Ep 91: Turn Failure into Success with Jimmy Lea

They're able to feel differently. The air is different, the grass is greener, the sky is bluer. They feel different because the owner is not operating in scarcity anymore. They're now operating in a thriving mindset. Collaboration is so much more powerful than competition. So first of all, leadership is— you're listening to the Limitless Leadership Podcast, the podcast designed to help automotive repair shops learn how to lead, coach, train, and manage their team better by sharing proven techniques and thought-provoking interviews from industry leaders. Are you ready to transform your leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results?

Let's get ready for liftoff. It's time to go from great to greater. Here's today's episode. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Limitless Leadership Podcast. Before we get started with today's episode, don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, do all the things you need to on social media to help this podcast reach people and build leaders. That, of course, is our mission statement, to reach people and build leaders. Go to YouTube, subscribe at The Bearded Leader. And speaking of leaders, I'm joined by a good friend of mine, a leader in this industry. I'm pumped to introduce the VP of Business Development for the Institute.

He is a certified speaking professional. Our guest today is Mr. Jimmy Lee. Jimmy, thanks for being here. Hey, thank you very much, Josh. I'm so excited to be here. And amongst all that pounding the subscribe, let's also share this with your best friend, somebody that needs to know this information. Josh is bringing us leadership, and I'm honored to be on with you today to talk about leadership. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're here, man. I know the audience is going to get a lot of information, a lot of just a wealth of information from you. I also failed to mention a couple, couple other titles that are important to you.

In your life, and that is you're a husband and a father to an incredible family and 7 children, correct? 7 children. Yep. Yep. 7 children together. Yep. Love that. And so, Jimmy, go ahead and share with the audience who you are, what you do, and how you do it. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. We are a coaching and training company for advisors, managers, owners. We have 20 groups. We have mergers and acquisitions. We have high performance groups for those that are looking to become or are currently multiple shop operators. So we are the one-stop shop for all of your coaching and business needs for improving your shop, improving your business.

Most shops that come on with us, they within 3 months to 9 months see a significant move in the needle. And that's— we turn them around very quickly. And very quickly, they— the natural progression is to join the Gear Performance Group, which is our 20 groups, our masterminds. Excellent. So you've been with the Institute now for— it's been a couple of years, correct? 2 years. Yeah. Maybe 2 years. Talk about your journey into the Institute, where you were compared to where you're obviously where you're at now. Well, that's a— that's a long journey. We're going to have to go back a little bit further than just coming into the Institute.

I'll say that I was at Log My Calls., which was also ContactPoint, coaching and training for customer service skills and sales skills over the phone. At ContactPoint, the automotive became my vertical. So I called probably every shop in North America. Wow. That's a lot of them. Selling call tracking phone numbers. Yeah, that was a lot. And from there, I demoed— I met Bill Haas at an ASA national conference in Dallas, Texas. And I said, Bill, this is who I'm looking for. Where do I need to go to sell these call tracking? And he says, go here, go here, go here, go here, go here. Well, I sold, sold, sold, sold, didn't sell, but didn't sell turned in to be the next job.

He says, I, I, I love your passion. I love your energy. I need a speaker. I've got this big thing coming. And it was AutoVitals. So I worked with AutoVitals for 4 years. That's where I lost the bet and got into the automotive industry. All right, folks, as you know, great leadership isn't about doing everything the best. It's actually about having the right partners in your corner to build your shop success. It's about putting the right team in place. It's about choosing the right vendors to make you a pro, making pro moves. And when I think about the pros, I think about Shop Marketing Pros. The know, like, and trust factor, that's a real thing.

And Shop Marketing Pros understands that. That's why I wanna recommend Shop Marketing Pros to become your marketing partner in your shop. They get to know, like, and trust you and your business to then help your audience get to know, like, and trust you too, and bring your shop to the next level. So when I talk about making pro moves, this is the kind of move I'm talking about. This is the kind of standard-setting partnership that's gonna elevate your shop. So if you're ready to become a pro in your shop, visit shopmarketingpros.com and partner with the best. You're gonna work for me. And I said, no, I'm not.

And he said, yes, you are. And clearly I lost that bet. 4 years later, 4 years after Auto Vitals, I went over to Kukui. Was with Kukui for a glorious 5 and a half years. Love Kukui family. They're the ohana. They are part of, of me and part of what we do. And Kukui was a beautiful platform to land, a beautiful launching space for automotive shops, automotive repair websites, CRM, postcards, everything that a shop needs to increase their average repair order and, and engage their current customer base to keep them coming back over and over and over again. Now to the point. I was at a summit meeting for the Institute.

