How Jon Hall Reinvented Himself. The Darryl Mobley Show

This episode of the Darryl Mobley Show: Your Life Coach On The Radio, featuring guest Jon Hall, is the first in a series that is all about reinventing yourself, so that you live the life you dream of.

Reinvention is the intentional process of redefining or reshaping who you are, what you do, or how you live. It’s about making a bold shift -- in your career, identity, habits, goals, or relationships -- so that your outer life better reflects your inner values, dreams, or potential.

It’s not just about change. It’s deeper. Reinvention means becoming the person you were meant to be -- or choosing to evolve into someone who fits your next chapter.

WHY YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE

Jon Hall is the Founder & CEO of SpencerHall, one of the country’s leading independent consumer research and innovation consultancies. He’s also a patented inventor with an amazing record creating innovative new concepts and branding strategies. Beyond that, here are 9 things Jon shared that can lead you to living your very best dream life:

1. Why he took the leap and left a very successful career in order to reinvent himself.
2. The picture he saw that made him change the arc of his life.
3. How, why, and when he decided to craft his own destiny.
4. How you can use Jon’s uber-powerful, Disciplined Radical Thinking® to make major, positive changes in every area of your life.
5. The one piece of advice that can help you significantly improve your key relationship.
6. How to reinvent yourself to match the life you want to live.
7. The power of a differentiated positioning and a strong value proposition.
8. The magic in self-determination.
9. Mistakes he made.
10. And lots more!

Turn up the volume. Grab your headphones, a pen and paper.  Let’s Goooooooooo! You’ll thank yourself later.

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To get Coach Mobley's newsletter, ask a question, make a suggestion, or have Coach Mobley speak to your organization, contact him at CoachMobley.com.
The Best Is Yet to Come.
 
Enjoy Life! 
Season 7. Episode 37.

If you liked this episode, please give it a rating on your podcast provider. Thanks.

I want you to Live Your Best Life.

Enjoy Life!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

From high atop his secret broadcasting Shangri-La, overlooking New York, Miami, Austin, Seattle, and all points in between, this is America's number one life coach, Daryl Mobley.

UNKNOWN: 0:17

No!

SPEAKER_01: 0:49

Hello, friends. You are listening to The Daryl Mobley Show, your life coach on the radio. The Daryl Mobley Show is the drama-free, success-focused, excuses. They are not welcome. Forget the whining. Make progress. No negativity allowed. Work your plan and zero, zilch, nada, psychobabble show. Here's why. so you can achieve your goals and live your best life. I'm Darrell Mobley, and I've been called son, brother, husband, dad, friend, Coach Mobley, and one of the best life coaches on the planet. Today, right here, right now, Coach Mobley is all yours.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

This episode of the Daryl Mobley Show podcast is brought to you by yellingant.com. Not Twitter, not Facebook, not Reddit, just real talk, real people, and real opportunity. Join us at yellingant.com.

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

Today is one in a series of episodes focused on those who have reinvented themselves and are living the life they dreamed of. Reinvention is the intentional process of redefining or reshaping who you are, what you do, or how you live. It's all about making a bold shift in your career, identity, habits, goals, or relationships so that your outer life better reflects your inner values, dreams, or potential. It's not just about change. It's It's deeper than that. Reinvention means becoming the person you were meant to be or choosing to evolve into someone who fits your next chapter. Today, I'm speaking with John Hall. John is the founder and CEO of Spencer Hall, one of the country's leading independent consumer research and innovation consultancies. Spencer Hall works with Fortune 500 clients, sharing their trademarked disciplined radical thinking to drive brand reinvention. John is a patented inventor with an amazing record creating innovative new concepts and branding strategies. Prior to Spencer Hall, John had a very successful career in brand management at Procter& Gamble. He graduated from Princeton University and lives in Cincinnati with his wife, They have two adult children and a five-month-old granddaughter who he is already spoiling. Let's find out why he took the leap and left a very successful career in order to reinvent himself. Listen as he shares the picture he saw that made him change the arc of his destiny. How, why, and when he decided to craft his own future, mistakes he made, and lots more. Oh, and you'll hear me share what many do that makes them idiots. There'll be lots in this for you and not the idiot part. Let's get started. So John, how are you? It's great to see you.

SPEAKER_03: 4:24

Doing really well. Awesome to see you as well.

