Show Notes
Cameron Herold is the founder of COO Alliance, a best-selling author, and speaker. At age 21, he had 14 employees. By 35, he’d helped build his first two 100 Million Dollar companies. By the age of 42, Cameron had engineered 1-800-GOT-JUNK?’s spectacular growth from $2
Million to $106 Million in revenue in just six years.
His companies landed over 5,200 media placements in those same six years, including coverage on Oprah.
Host Ross Thornley and Cameron discuss being open and honest with those you work with because many people are struggling with something, how failure opened him up to growth, and Cameron’s plan of living globally. The pair also talk about “remote year,” will anyone want to go back into a centralized work location after COVID-19, and the importance of evolving as a leader during the most stressful of times.
Timestamps
Full Podcast Transcript
Episode - 11 Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Cameron Herold - Lessons from 'The CEO Whisperer' about being open and honest
Intro
Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.
Ross
Hi and welcome. We've got a real special guest with us today it’s Cameron Herold. I'm excited for this conversation and have been for a little while. And just like you to share, perhaps many will be familiar with your story. But what are the things you most proud about in the past? Was it selling coat hangers for three and a half cents? Was it building one of the $200 million businesses or speaking on a big stage because I know you love to do that. Just share a little bit of something that you're proud about.
Cameron
I guess the proudest part of my business career would be that in 2005, we built a company that I was the Chief Operating Officer of for five years at that point, 1-800-GOT-JUNK into the #2 company in all of Canada to work for. So when you know, over 1.5 million companies in Canada, we ranked the second-best company in the country to work for, that was a pretty proud moment for our team knowing that we built just such a great culture for our employees.
And that also it trickled off to be ranked as the number one franchisor in the world that year as well. So we, you know, beat all the franchise companies as the top franchisor, we were the number two company to work for, which had a really strong, almost cult-like environment, over our 3000 employees, that was pretty proud moment, I came into the company as the 14th employee at that point, we had about 3000 system wide.
Ross
It's interesting, you know, as we look back, what are the moments that we remember, and we often remember moments fondly when we look back and in the middle of it, it's often quite chaotic, a lot of the growth and things that happen. And we can sometimes romanticize about things. But it's lovely to, you know, just experience those things where we can provide environments for people to really feel, you know, that they're doing their best work, and that they can show up in a way that is adding contribution to all of their whole life. The things that's great, what about maybe a dark moment, in the past of your background?
Cameron
In the business world?
Ross
Could be business or personal.
Cameron
On personal life. I've had two divorces. And those were both for very different reasons. Very, very tough. You know, one completely emotionally drained me and, you know, really have impacted my business and friendships and health. And so that was a pretty, pretty rough time, really went deep into counseling into meditation and yoga and working with a shaman and came out of it very, very strong. But just a really tough, tough stage probably for about two full years.
Ross
What was your work environment at that stage? Was your work environment very supportive? Or did they not know, you know, what was the challenges that were going on? Because we're all multi-dimensional beings, you know, we have good or bad things happening.
Cameron
I was pretty open with people. I realized that right as it was happening, I was running one of my events for the COO Alliance. So I run the only organization in the world for the second command. And we were at one of our events. And we had about 30 of our COO Alliance members there. And I realized that everyone in the room was probably really struggling with something as well. And so I decided to just be open and honest about it and tell the group what I was struggling with, because I felt like I was standing there lying to them, trying to keep my game face on. So I just told them what was happening. And then I asked them to write down one thing they were deeply struggling with on a post-it note, they all passed in their post-it notes, we shuffled them up and I read them out.
And someone was struggling with a brain tumor and someone was cheating on their spouse and someone had kids that were in hospital and someone's mother was dead or dying like it was we read out this list and you realize that every single person in the room was really struggling with something in the human condition. And I think that was the moment for me that I realized that it was okay to be just really honest, completely all the time with everyone, and then kind of move on, right.
Ross
What was the lesson or takeaway from doing that? You know, that takes great courage. It also takes a level of confidence and belief in that community. You know, that doesn't just happen at day one, a networking piece, you know, that is a strong group that lead by example, I guess, of you opening up and sharing. What was the sort of learnings and outcomes from that experience. How did that affect you?