I was repping Kukui. I'm sitting in the very back of the room. Cecil and I have known each other for, well, about 5 and a half years. When I was at a previous company, he didn't really want to associate with that company, but when I came to Kukui, he's like, hey, come visit me, come see me. He was one of the first places I stopped in Ogden, Utah with the Kukui van, which I traveled all over North America visiting shops. Going into shops to see what makes them awesome and amazing. Well, here I am sitting in the back of the room and Cecil's— this— there's a speaker up there that basically says, turn to the person next to you and bare your soul.

I was like, oh gosh, okay, well, here we go. And he's bared his soul to me and I bare my soul to him. And before you know it, February became May and May, I jumped over to the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. And it's been just one heck of a ride since then. We've doubled the business and just keep on trucking, man. That's the plan. So we just keep going. And the results that we see are amazing for shops. The results that we see, not only does it affect the shop owner and the shop owner's family, it affects everyone that's on staff, all the advisors, all the technicians. They're able to feel differently.

The air is different. The grass is greener. The sky is bluer. They feel different because the owner is not operating in scarcity anymore. They're now operating in a thriving mindset and in an abundance mindset. It's totally different. It's totally different to go from barely keeping your nose above the water, barely staying alive so you're not drowning, to walking on water. Okay, bad example, but the analogy is true. That everything changes when shops come in with us, not only for the staff, the techs, the advisors, even the clients, even the customers. Their vehicles are safer on the road. They're smarter.

They're making better decisions. And it's all because of this coaching and training that you get from the Institute. It's different than any other training company out there. We don't have any long-term contracts. We are month to month. Why are we month to month? Because you are also working for the rent every single day. Mm-hmm, yeah. We gotta work for the rent too. I love that. Every single day. If we're not bringing you value, time to bounce. Yeah, and that's great. I think it's great that you're not encouraging long-term contracts. It's one of those things where ultimately we know that there are a lot of great coaching companies out there.

There are a lot of folks who can do some great things, but if it's not a right fit right now, then that's fine. We're gonna press pause on it. I love the fact that you mentioned the scarcity versus abundance mindset. If you're listening, you know that, like, you and I both work for different coaching companies in the industry, but you and I, Jimmy, and we spoke about this at the Sunrise Automotive Training and Expo this past weekend, we talked about it's about collaboration and not competition. I don't view you guys as a competitor. You guys are great. You guys do a lot of great things that I don't do and that I don't offer.

And, and quite frankly, that I can't offer as a, as a, as a small growing company. But ultimately, with this abundance mentality, what we're collectively able to do is help change the industry. We're able to help shift perspective. And with perspective, the way that we view things drives the way that we do things. So to help shift a perspective in one person at the shop, it does affect everyone else, including their families, because ultimately, when the leader gets better, Everyone gets better and everything gets better. Even like you talked about the vehicle repa— the repairs that happen on customers' vehicles, everything improves.

And all it takes is someone like yourself and coaches within the institute to help shift a small perspective. And it's not this massive 180-degree shift. Sometimes it's like a 2 or 3-degree shift. It's something just so, so minute, but it helps change the trajectory of what— where they're going.. And, and ultimately they can achieve massive success because of it. Oh, 100%. 100%. And, and you know, by my estimation, and this is my estimation, there's no— it's, it's a swag, a scientific guess. I guess I'm estimating that somewhere between 5 and 10% of the industry is being coached and trained right now.

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And of all the companies that are there right now, mm-hmm, we could not service the entire automotive aftermarket. Yeah. Collaboration is so much more powerful than competition. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. So, um, Jimmy, I'll ask you because one of the designations to your name, and even, even if you're, if, if you're listening to this episode, you can watch this episode on YouTube at The Bearded Leader, and you'll even see at the bottom of Jimmy's screen, it says Jimmy Lee,, CSP, the institute. CSP stands for Certified Speaking Professional. And as far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, you are the only CSP in this industry.

And for those listening, anyone who's been to any training event, any conference, you probably know or at least heard Jimmy Lee. And if you didn't, if you didn't hear him, you saw him because he's typically wearing these amazing flashy jackets at these conferences. But Jimmy, talk to the audience about what it means to be a CSP and how you achieve that designation. Yeah, a CSP is a designation like becoming an Eagle Scout. I would not dare to equate this to becoming a SEAL in the Navy, a Navy SEAL. No, no, no way. But an Eagle Scout, I'll say it's a little bit harder than becoming an Eagle Scout because the amount of time it takes.