SPEAKER_01: 4:27

The only thing that's changed in us maybe is the gray in our hair. Other than that, I think we're good. A little

SPEAKER_03: 4:34

wider too. I've got gray and a little width.

SPEAKER_01: 4:36

A little wider. Well, you need that if you're going to switch positions. That's what you're doing. There you go. You know, I've known you for a good amount of time as we chatted. And, you know, you've always, even when I wasn't saying it way back, man, you've always been top of the line. for me when it comes to kind of insights and kind of the reinvention of brands. I would listen to your talk back in the day, and I always thought, oh, that guy's pretty good. He's pretty good, right? But today I want to talk about the reinvention of you, right? You've made a number of what I like to call twists and turns and pivots in your professional life, and that's what gives lives its spice. Let me ask you a question. What was your major in college? Philosophy of religion. Perfect. See, I didn't know that, but that's going to fit in what I'm going to ask you. From there, you pivoted, I'm going to call it a pivot, to brand management at Procter& Gamble, which is a real commitment, right? And then fast forward to now, and you've invented things. You're an inventor, which is great. And you're a founder and CEO of Spencer Hall, right? Well, you spent, obviously, a number of years now building that up and elevating what I call the art of consumer research. So I've got questions, and are you ready?

SPEAKER_03: 5:47

I'm ready. I've got answers, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01: 5:49

There you go, my friend. So my first question to you is, what was the defining moment when you realized that you had to or you simply wanted to reinvent yourself and go in a different direction?

SPEAKER_03: 6:02

You know, I don't know that it was a singular moment as it was sort of almost two pathways intersecting. One was... When I was, the last couple years that I was at Proctor, I was running the new ventures group for beauty care. And I just really loved insight, discovery, and innovation. So I kind of said, I've got a real passion for that. So that was on the professional side. On the personal side, I had a son that was 18 months old and I had a daughter about to be born. And I was really struggling with leaving my son at the office, you know, leaving him home while I went to the office. And There was one moment in particular I remember where my wife brought him down to have lunch with me. And actually, we have a picture in our scrapbook of him sitting on my lap. I'm in my corner office. It's mid-90s, so I've got these beautiful leather suspenders on with my dress shirt and all that kind of thing. And I just remember looking at that picture going, I'd rather be home than at the office. And so it really was a sense of, you know, if I can kind of craft my own destiny here, Create a situation where I can be doing the kind of work I love, which is insights and innovation, but do it in a way that I can still have family kind of central for me. That combination of forces would maybe kind of say there's got to be something I can do different.

SPEAKER_01: 7:12

I got to follow up on that. Were your parents like that? Did you come from a home where that was going on?

SPEAKER_03: 7:18

Yeah, you know, you say that my parents are college professors, and they actually taught on alternating days. So my dad taught Tuesday and Thursdays, my mom taught Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they had most summers off and my dad taught summer school a few times. But we always had very strong parental involvement. We had six kids. So it was it was a houseful. But I do think that was part of it was that maybe it was part of my DNA, was that I needed to have family be central.

SPEAKER_01: 7:43

What was, it sounds wonderfully positive, glorious, and a straight shot to heaven, got that, but here's, what was the scariest part of making your career leaps, and how did you overcome it?

SPEAKER_03: 7:57

Yeah. And there were a few, I mean, the first one was obviously walking away from a steady paycheck and that, you know, a nice career path at Proctor. I mean, that was a big deal. The second thing was, you know, thinking about going from the client side to the supplier side, you know, and, you know, at Proctor, we, you know, the thing we loved was we got to, you know, see things all the way through inception to marketplace. And I was like, am I going to miss that execution level? And I'm going to miss seeing things in market along with missing that paycheck. And so those were the kinds of things that were kind of weighing on my mind as you know, concerns, the way I overcame them really was, it was a couple of things. One was, I did launch Spencer Hall with my now retired business partner, Nancy Spencer. That's how we very cleverly combined our two last names to come up with.

