George McKenzie (00:00.056)

So if someone is labeled the gifted kid, the smart kid, they are less likely to accept new challenges or put themselves out there for fear of no longer being the gifted kid. They'll excel, but they don't like to participate in class questions or things in which there's a chance they could be wrong.

they don't want to, it's that public fear of failure.

Well, I mean, it's just fear of failure in general, guess, right? Like, because your identity is so wrapped up in, I'm the smart one. I'm smart. And if I were to put myself out there and be wrong, then that would mean I'm not smart.

you

Welcome to Married to the Startup. I'm Alicia McKenzie, a wellness entrepreneur and digital creator. Alongside me is my amazing husband, George, the CEO who's always ready for a new challenge. We've been navigating marriage and running startups for over a decade, and we're here to share the real, unfiltered journey with you. Join us for insights and candid conversations about integrating love, family, and entrepreneurship. This is Married to the Startup, where every day is a new adventure.

Alicia McKenzie(01:05.934)

Welcome to episode 36 of Married to the Startup. I'm the host who does all the work and puts everything together and does all the show notes. And this is the other person here.

Yeah, I am the AI generated voice that no longer participates in pre or post production meetings. So it's just AI and you just give it a prompt and my voice talks. That's what happens.

Speaking of AI, I just read an article, I it was today, and it was very, what's the word? You know, it's like rage-baity, right? The title was just to piss people off and get clicks, but it's basically stated that AI is coming for your job and how...

Am I dashy?

Alicia McKenzie(01:47.948)

People are using AI-generated accounts for social media and getting massive brand deals for those accounts and completely cutting out the content creator because it's a bunch of faceless AI, but it produces really good, what is it, UGM, UGC, user-generated content?

Okay. Yeah. Never heard that term.

Really? Okay, anyways, it was interesting. And I'm like, come on, people, you can't, I feel like you can't replace creativity in certain

Yeah, but just think if I could give AI via prompts what to say and then also have it create videos for me using AI generated people, then yeah, all I'm doing is coming up with an idea. There's no production required. Right? You just give it and I got my reel or my TikTok or whatever you would call it in 30 second increments of AI generated theater. Yeah.

Don't give people any ideas.

Alicia McKenzie(02:41.326)

to come in for your job, influencers.

Yes, the job that's been around for three years.

Unless you produce real content, they're coming for your job. Or real service. can produce content, but unless you're providing for real value, you're probably replaceable.

There you go. Yeah, I don't think anybody is any career.

Well, we are in the month of June and one thing I know, isn't that crazy? We're in the month of June. We're almost halfway through the year. Almost. Yep. Flew by really fast. That it did. Our kids get out of school this week. I know. It's kind of terrifying. What are we going to do? But it's June and apparently it's men's mental health awareness month. And I got caught when I was scrolling because

George McKenzie (03:04.919)

Ready.

George McKenzie (03:10.05)

me

George McKenzie (03:15.886)

What are we going to do?

Alicia McKenzie(03:29.13)

there are a bunch of influential men that have passed away and died by suicide. And what is really impactful about their deaths is that they put off a persona of being really happy people and their lives just seemed so full and very rich and all the while they were absolutely miserable inside. So much so that they could not picture a world where they remained in it.

And it's really sad. And the one that really hit me the hardest was Twitch. Do you remember? I do. And he was married to Alison Holker and he had what, one, two, I think they had three children together. And I will always remember it because I always watched their videos, like them dancing. And he just seemed so happy. I think I first saw him on Ellen, like years ago when Maddox was a baby. Do you remember at the, like the Dangerfield house where like Maddox and I would watch?

Ellen every afternoon at like 2 p.m. in the living room.

Yeah, we were doing Ellen's game of games. Yeah.

Yeah, I was gaming games and like he would stand there and he'd dance his little baby dance and he'd be watching twitch and like he just seemed so Happy and I know there's all these conspiracy theories that he didn't do it and blah blah blah but all of the evidence shows that twitch died by suicide and This is not a murder podcast, right? We're not trying to solve anything

George McKenzie (04:50.04)

This is not a murder podcast.

But it's just a conversation that I feel like men don't have the ability to reach out or to even portray weakness like women do.

Yeah, no, I think Robin Williams is the other one on that list that kind of is more... It's my generation. Yeah, and he was like a comedic genius. guy. He's so damn funny. could turn anything funny, improvs like crazy, and then to find out that he had a disease, one, but then two, the depression that went along with it. Yeah, I think for guys, it's incredibly difficult to be vulnerable. And you don't want to be because, one, you've been...

That's your generation.