You've got a 10-year time period that you can do it in, and the quickest would be a 5-year time period. So within those 5 years, you have to have at least 250 presentations, and within those 5 years and that 250 presentations, you have to have made from your speaking at least $50,000 per year. Now, by the way, that is a moving target. Every year it changes. So what I'm telling you this year, it's going to change for you next year. They take submissions once a year. September 1st, submissions are open. It's open until January 10th. So you've got to build the ship, submit the entire packet, and hope and pray that it comes through correct.

So 250 speaking engagements over the course of 10 years. Yeah. Uh, and so we're looking at 25, at least 25 a year. And if we're breaking it down even more granularly if that's a word, slightly over 2 per month. Man, you're a busy man. Like, you are regularly jumping on stage and setting the stage at these conferences, which, by the way, you are amazing at. But yeah, keep going. I see you got something. Well, so my submission was 425. I did 425 within the last 10 years. And this is the speaking engagements that I could prove, because I didn't know about the National Speaking Association until a couple years ago.

And I was like, wait a second. I want in. I want, I can do this. I, this is a designation. I'm going to go after it. So I submitted last year, failed, failed on phase 3. Then I submitted again this year after getting a lot of feedback and a lot more recordings. I submitted again. A friend of mine submitted this year, uh, Christoph Merrell, 1,802, 1,802 presentations within the last 10 years. That's a lot of presentations. That is one every couple days. And he didn't pass. He failed at the same place I did, which was my video. So when you submit, you've got an option of sending in two 20-minute videos or two— or one 40-minute video.

Okay. So last year I failed because my video, you couldn't hear the audience very well. There wasn't the audience participation. You there was an audience view. So, the suggestions was, well, do a virtual meeting. And I had 52, 57 people in on a live presentation with R.O. Ryder. And we did this live presentation. It was really good, high engagement. It was really good. So, that was the video that I submitted this year. And it passed with flying colors. So, I'm super excited. One of 570 active CSPs in the world. That is incredible. 1 out of 570. 1 out of 570. By estimations, there's 18,000 public professional speakers in North America.

By all estimations, you can go to ChatGPT and search it the same way I did, 40,000 to 50,000 worldwide. The CSP is a worldwide designation. You do have to qualify in the United States according to the United States rules to to achieve it. And this year there are some international recipients. Of the 33 that are getting it, I think there's like 6 or 9 that are international— French, Germany, Bulgaria, uh, uh, India. So this is a designation that's pretty amazing and pretty elite. Brother, I applaud you for this designation. This is no easy task. I mean, this is— you, you just scratched the surface of how challenging it, it is to get the, the designation.

But man, um, I am, I'm proud of you. I'm excited for you. And that's, that's a, that's a massive achievement. So congratulations to that. Jimmy, I'll ask you, because, you know, this of course is a leadership podcast, and we know how important it is to effectively communicate as leaders, as people rather, for that matter. But, but speak to the audience, speak to the listener who is, is a leader in their shop, but they struggle with leading team meetings, or just the thought of public speaking absolutely terrifies them, which I'm sure you've heard this, but public speaking is, is a, is a greater fear for, for, uh, for, for more people than death actually is.

So, so there are more, there are more people who would rather be in the coffin at their own funeral than giving their eulogy at their funeral. Speak to the listener who's like, "Man, I struggle with public speaking. Where do I begin?" What advice would you give to that person? Oh, man. Okay. So, there's a lot to unwrap there. There's so many different avenues to talk about. Number 1, speaking is the most feared event over drowning and burning by fire. Yikes. So, people would rather drown or burn by fire than to speak publicly. So, to that, where can you start? Go to Toastmasters. Toastmasters is a great platform to get into.

Are you the best man at a wedding and you need to be able to toast in front of 200-300 people? You don't want to stammer. You don't want to get cottonmouth. You've got that good 7 to 8 minutes? Toastmasters champions at this. This is the level where you develop yourself. And you will be able to speak in front of a small group. The chapter here in St. George, we have 20, 25 people. There's 45 members, but on an average week, there might be 20 to 25 people that show up for the chapter meeting. Go to those meetings. Start there. When you are speaking about something that you're passionate about, it's easier for you to talk about it.

So, Josh, if I was to ask you to speak about underwater basket weaving, You may struggle to put together a 20-minute presentation about underwater basket weaving. Truth. You ask somebody who is passionate about underwater basket weaving, 20 minutes is just the start. So, if you're talking about your shop, your culture, your company, your business, if you're talking about those things that you are passionate about, it becomes easier. And as you're talking to your team, your family, your team, Share the vision. Where do you want to go? And there may be a problem there, Josh. They may not have a vision.