SPEAKER_01: 8:40

Very creative. Yes, that

SPEAKER_03: 8:42

was one of our first innovations. And we had complimentary skill sets. And so I felt that that was going to be helpful in terms of, you know, not feeling like I was just jumping in by myself. The other thing I think that we did that helped us both feel more confident was before we jumped, We had spent time kind of laying out what our sort of philosophy as a company was going to be and had sent that out to some former colleagues and had gotten feedback that was very, very positive. In fact, a couple said, you quit tomorrow, we'll hire you. So we kind of knew as we made the leap that we had a differentiated positioning for us as a company, something that was offering a value, and we had some potential clients that were interested. So that really helped mitigate some of the risk of that jump. But I still had that nagging concern about, am I going to miss seeing things all the way through the market. And what I found over time was I get such joy in delivering a great idea, you know, either uncovering that nugget of insight that the client's like, wow, that's great. We can do a lot with that or a new product idea. I honestly didn't miss the executional parts of it. You know, you did not. You did not. I ended up not missing that.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

Yeah. You didn't miss those meetings and sitting in there?

SPEAKER_03: 9:49

No. Worrying about cost of goods and process throughputs and all that? No.

SPEAKER_01: 9:54

Let me ask you a question about that because it's something that I know many of the people who hear this might be taken aback by it, but again, you know me, here we are. I think there's a big difference in leading your life when you head into meetings and your concern is getting promoted as compared to heading in meetings and you really are oriented on, I got to make a difference, right? I mean, I think there's, and the mindset is different because I deal, most people I deal with They're concerned. Am I getting promoted? What does my boss think? You walked away from that. Did you think about that reality? Did you have to deal with that?

SPEAKER_03: 10:37

The equivalent of getting promoted was getting paid, making sure that we were going to continue to have work. The nature of our company is we work on a project basis. Early on, I was always joking, I'm unemployed three months out. That was our project horizon. You have to continually be bringing in the new business. It really It really was more now, not worrying about promotions and accolades and that kind of thing. It was more creating really cool ideas or finding that really interesting nugget of insight that really got us fired up. I can remember times when we were just starting the company. We were busy. We had done some research with a client all day one day, and we had to do some work the next day with another client. We're driving late at night. I'm driving. Nancy was next to me on the computer. We're creating concepts as we go. You know, just get that kind of energizing kind of a feel. So it wasn't worried about promotion. It was worried about and it wasn't really worried. It was focused on doing really fun, interesting work.

SPEAKER_01: 11:36

Yeah, that's good. What would you say is the biggest mistake you made while reinventing yourself? And what did you learn from that?

SPEAKER_03: 11:44

You know, when we started, it was just the two of us. And as we decided to grow, the first area we wanted to kind of expand our capabilities was having our own research moderators. When we first started, we were kind of using our clients' moderators. And what we found was that limited our effectiveness to how good the moderator was. We could develop a discussion guide, but if the moderator, you know, didn't have that ability to know what was worth probing off the page and that kind of thing, you might not get the kind of insights you wanted to have. So we said, we need to hire our own and start, you know, create a division of research services. And so when we started to hire moderators, we kind of put a premium on interpersonal skills. We really wanna make sure we had people that we could felt like we could see them really engage with consumers and get them to dialogue. What we got wrong on that was yes, that interpersonal engagement was important, But probably as important, if not more important, was having a business background to really understand what was worth chasing down, especially in qualitative research, you know, because you do set up that discussion guide, but it is, you know, the magic comes when a moderator knows to ask a question that wasn't on the guide, you know, to ask a follow-up probe, and we were missing that. So we had some mishires as we got started that, you know, and that was always painful to have to tell people, it's not going to work out. But what we basically were able to do is say, our model for an effective moderator is somebody that's coming to to us with decades of experience i mean we're talking people that have 20 plus years of experience on the client side whether in the marketing side or the research side or the product development side was it was people that knew what to do with what they were hearing knew what to chase down and then knew how to make what we heard actionable so that was our biggest mistake was just saying figuring out what was that right skill set that we needed for research

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

And then the pain of telling people it's not going to work out. Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing you don't face sitting in the meetings, many of the meetings at practice. If you could go back now, thinking back, because we have perfect hindsight as perfection, what would you do differently in your reinvention journey? You yourself. I'm calling a timeout. Be sure and join Yelling Ant Podcast. The social network that uses advanced AI to deliver culturally relevant content you won't find on Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, or the others. And where, if you sign up now, you might win a great vacation and other freebies.

