From Chaos to Clarity: The Power of EOS® Unveiled | Aaron Purkeypile | Ep 136

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Welcome to the Better Business better life Show. I’m your podcast host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. In this podcast, I interview business owners, iOS implementers, and business experts who share with you their experiences, tips and tools to help you create not only a better business but also a better life. At the end of each show, you will have three tips or tools that our guest share that you can implement immediately into your life. If you want more information or want to get in contact, you can visit my website, Debra dot coach. That’s D B ra dot Coach, please enjoy the show. And today I am joined by the delightful Aaron Purkeypile, who is actually from South Dakota over in the US and he is a certified iOS implementers. And one of my my colleagues in the Eos family. Hey, welcome to the show. Aaron lovely to have you here.

Aaron Purkeypile  00:48

Thank you so much. I’m really I’m really thankful for the privilege to be here.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:52

I’m really looking forward to chat to you. And we always have a brief chat before we get on these calls. And I’ve heard a little bit about your story. And it’s fascinating. So yeah, tell us a bit about your your journey, how you got to be where you are today.

Aaron Purkeypile  01:04

Well, I went to university, played college basketball at my university and got a degree in accounting. And when I graduated and started working for a public accounting firm, it was a global firms. It became pretty clear within the first year as an associate at the at the firm that public accounting was not going to be my life’s work. And I can tell you that because I went into at the end of my my first busy season my first year, I went into the managing partners office, and like half of my start class had decided to move on, which is typical in public accounting. But I went in and talk to him and I said, Hey, is there any way we can clarify our core values and our and our mission and vision? Because I think that people are leaving because they don’t understand how they fit in the purpose and what we’re trying to accomplish in the firm. He was very kind to me very nice. And he said, Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And then he retired six weeks later. But that just started a journey over time of like looking for ways that people can that I can help people find purpose in what they do, and help people grow. I spent time as a pastor for three and a half years in some churches in upstate New York, I went to grad school, I went back and serve my the church that I grew up in in a finance capacity, and ultimately made my way back to Nebraska, where I’d gone to college and spent time teaching, accounting and finance and coaching basketball at the collegiate level. And it was during this time that I joined a fitness community, it was a CrossFit affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska, and fell in love with the methodology fell in love with the community. And I had all these summer hours that I wasn’t teaching, I didn’t have to teach summer classes. And so I started to volunteer at the gym to help the owners there were three owners at the time, help them around the gym. So I painted the walls and help them build cabinets in the restroom. So they have some additional storage and things like this. But they still need to add more, you know, I can see that there was one owner that was working full time at the gym. And he was spending 70 or 80 hours a week there. He was also a competitive CrossFit athlete. There were the other two owners had full time jobs and families outside of the gym. And so their meetings were sporadic and not always effective. There was limited or inconsistent accountability with the coaches at the gym. And so it was just kind of scattered. And around this time, my wife was working with one of her colleagues, and they started to chat about what their husbands did and what they were interested in. And so they said our husbands have to get coffee together. And so I met this lady’s husband for coffee, I’d never met him before. And we sat down and I started to, you know, tell him about some of the things I was doing at the gym. And I was teaching business classes. And I had always had always had an entrepreneurial type of approach to life and mindset. And he’s like, Have you ever read the book traction? said no, what is that? He’s like, Oh, you got to retraction. So I ordered the book, it was holiday break over Christmas. And I read it in three days. And I was I was thought there’s no I can’t believe that I hadn’t somehow through my business training through my master’s program and my undergraduate business degree, how have I not ever heard of this operating system that has simple tools that were easy to understand. But just in my mind, I could conceptualize and understand how impactful this would be. And also feeding a little bit off of what my friend Sam, who had told me about traction, what he explained that happened in his business when he implemented it. So I met with a couple other What’s that?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:48

What had happened in his business when he implemented it.

