The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

Debate THEN Decide: The Secret to Solving Complex Problems

• Scott Scully, Jeff Winters, Eric Watkins • Season 2 • Episode 62

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This episode focuses on the 'Debate THEN Decide' approach, designed to revolutionize how you handle meetings and decisions. We cover the importance of separating the debate phase from the decision phase, using real examples such as the '131' framework: one problem, three options, one recommendation. You'll gain insights into why top-performing teams spend more time diagnosing problems, dedicating 45 minutes to this process and only 15 to solutions. Discover how to structure discussions to fully explore issues, prevent rushed decisions, and enhance team collaboration, ensuring your team tackles problems strategically and effectively.

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Thanks for listening!

Eric Watkins:

Nothing could stop me. Welcome back to the Grow show. We're doing this on a Wednesday because Friday we have our annual gift back day. Let's talk about Give Back Day for a second. Jeff, you excited about Give Back

Jeff Winters:

Day? So for the yes, for those that don't know, we have a day every year, the entire company is off work, and a ton of effort is put into assigning each individual a different charity to be a part of around St Louis for that day. So it's it's a great event. It institutionalizes giving within the company helps the city of St Louis and so many great folks and charities. It's the best thing we we get to do. It's

Eric Watkins:

really rewarding, and it's hard work. We're not out there like just walking around like it is. Last year, I did eight hours of landscaping and pulling weeds and doing that. It's tough work.

Jeff Winters:

It is. And the cool thing is to see how the company culture translates into charitable giving. Like this is a very competitive company culture in general. And like, we give competitively. We charity competitively. I was at this amazing place called Girls Inc last year where they enable kids after school and before school that give them a place to go and have different activities. And it's made incredible the work they do. And we had to clean that whole building. And I got to tell you, it was one versus another. It was he would have thought we were trying out for the NFL the way we were competing to clean this building.

Eric Watkins:

It's great, and it's good for Jeff. He sweats one time a year. And this is it. This is it. This is it. But we give back in a lot of ways, and one of the ways we give back is taking away from others when they're posting some BS on LinkedIn, in the sheriff does that? Sheriff winners. What do we got today?

Jeff Winters:

What a transition that was. First segment as always, two truths and a lie from LinkedIn, always, whether on vacation or in the office, patrolling the LinkedIn pastures, separating truth from life, act from fiction. Our first truth today comes from Akshay. Verma, Akshay, and this, by the way, little foreshadowing for the 50 for 50 segment. Upcoming take note, Akshay says the following strong disagreements give better results than playing it safe and compromising. In most startups, I would just say companies, collaboration is king. But when extremely talented people with diverse backgrounds come together in a dynamic work environment, disagreements are bound to happen. In fact, they need to. I've found the best way to handle these clashes isn't about meeting in the middle, but about relentlessly chasing the truth, and that's the idea of the strong disagreement. Eric, this is interesting. It sounds intuitive. It's not.

Eric Watkins:

I love this. It's 100% truth. Let's not steal our thunder for the 50 for 50, because that goes right. I mean, it says it perfectly.

Jeff Winters:

It does say it perfectly, but this is my segment, so I am going to steal a little bit of the thunder. I think the temptation,

Eric Watkins:

don't steal the thunder very

Jeff Winters:

briefly. I think the temptation is that when you get really smart people in the room, you encourage debate, and then it's like, well, that person's kind of right, and that's person's kind of right, so let's, let's just do this. Let's just do the middle. Let's, let's, let's, let's, and the and that waters down decisions in a bad way. I think strong disagreement. There's

Eric Watkins:

a case study on this, and they talk about ice cream, and they get a whole group to try to agree on one ice cream and one flavor. And no matter what, 100% of the time, once you get a certain amount of people in the room, they end on vanilla or chocolate. And it's just that's kind of the same thing when you're going through this process, and to come like, that's not the best decision.

Jeff Winters:

It's a very interesting case study. I'm gonna have to to look up the vanilla versus chocolate you want to see. I'll

Eric Watkins:

find it right now.

Jeff Winters:

No, no, I'm sure. I'm sure I do a little hard for me to fall Do you not do you not understand that?

Eric Watkins:

Does that not make sense? You end with a bland solution.

Jeff Winters:

Oh, you end. Oh, the idea is you end with a bland solution, as opposed to, like, Rocky Road.