Cameron
I think I'd been a couple of groups where I was a member for years with the entrepreneurs organization where I had had to learn to be vulnerable and open with other members of my group. Whereas this was a group I was leading. So I'd already learned about vulnerability and trust and learning that when you throw it out there, usually comes back to you. So I'd already been a little bit more practiced in it. I'd also been working with this shaman and working with a therapist. And so I was okay with being vulnerable and getting some stuff out. I think it was just more that I wanted to share it so that I can be completely authentic with people. And instead of saying, “Oh I'm being authentic is a marketing piece”, I just would rather have been authentic.
Ross
How has that do you feel shaped who you are, in terms of going through big events two divorces? You know, what have you uncovered about yourself? Have you changed either who you are? And how you express? Or have you just found it better at finding the right match? You know, what was the balance that you've..
Cameron
My health is better, I'm down 35 pounds from when I left my first marriage, I'm more engaged with friends, I'm more engaged in activities, I'm more cognizant of my diet, I show up lighter and happier, more interested in different hobbies. And, yeah, I've definitely evolved for sure. Over time, I think I've also gotten off the hamster wheel where I recognize now that work is just what we do to make money. It's not our reason for being. You know, back in the day, when I was COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, it was probably the best, it was kind of like Great Expectations, it was the best of times in the worst of times, you know, I was completely on cloud nine, building this company and running this company and building this team. And we did six consecutive years of 100% revenue growth.
But it was at my everything, you know, I'd lost touch of my hobbies and my friendships. And my, it was the only thing I could think about, it’s the only thing I could talk about, it’s the only thing that mattered, and I'm definitely not there now. You know, now I don't work after five o'clock, I don't work weekends, I don't catch up at night. I just, I've got hobbies and friends and activities and other stuff I'm engaged in and work is simply what I do to make money and I love doing it. But it's not my reason for being anymore.
Ross
Do you think many people have to find a point of break, some sort of collapse, either in a personal or company environment of their identity to realize that, or do you think people can see it before it happens to be able to evolve who they are to show up in a holistic way that's more sustainable?
Cameron
I've done a lot of studying around learning and adult learning and how to teach adults. And one of them is that the student controls the learning environment, when until the student is ready to learn, they're not going to learn. So I think yeah, that failure is what opened me up to growth. Had I not bumped my head and hit it so hard a couple of times, I don't think I would have been as apt to have grown. And I think it's also something where, you know, now I've been fortunate that I've been able to date more people as an adult and move into other relationships as an adult that I've grown from that as well.
Ross
And I guess, you know, we're lifelong students. And the biggest learning is about ourselves, you know, who we have been, who we are today, and perhaps who we want to be tomorrow? How do we want to show up to ourselves, to our family, to loved ones? And I'd like to, you know, just spend a moment to think about with all of those experiences, I think you're very similar in myself in that we have the vision of the future is always bigger than the past. It's a Dan Sullivan piece, that our greatest is still yet to come and that brings excitement of fear, right?
But what are the perhaps vision you have within this balance of who you are and the different organizations and different ways you contribute to the world from COO alliance to writing books and sharing insights and IP. What's your vision for the next few years of Cameron Herold and what we could expect to come?
Cameron
Well one big one, and it's going to be starting in about 20, about 20 months, 19 months, so roughly August or September of 2021, I will be living globally. My plan is once my youngest child decides to go to university, which will be that September, my plan is to unpack from Scottsdale and Vancouver and start living globally. And I've got a list of about 30 cities where I want to live 1 to 3 months per city. I've got a huge long list and I've got how many months per city already kind of figured out and starting to plan to just live globally, live in Barcelona and Buenos Aires and Santiago and Amsterdam and Berlin. There's just all these amazing cities around the world that I want to be able to plug into and just run my companies from there.
Ross
And what's driving that? That curiosity, that exploration, what's the triggers?
Cameron
I've always loved travel. I've always loved art. I've always loved to wonder. I've always loved meeting new people, I've always loved to explore and I don't like the monotony of just day to day where the same of the same of the same, it kind of gets tired after a while you know, and I'm I've been to 52 countries and always love them and I always feel like when I'm in a city it's hard to pack up and leave, like I was in Amsterdam twice this past year, I really loved it.
And I want to get to know it more. Now, I think I want to live there for a few months where I can bike around and go to my little coffee shop and go to the bakery and go to the butcher and get to know people and just kind of meander around and know the names of streets and, and get to know it so that I have stronger memories of that then head off to Berlin and really explore Berlin and get to know it. And I think there's just something that's really awesome about that. And I have friends all over the world as well through different organizations that I've been able to be a part of.