George McKenzie (05:35.33)

kind of influenced or bred that way, that conditioned that way. And when you are the leader of your family, right, then people look up to you or depend on you. So you, if you are vulnerable and you show signs of weakness, then that could negatively impact others in your household that you're supposed to be the champion for, the leader or the defender and provider. So if you show those cracks, it starts to, you you worry it would weaken the whole family dynamic.

Do you think that's an irrational fear?

I don't know. Is it? mean, if they, if you were to think about it abstractly and say, if the CEO of a major fortune 500 company was depressed and started talking about their depression or their fear of, or the vulnerability of the company, right? What would happen to that company? Would people that were following that person, would they be inspired to work? No, they'd be worried about their job and try to find another one.

probably a fair assessment. But that's not to say that you shouldn't talk about it in general. Maybe there's like trained people who do things for a living.

Yeah, that's where I think that business coaches and

Alicia McKenzie(06:49.294)

I was thinking more of the long line of a therapist.

and therapists, but think those are kind of probably co-mingled. Like if you have someone who is your mentor that you could be honest with, those people are probably the ones that would refer you or, you know, that you could be vulnerable with. But it's hard, it's hard for guys even when you talk to a counselor, like I've talked to counselors before and it's challenging to even get the, you don't want to, it's hard to say the things to open up. takes a while, right?

Where women, feel like you meet somebody and then within 30 minutes, you can have a very in-depth conversation about stuff that guys would never talk about.

Why is that though? I swear to you, I could meet a woman and by the end of like an hour conversation, I will know her entire life story. And maybe that like not to toot my own horn, but people talk to me about everything. And it's also because I'm basically a steel wall. I'm not going to tell you shit about anybody unless it's you. Like, you know, a lot of stuff, but I...

But if it's similar, two guys meet each other for an hour, they'll know who their favorite sports team is, they'll probably know maybe their favorite beverage and what they do for a living and where they live. It's level. Yeah, all of them. I've had acquaintances that I've known for a decade and still all surface level.

Alicia McKenzie(07:59.374)

And,

Alicia McKenzie(08:05.443)

So surface

Alicia McKenzie(08:12.364)

good friend of mine refers her close friend group as her board of directors. So if she has a problem, she has four to five people that she can go to to bounce ideas off of, whether that's business mentorship, whether that's personal stuff, whether that's kid stuff. Yeah, it's like she calls it her personal board of directors. And I could probably name five people that I go to, like you being one of them.

That's a good idea.

Alicia McKenzie(08:41.654)

that I go to for different reasons, but I have that core group of people. Do you have a board of directors? Personal board of directors that you can be completely vulnerable with?

It's very small board.

Outside of me.

It's probably, yeah, maybe two or three people. Why am I supposed to know that? I don't know anybody, I've never known a board of directors birthday.

Okay. What are their birthdays?

Alicia McKenzie(09:10.759)

Your personal board of directors.

I know one of them.

Alicia McKenzie(09:16.78)

I bet you I know their birthday.

You do. I'm not good at that. I don't know that stuff. It's probably my... Well, never mind. I was gonna say it's in my calendar, but I know it's not. It's not. No. I keep... Every year I'm like, I need to put it in today. It's her birthday. And then I don't. And it's forgotten. Yeah, I thought about it. Isn't that worth something? They do. Hey, I've been putting effort of calling people and emailing people. So I have done more effort that way.

It's.

Alicia McKenzie(09:32.45)

Yeah, but you made an effort. Relationships are effort.

Alicia McKenzie(09:45.238)

One of the most recent podcasts I've listened to, she's a major CEO of this company, like huge. I guarantee if I were to name the two companies, you would know it. But she drives into work five days a week whenever she's there, like whenever she's in town. But it's a 30-minute drive, and she makes it a point to call somebody and talk to them for those 30 minutes on her way to work, which I think is a great practice.

Yeah, I've known several people that do that, but they're more like sales guys that 30 minutes they're using it to call somebody.

Yeah, no, this is not that. This is like relationship building and having conversations and because humans need that. Yeah. Back to the mental health awareness month, but the list that I gathered for this episode, so it's Anthony Bourdain, right? He's another one that died by suicide. Robin Williams, we all know that. The one that really hit me was the green Power Ranger.

I think the green Power Ranger lives on. No, because no one ever knew what he was, who he was. He wore a green costume.

Why is that funny?

Alicia McKenzie(10:53.698)

So his name is Jason David Frank and I used to watch Power Rangers growing up, right? Like I feel like everybody either wanted to be the pink Power Ranger or the red Power Ranger, regardless. But the green one died by suicide at the age of 42. He was so young.