SPEAKER_03: 14:27

I think I would have pushed us to maybe scale up faster than we did. And it's a balancing act because one of the things, again, that I did want to do was create a big organization and have a bureaucracy be made of people. I mean, I love rolling my sleeves up and getting into the work. And the other thing was we basically have been profitable since we started. So we never didn't take on debt, didn't work with partners. In hindsight, I might have looked at ways to do that more proactively to maybe build up a bigger company that would allow us to have um different capabilities you know we're primarily a qualitative firm there might be an opportunity to build more of a quantitative side that kind of a thing but it like i said i mean i balance that with i don't know how much i would have wanted to change in how i got to do the work that i've been able to do

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

So you've enjoyed the journey. It's been fun. It's been enlightening. It's been all these wonderful, great things. If you tweak that, I've always said, you pull one domino out, maybe they don't fall the same way, right? You think if we just do this, it'll make everything so much better. And sometimes different is not better. Sometimes different is just different. And sometimes different is horrible. So that's there. Yeah, this is, that's very interesting. Yeah. All right. So what habits did you develop um that helped you succeed in this new journey's new career path that you took

SPEAKER_03: 15:48

well you know the first thing was i had to learn how to use a computer because i mean you know all right mid 90s so that's some partial defense but also you know proctor way you know you had an administ administrative assistant i dictated email was just starting i would have the secretary print them out and bring me the emails and write my response back so i had to learn that But beyond that, I think one of the biggest habits was really having this sense of self-determination and proactivity to really be able to say, you know, here's where we are. Where do I want to go? What are some, you know, needs or opportunities we've identified that we want to be able to develop new capabilities for new services for and having that ability to just continually be looking ahead? I mean, we've, you know, we pioneered. a number of different innovations in the research and innovation space. We came up with this idea of these, we call them sounding boards, but they're digital platforms for research that we started probably 15 to 18 years ago. It allowed us to recruit respondents and interact with them multiple times. The way we developed this online process for idea generation, what we call discipline radical thinking, was another example of being able to see an opportunity to do a better job for brainstorming and we developed that so i mean that ability to kind of push out and say you know sort of a healthy dissatisfaction that was a habit i learned i think the third thing i learned was um really kind of the importance of compartmentalization you know being able to working from home which our company is virtual um so i've been you know remote for 29 years now and our folks are you know we've got some folks where i'm here in cincinnati but others around the country but having the ability to kind of make sure when I'm home and I'm busy or need to work that I can work. And that was especially challenging when I had little kids in the house, you know, they've now grown, but having that ability to kind of be able to hone in on what I need to do, get that taken care of, you know, take the breaks when needed, but being able to really have the focus in the midst of, some joyful chaos, if you will, during

SPEAKER_01: 17:46

the year. Now, you mentioned disciplined, radical thinking. Is that correct? Could you explain that to me like I'm an eight-year-old? Because I'm ready.

SPEAKER_03: 17:54

Yeah. So, I mean, the genesis of this was when we started, we would do the typical kind of idea generation sessions. You bring people into a site. We typically tried to do things at a really cool off-site venue. You know, you'd have some interesting exercises to get people to be really stimulated, but we kind of felt like we weren't getting consistently the kind of breakthrough ideas that we wanted to have. And so the thought was, can we bring in fresh perspective? And we started bringing in into these idea generation sessions, two to three outsiders, you know, people that were, whether they're trend experts or they were, you know, had some interesting background that was in a, you know, a skill set adjacent to what our clients had. And I just saw the value that that fresh perspective had coming in, kind of challenging conventional wisdom. So I started to say, how can I do that on a bigger scale? How can I get, instead of two to three people, a dozen folks that come at it from all sorts of different angles? That's the radical part of it. And then the thought was, we created this brain trust. So over the years, I've been building a network of folks that I can bring in on assignments that will help create ideas with the client team. The other part of our process was, rather than trying to lock everybody in a room for a couple of days and pound the creativity out of them, we developed a digital platform that allows for asynchronous idea generation over multiple days. And what we found, it's really what I call the power of pause. It lets people get on the site. We typically would say, if a session's running over three days, block out three times each day for about an hour at a time that you're on the site, creating ideas, seeing other people's ideas, building on those. So you get that sort of collaborative energy if you're all together. This power of pause and being able to log off and disengage, think, let your mind kind of wander. That we found was really freeing and helping people think more creatively. Because I'll do my best creative thinking drive and I may go for a drive, others will go for a run. It just lets you tap into how you can find the creative cadence that's best for you. That combination of radical outsiders using this digital platform asynchronously we found generates a lot better ideas in locking people in a room where there's a tendency to fall to more status quo thinking, trying to come up with ideas on the spot. We also found challenges with kind of group think where the loudest voice in the room, and that can be literally the loudest voice or figuratively senior voices could dominate that got in the way of people being as creative as they could be, because they kind of fall in lockstep behind those leaders. All of that allowed us to do a better job of innovation. And that was just an example, like I said, of seeing an opportunity And knowing, hey, it was up to us, we could create whatever solution we thought was best for it. That was the genesis of disciplined radical thinking.