And then lastly, I'm because I've done paid speaking events now in 26 countries on six continents, I can pretty much organize to be able to do speaking events in all these countries as well, which allows me to pick up global clients so I can do my work remotely, and my team is already remote that I can actually build more of a global company and just travel and enjoy it. And my kids love to travel. So my kids would be thrilled if I told them that okay, instead of me coming home to see you in Vancouver next week, you guys are packing up and coming to Santiago and Chile, they'd be like tripping over themselves with excitement.
Ross
You know, it's fascinating as we get to learn about different people throughout our journey of life of those that thrive in novelty and seek it out. And delight and others who are fearful of that and need deep roots, need familiarity and that for them is their happy place.
Cameron
When I had some very, very strong, long periods of familiarity and deep roots. I grew up in a family where we were very family group, family holidays, every summer cottages, every summer family traditions, you know, I had that for 20 odd years. And then I had you know, in Vancouver where I live, and I worked, I lived and I worked and you know, had the family home and I lived in the same zip code for 15 years. So I've kind of done that Vancouver thing and you know now being in Scottsdale back and forth Scottsdale in Vancouver for the last 10 years. I feel like I've really gotten to know Scottsdale and Phoenix.
So I've had some really good solid periods, you know, four years at university, three years in Toronto, I feel like I've had some good strong periods. But I also just I'm so enamored with how amazing the world is that I want to go explore it. And then I realized the end of the day, none of this matters anyway, we're all gonna die, so.
Ross
But you know, when we're without the morbid part of that, you know, if we believe in a Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil, maybe we can live forever, you know, if we managed for technology to solve the problems that we're faced with. It reminds me of two stories, actually. One is my co-founder, Mike, he spent a year, a number of years ago on something called “Remote Year”, I don't know if you've ever come across the business.
Cameron
I've come across it. Yeah
Ross
Yeah. He was working with me, my previous company, brand agency, and he came and he said, I've been accepted on this thing called Remote year, and explained about what it was. And I said, Wow, how do we make that happen? And it was basically, for 12 months, they visited 12 cities and spent a month in each city. And it was a cohort of about 60 people, and the organization Remote Year would take care of all the logistics. So you'd be presented with a co-working space, you'd have all your travel, all your accommodation, and they just move you around, you know, so it was Mexico City, it was Lisbon. It was, you know, split. It was all of these different places. So they had this balance of some community that would they were with, they would put on events and tracks to embed you within that culture. And then just as you're starting to get some traction with it, you're off again. So a month might sound like a long time when you're thinking holiday, but when you're actually there, and it's part of your living and working and you've designed your life around it so that you can work remotely effectively, which is very different to home work. You know, working from home, working remotely is very different.
And it completely changed his mindset. As a business. We needed to adapt massively. You know, we were a small agency, we had about 25 staff, and we had to shift our culture because it wasn't about wanting somebody to do tasks and jobs. Here it is, deliver it when it's done. We needed to evolve as much as him in, how do we still build that culture and relationship of just having joyful moments with another human being that just happened to be in another city. And that that was tough. It took a number of months an effort, concerted effort by everybody to make that you know, have friction in the right places and frictionless in the other ones.
Cameron
Well were lucky now as well with technology. It's funny, I had heard of Remote Year because my girlfriend was thinking of doing it two years ago and that was actually part of the impetus for me starting to think about remote life. So that was actually part of me connecting some dots.
Ross
I mean, it's a wonderful business model, I think they've now, because they've had so many cohorts go round, they have also become partly a property company as well, because accommodation and co-working space in each of these cities, and then they just moving the people around each time, they had challenges of people committing and staying for 12 months. So you can now, there are three months I think, six months versions. And as an alumni, you can hop in and go into one of those for a month, anywhere in the world. And you know, the value that that provides in the community is massive.
Cameron
That's really cool.
Ross
The other very quick story was, I don't know if you've ever read the article, but it was written, I think, by the son or daughter of a guy who bought one of American Airlines’ Unlimited Travel Passes. Did you ever hear of that?
Cameron
There, I've heard of it. I've known of the passes. And I've heard of some guy that was doing it and flying his wife and stuff. And then it took his pass away.
Ross
Yeah, so he bought it, I think, say in the 80’s. And it was his superpower, he would fly everywhere and the entire family. He bought then a secondary pass for a spouse. And he had the conversation to say, look, we're traveling so much I don't want, the risks are too high for us to travel on the same aircraft. So I want my spouse to be able to fly on either the flight before or after my one, as long as it's the same location. And they allowed them to do that. And so for decades, their life was in every location in the world. And so it was for the family, and they knew everyone in all of these locations. And of course, it was then a big case that they took it away, and how that just completely shattered the identity of who that person was to themselves.