Aaron Purkeypile  04:51

So he had us had allowed them allowed him to transition his dad out of the business and then they had just grown by leaps and bounds and on revenue, profit, the scale of their business went from number of employees, etc. It’s like this. This sounds phenomenal. So I met with a couple of the implementers in my area at the time to ask them, What does this look like? What does that sound like? And one of the implementers gave me the advice, he said, you should implement offer to implement for a business that you care deeply about, for free. So I joined Basecamp. And I started to learn more about implementing EOS and a small business. And I pitched it to the owners of the gym that I had been helping along the way painting and all these different things. And so they agreed, they said, Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s give it a shot. And over the course of the first, probably six to nine months, it was great, because it helped us clarify our core values, what type of people did we want in our in the gym, in our community, both as employees, and even to some extent, the types of members that we wanted, it gave us clarity about who we wanted to serve, and how we wanted to have a deep impact on them, how we could best have a deep impact on them. And then it also gave the owners clarity that think certain things couldn’t continue the way they always would, in order for the group for growth to happen individually for growth of the business to happen. And so after about seven or eight months, the owner who was working full time in the business, to pitch to his partners and said, Listen, I, I can’t keep working at this rate. There’s things that I would like to do, you know, my, I’m newly married, I’d like to be able to spend time with my wife. We’re trying to have kids, I’d love to be able to be available for my children. So they agreed to part ways. And so they went through that process that took about three more months. And then the owner, who had been working full time in that business, began to hire staff to replace some of the roles that the other two owners had filled. And that was a that was difficult in in some regards, because most of the time when folks have started a fitness facility, they deeply care about the community. It’s a deep part of their own identity. And so it’s very difficult to try to peel some of those pieces apart. So we work through those bumps and those types of things. I joined the staff full time, we brought on a couple others that were full time to start filling in roles. The Accountability chart in EOS was super powerful for us to know what do we actually need to fill? What roles are we best at, you know, if you think about strategic coach and Dan Sullivan’s unique ability, we got really clear on what we were, we loved to do. And we were best at, right. And we began to just work methodically through the ELS process, clarifying core values, re establishing and re clarifying our core focus, having our long term target getting really clear on what we can best offer to our folks. We invited some members that weren’t core values fit or culture fit to our community to find other places to work out, which was a really bumpy time as well. fast forward another four months. So if you think about I think we started operating in 2018, on EOS. And then by February of 2019, the ownership had had finally finalized and formalized their separation from each other. Fast forward to July of 2019. And we went through a membership upheaval, and probably lost about 20% of our membership, because of that decision that we made. And then we’re only five months out turns out 567 months later, 2020 happens. And we all know that the world turned upside down. And so ELS we had our weekly level 10 And then we just added in a weekly level 10 A or level 10.1. You know, we just had a short because things were changing and moving so quickly, quickly. Yep, a one one meeting a week wasn’t going to do it. So we’d have our I think we are at level 10 on Monday or Tuesday. And then on Friday, we do a quick call together for 30 minutes and say, Okay, what’s the new standard? What are what are the things that we need to make sure we’re doing? I remember having our quarterly right after COVID kind of landed in Nebraska. And we all made predictions. There were five or six folks in the leadership team, and we all make predictions and I am a pragmatist. And I think I said you know, there’s a 60% chance or 70% chance that the gym won’t be open at the end of this because there was no end in sight. It was so new we didn’t know what was gonna happen. And you know, we Hindsight is great because we can see how many businesses didn’t survive through the pandemic. But I truly believe That EOS is what allowed us to weather that to pivot, and to even stay in our core focus. But our core focus was broad enough that it allowed us to pivot in healthy ways, and narrow enough that we weren’t just all of a sudden trying to be everything to everybody. Okay. And so, if I look back, we started in 2018, between 2018 and 2021. When I finally left the gym, we had increased revenue 30%. Year over year, in the first two years, we had a really solid coaching staff, we had a really phenomenal culture and community, people that cared about each other. And were excited to spend time together. We didn’t have as large of a coaching staff, because our numbers had gotten to a place from a membership perspective that allowed us to impact at a deeper level our members, which was ultimately the goal, we didn’t want to be a big box brand, where we want you to pay, you know, an insignificant amount per month so that you forget about it. And, and we don’t really want you to show up, we, yeah, we really want one of our members to show up. And that that’s why I love being a part of that. Because my entire life had been looking for ways to make deep impacts on people, whether that was in church, or at the at the university I taught out or coaching athletes and things like that. And that’s where it really springboarded me to say, hey, this really works. And I began to look for opportunities to implement outside of the gym and make a transition to being a full time EOS implementer.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:36

Excellent. So the gym is still going strong. Everything’s pretty good there. Yeah,

Aaron Purkeypile  11:40

Yeah, when I left in August of 21, we had a director, they installed the new Director of Operations and integrator, and they’re doing phenomenal. I still follow them, I’m still I still reach out to some of the coaching staff and folks that I got to work with, and they’re just doing phenomenal things in the lives of the community.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:00

It’s fantastic, I want to go back a couple of steps was that you said something interesting, I’d like to deep dive dive a little bit deeper into. So you talked about the fact that you you know, once you had got really clear around your core values and your core focus that you actually then chose to ask some people who didn’t have your core values as clients as customers to go to go and do their fitness stuff elsewhere. Now, I know for a lot of businesses, they get really nervous about that, because they kind of go, Well, if we let these people go, we don’t have the revenue, what’s going to happen. I know what happens in that situation, I’d love to hear what happens, what happened with the gym, because, yeah.