They may not know where they want to go. As a shop owner, what is your legacy? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be remembered for? That becomes your passion. So, as you talk about this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it and this is where we're going to go. And today, we're here. At, I'm just gonna use a number, $600,000 a year. But next year, we wanna be at $1 million a year. And what does that look like? You know, we're gonna have to hire another technician. We're gonna have to install another lift. We're gonna have to hire another service advisor.

So I've got all of these milestones along the way that helps us to know that we're going in the right direction so that we can get to that million dollar a year. And once you get to that million dollar a year, now what's next? You do it over again. You do it over again. You make a new target, a new target for you to shoot for. And what if you were to double it and say, okay, next year we're gonna do $2 million, like this huge, audacious, big, hairy goal. The behemoth. $2 million. We're gonna go from 1 to 2. How do you get there? Chances are you're going to need somebody in your corner to help navigate that path for you.

Someone who's been there and done it before, someone who knows where the speed bumps are. When you think you've run into a mountain or a wall, chances are if you've got a coach, they solved that yesterday. They solved that on Tuesday. This is what you need to do. Da da da da da. All right. Solved. Let's move on. What's next? Yeah. So, you've got this goal of $2 million. What if you don't get it? What if you fall in at 1.8, 1.7? Look at what you accomplished. Yes, thank you. That is a huge increase, a huge increase. Applaud the victories. That is a victory. Did you get the goal? No, but let's set another goal.

Now that we know that 2 is only $200,000 out of reach or $300,000 out of reach, Well, what's that? A month or two? All right, let's revamp this baby and we're going 2.2 next year. That's so even you describing that analogy and that example, Jimmy, when I think about great speakers who I've listened to, and you fall in this category, by the way, when I think about great speakers who are clearly passionate about what they do, I've noticed that they're passionate. Passion turns into conviction. Like a great speaker, they have this conviction about them where they could tell me that the sky is green.

And because they are so convicted in what they're delivering, we believe them. It's like, "Yeah, I'm on board. You know, you are influencing me." I don't feel the weight of my leader's title. I feel the influence and the energy of their leadership. And when we can get in front of our team at a daily huddle or a team meeting or just having a good team lunch together, and someone delivers this passionate conviction-based speech or monologue, if you will. Yeah. How can you not get on board with someone like that? Yeah. Because they believe in what they are— they're striving for. And we will always find evidence in the things that we believe, which means if we are at a $600,000 shop and we're striving for $1 million, but someone on the team doesn't believe we're gonna hit that $1 million, we will find evidence that backs up that that limiting belief.

However, when we can identify the opposite and say, you know what? It's going to be tough. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be big, hairy, and audacious. I'm going to find evidence that supports why we can do it as well. Jimmy, I'll ask you. You've delivered, at this point, thousands of speeches or messages in your life. I'm going to put you on the spot. Is there one or two that stood out that stands out to you as This was the greatest keynote I've ever delivered. That's a really good question. I've got 3 that are my top favorites: teamwork, leadership, and resilience. Okay. Teamwork talks about going from the viewpoint of me to we, and it's the journey of the I's.

You go through this journey. There's 17 different I's that I've identified, but I'll just share with you a couple. First, you've got to inquire. You've got to find out and ask yourself while you're in this fetal position, rocking back and forth, how did I get myself here? Inquiring. You're asking questions of yourself. I need help. I need a team. I need more people. I can't do it all by myself. So second, you're going to gather information, as much information as you possibly can from the public library, from business classes, business courses, free videos, YouTube videos, gather as much information as you can about that subject, about that topic and about that interest so that you can now make an informed decision, because that takes you into action.

In action, you need to implement, and that'll be your fourth eye. In implementation, it's Sifas. You're pushing the stone up the hill. It's hard. You will require some inspiration along the way, and there's your fifth eye. Along the way, you need inspiration. Who's going to inspire you? Who's going to inspire you to take those next steps? Some people have it within themselves to cheerlead themselves. Others need a chief cheerleader. Others need a coach that says, hey, you can do this. You can do this. Keep pushing. Keep pushing. Yeah. Remember your vision. Remember where you're going. Remember the why.

Into leadership, don't leave anybody behind. There's a story about me being left behind on a high— on a mountaintop at Boy Scout camp. I was 11 years old, brand new Boy Scout. Share it. Come on, let's hear it. I, I was left on, on this mountaintop and the Scoutmasters, they, they all got down to the church and they're sending everybody home, backpacks and everything. Oh, whose backpack is this? Oh, it's Jimmy's. Where's Jimmy? I thought he was with you. I thought he was with you. Okay, man, the leadership has failed. They give the backpack to one of the Scoutmasters and says, nose goes, you lose.