Well, think that's the, I think one of the statistics on guys, it's in the 40s to early 50s. Is that true? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's when you're, it's not a midlife crisis, but it's kind of that time in your life where your body's changing, you're older, you're not the younger one anymore, you're the older one, and then you're coming to grips with your successes or your failures. Yeah. So your earning potential is at its highest in that point, which makes a lot of people.

second guess, am I successful? Like this is the prime. Am I at the peak? And then if not, your kids are either, I think average if you're in your late 40s or mid 40s to 50s, your kids are older now or getting older and either going to college or in high school and don't need you as much and now it's, what is your life?

Yeah, which is why you need a board of directors to go play pickleball with. But I think moral of the story is that if you're a male listening to this, I want you to make a list of four people that you can call for anything, for any aspect of your life, and then start. It's not.

Exactly. Yes.

George McKenzie (12:21.474)

Challenging I don't know. Yeah being vulnerable is incredibly difficult I think even for most guys even being vulnerable with your wife isn't it is hard so No, I'm pretty vulnerable. I think with you. Yeah, are Yeah, but I mean it's it's hard for a lot of people and it's hard if you keep it's hard for you and your wife the one person you share the most intimate of relationship with it's incredibly difficult to do that with other guys I mean some guys do it that you know

Should I be offended?

George McKenzie (12:49.87)

They're open books. They'll talk about everything. And I have a friend like that and he talks about everything except for what you would think... Some of the stuff he talks about you would think it would make him vulnerable, he wouldn't talk about. But he doesn't care. But when it comes to like, you know, mental health or relationship with parents or children, then that stuff, you he doesn't talk about. Which is interesting. Yeah, but no, I mean...

Yes, I'm sure. you are... Yeah, your vulnerability goes to a certain degree and then you kind of shut it off. Exactly.

That's not true. This is about men's mental health. Everybody's very well aware of my mental health.

Okay. But yeah, I mean, I think even if you're not talking to somebody else, what I've found for me recently is when you verbalize things or write them down, those vulnerable things that you think about or you questions that you have, and you write them down or you talk about them and you articulate them less with emotion and more just as a idea, they lose a lot of the...

the fear factor goes away. Right? And it's kind of the worst that could happen.

Alicia McKenzie(14:06.734)

I going to say that's kind of like what we do with our kids, What is the, I want you to name like the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen. And she's like, well, I fail a test. I'm like, okay. And then what happens? And then what happens? And then my parents get mad at me.

Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?

George McKenzie (14:20.718)

And then what happens yeah, eventually you

get mad at you for failing tests. It's just going a little bit further, but you also find that as a human, things that you keep in your head seem so massive.

Yeah.

George McKenzie (14:36.458)

Yes, and there's nobody, and I'll speak from personal experience, there's just nobody who can spin something out of control more than you because most likely what's in your head is half-baked or you're making a lot of assumptions around it. And a friend of mine had a great analogy about a glass of water and it's kind of like that. Like when you fill it up halfway, you're going to fill the other half.

If you don't have water, you're going to fill it with something else. So if you don't know all the information or you make an assumption, you're going to fill it most likely with the worst possible outcomes. And then you just keep spinning it up and spinning it up and spinning it up. And then either you boil over or you eventually, you know, come to grips with it's not as bad as you thought it was.

Just know that we love you. are. There seriously are.

There's lots of resources out there.

What was that show remember we watched it was it sugar Queen sugar was it that one? Well the guy he started a gentleman's club man a men's club I want them to just go hang out and talk it was like the barbershop approach, but it was the Tuesday nights They'd come together one night the week they'd come together and drink and just talk and talk about real shit not superficial shit

Alicia McKenzie(15:46.254)

I feel like men don't have that ability though to talk about how many meetings would it take for you to finally like cut below the surface? Right? If you were to go to, let's say you started hosting like an entrepreneurial gentleman's club, at what point, and you didn't know anybody there, do you feel like it would be easier to be more vulnerable because you didn't know anybody there?

That's very hard.

George McKenzie (16:05.262)

It would probably be at least half a dozen.

George McKenzie (16:14.286)

I don't know.

Right? you're like, what if I never see this person again? I could just tell them my whole life story and then it wouldn't matter.

Maybe. I don't know. I struggle with that, but yeah. It's the whole four totems stuff. Like, everybody's... you've been conditioned for judgment and fear of judgment when it's all irrelevant. Other people's persona of you doesn't really fucking matter. So, you shouldn't care. But we all do.

Erin Washington, when she was on the podcast, she was very clear. She's like, people say things and it hurts my feelings. She's like, and it shouldn't, but it does.

Exactly. That's what everyone's of... That's what I guess holds you back from being vulnerable is that fear of judgment and then that that person will see you as less than forever.

