Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

Harnessing Fear, Honoring Culture: Jay Doran on Self-Mastery and Building Vision-Driven Businesses

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 335

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What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail? This question lies at the heart of entrepreneurship, where fear often becomes the invisible barrier between where we are and where we want to be.

Jay Doran, culture expert and founder of Culture Matters, takes us on a journey through the complex relationship between fear and organizational culture. "When I'm not sharing my vision out of fear, I'm not showing up as the best version of myself," Jay reveals, highlighting how personal limitations directly impact business outcomes. The conversation explores how fear can both motivate and paralyze, and how successful entrepreneurs learn to harness it productively.

The origin story of Culture Matters unfolds as Jay shares his transformation from an anxious, overwhelmed entrepreneur to a passionate advocate for value-driven organizations. After discovering a book about The Container Store's founding principles during a moment of anxiety, Jay implemented core values in his first business venture and witnessed remarkable changes in team behavior. This experience revealed his gift for teaching and set him on a path to help other businesses discover their cultural foundations.

As businesses grow, they face an interesting challenge: transitioning from fear-based motivation to value-driven culture. Jay and Maria discuss how defining vision, mission, and values creates a foundation that sustains motivation beyond fear. This process of making implicit values explicit gives organizations direction and purpose that transcends individual anxieties.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when Jay shares his experience interviewing Dr. Jordan Peterson, describing how preparation allowed him to balance fan excitement with professional responsibility. "To become a hero, you must meet your heroes," Jay observes, emphasizing the importance of mentorship in entrepreneurial journeys.

Whether you're just starting your business or leading an established organization, this conversation offers valuable insights on overcoming fear, building authentic culture, developing self-awareness, and nurturing the relationships that sustain entrepreneurial success. As Maria's podcast name suggests, the ultimate goal is to "Be the Solution" – for your customers, your team, and yourself.

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Maria Quattrone:

I am super excited today. I am Maria Patron, and this is the Be the Solution podcast. Today I have a very special guest. If you don't know him, you need to get to know him. This is Jay Duran, culture man. True, jay's all about culture, but Jay and I have gone back now well over a decade and we've had a very interesting, interesting relationship over the last decade in a very good way, and so I'm very excited to have jay back on the show today. Jay, so this morning I was thinking about because I was inspired by you doing it boats, so I start doing it.

Jay Doran:

Oh, that's awesome, so this is the quote I I picked for you today the quotes.

Maria Quattrone:

so I start doing the quotes. Oh, that's awesome. So this is the quote I picked for you today the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Jay Doran:

Wow.

Maria Quattrone:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Thanks, you're welcome. That quote, though, is something that resonates with me because I think that well, for me anyway, think about what holds you back. If you knew you would not fail, what would you attempt to do? And if we think about it, most people stop or don't get started because of fear. The fear of what if? In a good way and in a bad way. The fear of what if? What if I actually am successful in this endeavor? What if I'm not successful? But I think it's more of what if I am.

Jay Doran:

Anyway, I love the topic because I think it's an honor to be here and an honor to have the relationship and work together over all these years in so many different contexts, and I think it's such a that could be a book really, um, really, but it's an honor to be on be the solution. I love the idea and I'm inspired by the idea of being a solution and I love the quote fdr that was the. I don't know a lot about his story, but wasn't he instrumental, I think, in World?

Maria Quattrone:

War.

Jay Doran:

II and all of that, the New Deal. And he was in a wheelchair at one point, I think FDR Franklin, because there's another Roosevelt that I get confused sometimes. I think they were related, but I'm inspired by both. I don't know enough about FDR, but I love the quote because I think fear undermines culture actually. Sure, it's an interesting place to start inspired by it.

Maria Quattrone:

Fear does undermine culture, but yet fear is not real. Well, fear, it's not really real, but it is real.

Jay Doran:

There are things could go wrong, and it's it's. It's like self-awareness and fear have a relationship Like the more the more. Like that's where, because, think about it, if I'm not thinking about the consequences, I might just need exactly what I need to move into the, to move into action, whereas if I get stunted like I'd be stunted by thinking about all the different things that could happen, so like fear. What keeps us alive? Fear is a part of like like life. Nietzsche said to live is to suffer to, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. So like to live is to suffer. Life is scary, it's like it's hard. We're kind of thrown into this thing and we've got to figure it out. And and so fear is is. I think fear drives me on such a deep level and it's how I've been using it. I haven't always used it in the most effective ways. Anyway, could go on and on about fear, but I think I'll give you an example. Let's say that things are going really well in the business. But let's say that things are going really well in the business, like everything's just going really well. Well, I'm not driven by the fear. Like it's. I have to be more responsible because there's a lack of accountability, from things just not going right, like it's a completely different.