You get to take this over to mom and dad and tell them that Jimmy was left on the mountain. Don't worry, they said to my mom, dad, don't worry. He's resourceful. It's Jimmy Lee. He's resourceful. He's a good kid. He's 11. He's, and, but that's what my dad said. He's like, yeah, but he's 11. So here I am up on this mountain and I, I, I'm at the closing ceremony. They tap out, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Hey, we're out of here. We didn't win the grand prize. We're not going to stay for the closing song. Camp's loaded, packs are loaded, let's go. So they took off and went home. I turned around to a vacant parking lot.

Hello, where'd y'all go? I run this camp, they're gone. I run to the parking lot, they're gone. Well, I better start walking home. So I'm on the road walking home, trucks are whizzing past me full of Scouts. I figured I might be one of those Scouts that, you know, you just want a knucklehead I might have been one of those kids, but yeah. Anyways, they all went whizzing past me and here I am almost to Boulder Highway in Las Vegas. I'm almost to Boulder Highway. I'm going to walk home. No, Blue Diamond, Blue Diamond Highway. And the last car pulls up. The two camp directors are in the car and they roll down the window.

Where are you going? Walking home. Why are you walking home? Well, my troop left me, so I got to get home. I'm going to walk the 28 miles across the desert to get home. I'm 11. Resilience. I figured this out. Yeah. So the scoutmaster drops it and says, good luck. You know, yeah, no, we're not going to go get him. And the next thing they know, they dropped to their knees and prayed. And the next thing is me walking through the front door saying, hey, I'm home, dusty, but I'm alive. Unbelievable. And they were just in total shock. Yeah. So as a leader, are you accountable? Do you take care of all your people?

Are you willing to leave somebody behind? If you do, are you going to go back? Are you going to make sure we all make it there together? I was a scoutmaster for 18 years, and I'll tell you, the first camp that I went on with those scouts where I was the, the, the person in charge, I did not sleep. I was so anxious. Are these kids going to wake up? Are they going to walk away? Are they going to sleepwalk? Is there going to be a big coyote come get them? A bear? We were in Death Valley. There's no coyotes. There's no bears. But I was still afraid. Yeah. Yeah. And the final one, talking about resilience, is your determination, your desire.

How committed are you to your goal? How committed are you to fulfill that promise that you've made? Mike Rowe likes to say, because his dad said, a promise made is a debt unpaid. Mm-hmm. A promise made is a debt unpaid. I was to speak in Alaska. And here I am leaving my house in St. George, Utah, 2:30 in the morning. Why so early? Well, it's a 6 AM flight out of Vegas. 2:30, I wake up. 3 o'clock, I leave. It is snowing. It's snowing a lot. It doesn't snow a lot in St. George, Utah. It's knuckle driving all the way to Vegas. It's a 2-hour drive normally. It was a 3-hour drive that day. Okay, bad decisions, Bad life choices.

It was a 3-hour day and white-knuckle the whole way there. I get there, we get on the plane. Nah, no worries, no issues. I finally think this is the first time I'm going to check my bag. So I check my bag, all I have is my backpack. I get on the plane, I fall asleep. Bam, I'm out. We're on the tarmac waiting in line for the de-icing liquid. It is actively snowing. Did you know there's two types of de-icing liquid? No, I didn't either. There's two types. One is for active snow. One is for standing snow. Okay. It was actively snowing in Las Vegas. Wow. They ran out of de-icer. Captain comes on and says, this flight's been canceled.

We're headed back to the gate. Good luck. Good, good luck. Good luck's what you say to somebody buys a Kia off Craigslist. This isn't good luck, get to Alaska. Yeah. So we're frantically, everybody on the plane is like, oh, find the next flight, find the next flight. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. They're all gone. Like seagulls on a French fry. They were, it was all gone. No flights. I get off the plane and I'm like, oh man, I have to get to Alaska. I'm speaking tomorrow morning at 8 AM. So I call, and this is the only time I've flown Alaskan Airlines. I've called Alaskan Airlines and I said, I don't care where you have to reroute me.

She's like, everything in Vegas is gone. I know, I know. I'm here. I'm here. So I run down, I get my bag. I said, I don't care where it is. Phoenix, Burbank, California, LAX, Ontario. Put me on a plane, get me to Alaska. I got to speak tomorrow morning. So she's like, type, type, type, type, type, type, type. I get to the point on the freeway. It's either left to Phoenix or I'm straight on to California. Where are we going, sister? Come on. Where are we going? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We're going to California. There's more options. Okay. Okay. California. Burbank, 5 o'clock.