Alicia McKenzie(16:58.134)

Me. Fuck them. Yeah.

Exactly. But what if it's the person you care about the most? Then they shouldn't judge you at all.

Exactly. Or maybe you shouldn't be married to that person. Yep. Yeah. All right, moving on. You sent me something this week that Jerry sent you. Hi, Jerry. Yeah. And it was just an Instagram reel from another podcast. And I think Simon Sinek, was he the host or was he the one being... Okay. And the general gist around it was that the average kid becomes more successful.

He was on the interview.

George McKenzie (17:31.712)

Yeah, and I think it was talking about, I think their conversation started around athletics. Yes. And when it comes to high pressure situations, oftentimes the average kid will outperform the above average kid. Yes. Which is, you know, on its face you would say that's not true, right? But then, you know, the way they explained it was, the way Simon was explaining it, kind of that emotional human condition, it's kind of that, you know, relates back to self-talk.

and positive self-talk and manifestation. But what hit me the most is thinking about it as a parent and as a coach. How do you frame that conversation or that... How do you have conversations or feedback with the children so that you can have them have the positive mental aspect, but then also be high performers? So the theory goes that if you...

are constantly praising someone and saying, you're the this guy's a freak athlete. He's the best athlete I've ever seen. He's amazing. It's the cover off the ball. He can he's a five tool player. He's extremely fast. He throws the ball hard and got he's got the best command I've ever seen. And then when you're in a super high pressure situation, oftentimes they are afraid to take risks because they see themselves, they identify themselves as this amazing athlete. Yeah. And then if I take a risk and it doesn't work out.

then that chips away at who I am. I am not that amazing, incredible athlete. So I play it safe. And I go for the safe play or I do this or do that that ensures that I may be an incredible practice player, but in the game, I'm average, right? Because I'm unwilling to take the risk or do the things that make me above average in practice because I don't want people looking at me or seeing me fail. And then the average people, they're like, fuck, I'm average, fuck it.

Right? They're more willing to take the risk to do it, to go for it because if they fail, they succeed, it's only upside. And it's interesting. It's an interesting concept. if that's a proven dynamic, then how do you, you you don't want to tell everybody their average. Like there are some, some mindsets and coaches that, you know, make everybody feel their average. Right? Or below average.

Alicia McKenzie(19:30.678)

Absolutely.

Alicia McKenzie(19:47.808)

No, and I think you do a good job at this coaching. It's putting the focus on the effort over the outcome. Right. So in practice, you could hit, let's say three out of 10 balls. But if you hit those three balls beautifully, and the effort is there, and for the other seven, you're still making that same swing. Maybe you just went a little early, maybe you went a little late, but you're still putting in the effort. That is what you praise.

Yeah. Versus.

That's all you can control. It's your effort.

Right? You could have the best kid out there. And if he is so in his head and he hits nothing, we've seen it. We've seen it. There's one kid that plays on one of our sons' team and he is so, so good. And he's a big kid and he's strong and he's fast. But sometimes you just get in your head and you can't fucking hit anything to save your life. Right? Like he couldn't hit a softball the way I was seeing him play.

Yeah, we've seen it.

Alicia McKenzie(20:48.514)

but then some days he's so on and it's great, but it's just, you can tell from the effort that he's in his head. So I think by putting focus on not you as the child, but are you doing what you can do? Are you focusing on your swing? Are you focusing on where your hands are, your footwork?

But translate that from athletics to academics. It's similar, right? So if someone is labeled the gifted kid, the smart kid, they are less likely to accept new challenges or put themselves out there for fear of no longer being the gifted kid. So they'll excel, but they don't like to participate in class questions or things in which...

We have a child like that.

George McKenzie (21:36.556)

there's a chance they could be wrong.

Yeah, and they don't want to, it's that public fear of failure.

Well, I mean, it's just fear of failure in general, guess, right? Because your identity is so wrapped up in, I'm the smart one, I'm smart. And if I were to put myself out there and be wrong, then that would mean I'm not smart.

But this actually that came up in a parent teacher conference, right? It's the same thing. We physically had to tell the teacher to stop telling our child that they were so great. Right? Like, I want you to list the things that they could be doing better versus telling them all the things that they're doing right. And that is because I do not want a situation to where, okay, we get to high school and things are a little bit harder. And then, my God, I failed my first test. I'm going to go

fucking, I don't know, like hang myself or some crazy bullshit that we've seen happen in a lot of these high performing schools.