Jay Doran:

The question becomes well, where does that motivation and where does that inspiration come from, outside of fear, like we're actually successful now? That's where the culture conversation starts. What's our vision, what's our mission? What do we stand for? Making what was once implicit or not spoken or not written down, it was just in us. Like I want to be successful, I want people to take me seriously, I want money, I want to be rich. Like that's a different human than like the person that starts the business. That's a different person, different circumstances, different behaviors than the person that has the business now. And so, like I love the call this is so interesting because fear is so important and understanding how to use it and understanding how to not get um, how to not be overwhelmed by it well, that's part of it.

Jay Doran:

Okay, maybe that's where so that's part of it.

Maria Quattrone:

You overwhelm, so people get into so much overwhelm that this action isn't taken.

Jay Doran:

Look, at the example, like I might be afraid that if I give honest feedback to my employee or my business partner or my insert, whoever, that there could be like negative repercussions. So from an organizational culture standpoint, person like the leadership really sets that tone for how communication flows through the business. And if the leadership is in a position of fear, I want to say I have absolutely been in all these things. I mean, what time is it? Is it? I was halfway through the night. When I woke up last night I was in fear and then this morning I'm like, oh, this is great, why? Because I wrote some things down and made some plans. This is not going anywhere. I don't want to. I'm not interested in speaking from like a type of moral superiority or pulpit here. This is like real time, real stuff.

Jay Doran:

Real time, real stuff. But one thing that I can share is when I don't share my vision out of fear, I'm not showing up the best version of myself. I can speak from personal experience. When I'm not sharing my vision out of fear, I'm not. Maybe it's like I don't know if people do it seriously, or I don't know if I'm ready or some combination or even yet what's I don't have the words for it Right. Maybe if I did, I'd be at that next level yet.

Jay Doran:

But that fear is a part of entrepreneurship. I think the question is, how do we wield it? Think of all the people that are never. They're watching this. They follow you, they love you, they're inspired you because you took the leap, you have a business, you're very successful, what you do for so many years. They're watching this maybe because they are trying to anchor to you and your inspiration, because they're afraid to start their business. There could be so many people watching this that are afraid to start their business because of whatever reason, maybe rational, like oh, they have seven kids and they all need to be fed. I'm going to be afraid to start because if I don't succeed, they will all die. So that's extreme.

Maria Quattrone:

Jay.

Jay Doran:

Yeah, everything's extreme. It's fun to live on the extremes. You've got to have fun to crawl the fear.

Maria Quattrone:

Oh boy, Wow Jay, why did you want to start Culture Matters?

Jay Doran:

The original inspiration was the team meetings with the core values. I found myself in those meetings talking about the core values. I was inspired by seeing people's eyes light up. I was inspired by seeing people's eyes light up. I was inspired by seeing the behavior change. I was inspired by who I felt like when I got to teach. I saw parts of myself that I had never recognized or seen, that had not been.

Jay Doran:

I mean, it started with this book. I'm obsessed with books. I was walking at Barnes Noble and it stuck out. I don't know why it was walking, it just stuck out.

Jay Doran:

Fairly obscure book. If you're interested in culture, you're interested in business. It was called Uncontainable and it was about the container store Kip Tyndall started in 1978. I remember this. This is like 2014 timeframe. You know I had been a minority majority, uh, helping start a new business from nothing, zero, from a visionary, no founder, the visionary founder. And uh, and it's uh. I was anxious and afraid and overwhelmed. And where I went, where I go, one of the places I would go was Barnes Noble. I would look for information that got me out of fear. Information got me out of fear In that book.

Jay Doran:

It said Kip Tyndall said we started the container store in 1978 to help people get more organized. Success of like, less turnover than the average retailer, higher profit than the average or higher per capita pay for the average employee in that business and numerous other exciting things. As a small business owner, I was excited about that idea like, oh wow, you could be successful this way. And he attributed to the seven founding principles of the container store and I said to myself, what are our values? Where do we stand for? And I remember like putting them all together and being so excited about it. It was helping me construct my own self, find my own self, just to be clear. And I remember presenting it to the team at the time and Dan this guy, dan, who was amazing, he raised his hand and he said why are we having this? In less kind words is how it felt why are we having this meeting? This is a waste of time around these values. And I said just give me a chance to show you Like. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I didn't get this last week. Give me a chance. And every day I want to give kudos where kudos do.