Ontario, 3:30 or LAX at 1:30. Dude, it was like 9:45. It's a 4 hour and 45 minute drive from LA. Las Vegas to LAX. Mhm. That doesn't compute. There's not enough time. I said, book me, I will make it, I'll be there. Zoom, under the radar. By the way, LAX, have you ever been there? I, I have been to LAX, yes. Have you ever driven to LAX? No, nor do I plan on it. Experience, 7 parking lots, 9 terminals. Which one do you pick? There's a sign, Terminal 5. Okay, Alaska Airlines, Terminal 5. So I park, I run across, they're not there, they're in Terminal 6. So it's a half-mile hike across. Mm-hmm. Dress shoes.

I'm running as fast as I can, but I am determined. I am not going to miss this. I get to the gate. Hey, you made it just on time. Hey, go get in line. You're good. You're good to go. You're, you're Right on time. So here I am thinking we're on the plane. No, they put us on a bus. We go out to the very back of the airport. I mean, like, has this plane just been fixed, repaired, and we're the first flight? I'm not feeling so good about this. Yeah, we're going way out there. So we get out there, we load us up all on the plane. We're sitting there and the captain comes on. He says, hey, you know, this plane has new fittings and this water truck has old fittings.

It's not working quite right, but in only another 5 minutes, we should be full of potable water so we can go. Great. Half an hour later. By the way, my layover is an hour in Seattle. And then, okay, tick-tock, tick-tock. I'm feeling it go. I'm feeling it go. I'm feeling it go. 30 minutes later. Okay, we're full of water, but look out to your left. See those clouds? Big, huge storm. I mean, this was like The Mummy storm was blowing in. Are we going to make it? Are we going to make it? Hey, we got clearance. Where do we go? Foom, foom, foom. Plane takes off. I fall asleep mid, mid-lift. I awaken as we descend into Seattle.

Thank heavens the gate was just next door. Get on the plane. Okay. I arrive in Alaska 4.5 hours after I was supposed to. Mm-hmm. That's a 4.5-hour drive to LAX. Wow. But I made it. I made it. And the lesson learned there was control the things you can control. Yeah, that's so good. And give away those that you can't. You have no control over the weather. You have no control over Mother Nature. You have no control over flights. You have no control over the de-icing liquid that an airport stocks or doesn't stock.. But I was determined to make that presentation and make that speech and fulfill my promise.

And Jimmy, I'm sure you killed it. You know, determination, resiliency, the amount of mental real estate that the uncontrollables take in our mind that we allow to take over in our minds is, it's unfortunate. And this is where coaching like the Institute can offer this concept of shifting perspectives. We know that our thoughts dictate feelings. Our feelings dictate actions. Our actions dictate results. And many of us are not achieving the results we're destined to achieve because we simply don't know how to manage and control the thoughts that we're having, right? Yeah, I mean, you're pointing to your brain right now.

It's like, can we challenge these thoughts and question these thoughts? I wanna go back to, you know, we're talking about— first, thank you for sharing all this. Facts tell, stories sell. You are a great storyteller. If you're listening to this episode or watching this episode, Jimmy is clearly animated. Like, Jimmy is your guy for your next speaking event. Let me ask you, and I'm kind of putting the cart before the horse, but if you're listening to this episode thinking, "Hey, I'm looking for a keynote speaker. We have an event coming up in the next few months or next year. I want to at least jump on a discovery call with Jimmy."

How can our audience get in touch with you to do this? Oh, my cell phone. You can text me, 435-669-4940. My email, jimmy@wearetheinstitute.com. Excellent. Please reach out to Jimmy. I can assure you, you will get way more than your investment. So you're going to get an ROI on the investment with Jimmy as a speaker. But let's go back to determination and resilience. Those are great attributes every leader should possess to be an effective leader. If I were to ask you, Jimmy, what does leadership mean to you? How would you answer that question? That's a good question. And I've been thinking a lot about this.

You gave me a little bit of a warning a couple days ago to think about what leadership means to me. And with, with so many years in the Boy Scouts, that is a very strong foundation for me with the Scout Law, the Scout Oath, the Scout Motto. Leadership to me is service. It is becoming that servant leader where you don't work for me, I work for you. What can I do to help you do your job better? What obstacles are in your way that I can help remove those obstacles and make it easier for you to do your job? So, first of all, leadership is service. Leadership, second of all, is ownership, accountability.