SPEAKER_01: 20:22

Wow. I was thinking about it. As you were going through it, I was thinking about application of that in a lot of other areas of life, right? And this is very good. I remember back when they started the whole... dealing with COVID, I remember we heard quite frequently the all of government or the whole of government approach. They bring all these people from all these areas, which they never do. They're in their silos. Bring them in. How do we solve this problem? How do we address it? I know in the military, that happens a lot. You bring in people. How do we address this challenge over here? How do we deal with it? You're right. The radical part is people who are not connected, at least from my perspective. People who are not connected to the answer, providing perspective on the answer. Because, you know, once you're connected, and again, maybe you're trying, as you say, you get in a group and you're trying to fall in line or you're trying to, you know, be one big happy kumbaya as opposed to forget all that. Here's what I think. Here's how this works. When did you start that? And that still is going to this day?

SPEAKER_03: 21:24

Yeah, yeah. We started probably about 15 years ago. And like I said, we built up this database of experts I can draw on. If I need other specific expertise we don't have, we've got resources I can find it. And that's another benefit of it being virtual is people can participate anywhere in the world. The other thing that's kind of fun and interesting about what we do with the platform is when people are on it, they're actually participating anonymously. So your first creative exercise is come up with a fun secret identity screen name Okay. Right. Right. Right. Right. Maybe your idea is an idea that the world's not ready for, but by posting it, somebody that wouldn't have thought of anything otherwise might see that, and that'll trigger a new thought for them that becomes something that really is cool. So really, it is allowing that blend of different perspectives to kind of work together, as you're saying, to really come up with inventive thinking.

SPEAKER_01: 22:26

Okay, so now you've got my mind blown and spinning in circles. I'm going to ask a question. Maybe you've never been asked this question before, but I think there's something here, even beyond your business, Is there a way that we can think of right now that that way of thinking that you're talking about can apply to someone trying to understand a career move they might make or a family situation they might want to deal with or whatever? Can you think of, you're the expert, you created this son of a gun, so any applications beyond business?

SPEAKER_03: 22:59

Absolutely. And I think the key is, and this is what I always tell clients too when we're looking at different industries, The key is what is that mix of perspectives I'm going to bring in that's most helpful to you? So, you know, if it's the kind of thing where it's, you know, how do I deal with a tough personal situation? Maybe it is bringing in people that are, you know, experts of whether it's a wellness thing, family relationship dynamics, you know, consumer psychology, whatever. We figure out what is that right mix of perspective and really emphasizing the diversion perspectives. I mean, I think it's... Because if you had a marketing problem, you brought all marketing people in there, you're not gonna get the kind of breakthrough thinking if you had different backgrounds. Same thing with these things outside the business world, but it would be a matter of saying, what kind of perspective would be most helpful for me in thinking through a particular challenge or opportunity um and you know we've used we did it we did a project actually for an independent school where they wanted to more strategize about how education needs to change in the 21st century and so it was a mix of it was actually a mix of faculty and parents and then some other thought leaders that were part of this session and again the anonymity was helpful because it allowed parents and faculty to be very you know forthcoming on yeah and that kind of a thing so

SPEAKER_01: 24:07

That had to be, and now I'm thinking about what could have come out in such a meeting, that had to be very interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:13

Yeah, that would be, we need more of that. I'll just say that. I'll leave that over in the corner. We need more of that. So, you know, I know this from also a life lived that all meaningful endeavors, including business success, and you guys have been very successful, you are successful. are very challenging. So did you ever think about doing one of those challenging moments, giving up or going back? Or did somebody offer you something? Hey, you know, we could take you in our company. Did you ever have to deal with that? And if so, what kept you going in the direction you've gone?