Jay Doran:

At the time, my partner I considered him a mentor in so many ways. He had been pushing me to be the one to be the do of the meetings. So he saw something in me to do the meetings and it was boom every day. Hey, these are our values, this is what they stand for, this is why and we use them to. Actually, one of them was the first three steps. When the customer walked through the door, they got greeted with a warm, hearty hello. The experience starts at the door and ends with a goodbye. And there was an actionable step. It was like check in on your Facebook, here is something We'll give you water. Check in. And that was like a marketable exercise.

Jay Doran:

So what happened was I love to teach. That's like who I am. That's what was discovered there. I like students. They like me, one of my best self, and I saw the results of the culture. I saw the results. I also wanted money and respect and all the things that you know to be successful. So I saw the results and I was like this culture thing is legit now. And from all of that I said to myself I'm still trying to find myself who I am today. I was trying to find it in as a consultant, as an advisor, as an investor and so on. I got to teach this, I got to do this.

Jay Doran:

Culture matters and from there just pain and suffering here for many years. And anyway, I met you along the way and so it would be. It was reading the. It was being afraid. Love the quotes, being afraid, going somewhere that I felt safe, going to information to get out of fear, presenting the new information to the team, seeing and then giving it time, seeing the results being inspired, ultimately wanting to go into my vision as an entrepreneur, create what was inside of me.

Jay Doran:

That was beyond just this first business. And all of these years later we are involved in many of those types of small, medium-sized businesses, such as that one original business. It was a very successful founder, very gifted. It's called Fusion Gyms. I'm no longer an investor or a partner in that, but it was one of those movie type with all the pain and suffering along the way and embarrassing mistakes and shameful acts and so on. But that was like the shortest version. I could kind of squeeze that crazy energy intensity the shortest version. I could kind of squeeze that crazy energy intensity, value creation for customers. And then I saw the culture at its finest and it absolutely changed the trajectory of my life. And then it was trying to figure out how the hell am I going to teach this and how is anybody going to take that seriously?

Maria Quattrone:

Still in that process.

Jay Doran:

Yeah, still in that process, but thankfully for people like yourself early on especially, that gave me opportunity to serve and lots of.

Maria Quattrone:

Who the hell would I be for giving you opportunity to serve now? Yeah, it's overwhelming you get a good way but the overwhelming yeah, you have a lot going on. I you know. I think one of the things in being an entrepreneur somebody wants to start a business is, I hear a lot of times, I'm not where I want to be, I'm not at the level I want to be. Have you heard people say that to you? I'm not at the level I want to be, I want to be here, but I'm here.

Jay Doran:

Absolutely that level. Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

So one of the things I think when I hear what I said who do you have to become? Who is the person that you need to become to be there? It's like radical self-awareness of personal development, of who we are as humans, and I think that's a big part of it, the awareness I've seen it with you the awareness Like sometimes we're not aware of even what we're doing 100%.

Maria Quattrone:

A lot of times we're not aware. We need to become aware. It's like everything that we want. That's why this is Be the Solution is really up to us. It's really up to us as an individual. You could have like right, you had people, so we could have. We had a period of time where we didn't talk right. We could have not ever talked together.

Jay Doran:

Story of my life period of time where we didn't talk right. We could have not ever talked together. Story of my life I have. I believe in. I think I think I learned more. I learned from every student, like the teacher. I learned that I learned from my students in all sorts of context and just cause you just if, if. If a teacher is a teacher in one domain, that doesn't mean they're a teacher in all domains.

Maria Quattrone:

Right, that's an arrogant presupposition. Presupposition I like that one.

Jay Doran:

It's just a, not a. It's not a good stance, that. So I am I. I I have a, I think I have a, I don't have a. I think I've been a very bad teacher in a lot of ways I would have. That's like I, because you know, yeah, it's.

Jay Doran:

But I want to be the person at the end of my life looks back and says, oh, I messed that up, I sucked at that, I know. And so I don't have the regret, because I think the regret has a relationship with the lack of admitting to oneself. Whatever oneself is maybe not owned up to fully or acknowledged. It's like, how can I live with regret if I try to make it right?