Ronald Reagan was a phenomenal leader, and he stood up in front of the entire nation and said, "It was my fault." Was it his fault? Ultimately, yes, he's the president. But it was Colin Powell that made the mistake. Reagan owned it because at the end of the day, he is the leader. He is the CEO. And I saw this demonstrated very recently with Wayne Marshall, CEO of the Institute. He stood up and said to the entire company, guys, I made a mistake. That wasn't his mistake. But at the end of the day, it was his mistake. And the level of respect that you guys have for someone like Wayne to do that, that is— I mean, that's a leader I want to follow, right?

Yeah. And because I'm behind the scenes and I know what happened and I know where he's going and what he's doing, my level of respect for him is 10x what anybody else in this company is looking at and seeing. Yeah. Leadership is also going first. It's courage. Leadership is courage. Leadership is going first and trying out that uncertainty and pioneering and trailblazing, going where no other person has gone before. You know, Star Trek. Well, Jimmy, so I'm glad you shared this because we know why people don't often take action and really go that next step or that next leap because it is often rooted in fear.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid of success or failure. I'm afraid of not— making it. Speak to the listener who struggles with taking action because their, their, their, their beliefs are rooted in fear instead of faith. Oh, interesting. So I'll tell you from my own personal perspective, I failed as a business owner. I was not good at the paperwork. That is not my jam. That's not my, um, that's not my strength. My strength is in telling stories, in the presentation, in making the complex simple and easy to understand so that you can take action and do what you need to do. So, if fear is crippling you, get yourself a coach that will help guide you.

So good. You need an Obi-Wan Kenobi. You need a Yoda. You need a guide that's going to help take you there so that you understand the Force, so you understand the business, so you understand. And then from a position of strength, you're no longer afraid. You're empowered. So good. You're encouraged. A philosopher takes the simple and makes it complex. A communicator takes the complex and makes it simple. You are a great, effective communicator. I'll ask you, you alluded to the BHAG earlier, Big Hairy Audacious Goals. If I were to put you on the spot, Jimmy, and ask you, what is your next BHAG.

What would you say to that? I have some personal ones that I'm not gonna share. Okay. Professionally and publicly, I will share that we are gonna grow the Institute by another 100% next year and 100% the year after that. That's awesome. You guys are growing quick, and you just, you just shared that you've already grown it by 100% the previous year, correct? We did, we did, absolutely. So we, we've got the secret sauce, we've got the formula, we've got the recipe. It's just now churn and burn and continue to grow. We've got some really cool things going to start happening in August. Okay, can you share that?

So, uh, the cool things is, is in our reach, we're developing more, a bigger reach, a broader reach. Right now we're— I figure we're hitting maybe 10,000 to 11,000 shops of a 250,000 rooftop business. Yeah, yeah, there's so many. There's so many to be able to reach. And so we're barely scratching the surface where we are. So we're implementing some really, really neat, really cool tactics into our marketing that's going to reach even broader than what we're doing today. Jimmy, in terms of what's next for you, I know you're going to be at the ASTA Expo. Speak to the listener who is considering going to the Expo, which by the way is September 25th through the 27th in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Raleigh Convention Center this year.

What can the— what can I expect if I were to attend the ASTA Expo this year? Well, let me give you a little history of ASTA to tell you that they have doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled. They've outgrown facility, outgrown facility, outgrown facility, and this will be the first year at the convention center. They— it could house anywhere from 1,200 1,800 to 1,800 and 2,000, 2,000 people could come to this conference. By the way, that's a big conference in the automotive aftermarket. Yes, it is. That's a big conference for us to participate in. This is a conference where you could bring your entire shop.

Technicians, you have a tech that wants to learn about diesel? Great. Gas, gas engine, internal combustion engine? Not a problem. They want to learn about EVs? Not a problem. They want to learn about how to use their PicoScope better? Not a problem. We've got all of that at this ASTA conference. Advisors that need to be more confident selling on the phone, answering the phone, being more confident with giving an estimate, asking the customer to buy. These are the skills that an advisor needs. Managers, you need more humanistic, human-centric training, leadership training. How do you get somebody to do something that they don't want to do and it's their idea that they want to do it?

It's not manipulation, it's leadership. You're helping them to see the vision of why they need to do it. That's true. To owners, and owners need this same sort of leadership training. Manage yourself, time management, scaling the chaos, going from chaos to process and procedures. Are you writing down your process and procedures? By the way, you should, you need to, and save it as a Google Doc. It's a living document. Continue to add to it, add to it as the shop grows, as things grow, as people become bigger and the shop becomes better, you want these processes implemented because is there a better way to do it?