SPEAKER_03: 24:44

You know, I really haven't. I mean, I think we've been lucky in having a continued, you know, pace of business, you know, clients that we get repeat work with. And like I said, the work is so much fun. And the way I kind of look at it is I'm being intellectually challenged and stimulated on a regular basis. And so that's made it fun to do. So I haven't had any sense of, I wanna go back to the corporate side, on the client side or anything like that. I mean, I've loved the flexibility that I have now. So I've been very, very lucky in that regard.

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

All these babies, they're nice, but if I go back to the corporate side, I wanted to deal with their loving chaos. You didn't say that is what you're saying. For the record. Okay, just want to make sure. What unexpected challenges have you faced that no one warned you about?

SPEAKER_03: 25:32

You know, I think the biggest one that continues to be a challenge today is just managing cash flow. You know, I mean, we're still a relatively small company. what i found now more and more is clients are extending their payment terms and we have some clients that won't pay for 120 days and we're advancing you know tens of thousands of dollars on their behalf on projects right and having to manage that cycle um that's always been a challenge for us is just kind of how do you how do you deal with that most effectively and you know in some cases we're able to tell the clients that's an unacceptable length of time and get some you know provisions made in other cases we just have to kind of ride it out and say You know, that's our reality. We're going to be having to front this money for a while and deal with it. So that's been kind of a bit of a challenge. I've been lucky in that from a workforce standpoint, we've been able to get people that stay with us for a long time. So I haven't had to deal with the employee turnover or that kind of a thing. I mean, like I said, we had some issues up front when we had researchers that weren't the right fit. Sometimes we've had people that weren't comfortable with working remotely at all times and that kind of thing. But for me personally, it's been a great ride. I mean, it's hard for me to believe it's been almost 29 years now, but I've been very, very lucky.

SPEAKER_01: 26:43

29 years of success. Yes. All right. Very good. Very good. Any unexpected challenges? Anything jumping out at you that, and like scared you, like came out of nowhere other than, other than the, you know, getting paid?

SPEAKER_03: 27:00

No.

SPEAKER_01: 27:03

The management of people, the recessions or whatever they have been through. I mean, when you, you've been in business 29 years, you've seen everything. Think of what you've seen. You've seen war, famine, you've seen, up and down sideways you've seen society change anything unexpected that you said oh my god

SPEAKER_03: 27:23

no you know we've had ebbs and flows like anybody being you know as you mentioned 2008 2009 we're we're challenging years um but we've got sort of the way we organize our our people it gives us the ability to flex as we need to we've been lucky in that regard um I think the thing that now that's an interesting dynamic in our industry is a lot more DIY. There's a lot more research tools that companies can use and do themselves. A lot of people still say, I can just do an idea generation session. I'll bring in pizza and bring people in. And so really managing against that dynamic, because I think while there is some opportunities where that kind of thing makes sense, I do think in a lot of cases, it's going to be short-sighted. I think a lot of the DIY tools on the research side are really good at telling you the what. They don't really tell you the why, and that's where you need to do more work. And then the innovation side, like I said, I think a lot of times when people are trying to do idea generation sessions themselves, they end up with more incremental ideas. But that's a dynamic where, and I think part of it's driven by some of the cost pressures that companies are feeling right now, that there's been more of a push to do things themselves. And I think we're trying to kind of have to go against those headwinds a little bit. So I think that's going to be a challenging environment, I think, in the near term.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

Let me say this for those at the back of the room, John. If you are a business entrepreneur, and you really want to grow, you're an idiot if you think that you can just pull guys together with pizza and you're going to get the very best ideas. I'll say it. Let me say it. This is not John saying it to anybody. This is me saying that because for all the reasons we talked about, all the pressures and the directions and the angles that come with internal stuff, which is great. It has its purpose. But man, if you want to really... leap forward there's it's you have to have somebody in that group who doesn't care i remember when i learned about it let me offend everyone out there who's listening right now i remember when he should talk about the uh intrapreneurship as if it was like entrepreneurship in the corporate world we got an entrepreneur we got this and that they're so different as It's just now, after a bunch of years like you doing this, you realize, yeah, no, there's not the same. There's nowhere near the same. As I said, the things you want to get right and why are different to me, and that leads to a different outcome and also a different process. Okay, so enough of me hammering businesses that are being foolish. You've been successful. You were successful when I met you. You were successful before I met you. wonderful family. That's all developed. All this is great. Having said that, if I said, you're going to snap your fingers or you're going to wake up the next morning and you need to have reinvented yourself one more time, what would you do? Where would you go next?