Jay Doran:

So you know, really real relationships can be tough if there, if there's, you know, and there's also adversity, like adversity, two things that destroy small, medium sized business, adversity, two things that destroy small, medium-sized business this is has to be relatable for anybody in business is, uh, partnership breakups and actual, like life, you know, interpersonal, like breakups. Small, medium-sized businesses that's the lion's share of businesses in in the country, the millions of businesses there. You know five million or under a million, you know under that million, and it goes into the tens of thousands, when you go beyond a million, and then you know that, and then it goes into the thousands and then hundreds, and then it's like it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. But in that swath of business statistics, what undermines the businesses that actually have value for the marketplace? It's the human element.

Maria Quattrone:

It's always about the human. So wait in case. I had a meeting with an individual who's the owner of a brokerage company and it was this person, and it was this person, the founder, okay, and another person. And the other person was running the meeting the main person, the founder. The founder was in wherever they were, skiing or something, it doesn't matter, they were on the Zoom. But what they did, the human did they turned off their camera while I was on the Zoom and they were on the Zoom. The other person was on the.

Maria Quattrone:

Zoom, I'm going to turn my camera off, but I'll be here. So I said, hmm, definitely not somebody I want to be in business with, right off the bat. Don't take the meeting. You're the founder. You're turning your camera on, you're going to listen, but you're not going to participate. Don't take the meeting Because I now have no respect Not that I don't have respect, that's the wrong word. But why make somebody question, question. You are right off the bat.

Jay Doran:

Well, it's a thing people are going to question us, no matter what, right off the bat, as they should, because that's how that's what. That's how that keeps us as individuals accountable, in a sense. So I would say people are going to question us off the bat and if yeah, so I would say you know as they should and you know that's what I would say to that.

Jay Doran:

I think, yeah, from a culture standpoint, if that's like you know, the more you know. I guess I would want to talk to that person about you know. I would want to say, hey, this is what happened, this is what was the case. What's your deal? Are we doing this or not? Anything absent of that, and I'm going to look for some type of story to keep me from being anxious and from reading textbooks on psychology and working with advisors and mentors to help me become a better advisor consultant to businesses. What I've learned as a student is that our brain will play tricks on us. So I go back to the relationships piece. When we're building a business and we're building with people, things are going to go wrong, because that's part of life and if we value each other and have living in a state of value, then we should be able to work through. It doesn't mean it'd be able to work through whatever arises, and it doesn't mean necessarily that everything will stay the same. Life is constantly in flux and in change, so it doesn't.

Jay Doran:

Sure, so like yeah, yeah, but on piece. I think that was that was really helpful. Share for the audience is like who knows what that person is up to. But having a clear standard of what you are looking for or not looking for would be important to you, clearly, and that's where you know, get it. Whether that's written down, it's one of the core values you know.

Jay Doran:

Like I'm thinking like in our company, we what show face so like and why?

Jay Doran:

Well, we're on we.

Jay Doran:

We run a virtual company, so when we're on zoom, you do the best you possibly can to be prepared, like if that's something that's really important to you, like what's important to you and your company might be different than what's important to some somebody here, but but the but, the lesson here is that each person has to get clear on what's important to them and write it down and clear on it, and that will now create more opportunity to attract people that share those values that are still going to be this gray in between, where we're just not on the same page and it's going to lead to be like oh man, gotta have this call or this conversation that I really don't want to have and if I'm in a fear state I might have a terrible.

Jay Doran:

That's something I'm definitely guilty of, just like. Uh, it's like how you tell the truth is as important as what you're saying, how you do it, and sometimes I can see so far ahead, so clearly, that I'll come in like a million miles an hour and that's, like you know, earth shattering, and it's not about not my faults than anybody else.

Jay Doran:

That's more. That's not great. It's like happening, yeah so, but I like that. I like that example, because that that's the stuff that happens every day.

Maria Quattrone:

It is.

Jay Doran:

That person could have. I mean, there's so many scenarios that person could have been seeing how others react to that lack of, I would say, respect. That's the first thought that comes to mind. It doesn't mean it's the right, but you said it already. But it's like, yeah, if I'm in a meeting.

Maria Quattrone:

If I want to go to the meeting, I want to come prepared, you want to go to the meeting. I want to come prepared. You want to go to the meeting with paper bag over your head?

Jay Doran:

I mean you know who knows, though the person the person could be, you know, insecure and ashamed about, like how they look and who they are and all these other things no, at the same time it could be some type of uh, but the point is we can go on, we can make it up we can philosophize all day long of what it is, but I think the lesson here is that's where the conversation comes if it's important to them, if it's important to you or me or whoever I look at it.