Aaron Purkeypile  12:38

So we had the same fears that everybody would do. You know, we had, we had decided that we wanted to move from a gym where you could come at any time. And we wanted to have greater control over the times that we were open. Because in order to have full time staff in a gym setting, and that staff doesn’t burn out, you, you need to make sure that you have downtime where they can, you know, have their self, you know, take care of themselves and exercise or move where they can, you know, be at home with their families or pursue other passions that they have outside of the gym. And we had grown this facility to a pretty significant size, especially in our area, we were the largest CrossFit affiliate in the in the city. And the way our gym was laid out, we had some rooms that were kind of cordoned off, you could get to them, but it wasn’t like you could just see through the whole facility. And so people would tuck into different parts of this. And it was like the main room had a different culture from the front room and a different culture from the back room. And then the second back room like you had all these different cultures. Simonds simultaneously in the gym, and what was most important to us was the depth of impact. And so we decided we’re going to shut down the back two rooms of of the gym, and just try to get everybody to where they could see each other face to face, because that’s where the community, the depth of community really happened, the depth of impact. And then the second piece that we wanted to focus on was being really great at coaching our members. And so there were the most of the folks that that worked out in the back rooms were they were competitive athletes, and they they enjoyed being there, and they’d be there three or four hours a day. And they were super fit. But they didn’t need the coaching that we offered, or they didn’t want the coaching that we offered. And so from a from a core focus perspective, what did we really want to do, we wanted to positively impact people’s lives. And in order to do that I have to spend time with them. Or at least that’s what we felt was so important. And so when we made the pivot and the shift to say we are We no longer just want to offer open gym to everybody. It kind of forced our hand a little bit to make some decisions about letting people know, hey, this is the the mindset going forward, we don’t plan to continue to have those back to rooms. And we recognize that that’s going to be disappointing and frustrating to some. But we also, were committed to staying in our core focus, and staying in, we lost some revenue for probably two or three months. But that allowed our, our coaching staff to get really clear on what they wanted to be best at, did they want to coach group classes that they want to coach one on one and personal training clients, that sort of thing. And I also think that that decision in July of 2019, allowed us to not have to stress as much, um, when, when we finally had to close during COVID. And then we had to kind of slowly tear our opening reopening through the pandemic, to get people back in the gym for group classes. It allowed our coaching staff to be to hone their their talents and their gifts, and kind of step into their unique ability as coaches of athletes.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:16

Perfect. And I think, you know, as I said, people get nervous about it. But the reality is that if you actually don’t let go of some of these non ideal clients, there isn’t space for more of the ideal clients that you absolutely want to work with. And so in some respects, yes, you’ll go back with a very short period of time, but then the amount of opportunities that open up with people who you genuinely love, and who you want to work with is just phenomenal, isn’t it?

Aaron Purkeypile  16:42

Yeah, I agree with that. So to me, it’s a, we were, we were spending time talking about some of these folks in our level 10 meetings or at our quarterlies. And we were expending energy on, you know, maybe 10% of our membership that was bringing pain or frustration or negative emotion to the to the business. And once we were able to move past that. You’re absolutely right, we started to see an influx of people that were attracted to a culture that focused on coaching that focused on accountability. That was another thing that we did we do check, we did check ins with folks and made sure hey, I noticed you haven’t been in the gym in a week, you know, how are you doing? Let’s, we missed seeing you. And it wasn’t because we’re going to make any more money because they show up. But we know that consistency is going to lead to the results that people have said that they want it. And you can’t do that for everybody. You can you know, our time is limited and our resources were limited. And you’re absolutely right once once we saw that outflow of folks that weren’t quite a fit for us, and they found they landed at a place that was great for them. The Universe returned that that same energy, that same vibe of people that we love spending time with

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:57

Perfect. Now, you’ve already mentioned a couple of the EOS tools that really kind of fundamentally made a difference. And one was the accountability chart, and looking at you know, what you really needed to grow that business and what those roles on things were. We’ve talked about level 10 meetings, which is that discipline accountability that we do every week to make sure we’re on track. Was there a particular tool that had a significant impact, you know, from day one in the business?