Cameron
You know now with technology as well, right, we've got Zoom, and we've got Asana and we have Slack. So the ability to connect and the ability to connect over Zoom or FaceTime with friends and family that maybe are back home that are you're kind of grounded part of your life is so much simpler than it ever used to be.
Ross
It is. So to come back to the challenge of not all people have designed their lives that can allow that kind of you know, behavior, maybe more in the future, as we get career port, you know, portfolio careers, we get more gig and more remote kind of work. Have you seen either in your COO alliances or any of the networks that you're in any stories of teams, organizations, leaders that are embracing this shift and transformation of how work happens?
Cameron
Oh, sure. I mean, especially right now, you know, we're sitting in the midst, we're doing our interview now will be released in a while. But you know, we're in the midst of this COVID 19 Coronavirus Crisis, and companies globally are being forced to work remotely. You know, I just starting to coach, a CEO of a company in Colombia down in South America. He's got 800 employees, he currently has 750 of them now working from home, and he's getting the last 50 setup of laptops and Wi-Fi at their homes, because they didn't have it, he'll have an entire company of 800 people having moved out of his building to work remotely, so they can continue to operate during this crisis. That's a massive, massive shift in adaptability for a company to be able to pull that off.
And I've got another client in Tampa, Florida, that's got 700 employees, he's got about 500 of them that work remotely. I have a former client with 150 employees that are all working remotely, there's a lot of this group that are trying to figure it out, because the only other option is to shut down. In some cases, you know, if you're running a restaurant, you can't work remotely so you shutter. In other cases you have to figure that part out, right?
Ross
You do. And I think, you know, that challenge of the mindset to be able to structure it, one thing is the physical realities, you know, talked about Wi-Fi and laptops to be able to work remotely. The other part is then the burning platform is here because of COVID-19 that you are not able to. When that changes, we then have a decision to make. Does anybody want to go back into work, you know, to a physical centralized place? Do we find out and discover that we're far more productive, far more effective to work remotely? But then do we choose, I don't like doing that. I like the interaction in the same physical space. You know, we're going to be faced with some decisions when it's a choice not being forced by mandate of what's the new operating system for a lot of these organizations.
Cameron
We had a really interesting stage years ago at 1-800-GOT-JUNK. We were moving from our one office space where we had 16,000 square feet and we were moving into 60,000 square feet for our head office. And the office space that we were moving into wasn't ready yet. So we had to take a temporary space for about six months and it was about three and a half months, and about 50 of the employees moved into the new space because their floors, three floors was ready but the other about 80 of us had to move on to this temporary space. And it was a law firm. We'd been a complete open office environment, no offices, most I didn't even have a desk, I would just move desks. So I was like moving around and sitting in people's desks when they were away. And then we had to go into this office where one or two people were sharing an office. So about 80 of us had to share offices or being single offices.
And for the first couple days, we’re like, wow, this is great. We're getting all this work done. And then after a few days, it was like, it's kind of lonely. And then after a week, we were going like, where's Christopher? Where's Jeff? Is Jeff even here? Oh, I forgot about Cam, where's Cam? We were forgetting about people, we'd forgotten that we've been working with them, because we just weren't seeing them. And then after about two weeks, all 80 employees were like, We will never ever work in an office. That's not a complete, open office environment. Again, we were all completely starving for that...
Ross
Connection.
Cameron
Or to be connected with each other. So yeah, I think there is going to be some,there certainly takes a skill and a type of person that can work remote. And then I think you have to heavily use, you know, technology and video to be able to connect. But I think there is an element of that social being that we like to be. Which is why so many people work from co-working spaces or coffee shops too right? It's just to be around other humans.
Ross
I think it is an adaption of skills, you know, some of those skills to be self-disciplined, of working remotely. How does that function, there are some technical skills of Zoom, you know, different bits, there's then etiquette skills that are different, physical to remote and how we balance this shift from people becoming siloed and just an avatar to, “Oh we're just getting, we're jumping on there and we've got this meeting and agenda to do and away we go”. And we forget, sometimes I've certainly noticed is just that human connection. Also, “How are you”, you know, “Oh, so your son's going to university?” You know, what is that? You know, just conversation that happens in between the moments when we're human beings. How do you balance that when you are pushed into environments that's very different. And this remote working is one of those examples.