George McKenzie (22:31.054)

And I've seen it then you know, can't point to the last time I've seen it But I when I grew up playing athletics I heard it a lot as you know, the coaches would pull the better kids aside and be like, you know, it's a big game I expect more from you guys or you know practice doesn't go as well as you thought and it pulls the best kids apart and say hey you had a bad practice like I hold you to a higher standard you need to be better and you're like Just put so much pressure on I am supposed to be perfect. Yeah, and when I have a bad day everybody notices

It shouldn't be like that because even in business, right, you could have somebody who's so brilliant and who's been to an IV and who's got their masters and this, that, and the other. And then when it comes to business, if you have a great idea but you don't have the consistency to put it into work and keep grinding at it and keep going, like you're not going to be, you're not going to exit for a hundred million dollars.

And I thought about this and I want to go into his Simon Sinek's other business for that one of his books about the golden circle stuff. But just to put a pin on this, can you imagine translating that into a work environment? So let's say I am an Ivy League graduate, right? I am super smart. Everyone's told me I've been smart my whole life. And then is there a correlation between some of those people and

they graduate and go into corporate America versus become entrepreneurs. Because in my mind, I'm smart, I'm incredibly intelligent, so I need to go into a position that, you what I would say is more safe of, hey, I get a good job, I work my way up the corporate ladder, I become, and not to say that those people aren't extremely successful financially or otherwise, but they are drawn more to that formulaic.

kind of outcome where it's less likely to go bust, right? Where entrepreneurs, you you jump out there and you're taking a huge risk and it could be wildly successful, but more often than not, you're going to fail. And if you fail, you know, you just pick up and move on. And I think the same holds true. you know, if you've been a part of a successful company and then you start another one, right? It's that, you know, how often are people willing to put themselves back out there?

George McKenzie (24:47.246)

because you're known as, you're the person that did it, right? You started a company, you sold it, you did whatever, you ran this amazing company, and now you're doing, starting at zero again or starting somewhere else again. Is it that same kind of, not performance anxiety, but the same kind of, are they less likely to be innovative? Yeah, it's interesting. I've been, did a study.

Yeah, there's legs there.

But I also had a flashback to the guy that we golfed with in South Carolina. And I feel like he, it's the same thing. He went to a great private school, went to a great university, and then is not as successful as he thought he should be. But he was confident that something was gonna land.

Yeah

Alicia McKenzie(25:37.326)

And his company was gonna take off and here he is, fucking Tuesday, two o'clock, golfing with us, right? Like it's, I don't know. I feel like the effort was not matching the expected outcome. So there's two heads to this coin, right? And I think that's also the private school versus public school education argument that we have.

Yeah.

George McKenzie (26:01.41)

Yes. So the Simon Sinek, like I've never really heard of him before. Yeah. I guess I'm just in a hole somewhere. Yeah. I guess maybe. But I did, listened to some of his other talks and then his, I guess the golden circle principle or whatever it was. It's kind of the old adage of the why, how, right? And the way he explains it in a couple of minutes, I think is phenomenal. And then you can start to think about it.

You you listen to what I tell you

George McKenzie (26:30.67)

especially in business, right? So a lot of businesses focus from the outside in. So it's, you know, what are we? And he uses a great example of Apple, right? What are we? We make, this is not right now, but Apple 20 years ago, 15 years ago. So what are we? We're a computer company. We sell computers. Okay. How are we successful? well we...

We have a very elegant design and it's very high end and it looks amazing. And then the why, right? Why are we doing it? And nobody wants to buy stuff when you start that way. And then it's more around start with your why. Why does this company exist? Why is our company exist? We innovate to challenge the norms, right?

And then how do we do that? Well, we make products that are unique and that are sexy in an industry where stuff is normally archaic. And what do we do? We sell amazing computers to people who want to be innovators. it's a way better sell and story. And it resonates when you know why you're doing it. And I think too often people get wrapped up in the why and their immediate answer is to make money. Or...

Utilitarian and ugly.

Alicia McKenzie(27:50.488)

Yeah.

to have a 20 % EBITDA or to grow 20 % year over year. That's not your why. That's a product of it. It's a KPI maybe of your why. More often than not, I've talked to people that are entrepreneurs and they cannot articulate why their company exists.

Yes, and it's very frustrating for them.

Yeah, I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to be like this. want to be like that. But why? Why does your company exist? Why is it even a thing? Why did you create it? And if you can't answer that, you you need to take some time and figure out why. And then once you know why your company exists, then how are you going to translate your why to the marketplace? And then what is it you're offering? I think

way too often we go the other way around. Like we know what we want to sell. We know how we're going to make it to sell it. And then we never get to the why, why we're doing it to begin with. I have a personal story. Like I think the last private equity company I was a part of, that was one of the major things that was wrong. And I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but now I know is there was no why. Right. It was just buying multiple companies, slapping them together.