Aaron Purkeypile  18:24

In my opinion, and I would say that 95% of the clients that I work with, the very first thing that makes the biggest impact are the level 10 meetings. I spent most of my life in meetings, before ELLs that were unproductive, you know, we set the meeting to talk about the issue. And we spend an hour or two hours talking about an issue. We don’t come to a conclusion. And then we set another meeting to talk about setting a meeting to in a perpetual cycle. Right? So frustrated. Yeah, yes. And so what the level tended was said for us, even from the very beginning, is TIG took all the sporadic meetings that you know, it’s once a month or once every six weeks, maybe that ownership group was able to have meetings because of scheduling conflicts. And they were not always productive. They might last three, four or five hours just this marathon of a meeting. And you know, there maybe you’re not even talking about the most important things but the power of the level 10 For us to track start tracking actual numbers on a weekly basis on our scorecard super powerful, being able to track priorities and say, Are we still on track? Are we are we making progress to the things that we set together and said this is the three to seven most important priorities for the next 90 days. We can actually talk about hey, what are the member issues? What are our coaching staff issues that member or the client employee headlines, driving some accountability of every week? We have action items that we need to get done and we’re checking those off, but really that 60 minutes It’s in that level 10 meeting, where you’re spending time identifying root causes of issues, it really forces you to make the best decision for the business. So if I thought about having conversations around some of these members that were, were difficult for us to kind of navigate in the gym, as coaching staff and even other members, when you identify what the root cause of the dysfunction in the, in the different parts of the gym, it made it really easy for us to say, Okay, we’ve identified the issue, or we do have the courage to, to implement the solution, we know is going to help solve the root cause of that, which was ultimately asking some some members to leave. And that’s an in every aspect of the business, you know, we if I, if we spend the most of the majority of our time digging down and finding the root cause of that issue, it becomes really clear what you should do, then it’s just a matter of do I have the courage and the gumption to actually follow through.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:00

And I think I love the level 10 meeting, too. And I agree, it’s actually part of the reason why I fell in love with iOS when I came across it, because I actually came across it when they launched into New Zealand using my event center. And I love the fact that in the beginning of the journey with the OS, you actually you don’t focus so much on the vision and the core values and all those things, which are really important, but we kind of go away. Actually, if we spent a whole day working on that, you’d go back to the business and nothing would have changed absolutely means you’re just gonna go back to fighting fires again. So so little teaching the level 10 meeting, teaching the scorecard teaching the rocks, getting some actual tools you can use immediately, I think is absolutely phenomenal. That’s why I fell in love with it. But also with the level 10 meeting, I think that it’s it’s really good, when times are good. But it’s also really good when times are tough, because it actually forces you to face what is going on. You can’t look at a scorecard every week, that is where you’re not achieving your numbers, and pretend it’s not happening because it’s there, it’s in front of you. And you have to you have to start addressing those issues. And so for me throughout COVID, having an event center and that that kind of business, it was like, well, this can’t continue the way that it is. So what do we need to do differently?

Aaron Purkeypile  22:09

Yeah, I love what I love about EOS is poor performers can’t hide forever, you will be you will be found out. You know, as an athlete at the end of every basketball game, I would go and look at the stat sheet. And I can see okay, how many points did I have? How many rebounds that I have? More importantly, what were my turnovers? You know, how did I impact the team negatively as well can’t hide when you’re in the locker room and everyone sees the same scorecard, you know, the same score sheet that you do. And that’s what I love about ELS is you will not you cannot hide forever. If you are a poor performer. If you are an energy vampire in your organization, as an employee, or even as an owner or leadership team member, everyone’s going to know. And the other part of this is I love that EOS gives you language to have conversations to either coach people up or coach them out of your organization. With core values, I can have conversations and say, Debra, you know, I’m seeing some inconsistency based off of what we said, we want our culture to look like. I believe that you can live you live up and you embody these core values. But I’m seeing some gaps or with the accountability chart and gets it wants a capacity to do it similar conversation, I could say, hey, maybe this isn’t quite the right fit of a role for you or a seat for you. I think you might be really great in this other department or this other function. Because most of the time, I know, we are as entrepreneurs and small to medium sized business owners, we spend so much time with our people that we are emotionally invested in, you know, if if we’ve got someone who’s not a right fit, part of it is admitting, hey, I made a hiring mistake. And so sometimes we don’t want to make that decision. Or we know their families for crying out loud. Like we know, these folks, families, and so it hurts so much. And they avoid the tough conversation and the accountability and discipline that’s really required to run a great organization. But EOS gives you cover or gives you language and tools to actually have those conversations in a constructive way, not just a hammer kind of a way, super constructive way. And that that was super powerful for us.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:22