Eric Watkins:

Which rocky road might be the perfect fit for what you're looking for? I

Jeff Winters:

see, Oh, interesting. Yeah. No, that makes more sense than we explained it before. Truth. Excellent. Kathy Moore, I feel so passionately about this one, and it's serious, and I know you do too. Age is irrelevant in determining someone's potential. Let's debunk the harmful belief that older professionals are overlooked. It's time to embrace the power of experience and wisdom from understanding the negative impact of this misconception to providing actionable steps to thrive in your career this carousel. So digs deep. Remember your past experience and your greatest assets. Let's redefine success and inspire others to chase their dreams regardless of age. I see this so much where you have folks with more experience, but loads of potential like this doesn't do like a 23 year old or however old you are has nothing to do with it. And I think subconsciously people see folks with a little more experience, and they think they may have less, quote, unquote, potential, and it's ridiculous and wrong.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, for her carousel. Did you say that? Right? I think so. You think so. Okay, I just don't want you to mess up words, as were Me neither. But

Jeff Winters:

Kathy Moore, this

Eric Watkins:

was a good one. Okay, no, this is, this is great. And this isn't athletics, right? When you're 40 in athletics, like, yeah, there's a very clear disadvantage to the 25 year old. Like it, this is mental everything, a majority of positions that we're talking about here in business, and it's 100% true, we've had great people that took completely different career paths and come in here to sort of reinvent themselves, yes, and they get reinvigorated, and they reach a level of themselves that they've never seen before.

Jeff Winters:

That is really well said. That is really well said.

Eric Watkins:

Thank you after what, after you tore me down on my first

Jeff Winters:

I mean, the vanilla. I mean, there are so many amazing studies that have been done throughout time, and you came with the vanilla ice cream. There was a case study done maybe all right now, to lie, to lie. The lie comes from Celeste. And usually you guys poke fun at me for not giving the last name. This one, there is no last name, Celeste, okay, just Celeste. And to me, the context here is the job market's a little tough right now, frankly, and people are giving advice about how to get jobs and what people should be saying to folks. And here's Celeste advice, stop pushing certs education and training to unemployed workers. It has never gotten people hired now and it never will, not even during beniard times in history, people are desperate stop playing on their fears. I know a lot of senior technical people like me are out of work and go to work at these institutions as a last resort. Cool. Cool, cool. We all need to pay our bills, but also not cool. The last thing anyone who is scared and unemployed needs is false hope or more debt. Okay, so I want to unpack this, because I think it's really important, and there are some serious elements that to be debunked. So the first part, I can't

Eric Watkins:

clarify something first, yeah, so she's saying, if you are unemployed, people are pushing, go get this certification. Go do this training. Cost you money, but you're developing your skills to be a more attractive candidate. That's correct. She's saying don't do she's saying

Jeff Winters:

don't do that, and don't tell people to do that. And probably, I think what she's saying is, don't encourage people to do that through like advertisements. But go ahead, Eric. I mean, if you want to, no, I

Eric Watkins:

just, I feel like you never go wrong investing in yourself. Like the best investment you will ever make is in yourself. So anything that goes against that, I think, is terrible advice. And I mean, you, I think about this like reading a book, right? I used to hate reading, but every time I read, I think about it as an investment. And so that time, like, I'm making money by and sometimes you got to spend money to make money. Like, I don't I would say, Pick a good certification, pick a good training. Like, don't sign up for the wrong thing. But to say, like, as a blanket statement, don't ever better yourself, even if it cost you a little bit money, a little bit of money, I don't think that's predatory. I don't think it's anything. I think you have the choice to do it, and you should always double down on yourself,

Jeff Winters:

right? I mean, look, I do want to, I do want to address the predatory behavior. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. Don't prey on people with certifications that are unhelpful and unvaluable because they're unemployed, and then they're, you know, probably much less disposable income, and therefore they're going to pay for your stuff and it's useless. We're not advocating that. No, absolutely no one's advocating that. But boy, oh boy, you know, if you have time and you've are out of work, as many are right now, bettering yourself is in addition to really thoughtful job seeking, we've tried to give some good tips on that, on this program as well, the best thing you could do, and I can only personalize it to us in our experience. You come in here and you say, hey, yeah, you know, I've been out of work for some period of time, and I've gotten five cold calling certifications, and I've gotten the HubSpot and a Salesforce certification and like these are all the things that I've read 12 books. I don't care if it's free or not. There's plenty of free education. What have you done? Yep, that puts you in a way better spot than somebody who's done nothing. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

I would rather that than someone who is currently employed. And just says they don't like their job and they want to try something different, like, I would rather the person who maybe they even got fired and they didn't perform well, but they realized it, recognized that there's things they needed to improve, and they've been working their butt off to do it.

