Episode #208: 35 WHEELBARROWS OF BUSINESS TAKEAWAYS

Youthful innocence has the ability to reveal certain simplicities of life, and business, that are often hidden inside adulthood complexities!

A handful of these bedrock simplicities flooded my mind one spring day in 2023. Three yards of mulch, and 35 wheelbarrows later, I found myself with a short list of foundational observations that can help any of our professional endeavors. Where did I obtain these valuable insights? From my seven-year-old grandson! Today I share what happened on that spring day. My hope is that this episode reacquaints us with some ground level mindsets, that most of our customers would appreciate benefiting from. Thank you to both of my grandsons for making this a GREAT day! I will always cherish the memories from that special Saturday in May!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We are bringing season four in for a landing with the business takeaways from 35 wheelbarrows. Don't miss this episode. We're gonna have a lot of fun. Alright . Hello everybody , and thank you for tuning into the Simple Biz 360 podcast, our last episode in season four. So we're, we're, we're really excited you're here. We're on YouTube Rumble TV and 28 audio platforms. And what an honor it is to have my grandson at the time, he was three years old, to do that recording, to open up our show. Alright , Mr. Simple Biz Guy, let's start the show. That's what he says. I know sometimes it's hard to, to hear that and , but that's what it was. So we are just so honored to be able to start our show like that. And today's show is about him and his brother. And, and really this goes back to May when we had , um, an opportunity to all get together, do a little sleepover, have some waffles in the morning, and then move three yards of mulch from the front yard up a little incline, you know, into the backyard down a little decline. And , uh, we were gonna put 'em in the flower beds there. So, you know, I just was gonna have a great time with my grandsons. And as this day unfolded, I was amazed and I , there were so many takeaways from this that I just thought, wow, you know, I love, I'm in this oversimplification mode right now. I just love to look at the simplicity of business. I kind of always have . But I'm in this, I'm in this trench right now of just oversimplifying things. And I thought there were so many great lessons outta this day that I had to just illuminate it for everybody and, and for myself and my grandson too, because I thought it was terrific. So his little brother, Logan helped me and , uh, as well, and he did a great job. But, but Mason said, on the first wheelbarrow full, you know, he said , uh, poppy , let me wheel it to the back. So I said, okay, fine. And then he proceeded to wheel the next 25 wheelbarrows , uh, from, or the next 24 from the , uh, front yard to the back. And it was at that, about that 25th where he just said, okay, poppy , I'm, I'm tired. I I can't do this again. I said, Hey, no problem, buddy. You know, you've helped out tremendously. I mean, this was, these were full wheelbarrow loads and I mean , it was amazing. So , uh, I, you know, un we unloaded this wheelbarrow and I got ready to take it to the back and he said, no, gimme the wheelbarrow poppy . And I said, what? And he goes, yeah, let me finish. And he proceeded to finish the next 10 wheelbarrow loads. So he muscled all 35 up this little incline down the little decline. And I mean, it was just amazing for me to see. So I thought, you know, let's just siphon a a few things out of this day that jumped out at me. And the one was his focus. He just never wavered. He was focused, his sticktuitiveness was impressive, right? He just, you could see the determination in his eyes. He just wanted to finish what he started. And at that 25 load mark when he, you know, he kind of gave the reins back to me, and then he pulled them back in and I could see the wheels going. It was just, he was saying, no, I , I, I signed up in my own mind, the mind of, you know, Mason to, to do this and I'm not gonna let go. So, and that's his first name, Mason. I , you know, I know my last name is Mason, but , uh, so anyway , you know, you could just see it. Uh, he wanted to carry on no matter what. And it was like, you know, this goal setting that , that he , he kind of created on the fly. But, you know, there he was determined to see that pile empty all the time. And then I loved his realism. I mean, outta the corner of his eye when we would load up the wheelbarrow in the front yard outta the corner of his eye, he was measuring that thing and he knew what his load capacity was. And he would say, okay, that's enough poppy . And he could see right to the , where it was on the certain part of the, you know, belly of the wheelbarrow. He knew that was it. He couldn't handle anymore . And I, I backed off and, you know, he, he, every single one , pretty much, he measured up and he told me what to do. So I just thought that that realism for capacity, he didn't over, you know, exert himself. He didn't bite off more than he could chew. He managed it extremely well for a little guy, you know? And then this follow through was just impeccable. It was just, I, I kept thinking, wow, if in business, if we could only harness this type of commitment to the follow through . But, but most importantly, he had this can-do attitude. It was just remarkable. And he just never wavered on this, I can do this. You know, and, and you know, he demonstrated that he was gonna see success through, you know, he showed his true colors as a little guy and, and what makes him tick. And, you know, his little brother, I mean, obviously was their step for step , um, not as old as his, as his brother and not as mature. So he couldn't, you know, grasp everything his brother was tackling. But, you know , here was this seven year old that was just really learning a tremendous life experience and business experience. And I was learning equally from this event. I mean, it was just amazing. And then finally, we had an opportunity, his dad was with us at this point, and we had a wonderful opportunity to present to him the notion of giving God your best. And of course, I paid the little guys for their help. It was an all day affair. I mean, it was, I mean, I was pooped and you know, these guys , you know, I mean, Mason was just, I mean, he had to be out of it, but he, but he, you know , went to bed at a normal time, didn't fall asleep on the couch or anything like that. So it was amazing. But, you know, I , so I paid him for this. And so Mason made a comment that, you know, I can't wait to, you know, give his tithe this 10%. 'cause we believe in that. And , and he was gonna give his 10%. He was gonna give it to , uh, you know,

