker 3:You know, the thing that continues to come up in my world anyway is that there's usually an issue with communication if we're not getting things done, and so there's a tool that we have that we call the five question clarity tool, and it's just five simple questions that I try to ask myself and make sure that my employees understand. And the first one is what is it we're trying to accomplish? A lot of times we're not even clear on what we're trying to do, or they're not clear because we haven't clarified it, you know.
Speaker 3:The second question they want to know is where do I fit? How am I part of dealing with whatever it is we're trying to do? Third one what are my boundaries and resources? So this gets to the empowering part. How much do I have to actually do the job you're asking me to do? And you know what resources do I have to really be able to do it.
Speaker 3:The fourth one is when we are successful, what's in it for me? You know we got to make sure they understand what the benefit is for them doing this work together with us. And then the fifth one, which is one that I have always struggled with being clear about, is how am I doing? You know people need feedback and you know baby boomers like me, I didn't really care if I got reviews or not, but I can tell you that millennials and Jitsiers, they want to know how they're doing, they want to know that they're doing the job and they want feedback and they want it regular. And so you know I found if I can just make sure those five things are clear, things get done, and you know we can accomplish a lot together.
Speaker 2:And that's a gold nugget right there. Those five questions really really, really well, things get done and we can accomplish a lot of problems, and that just shows your experience and you know I'm sure you've learned that the hard way as well as you know, had a great recognition at some point around that. That saved you a lot of time since then. So thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I try to be very clear about those five things and most of the time we get things done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. So let's talk a little bit about these peer groups, which I know is a great passion of yours. You have the HTG peer groups. What does the HTG stand for? Again, heartland Tech Groups Okay, the Heartland Tech Groups, that's it. Okay, got it. And then the S2S, which was the Success to Significance Groups. What do you love?
Speaker 3:You've touched on it already a little bit. But what do you love about leading or being part of those peer groups the most? Well, I mean, I love people that are. You know, set goals and to set a goal you've got to write it down, it's got to be time bound, you know they've got to be smart, but then accomplishing them. And that's where the peer groups really have come in.
Speaker 3:You know, most of the groups that I work with it's owners of businesses that are really not accountable to anybody other than themselves. They're small business owners. So the problem with that you know it's a great lifestyle to be your own boss the problem with that is that when we're our own boss, we do what we want to do if we want to do it, and it's not usually the things we should do necessarily. So you know, I love to see that environment where people come together, they set goals and then they're accountable. And you know, part of that is the whole legacy conversation. What is the legacy goals you're trying to set and how can we turn those into generational goals that will last well beyond your lifetime? So that's what really drives me with the peer groups. I see the impact, I see the power that it has. The answers are almost always in the room. As a facilitator, I seldom really have to answer any questions. I just ask questions and the stuff comes out and people get what they need to really go to the next level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so is that. The major lesson for leaders that are a part of these peer groups is that they begin to trust more question, because I don't always have to know everything as a leader, but I want you to add to other things that benefit leaders from being part of this. But part of that, I hear, is they get to see the power of the question and how the answers can come from right there. Right then it may not be in them, might be in somebody they just hired. You know Exactly.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's part of the value, I think, is we learn that we don't have to have all the answers, we just need to ask the right questions, and a lot of times that's asking the questions of our employees. You know, they're often on the ground, right in the middle of things and have got better perspective than I might have as the CEO, but I got to be willing to listen to them. I've got to be willing to ask the right questions and then hear the responses so we can take action. So, you know, it's really about communication. It's about opening ourselves up to the reality that we don't have to know everything. We just need to be willing to explore and leverage what others know so that we can learn from them and then apply it in situations that we're in ourselves.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. What other things have you learned about how the peer groups support the leaders that come to them? What other things have they you see them walking away with from these peer groups?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean there's a lot of impact around. You know financial management and understanding financials. You know how do you deal with the challenges of. You know families in a business, for example, that's often a hot topic is a lot of small businesses have a lot of family involved. And you know how do you grow a company, necessarily beyond the skill set of people that you've gotten to a particular point with. You know it's a wide ranging set of topics that we discuss. Every time we're together we're focusing on leadership, on life, on legacy and on the businesses, and so we try to keep it a holistic conversation.
Speaker 3:You know it's easy, as a small business leader for sure to get completely consumed by the business and you lose track of your time and have trouble. There's no such thing as balance. You know people talk about work-life balance. That does not exist. That's a fallacy. There's tension, there's always going to be tension between work and life, because there's too much of both of them to fit together. You know seamlessly.