Jeff Winters:

I completely agree. So

Eric Watkins:

it's a lot good stuff, good stuff, keeping LinkedIn safe. I thought that was well rounded. That was good. That was good. It was different. You never know, like some of your sometimes, I'm not super impressed with the LinkedIn section, but You really outdid yourself today. Well, that's very kind. Ish, Yeah, you're welcome. All right. For today, 50, for 50. What do you have for us? Jeff,

Jeff Winters:

so as I foreshadowed literary term, as I foreshad, not for the audience. You all know that for Eric, as I foreshadowed in the two truths and a lie section from LinkedIn, we were going to talk a little bit about debating and deciding. And one thing that I think we could, frankly, do a slightly better job of here. Eric, we talked about this prior to the show, but that we both advocate for in really healthy organizations that run robust meetings is having a true separation in a meeting or in a multiple meeting environment whereby you have specified time and structure to debate an issue, and then specified time and structure to decide on what the next Step or steps are going forward. And this to me, goes back to the old adage of it takes the best teams. I heard this. This is as good as Eric's chocolate and vanilla case study from prior in the episode. But I I read a study, and it said that if teams have 60 minutes to solve a problem. The best teams spend 45 minutes diagnosing the problem and 15 minutes solving the problem. And so I think that root causing and solving problems and debating potential root causes and what's happening with an issue gets really short changed, because most teams, what do they do? Eric, they

Eric Watkins:

just get into a room and they argue, and whoever's the smartest and the loudest gets their point across, and then they settle on something that's right,

Jeff Winters:

and they jump right to solving. They don't spend ideas, idea, idea, here's me,

Eric Watkins:

here's the issue, what if we did this? What if we did this? Best idea wins. The

Jeff Winters:

best idea wins, as opposed to really structuring a discussion as a debate and then structuring the next facet of that discussion as deciding which of the options potentially you've chosen, or how are we going to go forward and solve a problem? What say you are?

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, so this is, I think this goes back to the why do we call it 50 for 50, these are 50 tips to grow your business to $50 million and when you're a smaller business, I think you can get away with not doing this. I think you can get away with let's come up with ideas. Let's do it. You move really quick. You move fast, but as you get bigger and bigger, the business becomes more complex. And this couldn't be more important. Like, part of the reason we brought this up today is we've been talking about it. We were talking about it before the show. I've seen this crop up time and time again, and this is a theme in radical candor, which we read as one of our 12 and oh series, which, if you didn't listen to that episode, go back and do it, and they talk about just the importance of separating these two. And I've just seen like, after reading that and then seeing certain meetings, I've just seen instances where emotions run hot. People have really and it's, it's all coming from a good place. People care. They the problem's a big problem that needs solved, and everyone's just a little unclear of really what we're doing. And you end up 30 minutes into a discussion, and then you feel like you really didn't get anywhere, whereas if you structured that meeting as, hey, this is the issue that we're having. This is all the data that we have on this issue. Let's talk about why do we really think this is the issue, and what's the root cause? And I don't want to make a decision in this meeting. I just want to hear everybody's opinion, and I want to argue it, and it might get a little ugly, but I want to, I want to uncover some good stuff. That's the goal of this session. Then it can get ugly. And you go back to that LinkedIn post like, that's healthy. You need that. You need people with differing opinions. You need them to state their case. You need to really unpack those things. But then everybody leaves that meeting and no one's upset with one another. Where people get upset is when you do that, and then at the end, you're like, well, we got to do something. And I think I liked a little bit about what Jeff said, and I kind of like what. Katie said, so I think we should do this, and then you end up settling on something that really everyone is not bought into. And you know, even if like and when you do that, then your execution is going to be poor, because people don't really believe in it. But when you do it this way, and you say, all right, at the end of this, Jeff's going to decide he owns the decision making power here, and he's going to make the decision off everything we discussed today. What do we think is important for Jeff to know him? What do we think the root causes are? It takes away all of that animosity, and then it puts the onus on Jeff as the decider to really facilitate the conversation and make sure he gets everything he needs. This