Alicia McKenzie(28:45.973)

Exactly.

George McKenzie (29:06.206)

Trying to churn out EBITDA. Yes, which is probably why I didn't have a great time at it because that I'm not built that way now, right and I could not get a why and the the board and no one cared about the why all they cared about was the numbers and Yeah, if you it's hard, it's incredibly hard to sell people stuff when all of your focus on is the what you're selling.

Exactly, yeah.

Alicia McKenzie(29:30.7)

There's no there's no story around it right people don't invest in your product people invest in

Yeah, and I think looking back at DPS when we started that, we didn't, I didn't know this theory. I didn't have any of this. Like I was a complete noob. Yeah, was a noob when it came to entrepreneurship and I made a billion mistakes. But one of the things we got right was we kind of started with the why and people made fun of me or at least one of my partners made fun of me all time because I'd say it every time, right? That we started this company to do something different.

You're a baby entrepreneur.

George McKenzie (30:06.958)

bring a Silicon Valley approach to government contracting. And the way in which we hired talent, the way in which we retained talent, the way in which we kind of created a community of folks that were high performers. It was just different than any other government contracting company at the time. And we echoed that constantly. And that was our ethos. That's who we were.

was what's over 15 years ago and now the studies coming out around you are the sum of the five people you hang out with or the five people who you surround yourself with right like there's a whole bunch of supporting data that comes out and shows that what you did back then was actually the right thing to do. Right that's how you're supposed to do it you just know I mean you just you kind of felt your way into it was clunky it's like learning how to parallel park a car right.

Some people. Now the car parks itself. But yeah, so that, you know, I love that. And I think, you know, we've talked about it, like the scaling up book I love. I think this Golden Circle approach, like if you start with some of the why you're doing something and then, you know, what you want to achieve. And it seems incongruent that you would do those things first before you. I feel like everyone wants to jump to the what. I'm building a SaaS platform that does blah.

I'm building a services company that does blah. I do a product company that does X. Versus why does this company even exist?

What are you trying to do?

George McKenzie (31:39.446)

Yeah, that's not a why. It's a measurement of am I achieving my why. It's kind of cool to think about. So it's good food for thought. One, the average versus amazing. It's just how do you tell your kids? You always want to tell your kids that positive reinforcement. And I do it all the time like, you're so smart or you're great, whatever. And maybe, I don't know, do you temper that or do you continue with the you're so smart?

I turn it around to them. So usually when they do really good job on something, let's say like she comes home with a 90 on 95 on her test or like 104, like how does this kid keep getting 104s regardless?

So I do the opposite, I'm like, only 104?

But I'm like, wow, that is amazing. You should be so proud of yourself. You should be proud of yourself. I very rarely tell them that I am proud of them because I want them to have that self-assurance that, okay, I did really good on something and I put in the effort and this was the result. And yes, I know my parents are always going to be proud of me, but I need to be proud of myself.

And I watched, I love this guy on Instagram, so I don't remember, I'm not gonna hype him up or promote him, but he's a baseball coach, right? And he's like, and I'm not gonna describe it, but he's got a couple awesome ways he articulates how to make the game fun. And it's all about little league and youth coaching and being fun and teaching them how to do things the right way, not too much pressure. And then he also has a lot about how to...

George McKenzie (33:15.554)

teach parents of baseball players. Don't coach on the sideline, stuff like that. But one of the things that don't look at

deal.

from the sidelines.

But one of the things that I've taken to heart and I do it not religiously, but I would say 90 some percent of the time is after games. When I'm tucking them in a bed at night, I just tell them, you know, I love watching you play, not how good you were or you did great or what a great hit. It's just, hey, I love watching you play. Doesn't matter if they play well, they play poorly. I don't care. I just like watching them.

Okay, moving on. the last thing I wanted to touch on was I am a female. Are you? What? I am a founder. Jesus Christ. I am a woman of color. I have five children. Five. I have yet to see somebody with similar circumstances that I have watched, listened to, and thought, shit, she is so aspirational.

George McKenzie (34:06.126)

You have.

Alicia McKenzie(34:20.651)

And I've finally found her. And her name is Emma Greed. I have never, ever heard of this woman before listening to her on this podcast. But she's the CEO of Good American, and she's the chief product officer and co-founder of Skims, Khloe Kardashian's company and Kim Kardashian's company. it. She's a mother of four, so she's got an 11-year-old, an eight-year-old, and three-year-old twins. my God. Three-year-old twins. Could you imagine having...