I think it also takes the personal element out of it as well. I see that as we do have those conversations because it is about the role because it is about what we’ve agreed to as a team you can it can become very much less personal. So it’s not about whether or not I like Aaron or not. It’s about whether or not there is a fit there whether or not Aaron is right. Yeah.

Aaron Purkeypile  24:40

And I love as an employee that allows me to say, Hey, I’m not a good fit. I felt uncomfortable in my situation, but it’s like, Hey, I’m not a good fit. And I’m willing and able to admit that using the language and the tools.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:51

Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. Okay, so that was so you left in when was it 2020 Is that right?

Aaron Purkeypile  24:58

2021 August to 21 One is when I joined the EOS implementer community full time. Okay, and I knew that I had to burn that boat and be able to jump all in on developing and growing my practice.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:11

Yeah. So you know, you’re joined the EOS community, we know, you and I know and and the other influencers, it’s a great family with lots of like minded people, we’re all really passionate about making a huge difference in the world. And that’s why we actually do what we do. And we share the same core values. So we’re using all the US tools in our own EOS community. But why did you decide to become a full time? implementer? What was the motivation there for you?

Aaron Purkeypile  25:34

Yeah. I’ve spent the majority of my life looking for opportunities to deeply impact people’s lives. That’s one reason why I spent time in churches. And you know, I’d grown up in a church, I spent time coaching athletes spend time teaching at the university level, had opportunities to mentor and coach high school students at different times. And what ELS did was allow me to have a lot, what I believe is a deep, broad impact. So not just an inch deep and a mile wide, but I believe that I’m probably closer to like a half mile wide, and a half mile deep in, and then the ripple effect out of that. So when EOS implementer, comes in works with a business, you’re working with a leadership team. And typically, that’s three to seven people. And you think, Okay, I’m able to deeply impact three to seven people in this small group setting. Great. But then over time, as you see the ripple effects of that the power of the leadership team all being aligned with where they want to go all operating with discipline and accountability, growing and modeling, functioning, cohesive leadership teams, and then beginning to build that culture through their business, you’re impacting the lives of not just those three to seven leadership, team members, but every employee that they interact with, and then the employees that they interact with. And then you go out a little bit further, and you’re creating a life that is powerful, and fulfilling for those leadership team members for every employee, and they in turn, can go home, and spend time with their families and in their communities, and living a more joy filled, fulfilling life. So it just begins to ripple out and you start, you know, some of my clients have, deep, like a really deep seated desire to impact their communities. So they have the gift to communities, I have one client that has set up a trade school or at least a pipeline so that they can train the next generation of folks that are going to work skilled craftsmen as welders or things like that. Just getting to be a part at the part of that journey at the very beginning of that small three to seven folks. And then knowing that the ripple effect is going to be so powerful, so huge. I love what I get to do. I love what I get to do.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:04

I can completely relate to. So you’re now working with business owners, obviously a whole bunch of different business owners. What Why would they come to you because we can self implemented us write this? And in fact, we’d much rather people did that than did nothing at all. But what is the difference between self implementing and actually having somebody like yourself or myself coming into the business?