Jeff Winters:

was a very surprising facet of growing a business was the need to institutionalize how you meet and make decisions and solve problems. It's not intuitive to think that as you grow a business you're gonna have to scale the HR it is intuitive to think you have to scale the HR organization, you're gonna have to scale the sales team, you have to scale the sales enablement or sales development team. You have to scale all those things. The idea that you're gonna have to scale decision making and problem solving is not intuitive. But you do, you do? You do. It's one of those things, you have to demand that your team solve problems and make decisions in a particular way. It might not be, might not be one way for the whole organization, but people have to do it consistently. Otherwise you get shitty decisions and you get inconsistent ways that you do it. For me, my my favorite modality here is 1311, problem, three options, one recommendation. Like, when I have a meeting like this, I want somebody to come in with a document that has what the problem is, what, and then I want to and what three options to solve it, and then what the recommended solution of those three is. And like debating and deciding I love and then you have those two parts of that meeting, but that, that's, that's my framework that works for me is the 131, yeah,

Eric Watkins:

that it's so interesting when you do this at first, because what you'll have is people be like, You know what I think we should do? And you have to say, Nope, not this meeting, not this meeting, not this meeting, and it's just funny, like people are so wired it's a good problem to have in your organization, because people are wired to be solution focused, instead of just like talking about problems all the time. But you got to channel in the right way.

Jeff Winters:

You just solve the wrong stuff, yep. And to have somebody in the meeting who's got that, are we solving the right problem mentality? Is this the right problem? Are we sure it's the right problem? Because in certain organizations, if you solve the wrong problem, you can be adrift from your target for months or years, and that could all be as a result of not spending the extra hour to figure out what is the real problem here? And change it. Yep. Change the framework of how you make those decisions and have those meetings. Good

Eric Watkins:

stuff. Good 50 for 50. Thank

Jeff Winters:

you. And now to your section. Let's

Eric Watkins:

go to the mines. I thought I was still getting the pickaxe. Give me the pickaxe one time, just for nostalgia. Work. It

Jeff Winters:

doesn't work. Oh, it's

Eric Watkins:

gone. It's gone. It doesn't work. It's been written over. I like the new one. Let's keep the new one. The section

Jeff Winters:

is mining for growth gold. Eric is going to tell us how we're gonna get more leads to Garp.

Eric Watkins:

Oh, he found it. He's got the win. That's it. That's it. That's all right, that's all I needed. All I needed was the wind. So today we're going to talk about something that I've hit on in the past, and it continues to come up when I listen to appointment calls. And so I thought it would be valuable to reiterate and talk a little bit more about why it's important. So specifically, what I'm talking about is cold calling, and when you get into a conversation, majority of the time, 90 to 95% of the people you speak with are going to have no interest or need in what you're talking about, but that five to 10% of the time, you are going to run into somebody that has an interest or need. So for example, you may be talking to a prospect, let's just use it. And they say, and you ask, you know, how satisfied are you with your current situation? They said, Oh, it's pretty good. You know, we like our provider. Their response time could get a little better. And then what does, what does our rep usually want to do

Jeff Winters:

immediately? They want to dive in and schedule? Well, our people could do this. We could do it. We could do it better. And then, like, counteract

Eric Watkins:

that exactly like, immediately the words come out, and it's like, we have a 15 minute response time and we'll be there. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, resist the urge to pitch right away. Oh, the response time is just all right. Tell me about that. And then. Let them go and actively listen and ask that question, and then save that to bridge for the appointment, ask a couple questions and then say, well, based on what you're sharing with me today, it really, it really makes me think about our 15 minute guaranteed response time and how that could be valuable for you. So I think it would make sense if I sat you down with Katie, and we had a 30 minute meeting to talk about how we do that for other partners, just like yourself. Does Tuesday or Thursday work better for you? It's it does a couple things. One, upfront, you don't miss out on valuable information by just skipping over it right away. Two, they smell the sales coming off your breath on the call, and it pushes them away from wanting to use your company to help solve their problem. And the third thing is, when you use it at the right time, when the guards further down, it's hard to say no to that meeting. And so I just think this is a it's not an easy thing. You got to practice it. But when you get the door open and they creak it open, just ask a couple more questions and let them invite you in instead of trying to force it down.