Three-year-old twins only. I just can't imagine twins.

to Maya's right now. No way. Right? Like you have to do two times the puzzles and she'd eat two times the snacks. And like that's just, that's a lot of work.

Yeah, but I can't imagine they'd on the same like schedule. They'd be... did that on purpose. did that on purpose. that woman that used to work at Kinetic that did that? Yeah.

Did you just say said schedule?

Alicia McKenzie(35:13.676)

Yeah, but back to back to Emma. But what really stopped me is that the marketing team for this podcast did a great job because one of the first things that I've heard out of her mouth was that if you show me a female founder or CEO that has the perfect work-life balance, I will show you a liar. True.

How?

And coming from this woman, I'm like, okay, she knows what she's talking about. A, because she's essentially self-made in the sense that she did not come from money. She did not have the greatest childhood. She, I think she's the eldest of four girls, either three or four girls. Her mom was a single mom.

She said her mom was the mom and I was basically the dad, right? She was the one in charge of getting all the kids to school because the mom had to be to work early, so on and so forth. She did not have this picture-perfect childhood, nor was anything easy or handed to her. She also stated that if she started her career in today's climate, you know, the work from home, I need the perfect work-life balance, so on and so forth, like, she would not have been the success that she is.

which is really notable for me because I know that going back to the office is a huge topic. And there's a lot of companies that are trying to get their younger workers back into the office because that is how you grow. That's how you connect. That's how you see what higher level executives you're doing. But if you're just at home on your little screen, like it's really hard to innovate from that position. Do you think if you were a 19 year old George

Alicia McKenzie(37:00.874)

not working at E-Loc, would you be as successful as you are today? If you had worked from home back then and you didn't have any of the community-ness and any of the... Any of it. If you didn't have any of it, would you be as successful as you are now?

If I worked from home then? Yeah.

George McKenzie (37:18.284)

I don't know, maybe. It's hard, like, my first jobs there weren't, you know, there wasn't a ton of people in the office or people that I would emulate. Yeah. But I enjoyed going in, it made me feel good. you know, I've been a self-starter and I was driven, so I didn't really need that. But I think today it's just a different generation of people. today's people.

Like when we hire, I have people hire people now and you have a great meeting with them. They say all the right things. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that. All right. I'm on it. I'm on it. And then once that camera goes off, you have no clue what they're doing. And you know, when you touch base with them two days later, it's like they did or heard nothing. And you're like, just, and I guess when you're in the office, you would pop in more where they would feel more comfortable to ask questions. And I think that's the bigger one is that people

you

George McKenzie (38:11.148)

They say all everything when they're on that zoom camera and they like, yes, okay, no, I get it. I get it. And they don't ask questions. They don't follow up that there's no of those pop-ins like, Hey man, I'm trying. Can you help me with this? Or I was looking at this and this doesn't make sense. And it's because you don't have that personal connection with your coworkers that you don't feel like asking them. So you just try it and fail and then stop.

Yeah, and that was one thing that she really, she talked about a lot was that she learned how to be an entrepreneur and how to be an executive by asking a ton of questions. Right? And she said, anybody that you want to learn from, or anybody that you want mentorship from probably doesn't have time to mentor you. But

You could still pop in and ask a question. can see what they're doing on their screen. You can see how they interact, right? Like she would listen. I think she was an executive assistant for some huge, some female CEO. And she's like, I would take notes of everything that she did and I would listen to how she closed deals. And that's how she learned.

One of my favorite employees of all time used to do that. Yeah. And I used to love... He does his own company now. Yeah. Yeah. But I remember he would... He was a... At the time he was a sock analyst and he was a junior sock analyst. Yeah. And I'd be having conversations with other... Either, you know, high level government people or even other technical people. We'd be having detailed conversations and he'd be typing away. Yeah. And I'm...

What are they doing now?

George McKenzie (39:45.464)

you know, wondering what he was typing because, you know, his job as a sock analyst is not a ton of typing. It's not like you're writing stories. And, you know, when I finally talked to him about it one day, he said, yeah, every time I hear you guys say something, I understand. look it up or I a note to look it up later. Yeah. And then I would circle. He says I'd circle back. And if I don't understand, I'd come talk to you. That's kind of cool.

And yeah, I just, I feel like if you don't have that.

Yeah, you're not hearing those side conversations. You're not picking up on higher level things. I get it.

She said within hiring, or I don't know if she said it or if the interviewer said it, but within hiring, they always send out a pre-questionnaire to anybody they're going to bring on. And one of the questions is, of these five things, what is the most important to you? 33 % of people that are being interviewed today said the work-life balance. And her response to that was that work-life balance is not for us to figure out for you.