Speaker 3:So you've got to make choices, and some of the more powerful things I've seen happen in peer groups are when there are challenges within a family and the group says well, it's not hard for us to see what the problem is here. You know you're spending 80% of your time when you're awake at work and your family's getting the leftovers, so you shouldn't be surprised that there's issues in your marriage or with your kids. You know those kind of hard truths are. They're really important and you know it changes lives, and that's why I get so excited about peer groups is it's a life-changing thing. I tell people all the time I'll help you make more money in your business through a peer group. I don't really care about that. What I do care about is I want to help you live a better life and create a better legacy, and that's the value of a peer group that really functions well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it would be great to have you share a story maybe one of your favorite stories of the transition of somebody that went from success to significance. Obviously, keeping things confidential, if you could think of a story of this guy came in, this woman came into the peer group, here's where they're at. They recognize this and now this is what their life looks like. I'd love to hear a story. If you'd be willing to share one or two.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, one of the most powerful sessions that I facilitated over the years David was a pretty successful, financially successful business leader, you know was growing his company.
Speaker 3:You know, typically each time we meet he'd come in, you know, really with glowing remarks about how well they were performing and how well the company was executing. And I'll never forget, you know, he got up to do his presentation for the group and he said you know what, today I don't want to talk about my business. I need you to talk to me about my son. Over the weekend he attempted to take his life. There's a problem in my family. I don't know what to do about it and to watch a group come around him, you know, and encourage him and give him ideas, you know, and reshape the way he thought about his role as a leader. He was one of those guys that was completely driven, you know, to drive more revenue and financial outcomes and really had made, you know, that intentional choice to focus there rather than on his family. And you know that was probably 10 years ago. I just actually was with him recently and he shared how well his son was doing and how important that transition was.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that. I can see that yeah.
Speaker 1:I can see.
Speaker 2:Well, of course you'd be moved by that and why you love these peer groups so much. You know it brings the humanity back into the business, which is, you know, most MBA programs beat the heck out of you. Beat the heck out of you. Right, it's all about the A to L and driving the numbers and being more successful. When you have somebody that's willing to share that part of themselves with a group of business leaders and you see how the people that are around the table, that are business leaders C-suite business leaders melt and come forward to support another human being, the best of humanity is seen.
Speaker 1:And then the impact that's had.
Speaker 2:10 years later, the sun is thriving. He has a whole different perspective.
Speaker 3:I'm sure he's a far better leader than he was prior to that Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, and you know those opportunities happen every time we get together, because we all have problems. I think that's the given that we can be sure of is, every one of us has got life problems that we don't know what to do about, and you know other people have been there and done that, and we just need to be willing to share and listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's a thing in this world We've lost connection to community and that kind of connection to each other and I think that's the biggest thing I've seen, given the divisiveness we're having in the world, is that everybody's into their heads and have lost touch with their hearts.
Speaker 3:Well, social media paints the picture that everything's perfect, right.
Speaker 2:Nobody has any problems on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you have to paint this perfect identity and we're just not that. We're imperfect beings and that's actually what makes us beautiful. Our mistakes, our failures are missing the mark, and admitting it and being honest about that and getting help, nurtured and loved up so that we could take the next step towards more bright light than you know the darkness we've been in, and you know, and I think that's it is. You know, I love the structure of your peer groups to like to touch all those different four areas to make sure it is a holistic experience. Because, you know, I look back at when I got my coaching certification and that community was a community like that and I was just looking, learning skills. I was learning about my humanness and how the questions I was to ask my clients affected me first right, affected me first right, and how people held me when I broke down and how that was impactful for me. So really I've had a great respect for these kinds of groups, or the way that you lead them is another level of powerful for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, you know the thing that's become so obvious to me with the success to significance uh groups. You know these are all business leaders that have had very successful exits. They've got more time, talent and treasure than they ever dreamed they would have, and it's it's basically empty if it's all based on money. Money is not going to buy you happiness. It doesn't fulfill you, and what often has happened is that their purpose and identity was so entwined in the business that when they exited, they're lost. I mean they're wandering in the wilderness without direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I used to coach in a big four firm. I'll let you guess what. I don't even want to guess what they were, but what they noticed and why they brought coaching in was because they noticed that their partners after retirement were dropping like flies after retirement, were dropping like flies. And I think a lot of that was that they heard back was I don't know who I am anymore. I walk into Walmart now and I'm not a king. I'm no longer a king, I'm just a guy like buying socks. Another guy, just another guy.