Jeff Winters:

And here's a thought. And Eric, you might disagree with this, but for some people, it's really hard, especially early in your career, to ask the right question after you've heard whatever it is they're saying. So, so one thing that worked for me because, like, I don't know why, like, when I was calling, I'd be multitasking, I'd be fidgeting a lot of stuff. I just remember the last three words that they said, and I'd say it back to them in an upward, inflecting, curious tone, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And plus, you're kind of nervous, you know, you're in the moment they go, yeah, and then the response time is slow, and then I just go, the response time is slow, yeah? The response time, they'll talk like, they'll just say, and by the way, this, this, this works at home too, like dinner was bad. And I'm like, I wasn't paying any attention. Dinner was bad. Yeah, dinner was terrible. No, it's like, okay, I get my bearings. So I very much appreciate the concept. I think it runs counter to how so many people are cold calling, booking meetings today, and my little tip could be helpful to some Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

and it's it's interesting with what we do, right? Because we work with, you know, 2000 partners across the country, and they love nothing more than hearing about themselves on calls, like how great the company is and what makes them different and what sets them apart. Yep, and you got to save it for the end of the call. Like, you got to save it for the bridge to the appointment. And it's kind of it goes right along with our 50 for 50 thing. Like, you really unpack what is the root of the issue before you invite a solution right up front. A

Jeff Winters:

really good tip for all of those setting meetings out there. That's greater, absolutely

Eric Watkins:

All right, so we got the meetings lined up, yeah. What are we going to do to knock them down?

Jeff Winters:

That sound effect gets longer.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah? Coins, just dropping

Jeff Winters:

a sensitive topic today. A

Eric Watkins:

sensitive topic. We

Jeff Winters:

are amongst friends here, Eric, are we not? Yes, we are friends, close colleagues, neighbors, yeah, family, almost family, and often, fortunately or unfortunately, you're at a family event, or you're at a neighborhood barbecue, or you're at a birthday party, and someone goes, what do you do? And I always just say marketing, because I just don't want to have that conversation. And they go, what kind of marketing? All right, fine. Here we go. And you tell them. And then in a moment of pride and dread, they go, You know what? I could maybe use something like this, can we sit down and talk about it? Shoot, and now we're selling friends and we're selling neighbors and we're selling past colleagues, and it's an uncomfortable situation, so I am going to tell you how to, in a comfortable way, sell and pitch your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. I'm gonna give you the exact script, because it's different. You can say it's not. It is it's the worst I I've had my uncle go, you know, maybe we could use it. I'm gonna tee you up with my sales guy, and I'm gonna be on the call. So God shoot. Am I gonna sell my uncle? Hell yeah, but I'm gonna do it in a very specific way. So here's how you do it. Whenever I have a situation like this and I'm in a meeting or having a call, I am going to do the exact same call structure. The first is, I'm going to be able to ask you a lot of questions. I got a ton of leeway. Okay, so if Eric's my nephew, I say, Eric, tell me what's going on, and tell me about this, and tell me about this, and tell me about and I'm gathering tons and tons of information, and then I'm going to get to a point, and I'm always going to say the same magic words, which are, look, here's I do if I were you, here's what I do if I were you, and whether it is your service or. Not it's here's what I do if I were you, and just tell them what you would do. Oftentimes, this really directly correlates with what you actually do do. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. It's going to here's what I do if I were you, and then just be quiet. Do not sell. And then they're gonna say something, don't sell again. They're gonna, you know, can you guys maybe do that for me? Look, you know, I, I don't love working with, I believe this. I don't love working with friends and family. Honestly, yeah, um, could we sure? But like, whether we do it or someone else does it, here's what I do. If I were you, yeah, and then let them lead the dance. Yeah, you're just moving your feet. You don't need to twirl, you don't need to jump, you don't need to do a backflip. You don't need to do a somersault. Here's what I do. If I were you, they're gonna say something, pull it back a little bit and let them lead the rest of it, and they will take you home in a very comfortable way. Yeah, they'll bring it home in a comfortable, non intrusive way, and then you've got a relationship from a sales perspective, where they don't leave and go, Yeah, Eric tried to twist my arm, yeah? My uncle tried to sell me some crap. Yeah, that's how you do it.