In terms of the skills that you would advise your clients that you're coaching, and at the moment, we've got this pressure of an environmental change, that's forcing us to adapt. That adaption is going to be continual, it happens to be this pandemic now, it will be another thing, it will be a technology piece, it will be this skill set that that workforce has is now being replaced by technology, then it'll be another. So this is why a lot of our conversation focus on adaptability is so important. But deeper than that, what do you think are some of the essential skills perhaps for the coming few years or maybe decade that companies and organizations and particularly HR leaders should be investing in to ensure that they're relevant and that they can thrive in the future.
Cameron
So I have a list of about 10 core skills that I would call the soft skills or leadership skills that I think we have to grow our people on and I've always believed that the more we grow our people, the more they'll grow our company. But the list of skills that I grow our people on would be situational leadership, coaching, delegation, time management, project management, effective meetings, interviewing, email management, conflict management, classroom teaching, those would kind of be the core base skills that I want everyone scaled up in. And just understanding that if we grow those effective leadership skills, they then can grow their teams.
I always see the org chart being upside down where the CEO is at the bottom, supporting the VPs, supporting the managers, supporting the staff, supporting the clients. So the more I grow them, the more they grow their company. And then I also really like hiring self-driven learners, where people that want to come into the organization that are hungry to learn and hungry to adapt, hungry to grow. Because as I said earlier, the leader controls the learning environment, they have to want to learn to be able to learn so when they come in hungry to learn, they're going to.
Ross
And a quick piece. You know, you mentioned about effective meetings, if people haven't read “Meetings Suck”. That's one of Cameron's books, a really worthwhile read.
Cameron
And that one was written for every employee at every company to read as well, not just for the leaders, it's a third of the book is how to run meetings. But a third of the book is how to show up and attend and participate in meetings. And then the last third is what meetings you need to run a highly effective company.
Ross
That's really valuable. And I think one of the things that I've noticed is lacking in leadership and lacking in a lot of organizations is two parts. One is recognizing the processes, the functions, the skills, the way they've operated, that have given them a level of confidence, performance and success. When the terrain changes, when the environment changes, when the context shifts at a pace that people weren't expecting. How are they even able to stop doing certain things, i.e unlearn, “Oh, this is how we've always done it, we have to be in the same physical space.”
Cameron
Even right now, like I was coaching two different CEOs yesterday that I was using the analogy that we're in a situation of a wartime, that the rules of engagement and our rules of business change in an environment like we're in right now with this COVID-19 Coronavirus, that you have to look at the business completely differently. And you have to operate completely differently. You know, one of the CEOs that I was coaching, broke down and started completely sobbing on the call that I was working with them on are very, very stressed and very overwhelmed.
And I said, you know, for you, one of the things you have to do most right now is take care of yourself, you have to work less hours, you have to get back into meditation, get back into yoga, get back into physical exercise, you know, really, really take care of your health, because you have to show up as a calm, focused, kind of communicative leader. And if you don't, that you're going to send these ripples throughout the organization, which you will during peacetime as well, but in a wartime, followers need to follow someone, and they really are looking for a leader to come in and be a strong, confident, you know, planned out leader. And if your mindset isn't there, you're not going to do it.
Ross
I agree completely. I think, you know, in our context, we talk about an adaptability wake, you know that an individual's adaptability is affected by the four or five people around them. And so, therefore to embrace experimentation, or failure, or to try something new, or to stick with your guns and say, even in this time of war, this is how we should still be doing it.
Cameron
And then your growth, you know, we think about a company like we had six consecutive years of 100% revenue growth.
Ross
Wow.
Cameron
So when you double the size of your company, six consecutive years in a row, the leaders have to adapt and change. You can't be the same leader that you were when you were a $1 million company, as you are a $3 million, or $10 million or $30 million or $100 million company. You have to completely evolve. I've used that analogy a lot in the last year with the CEOs that I coach saying that, like Ross, how old are you?
Ross
I'm 40.
Cameron
40. Okay, so when you were 10 years old you were Ross, you were 20 years old you were Ross, when you're 30 years old you're Ross. When you were 40 years old you were Ross. How would you be as a 10 year old Ross running your adaptability company, terrible. Now, as a 20 year old you’d be scrambling to maybe pull it together, 30 possibly, but you've had to evolve as a human as you've grown. And I think as a leader, we have to evolve as well in all of our roles. And I think the danger for some leaders is they get so stuck in their way that this is the way I've always done it. They become massively ineffective.