Speaker 2:And that was very hard transition and they lost meaning and it's like you know, our individual identity is really a trap door. To try to get down, to try to be something I'm not is the worst and we all are drawn to that in various different ways. By the way, society, school systems, advertising, social media is an example of that and it's having you know we have to get back. We have to get back to community, heart, love, that kind of that, and it's it's having a you know we have to get back. We have to get back to community heart, love, that kind of thing. And that's not just a soft thing, it's a, it has, it has an impact on how you lead, how you grow a business. It increases the possibility of success.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, when I talk to newly exited people, I almost always hear the same thing Well, I'm going to play golf, I'm going to binge on Netflix, I'm going to travel, and about 60 days into that they're coming back and saying, ok, that's, that's not the answer. We got to find purpose some other way. And it is powerful, it's critical, and so you know, I can't encourage leaders to really, today, begin thinking about the next chapter. Most, all of us are going to have a next chapter, unless there's some unexpected event in our life.
Speaker 3:And we need to prepare for that before we get there. Uh, you know, we're often so busy working that we don't even think about the reality that there will be something next. And uh, we need to.
Speaker 2:We need to take time to discover and figure out what that might be well see, if you look at a metaphor, amount you're like in your career, looking for that mountaintop on your career, but then you hit the end of your career. You want to have another mountaintop or you just want to roll down the other side of the hill.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:That's the question. That's a picture I got painted for me as we were sharing that Like hey, you got there and now it's over. What are you going to do with yourself?
Speaker 2:You still got a lot of time left, god willing and what are you going to do with that time and who do you want to be Now? You've also spoken and intimated a lot and I'm hoping it's okay to hear you. You're talking a lot about the importance of your faith and your success. I want to just touch on how faith has influenced your leadership style and decision-making, especially in challenging times that you might have faced in your businesses and so forth. Just touch on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. My view is that you know, jesus is the ultimate leader that we can learn from. You know, you look at what happened in the Bible. He surrounded himself with a bunch of normal guys that weren't all that impressive and you know he invested in them, right, he poured himself into them and the impact is still. You know it's grown since that time significantly. And you know, here we're 2,000, some years later, and that impact is massive. Impact is massive.
Speaker 3:The thing that I find around Scripture is that the principles of God always work. It doesn't matter if you believe them or you don't believe them or you don't even know what they are. Godly principles always, always, always work. And so you know I have learned that. And so you know I have learned that.
Speaker 3:You know, through my own mistakes I had a stretch in the 90s where I kind of went off the rails a little bit with my faith, and you know I bought into the whole lie that you can't have faith in the workplace. You got to separate this stuff and the reality was I tried to do that. You know, when I would go to the office it's like, well, I'll check my faith here at the door and I'll go do my work and then, when I am done for the day, I'll pick it back up and try to live my life again based on my faith. The problem was I didn't pick it up all the time and so, you know, I had issues, you know, with my marriage and financial struggles with the business, and I couldn't figure out what was going on and finally God just whacked me upside the head and said hey, you don't separate these things. Faith is part of who you are. You can't just check it at the door, and so I learned a hard lesson because of that.
Speaker 3:But you know, I have really found that. You know, god's principles always, always work, and if I can align myself to that, if I can learn to lead like Jesus led, that's the greatest impact I'm ever going to be able to have in the world, and so that's what I've tried to really model my life after. You know, he was very authentic, very transparent, you know, and I had a lot of people tell me well, you can't be honest in the workplace, you can't tell your people what's really going on in your life. Well, that's a lot. You know, they respect me more by being real and transparent than they ever would by me painting this picture of perfection. We all know I'm not and garners more respect.
Speaker 2:And I could see like and you've had your own prodigal son story where you try to put that to the side and take your inheritance and go out and spend it and you know that didn't work.
Speaker 2:And then you came back and you were welcomed back and the scriptures are back there. The word is still. I can now apply it and it works, just as if I didn't put it down. So yeah, and you developed a website that shares daily morning reflections. I looked at it and found it enjoyable. What had you do that and how? What were you aiming in doing that, that project of having that website?
Speaker 3:Well, so you know I started, I started a discipline of writing after that whole Y2K fiasco and you know where I thought I was going to lose my company over it. You know, I was challenged to begin to write down things I was learning from Scripture and how they applied, and so I write a daily email now five days a week. Daily email now five days a week. And my daughter writes on Saturdays, so we put it out six days a week. But that discipline, david, has changed my life. Just the fact that I try to start my days.