SPEAKER_03: 30:20

You know, I would probably go into something related to education. You know, I think part of that coming from the, you know, college parents upbringing, I've done guest lecturing. I love, you know, helping people grow, you know, develop their skills and their talents. So I could see doing something like that. You know, I've been involved in a lot with our kids' education. I was, you know, on the board at their school and all that, and really, you know, enjoyed helping develop the school and its curriculum and that kind of thing. So I could see that as being something that would be of interest to me.

SPEAKER_01: 30:53

Okay. Okay. Yep. I can see you doing it. I can see you standing in front of the class and me sitting in the class, my hand on my fist thinking, When is he going to get to the point? It wouldn't be you, but I'm thinking about professors.

SPEAKER_03: 31:05

I did a guest lecture at an unnamed university a couple years ago, and I had the opportunity. I was brought in halfway through the lecture, so I was standing in the back of the room so I could see the laptops of the students as the professor was talking. Well, more than half of them were shopping, social media, and all that kind of stuff. It looks like they're typing, but the reality was they were not. So I can see it from that viewpoint. Now, hopefully when I went in the front of them, they were more attentive, but I think that is a dynamic.

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

Yeah, we can dream, can't we? Exactly. So now let me twist into something most people don't bring up publicly, but I get to ask it. Who is it that never doubted you? Who you know, they will ride or die with you. They were in that foxhole with you. From beginning through now, they never blinked. Let's take a quick break. Be sure and join yellingant.com, the social network that cuts through the chaos of big tech built for connection, not clicks. Claim your space now at yellingant.com and where if you sign up now, you just might win a great vacation and other freebies.

SPEAKER_03: 32:26

I'd have to say my wife. I give her a ton of credit. Again, working from home, I would bounce things off of her. Both of her parents, I mean, we're in Cincinnati, so both of her parents retired from Procter& Gamble. She'd worked at Procter& Gamble before we had her son. And for her to even let me make that jump with an 18-month-old and a daughter about to be born to say, yeah, you can walk away from a company that I know treated my parents well for their entire careers. I gave her a ton of credit for that. And then she has stood by me the whole way. It really is, you know, a counsel to me. And I will tell you, I mean, she has been, she has served various roles. She's been my chief technical officer, you know, when I didn't know how to fix a laptop or what I should get to plug it, my chief financial officer and all that. But she's been, she has been a rock. I mean, I give her all the credit in the world for not pulling her hair out when I said I wanted to leave P&G.

SPEAKER_01: 33:19

I was at a meeting and the question came up about love. Versus when you got married years ago, most of the people in the room, if they were married or had been married, they would have been married like 20 years. I mean, long enough to be into it. And in typical, maybe I should keep my mouth shut fashion, people were saying things, saying things, saying things about his love, the same as ever, blah, blah, blah. And so I raised my hands and my wife was beside me and said, no, it's completely different than him. I mean... because we built things together. I mean, we're not what we were when we were, we hadn't built it. We were just together, but we hadn't built anything together. We hadn't had kids and seen them grow and taken them through school and sports and this and academics and this and that and girlfriends and boyfriends and now professional. I said, when you're building something with someone and they're with you, I said, love has a whole different angle to it. Now, I'm sure you didn't think you'd get on this podcast with me today and talk about love and that sort of thing. But what are your thoughts about how your relationships, your key relationships that you brought up, you might have evolved through this process of growing this company?

SPEAKER_03: 34:36

Yeah, I mean, I think what you said is well said in terms of it being a real partnership on building relationships. not only in business, but how you're gonna live, how you raise your kids. I think we're at the point now, we've got the benefit of saying, we did all right. Our kids are both doing really well. We have a very close relationship with them. Now I'm excited about the new granddaughter and that whole generation happening and all. I think that's really key. On the work side, similar kind of a thing in terms of really valuing the people that I work with. As I mentioned, we've been very lucky that people have been with us for 15, 20 plus years. We all share that same enthusiasm for the work we do, but I think it is also a sense of we band together to make this thing work?