Aaron Purkeypile  28:28

That’s a great question. I have I’ve worked with quite a few self implementing companies actually. Yeah, me too. And I would say there’s only one out of probably the seven or eight self implementing clients that I’ve worked with, only one has done it really well. And if you’re going to do it really well, you need to have somebody who is going to be the champion of Eos in your business, they are going to act as an implementer their main goal and their main purpose is to make sure that the sessions flow well that people are understanding the tools to the to the highest ability, that you know, they might as well just become an implement. I encourage them if if you if you love to coach teams consider being an implementer. So the beauty of having an implementer in the room, in my in my opinion is one, they are not emotionally invested in the decisions that are made in the session room. To this to the same extent that I am if I’m the owner or I’m an employee or a leadership team member in the business, I can be disconnected from it. I can be passionate about it. But I it’s not going to directly impact my day to day and things like that. The second thing I would say is we have as implementers we have the privilege of working with leadership teams in different industries have different personality He’s in different leaders. So we can see things that most of the time, as a business owner, I can’t see, or as a leadership team or team member, because I’m just in the weeds all the time, it’s really hard for me to think about on, you know, think above my business or work on my business. You know, there’s a quote that we, we share with our clients from Kurt girdle, you can bet you cannot be a part of the system and understand the system at the same time. It’s really difficult to self implement, because I’m trying to figure out what does the system look like? And at the same time, how am I going to apply this to my business? So there’s value to have somebody that does this professionally, all the time to help you navigate that. So all you have to think about is okay, I’m learning the tools, but I have some support here and learning those tools. Now, how can I apply this to my business? It’s just a little less mental energy in the room that that gets expended.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:57

Completely agree. And I think you know, you’re, you’re a coach, a basketball coach, right? So it’s a similar kind of concept. If you think about every, every person who plays sport, no matter what the sport has a coach that actually helps them to grow in their role. And yet, you know, as business owners, we’ve we’ve sometimes never run a business before or, and yet, we expect that we should somehow know all this stuff. Whereas a coach can actually help you to grow, help you to, to understand that the tools help you to see that outside perspective, that you’re just not you can’t possibly do because you’re in the business and Absolutely. Haven’t got that experience. Yeah,

Aaron Purkeypile  31:33

Absolutely. I grew up in the era of Michael Jordan being the greatest of all time, I could start a whole windstorm or firestorm of telling all those LeBron James folks that Michael Jordan is still the greatest of all time. We don’t have to go down that road. But what’s fascinating to me is to see guys like Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant, and even LeBron, like they hire trainers outside of that. And Michael Jordan was one of the first to start that he was incredibly athletic, incredibly gifted. But in order to achieve the pinnacle of what he was trying to achieve, he knew that he needed assistance. No matter how gifted he was, you could be the most brilliant business person in the world, you still need people around you that are going to challenge you that are going to help you hone and grow your your skills and your toolset. And to help your people in the organization. The other leaders in your organization hone their skills and talents as well. That’s the power of an EOS implementer in the room.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:32

It was interesting. I was actually talking to a client yesterday who’s an integrator in a family business, and he’s a non family member. And so as the integrator, I asked him, I said, no, why do you feel that I can still add value? Because you are quite, you know, you’re not the part of the family, you are a little bit external? And he said, Yeah, but you’ve got to remember, Deborah, that you know, I can, I can try and have some of the conversations. But I’ve still got to go back into work tomorrow with these people. And it can be difficult sometimes to have those things without fear of some kind of, you know, effect from that. And it says that by having a cordeliers. And by you coming in, you get to ask those questions from a different outsider’s perspective. And sometimes that can just you know, I could have asked the same question, but you’re gonna get a different result from somebody externally asking that question.

Aaron Purkeypile  33:18

Absolutely. I would also say, that’s 100%. Correct. We’ve had some of you some of my favorite sessions are when I get to actually ask the question that no one else in the room had the courage to ask or what they were just terrified to ask. But everybody had the same question on their mind. Right? Yeah. And then and then the the dam breaks open, and this all comes flooding out, and you come to a resolution, it doesn’t always work that way. I had a client recently that didn’t, that didn’t happen. We broke up at the end of the day, as a client, because not everybody’s ready, either. You know, I know that. I want to work with people that are willing to be open, open to ideas and perspectives, honest about what’s actually happening in the business and vulnerable. They’re not just looking to use the system to get everybody to do what they want them to do. And then they can play by their own rules. You know, every once in a while you have a leader that’s kind of like that, or an owner that’s a little bit like that, where they just want everyone else to do what they tell them. And they get to change their mind. And they get to play by their own rules, but everyone else has to follow the rules of Eos. And until I get my way, I was gonna argue and run over again. So those aren’t, those aren’t my favorite clients.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:35

I agree. And then you just described as we talk about entering the danger as he is implementers. And, you know, somebody actually asked me that they, you know, do you enjoy it? And it’s like, I don’t think I necessarily enjoy having to bring some of that stuff to the surface. But what I know is that it’s for the greater good. And so, you know, I don’t enjoy seeing people get upset. I don’t enjoy people sort of, you know, having very heated debates, but what I do know is that the outcome that will come come from that, in the long run, it’s going to be for the greater good. And people will be just so grateful that it has happened. So, yeah, I don’t like seeing people cry. I don’t like to be upset. But at the same time, I do know that sometimes we have to do that we actually have to have those conversations that can be difficult to get past where we’re at.