Speaker 3:Every day where I get into Scripture, I think about and reflect on what I learned the day before. You know, I think about and reflect on what I learned the day before and I write it down. And you know I started doing that every day back in 2008. So now I am, where are we? 2024. So, 16 years later, I have not missed one day of doing that six days a week since 2008. And it has changed my life a week since 2008. And it has changed my life Just the discipline of writing when it goes through your head, out your fingers. You've got to process it on that journey and it just clarifies my own thinking and enables me to communicate much more effectively with the people around me.
Speaker 2:And so you're just sharing those things as a gift for whoever could pay value in reading that and digesting what you've taken from it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I write it for myself and I try to be very clear with people Anybody that reads all my stuff. There's something wrong with them. I mean because I write a lot. There's no way I expect anybody to read everything that I write, but it's therapeutic to me, it helps me clarify and so you know I write it for my own good, but I share openly with people, again as part of my transparent lifestyle that I'm trying to lead, and I write about it.
Speaker 2:If it's okay, I'll share the link below the podcast description so people can check it out if they feel so. Called Well, as we wrap up today, what's next for Arlen? What do you see as where you're moving forward? I mean, I know you've probably continued to do the peer groups, but would you say anything about what you see is next for you as it's unfolding? What you wanted to share?
Speaker 3:Well, we're in the process of me trying to learn how to slow down. Um, you know, I've been a full throttle kind of guy for my whole life, um, and so I'm having a lot of conversation with nancy about, you know, retirement's not in my future. There's we all know, we all are agreed on that.
Speaker 2:Too many ideas still in the head.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's too much of that going on. We have definitely agreed that she doesn't need me 24-7, 365 at home, so I've got to have something to keep me occupied. I mean, I love being on the farm and being outside and being able to hop on the mower or whatever and and just get away from all the technology as much as I use technology. But you know I I think for me it's really more and more investment with the grandkids. You know they're got our first one that went to Iowa state this year, so they're all growing up.
Speaker 3:I don't want to miss that, but you know it's really learn how to slow down. She's chased me my entire career, you know, and travels with me and has given up a lot to be part of what I've been doing.
Speaker 3:So I need to spend some time chasing her dreams, and you know that involves going to some quilt shops and other places that I probably wouldn't go myself. But you know there's some pretty cool tech in quilting today too. So that's kind of the journey I'm on. It's how do I transition to the next chapter, but do it gracefully and supporting the people that I love around me.
Speaker 2:Well, it'd be dangerous. I see you walking out of a quilt shop with a light bulb above your head. Uh-oh another idea. Well, anything else you want to share to feel complete today. Anything you want to leave the audience with, if there's any final words.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I think the challenge that I would want to leave behind is you know that people have this concept that hard work will create value and hard work's important. I mean, I'm a big believer in hard work but it does not create value in and of itself. One of the heartbreaking things that I deal I deal with is is business owners that have worked in their company for 20, 30, 40 years. They're at a point where they're ready to transition. They go to market to try to sell their company and people don't want to buy it because it hasn't generated consistent profit over time. They They've not worried about that. It's been enough to put food on the table and raise their families and that kind of thing, but they haven't really created value. And so they go to sell it and they can't and they're stuck. They can't really retire because they don't have any money and they haven't really created value money and they haven't really created value.
Speaker 3:So you know, my challenge for people is understand what is value and make sure you're making choices that will help create that, not just in your business, but in your family too. We have to work at making the right choices to create value. That's where legacy is going to come from, and it's important that we don't wait till the end to try to figure it out. You can't fix that overnight, you can't fix it in a couple years. You got to have a plan, and that's why planning is so, so important from my perspective.
Speaker 2:Well said, very beautiful. Thank you so much, arlen, for sharing your insights on ag, tech, leadership, peer groups and the power of faith with us today. I mean, it's such an enlightening, deep conversation and I'm sure our listeners got a lot of nuggets out of you sharing today. So thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:Well, it's great to be with you, David. I enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2:Great. And to all you tuning in, I want to thank you for being part of these conversations. As you know, they're always so rich, and I thank again my guests for joining me and I thank you for your time and attention. It means the world to me. If you found today's discussion valuable, please help us spread the word by letting your friends, colleagues and anyone you know could benefit from listening to Unfaced on the Fire could benefit from listening to Unfaced on the Fire. And remember, you can catch us in all episodes and video on YouTube and on audio on 15 platforms, including Apple Podcasts, spotify and Amazon Music. So until next time, keep leading with purpose and making an impact, as Arlan shared today, and have a great rest of your day. This is David Craig Out to Leadership. Alchemist signing off. Take care.