Okay, let's analyze it. Now we're going to put it as part of our process, as opposed to, I'm a tech, I came from another industry, I came from another shop. This is the way we did it and it's better than yours. Okay, but this is my shop and we do it this way. Let's analyze it to find out which one is better, and then we'll do it. And sometimes you find out this takes twice as long, we do have the better way. Or flip it, this is a better way, let's adopt it. And, and I'm noticing that even the verbiage that you're using, it's we, right? It's, it's a we before me mentality. You mentioned manipulation earlier, and, and I believe that manipulation is moving people for, for personal benefit, whereas motivation is moving people for mutual benefit.

And that's the we before me. That's the connection before the content. It's the abundance before the scarcity. My last question to you, Jimmy, is what is the greatest advice you've ever received from a coach or mentor? Man, greatest advice, greatest advice, greatest advice from a coach or a mentor. I'll also ask you this too. If, if you want to share what's the greatest advice you believe you could provide to the listener, you can answer that question instead. Well, so we can flip this both ways. Greatest advice I got from a coach, and I'm going all the way back into high school and college. When I was on the ballroom dance team and I was on the dance team and I was the drum major of the high school band, Gary Sassenberg and Alan Lewis and Mary Reif said, in your performance, reach the back row.

Hmm. So for you as a shop owner, let's translate this to you. What does this mean to you as a shop owner? Reach those that are unreachable. Reach those that don't have the same capacity or capabilities to do what you're doing. Reach the— spread the wings and reach as many people as you possibly can, all the way to the back row. So, what does that back row look like to you as a shop owner? You definitely need to know where your bread and butter is. Focus on that. Build that. Build it, build it, build it. You can't feed hungry mouths from empty shelves. You've got to fill the shelves. Now you can reach to the back row.

Love it. So good. This is actually my final question, 'cause I do wanna make sure that anyone listening who understands now the importance of hiring a coach, looking for the right coach, the right fit, how can our audience get in touch with the Institute? Come to the Institute, come to our website, wearetheinstitute.com. We have a channel on YouTube, we have a Facebook, Uh, we, we sponsor a few different podcasts in the industry. wearetheinstitute.com, click on book an appointment or book a demo or book a, a business analysis. That'll put you with one of my business associates that's going to sit down with you and talk about your shop and your business.

What is your process procedures? What is your average repair order? What is your door rate? What is your labor rate? What is your rent? What is your insurance? What are all your fixed costs? Labor costs. What we find is that most people in the industry are operating at about a 2 to 3% net profit. And very quickly, we help to turn those dials. It's a fine-tuning process that we fine-tune those dials. And now you go from, uh, oh, great example. Shop came to us. I, I'm not going to name them specifically, but if you ask me about it, I'd be happy to tell you who it is. This shop came to us and said, hey, look, man, I'm stuck at 7% net profit.

Big family business, 14 bays. I'm stuck at 7% net profit. I've been to other coaching companies and they tell me to raise my average repair order or to increase my car count. At the Institute, we come and meet you where you are. So he says to me, he says, if you are gonna talk about car count or average repair order, we'll just save a lot of time and say thank you very much, but no thank you. We'll still be friends, but I'm gonna part ways. And I was like, bro, we got you. We're going to meet you where you are. You need shop proficiency. You need shop efficiency. And he says, you're exactly right.

That's where I want my focus to go. His average repair order was $650. By focusing on his shop efficiency, what happens? Shop becomes more productive, more proficient. Average repair order goes up and car count goes up. Love it. Well, and that's a testament to how you guys, like, you're listening to the voice of your potential customer. In this case, it is your customer. Owner. That's so critical for the success. Within 9 months, he went from a 7% net profit, broke all records in his shop, 24— 23.9% net profit. Amazing. And then the next month broke that again. It was 24-point-something net profit.

Um, phenomenal shop. If you're listening and you're thinking, hey, I can use this kind of results in my shop, go to wearetheinstitute.com. Jimmy Lee, man, thank you so much for being here. This will not be your last time on the Limitless Leadership Podcast, my friend. Yeah, because we didn't even get to talk about developing others. We didn't even get to talk about integrity in leadership. But what— that's something to look forward to. Hey, guess what? So I'll, I'll be, uh, I'll be doing this podcast at the ASTA Expo. I'm gonna save you a spot. We're gonna do this live in person next time. Love it.

Let's do it. Cool. Awesome. And thank you for being here. As you know, every episode we look to transform our leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results. So thanks again, everyone. Don't forget to smile today. Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. I'm Josh Parnell reminding you to keep leading well.