Aaron Purkeypile  35:18

Absolutely. Agree. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:21

We could we I love talking with my fellow iOS implementers. We could talk all day. And of course, we’re all business. We’re all business people to write. So this is what I think I really enjoyed about the EOS community is it’s not like we are theoretical academics. I mean, I asked the question of you and why isn’t traction in the universities? Because it shouldn’t be a book that is taught in universities? Right? And what was the

Aaron Purkeypile  35:40

Answer? It was it’s too simple. Yeah. It makes too much sense. It’s too logical. Like it’s too easy to understand. Almost.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:48

Yes, yeah. And so I think that you know, so we’re not academic at all, in terms of, we read really pragmatic, we’re really practical, we bring up the business. What are your favorites, or tips and tools? What were the three things you’d love to share with the listeners?

Aaron Purkeypile  36:02

And I was given this some thought, and, yeah, so my first one would be move your body every day, in some capacity, go for a walk, go for a bike ride, go for a bike ride, it doesn’t have to be, you know, I talked a little bit about some of our members and I that I got sucked in. Because I’m a competitive person. CrossFit will suck those competitive folks in. And I could spend two, three hours working out so you know, and working on things and getting better. But just move move your body go for a swim. You know, you’re you’re in New Zealand, you have beautiful beaches, they’re like, go to the beach and go swim in the ocean. But walk in the in the clear air. So that’s number one.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:40

We want the dogs every morning rain, hail or shine. And sometimes you really don’t feel like it because of the rain. It’s like, Oh, it’s cold, and it’s wet. But every time you come back from it’s like, oh, yeah, that’s the best way to start the day.

Aaron Purkeypile  36:50

Yeah, we’ve moved to South Dakota in October of 2021. And this last winter was the most brutal winter, we’ve had my father in law’s 85. And he said, It’s the worst winter we’ve had since 1969. And, you know, we had eight foot snowdrifts outside of our house for four months. I mean, it was just, it was absolutely ridiculous. And we got 18 inches of snow, the Wednesday and Thursday before Easter this year, which is the middle of April, and that’s a long time. But one thing that we did, we decided that we were going to embrace the cold. And my wife and I bought snowshoes. And so we’re looking for we’re actually looking forward to this next winter, because we only got to snowshoe a couple times. And then this next year, we’re like, Hey, we’re going to spend time outside, we just we live here, you have to embrace some of it right. So just move your body every day. That’s, that’s me. Tip number one. Tip number two would be read, read books, read articles, read things that are outside of what you typically would read fiction read nonfiction, just read. I heard recently, someone and I, it’s a concept that’s been around. But this idea of something like a stupid tax or stupidity tax or something, people have lived and made the mistakes that we can avoid if we just read about them and learn about them. So read. Yeah, so that you can avoid a lot of the mistakes that other people have made. And I think I’ve quite

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:18

Enjoyed reading that, you know, there’s so many different options now with Audible, various bits and pieces, podcasts. So there’s many, many different ways to