Eric Watkins:

I like that. I'm not so certain that approach doesn't work with everybody. It might, you know, I like the concept of, here's what I would do if I were you and keeping it separate from your product. Now it could be adjacent, because at the end of the day, we are in Tales from sales, and there's no tails from sales, without sales, it would just be tails. Yeah, just be tail. Would just be telling stories. Just be telling stories. Yeah, I like that approach a lot. And I think that is the consultative type of selling that everybody if I'm buying, I want somebody who I feel like is an expert and can tell me, you know, here's gives me their opinion on what they would do, and I need to make the decision if I feel like they're the best to do it, yeah?

Jeff Winters:

And, like, the key to this is you got to be authentic, obviously, yeah, if you go, here's what I do. If I were you, and it's exactly what you do, they're gonna, people are gonna hear a moron. But, you know, eight times out of 10, because I've sort of described it to this warm audience, it is kind of what we do, and it's in the wheelhouse. And I'm explaining, I'm like, here's what I do. If I were you, I'd, you know, I'd go make 150 cold calls, or I'd send direct mail, or I'd send email. Yeah, well, do you guys do that? Yeah, we do. I mean, to be honest, I don't love working with friends or neighbors or what have you. But yeah, we do. But like, forget us, like, take us out of the equation. That's what you should do, whether you do it yourself or somebody else or whatever. Yeah, I love it. It's the summer, it's gonna happen,

Eric Watkins:

and it comes up, and it comes up, it definitely comes up. Does Yeah, good stuff. Thank

Jeff Winters:

you. And now from the good stuff to the great stuff to the great stuff. Oh, do not.

Eric Watkins:

There is no cry. Oh, the new sound. Yoda. Yoda, WISE. WISE, Yoda. I wonder what Yoda would do in this situation. So the to do or not to do. I was on vacation last week. I was in Florida, in the panhandle, and I, you know, we had public beach from the place we were staying that we had access to and on the beach, you had two options. You could buy the chairs, which are pretty overpriced, but you're kind of prisoner of the the moment you get the umbrella, you get two chairs. You can bring your own chairs as well, but you at least kind of have, like a home fort, and you have a sectioned off space. And then there was an area right next to it where you could just have your your public spot. And you know, you could post up there. But to get a good spot, you got to wake up at 5am and get out there and get all your stuff out there. Take money out of it, right? Take money out of it. Should you get a designated spot where you know, you know you're gonna have the umbrella and the place is gonna be posted up? Or do you like you know? Let's go find let's go make our own area. What type of person are you? Jeff,

Jeff Winters:

I hate the beach, so I'm gonna not only take money out of it. I'm gonna take the idea of the beach out of it. I find it detestable. I find it reprehensible.

Eric Watkins:

Can we unpack that? Why? Everything

Jeff Winters:

about it? Everything about the beach, I hate. How is that even the danger? I don't like the sand. I don't like the unyielding sun. Like sand I don't like. I'm any walk to the beach through some sort of nail infested wood I don't like. Let me keep going. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

keep going. You're out. You've emptied the chamber. What do you like about feast? Nothing. You like the water. You know, getting in the arm, nice and refreshing. Oh

Jeff Winters:

no, no, no. I like getting in the pool water. You know what I like about the beach, seeing it from afar, that's what I like, hearing it from a distance. Hearing it from a distance, I find it mildly relaxing. I just how many stories do I have to see about bad shit happening on a beach before people go, Hey, I'm not going now. Philosophically, more to your point, I think for me on trips, organization, planning. I want to know everything. I want to know where I'm sitting. I want to know every meal that I'm eating. I want to know where I'm going. And I want to know at particular moments. Otherwise I get stressed. If it's 1130 I don't know where lunch is, my heart rate's fluttering. I don't want that. So for me, the idea of going anywhere beach or pool without a designated place to rest my hat. It's

Eric Watkins:

really more about food, though. No,

Jeff Winters:

I need to know. I would be so anxious, you know, it's 530 in the morning, I'd think, well, what if everybody got up at 515 and got down there and got a spot next to the sandcastle? So I would, I would I need that. Planfulness is what I need. What do you think?