SPEAKER_01: 35:23

Most of the people who are listening to us and watching us, they're professionals. They have careers. They're pursuing careers mostly in corporations. A lot of entrepreneurs took most of corporations. I've never heard you call that relationship guru. That has nothing to do with you. I've never heard you call it. What I'm going to ask you now is putting you in that space. If you had one piece of advice, that you provide to the people listening. Let me say one other thing. One thing that I believe, and I've always believed, going back to the time when you and I were younger together in the corporate world, professional success without personal success is no deal. It's no deal. So it sounds to me like that's where you are and have been. Okay, great. Having said that now, is there any advice, tip, Anything you might give to people listening, say, listen, here's, you know, I'm not, I may not be the legit guru, but here's what has worked for me or us. Any advice you want to give people?

SPEAKER_03: 36:24

You know, I, I would say to be truly forthcoming and honest. I mean, I think there is a tendency to hold back, you know, to hold back, whether it's fears to hold back insecurities, you know, or apprehensions, you know, And I think to voice those, you know, I mean, on a personal level, my wife and I are very, very different. I mean, she is very extroverted and all that. I have my work persona where I'm very extroverted, but personally, I tend to be quieter. And, you know, and I've shared that with her. And, you know, so we, you know, make sure we accommodate, you know, both our interests when we're out with friends or what we're doing as activities, whether it's just as a couple. But in the workspace, same thing. I think really being willing to admit you're not sure this is the best path forward or, you You know, I'm not sure how I want to handle this. I think that's a part of building relationship, part of building trust.

SPEAKER_01: 37:13

Wow. So now I'm going to slide you on that scale toward relationship guru. You can now wear that band. Do I get a

SPEAKER_03: 37:20

hat?

SPEAKER_01: 37:22

You will get a hat. Yes, we must get you a hat. If you promise you'll wear it. I don't think the introvert will want to wear the hat, but if you promise you'll wear it, I'll be happy to get you a hat.

SPEAKER_04: 37:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 37:33

Oh, shit. Absolutely. All right, then. So here we are. You have been fantastic. Let me get this out right now. How can people contact you? They want to grow their business. They want to have breakthroughs. They want to do all the wonderful things. How can they contact you if they have a business need, you know, or maybe they want to have relationship advice? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 37:52

Well, the easiest way is our website is spencerhall.com. So there's a contact us button there. I'm on LinkedIn, John Hall, J-O-N, no H, John Hall. And I can be reached that way as well. And I'd be more than happy to engage with any kind of conversations and make connections. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 38:09

Let me tell everyone who's hearing this, watching this, that this is the John Hall that I knew a long time ago. And I find that Impressive. It's wonderful. Sometimes life takes people and twists them and bends them and the person you knew is not the person that you know. And I just want to say, I'm really impressed that those people can keep that positive energy that I saw when we were young. John, thank you so much for that. You've been wonderful to speak with. I appreciate you, and I think our audience will take lots from your journey professionally and all those kind of wonderful things, but also the personal side, because that comes out of what you do. Best of fortune to you, your wonderful wife, your kids, the grands, I'm being presumptive, the grands, and I just want to thank you for the time you give me, okay?

SPEAKER_03: 39:02

I really enjoy it. Thank you, Darrell. Appreciate

SPEAKER_01: 39:07

it. Friends, thank you for joining me on The Darrell Mobley Show. your life coach, on the radio. Today we covered John Hall's one piece of advice to others on what has worked for him in his relationships. Why he struggled with combining corporate success with the family life he wanted. How to reinvent yourself to match the life you want to live. The power of a differentiated positioning and a strong relationship. value proposition, the magic in self-determination, the value of Spencer Hall's disciplined radical thinking, and lots more. Good stuff there. Let's do it again next week. Same bat-time, same bat-channel. Remember this, my friends. In life, You don't get what's fair. You don't get what's good. You don't get what's nice. You don't get what you deserve. You don't get what you wish for. And you do not get what you need. In life, my friends, you get what you do. Period. Make the person in the mirror, that's you. Do the right things and you will win at the game of life. One more thing. Your life will not get better by chance. Your life will get better from change. A reminder. If you'd like to have me as your coach or make suggestions for an upcoming podcast, please go to coachmobley.com and send me a message. Believe. Think, act, win, and say it with me, enjoy life. Why? Because the best is yet to come. Hey, wife, I love you and the kids. See you soon. Bye-bye now. By the way, share this podcast with your friends. Also, be sure and like and subscribe to this podcast. wherever you get your podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 41:42

They don't teach this stuff in school. And who do you propose teach this class? You're on the air with Daryl Mobley, your life coach on the radio.