Aaron Purkeypile  38:26

Absolutely feed your mind, feed your mind. And be careful about don’t just take everything, you know, be be discerning as you’re reading and listening. But for sure, feed your mind. So I guess that’s probably the better way to say it is feed your mind. The same way that you would feed your about your body don’t just feed it junk food, which to me would be majority of social media. And let’s be honest, I’m on social media. So I can’t just like blanket, say that that’s terrible, or, you know, entertain, like entertaining types of things. But just look for opportunities that you could be discerning, mixing some fruits and veggies in your in your mind food. And then the third, the third one is practice gratitude. practice gratitude. Negative emotions cannot coexist with gratitude. So I had a really rough session in the last two weeks, you know, I just came off of seven sessions in 11 days. In one of those it was a, I broken up with the client. At the end of the day, I was shocked. Like I could feel my cortisol levels were high and things like that. So I did some breath work. And then I just started to, in my mind Make a list of things that I’m grateful for. And the negativity the anger or the frustration or the sadness or the fear or all those negative emotions can’t coexist if I if I’m in a state of gratitude, so I just kept listing things. What am I grateful for them that they’ve tried to creep back in and it would push the gratitude out and I’d say no, I’m being grateful right now. I’m thinking what am I thankful for? Just from the big things to the small things. I’m thankful that this Guy is blue today, I’m thankful that I have a house that has air conditioning when the temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, right? Like, I’m thankful for my son, I’m thankful for my wife, I’m thankful for my dog that I haven’t seen in two weeks, you know, just being thankful for the physical things, for the intangible things, all of those things. Negative emotions can’t coexist, when I’m in a state of gratitude, so look for, like, seek out things that I can be grateful for. And I’ll give you a bonus one. My bonus one is this. I was in the Denver Airport International Airport, traveling through one time, and there’s this Stan, like one of those pop up shops, and it’s a t shirt that says Be good to people. That’s my, that’s my fourth one. Be good to people. We typically know what that means. Just be good to people. That’s not a political statement. It’s nothing like that. Just Deborah’s a human, she’s people, I’m going to be good to Deborah on people, Deborah is going to be good to me. Let’s just go around and be good to people.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  41:02

Yeah. Love it. Thank you very, very much. Okay. So as I said, we’re probably going to call it the to the end now. But before we do that, tell me a little about, you know, what is your ideal client? I mean, you’ve mentioned a little bit before they obviously need to be open, honest, vulnerable. But is there a particular type of client or the typical type of industry that you’d like to work with? Can we get about two? Great question is, yeah.

Aaron Purkeypile  41:27

So Eos, in my opinion, is industry agnostic. But what it what you do, the requirement that you do have is a certain type of mindset. So I have clients that are across industries, manufacturing, creative shops, you know, aren’t very artsy. I’ve got some real estate clients, I’ve got just all sorts of things. So and that was kind of my experience as an auditor, when I was working for this public accounting firm, because I got to go into all these little like, these weird businesses that you know, I’m counting plastic bottles on pallets that were being manufactured or at a eyeglasses store, counting frames, and then an inventory observation, real estate, all sorts of things. So I, I would say that what’s most important to me are the mindsets and the willingness of the leaders to embrace the tools of Eos as close to pure as possible. They aren’t going to try to layer on other tools or other other operating systems. And most importantly, are they willing to be open to each other, be honest with each other and themselves, be vulnerable with themselves and you know, about what’s actually happening in the business. And I don’t like to work with assholes. We’re gonna be cut right to the chase. It really gets down to you. I don’t want to work with hassles.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:57

So if somebody does want to get in contact with you, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

Aaron Purkeypile  43:00

Oh, fantastic question. I would say first would be my email address is Aaron dot perky pile at EOS worldwide. That would be I think you

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:10

Might have one of the longer email I’ve got the probably the longest email ever, I think with the EOS worldwide.com. But I think you’re up there as well.

Aaron Purkeypile  43:18

My last names 10 letters. fortunate that my parents didn’t give me a real long first name.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:24

Nice. Thank you, Paul. Yep,

Aaron Purkeypile  43:27

You follow me on Instagram. At perky pile dot ELS. I post content there about us and life and business. Those are probably the two easiest ways or LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:40

Yep. Perfect. Hey, look, thank you so much for your precious time. I really enjoyed chatting with you really enjoyed sort of sharing stories and things. Look forward to seeing you know all the future successes that you have. And I look forward to seeing you when I come up to the US next time.

Aaron Purkeypile  43:55

Yeah, absolutely. Debra,Thanks so much.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:56

Oh, thank you. Thanks for listening to the podcast show better business better life. My name is Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m an EOS implementer family business advisor, business and leadership coach podcaster and speaker. However, I’m also a business owner with several current business interests. I’m fortunate to have lived the high life with all the lifestyle, the toys, you name it, and then I’ve lost it all. Not only once but twice in two spectacular train wrecks. I know what it’s like to experience the highs and lows. I came across EOS when they launched into New Zealand using my entrepreneurs playground at an event center in Parnell Auckland. I love the simplicity of the tools and their philosophies fitted my personal brand statement perfectly. The brilliance is in the simplicity. I’ve always been passionate about seeing entrepreneurs live the life they love. And now I help them live that EOS life doing what they love with people they love making a huge difference in the world being compensated appropriately and with time to pursue other passions. If you want more information or want to get in contact about using EOS and your business you You can visit my website at Debrah.coach that’s dub dub dub Debra, Debra.coach thanks for listening.