Ross
Yeah, it's the immune system and the memory foam of you know, you've been given applause, you've been patted on the back by a sale or by a client or whatever, for something you did yesterday, and the challenge is, before it then you get no applause, you get no sales, and you're forced to then do something different is before that happens, how can you predict what's going to serve you well, tomorrow, and ensure that you can keep pace with the environmental shifts and changes?
You know, this morning on the news, we had another announcement of a company going into liquidation. It's Carphone Warehouse. And it's about 3000 staff, it’s part of their Dixons and PC World Group and those sorts of things. And they explained it not because of COVID-19, it's other things, environmental factors have changed, the way people buy, you know, handsets and mobile phones has shifted, whether it's online or upgrade path, all of these things. And there's countless examples of when organizations don't adapt, how it collapses.
That challenge of what you've just described as, as things grow and evolve up or they, you know, are revolving down, you need to show up differently, you need to evolve your leadership, you need to shift. I think one of the biggest challenges in this next decade is the timescale we're expected to do that. And the knife-edge between thriving and collapsing is not over multiple years or multiple generations. It can happen as we've seen in a matter of days and weeks of these things, and I truly believe this has happened for us COVID-19 to help.
Cameron
Oh, I agree, as well.
Ross
You know, really help us it's hard to see, but those you know, restaurants or events, companies or massage therapists or all these people that can't do a Zoom to deliver their value or services, but they have to innovate, they have to adapt, and that will gift them skills relevant for an exponential world. I want to close out a little bit of perhaps some practical tips and that either you've used or you've seen or you think, can prepare people that they can do to help them adapt in this kind of accelerating world. Or maybe it's books or mindsets or ways of thinking, or any kind of practical tips that people and teams can use to make sure they're relevant in fast-changing times.
Cameron
Well, one is that God gave us two ears and one mouth, and we need to use them in that ratio, we need to listen twice as often as we speak. And if you're actually out there, as a leader, listening to your team, listening to your customers, listening to your suppliers, and truly listening, truly trying to understand, those will give you the clues on where you need to adapt to grow. So that would be first and foremost.
The second is a concept that I call the "Vivid Vision”. And I covered that in a book called "Vivid Vision", I also covered it in "Double Double". And I also covered it in "The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs". But this concept of leaning out into the future three years, and describing what you want your life as a leader to look like or what you want your life as a human to look like or what you want your business to look like three years from now, if you describe your company, in a four or five-page document describing every aspect of the company three years from now, it'll force you to see the delta between where you're going to be and where you are, it'll force you to understand how you need to adapt and change to get there. So those are the two things I would suggest are leaning out into the future, reverse engineering that and then also just truly listening.
Ross
That's really valuable and helpful. As a bonus in the lens and context of adaptability, and future of work. What was the question that you wish I'd have asked you? And I haven't, that you would like to perhaps offer some thought? Or some ideas about?
Cameron
Yeah, one was I don't know, I wish that you'd asked me but it came to me just before this, this last question we just asked was, you know, one area, I think I really adapted and I saw some change was when I had kids for the first time. Well, for the first time when I had my kids, and I was the first leader in the company to have a child. And on the leadership team of six of us, I was the first one who then realized I couldn't come at seven o'clock in the morning for morning meetings, I couldn't go out every day at five o'clock for drinks, nor did I want to, and that forced the organization to change. And within three years, all six of us had children. And we all completely adapted to be different types of leaders, because kids force us to adapt.
And I think Gen Y, certainly the younger co-cohort of Gen Y who are currently 23 to 31 years old, are in for a very rude awakening when they realize that children do kind of impact your life. You can't necessarily travel around the world and live in new bud, you can't just go to yoga and breath work every day and, you know, hang out with your friends, like all of a sudden shit gets pretty real. And I think that change was really good for me to realize that there was certainly more to life than just work. But also it forced me to work in a shorter container. And of course, we can see what was really powerful, and really important.
Ross
That's great. And I think, you know, HR leaders and people that deal with this see it all the time, that providing the environment for everyone to thrive throughout their lifecycle, their lifecycle of them as an individual and their lifecycle during their involvement in that organization, and to being one about learning about development and employability. So the responsibility to make sure that you would still want them in your company in a month's time, in a year's time so I think that's that's really great. I want to say thank you. It's been really enlightening and insightful to have this conversation with you. And I look forward to seeing you again very soon my friend.
Cameron
Thanks Ross. I appreciate it, thanks for having me on.
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