Yeah, I get it.

George McKenzie (40:46.37)

Sure. Yeah, we've talked about that.

It's not the company's job to make work-life balance your thing. And she said within my companies, nobody's missing a dentist appointment, right? Nobody's missing their workouts. People put... You know, what's really funny is I actually had a friend today text me and she said, a bunch of the higher level executives told me that they put calendar invites on their calendar for their workouts at least twice a week. I'm like, yeah.

I have lunch on my calendar and then personal time. invite yourself to it and just block it out. you don't block it out, you control your That's one thing that I've learned over time. If you don't control your own time, someone else will control it.

Yeah, but on the other hand, if you're a founder and you're expecting extraordinary outcomes, right? Let's say, okay, well, I want to scale this company. I want to sell it for $150 million. You're not going to do that by taking weekends and fucking Tuesdays off.

No, I mean, it doesn't require a long answer. It's a startup business. Whether your outcome, your successful outcome is a huge exit or is it just to run a great business for a long period of time. It's very much like a marriage and a child, right? Like you can't say, I'm going to take every Saturday and Tuesday off from parenting. Most people can't. I guess some people can.

Alicia McKenzie(42:15.414)

I you could, but I wouldn't want to.

But yeah, it's it's you're not going to get the outcome you want. Yeah. Right. If your goal is to be a fantastic parent, you can't say I'm going to just shut off at 8 p.m. or 4 p.m. and then I'm going to take off every, you know, every Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. It's probably not going to work out the way you want it to. Not to say you shouldn't have vacations. You should do, you know, husband and wife trips and those things. But same way as an entrepreneur. Right. You got to get away. You got to have a vacation. You got to take a few days off. But doesn't mean that, you

checked out completely. Like even when we go on vacation, you still call home and check on the kids or text. It'd be the same with the business. Like when I used to travel, you still check in, reading Slack or reading email.

Absolutely.

Alicia McKenzie(42:58.848)

I was like, that's the one reason we love the Disney crew so much back then was because you didn't have Wi-Fi. So I would get to like steal you away for at least 24 hours till we got to the next port. And then as soon as we pulled into port, like you would have to go into town and like get on the Wi-Fi and like at least check in, right? Because you can't fucking run a company and just disappear.

Yeah, you never know what could go wrong, so you just check in. as long as it's nothing urgent, people should know the difference.

Yes, there's a big difference.

Yeah, and it's the same as an employee. You have to control your own time and you can't expect your business to set the boundaries for you. Because they're going to consume as much of your time as they can.

But it was super comforting just to hear her say that because I'm like, okay, I'm not making this shit up in my head, right? Like, if somebody is trying to get a hold of me, I'm usually available within the hour. Right? And the same thing for you. And I expected that from an assistant of mine and it didn't work out. So she's no longer my assistant, right? Like I needed response within an hour. And if you don't meet that goal, then...

George McKenzie (44:00.49)

sometimes the response is just on it. Got it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, acknowledge. Acknowledge what I'm saying. And if you can't do that, then I will find somebody who can.

Microsoft does a great job. All those pre-prompts ready. Just hit it. Click the button. Got it.

It's not even hard. Apple does it. Even just liking it. Like just fucking like the message.

Just some indication that you saw it.

Alicia McKenzie(44:24.494)

that you're alive and I get it like shit happens migraines happen but come the fuck on yeah I have high expectations but we also work at a very fast pace you and I work at a fast pace yes and very few people can match that maybe that's why you work so well together hmm she also works closely with her husband that was another right and they have date nights are like they go out on dates weekly and whether it's like in the middle of the day or

Don't I?

George McKenzie (44:40.696)

Maybe.

George McKenzie (44:46.2)

exciting point.

George McKenzie (44:54.06)

We need another date night.

We haven't done one. It's been like a couple weeks. Your baseball's taken over our nights.

We haven't had a date night, nor have we had a vacation since January. You and I together? Yeah.

That's not true.

We went somewhere. Did we? Yeah. We just go somewhere so often that we forget.

George McKenzie (45:14.648)

Well, we did One Night in DC, but that was...

That didn't count? No. Why not? Maybe your expectations are too high.

I don't know.

Maybe they are. DC is... No, it was fun. It was good. It was a good time. That was a great night. Went to a Michelin star restaurant with a phone call. like, we have nowhere to go. I'd love to get a bite. How about we go here?

accidentally.

Alicia McKenzie(45:39.648)

It's good to have friends. It is. All right, we're done.

Thank you for tuning in to Mary to the startup. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please take a moment to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and keeps the conversation going. If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, drop me a message. I love hearing from you guys until next time. George out.