Eric Watkins:

I think the same thing. I think the same thing. I think it depends on the group that you have. Like if you have a ton of people, it's probably harder to figure out how to get a bunch of chairs next to each other without doing it yourself, but, but then there's whole, I don't, I don't really like, I wish everybody would do the same thing. I think is the ultimate part, because then you got, like, you know, we were sitting in a section, and then there was 10 people that sat right in front of us on the beach. It's like, you know, and it's not really defined, you know, it's kind of, kind of causes some drama. It does cause. And I don't want drama on a vacation,

Jeff Winters:

right? And I don't there is, unfortunately, and I say this with all due delicacy, there is a giant swath of the population that doesn't give a shit about anybody, about themselves, yes, and those people in the public beach situation. Come on, Jim, come on. Sally, let's sit right in front of these people. It's like, gosh, like, what are you doing? It's like, you know, the Starbucks door, and as opposed to holding it for someone, they just running right in front. It's like, these people, like most people don't, yeah, have a little give a shit about somebody else that that's what I think. Yeah, have a look. I don't care if there's a public private seating not get your Have yourself a warm cup of give a shit about somebody else from once. I agree. I'm getting applause.

Eric Watkins:

I agree it's very good. There's a there's a large swath of people. What percentage of the population? Most?

Jeff Winters:

6060, more than that. Who does I think it's, I think it's a couple people give a shit. We'd be like, You know what? Let's not sit in front of those people. I think most people like, put the chair down. Put the chair down. Block their view. Who gives a shit? They're all gonna be dead in 80 years. Anyways, what are they gonna say? Let

Eric Watkins:

them say it. Let them say something. First. Say something to me. All right, at a baseball game, would you go sit in better seats that are empty, knowing that you're gonna be kicked out by somebody when they come? The

Jeff Winters:

only thing I hate more than the beach, and this is true, is a baseball game. I despise baseball games, same elements, incredible heat, lots of danger. I don't like baseball games. So the question I never move down, I find that also, I hate to use the word again, reprehensible. You did not pay for those seats sit in your seat. And the idea that you could potentially force someone who did pay for those seats into a situation going, Hey, that's again, I've there's like, a funny, like, Kings of comedy sketch on this by Cedric the Entertainer, about, like, confrontational versus non confrontational, and enjoying that versus not. I don't, I don't want to, in my recreational time, kick you out of my seats and have you play that little pretend dance. Oh, what?

Eric Watkins:

Oh, you're oh, let's check the tickets. Oh,

Jeff Winters:

I don't have a ticket to tonight's game. Get out of here. I'm

Eric Watkins:

a seat jumper. No. Oh yeah, I'm gonna go down there. If no one's there,

Jeff Winters:

what inning?

Eric Watkins:

I'll wait a little bit. I'm not like, a beginning of the game. Let's sit in the front row and see if anybody kicks us out. But, like, it seems pretty empty.

Jeff Winters:

But do you go with the intent to do that? The intent to what? Like you're gonna sit up in your shitty seats and you're gonna look down and you're gonna go, Okay, babe, third inning, we're moving.

Eric Watkins:

I'm not gonna go with the intent, but I'm never taking it off the table. I'm always keeping an eye on it. What

Jeff Winters:

percentage of baseball games do you steal someone's seat that you did not buy? If there are open seats in

Eric Watkins:

front of me? 100% of the time if no one's sitting there, like if I if it's the fourth inning and no one has came and sat in that seat, it's open, it is. We're wasting space. We should all come down. We should all come closer to the field. Everybody bring them all down. All of us come down. No, no,

Jeff Winters:

no, no. Know, you sit in the seat that you bought. That's why we buy the seats. Otherwise it'd be Southwest Airlines.

Eric Watkins:

They're changing that, by the way. Do you see that Exactly,

Jeff Winters:

exactly? And so what do you do? Like on an airplane? Do you do this? Oh, sorry, somebody Exactly, right? Oh, somebody's

Eric Watkins:

airplane's different airplanes, different. Stay away from

Jeff Winters:

the beach. Stay away from the baseball game. Don't steal from people. All

Eric Watkins:

right, that's That's enough on that topic. Thank you for tuning in today. We appreciate it. Glad to be back, excited for Give Back Day this week until next time. Let's grow. Let's grow.

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Eric Watkins

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Jeff Winters

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Scott Scully

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