Speaker 2: 5:57

God, in terms of all his coins and everything. We said, Hey , uh, you know, do you have any bills? Yeah , we , I got a $5 bill. Well, why don't you give God your $5 bill and kind of like, you know, a crisp, nice $5 bill. Give your best to God. And, you know, you take all the change, the pennies, the nickels of quarters of dimes. And he thought about it for a little bit and he said, okay, that's what I'll do. So not only did he, you know, practice tithing, but he gave God his best. And, and what a wonderful lesson for all of us that, you know, are believers, certainly that, you know, give God our best. What , what a better , uh, way to do life, right? So just the takeaways here are , uh, imagine folks, if we conducted our business this way and we serviced our customers this way, imagine how much repeat and referral business we had if they saw this planning and goal setting and sticktoitiveness and determination and, and realism and follow up and follow through skills and just this, this , uh, you know, professional way of going about accomplishing the task. And I might say that the whole day, this young man and his brother did it with smiles. They had a blast. I had a blast. And it was just a , a tremendous experience. So again, just um, you know, how can we take this and make our efforts as adults running businesses or managing departments or, you know, managing large companies, how can we take some of these simple lessons and some of these simple takeaways and have it, you know, affect us and what we do for our customers? Imagine how happy they would be, right? So we end every one of our shows, and this ends season four, so it's kind of cool. Uh, you know, we end every one of them with this lost in the shuffle track. And YouTube makes us put it up. We have to put it up for 30 seconds before the end of the show. And then it's this little card that just sits up there in your upper right hand portion of your screen. It kind of comes and then it disappears. And we always have the link in the show notes too. So we can't play the music because there's royalties involved, but we always put the tune up there, right? So I ask Mason, what's your favorite song and what do you want to do as a , you know, a song Poppy's gonna put on his podcast? And he said, A C D C Thunderstruck. He loves it. He listens to it before every soccer game, obviously a pretty contagious song. I, I went on, I got the link . And on YouTube, believe it or not, it's got 1.4 billion views in the website that this is on for a C T C has nine point, I think it's about 8.9 billion views. How about then that this , huh ? I'm , uh, I'm , I'm not up to , to 40,000 yet, but , uh, so any rate, thank you, Mason. Thank you Logan. Uh , thank you everybody for tuning in for four years. We can't wait to start season five with you . Have a great week. We will see you in 168 hours .