Jay Doran:

If it was important to them, they'd probably be part of the conversation yeah, fair, I'm just, I'm uh first meaning probably be part of the conversation I don't mind turning her in the other cheek, but that's that doesn't mean that's the right answer. That's just how I would look at it.

Jay Doran:

So, if I want something bad enough, I'm going to go get it and take it. Now, that being said, if I don't like how someone's behaving, I'm going to like even the scenario right, if we're talking about this. And the if, if, if we, if we talk through that, like if we're talking about this, and if we, if we talk through that like, this platform can easily be used as like to continue. The rationalization of this is right. This is the truth.

Maria Quattrone:

This is where they messed up, but we don't know that.

Jay Doran:

Yeah so.

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah, I'm leaving like that.

Jay Doran:

We don't know, so that's why having the conversation can be helpful, but you don't have to also do that. You can't just decide to move on and let go, and let it go and go in another direction.

Maria Quattrone:

I'm happy with my decision of moving past because it's free for me.

Jay Doran:

Well, as a business owner, you get, decide, decide, and every business owner gets to decide what their hell looks like or what their heaven is. I get to decide or you get to decide to decide.

Jay Doran:

This is where, but this is where advisors come in, this is where boards come in, this is where shareholders come in, this is where customer reviews come in. Is we don't want things in a vacuum. This is where this, these tools, these social tools, can be really helpful. They can really show us who we are. That's why I think that listening to the critics and not blocking people that have negative views can be really helpful. At the same time, unfortunately, it can skew more to like. We don't yet know the research on the psychological effects of all of that, but I think we can Don't hate the haters, yes, yes.

Maria Quattrone:

Don't block. I always remember you said that Don't block the haters Deal with the haters.

Jay Doran:

Yes, yes, don't block. I always remember you said that don't block the haters, do with the haters. I'm not sure if I even agree with it fully, but there's something in because it's it's such a fine line because you almost like you can get killed. It's such. This is why I have a lot okay, I have a lot of. I want to have empathy for people in positions of power, because if you're in at the top, all the person at the top gets is pain and suffering If they're present the problems. So it's how you synthesize that, how you work through that. It's not an easy job to be the leader. It is a hard job, and so there's it's, there's, it's, it's hard, it's, it's constant. We have to go where the problems are, get our hands dirty, be the solution. It's not easy to be the solution it's.

Maria Quattrone:

We came up with the name, the podcast. Jenna and I talked, we sat there on the zoom, he sat there on the Zoom COVID, zoom Again, covid. And he said she's like you're going to do a podcast, podcast. She's like, yes, I'm like, okay, so we need a name. Well, what do you do? And I'm like, well, we solve problems, bigger problems, more challenges, more money. And I said, well, we look at expired to every child. And I said we're the solution. And then a friend of mine, quentin's colleague, he had a podcast be generous. I was like, oh, I like that. Be the solution, be the solution, be the solution. And that's been my mantra since April 1st of 2020. Be the solution.

Jay Doran:

I think you've always been that for your clients, which is why you're so successful.

Maria Quattrone:

Just named it.

Jay Doran:

Well, that shows the power of asking questions and relationships, the alignment between a brand and the actual culture. That's like the secret sauce the culture is what actually happens. The brand is what we want people to think is possible.

Maria Quattrone:

True.

Jay Doran:

Like the culture is in behavior, it's in behavior.

Jay Doran:

The core. The value of the core value exercise is the discovery of what we stand for and why. And it's like the discovery, it's a part of the process to discover ourselves as an organization and this thing living by it is a life test. I believe I failed this. I was rereading 30 Days of Thought, my first book, which was written almost seven years ago, and in the back of the book there are the core values of culture matters. Like the c in culture matters is collaboration, give first, intend to help and get started. Today, unique, you know, learned. The more you learn, the more you earn trust, really trust in yourself, so you can trust others. And I went through the values that I had written down and the first move make it happen, do it now a aspire to inspire before you expire. And there's a story behind all these. Like people I met on planes that said hey, this one lady gave me a note and said it said aspire to inspire before you expire anyway.

Jay Doran:

I went through an exercise of like looking at the values and saying what grade would I give myself in each of these? And I was a failure. So that's the grade. But I think if anyone cares about culture and values on the call. It's like the value of the values is what we can learn about ourselves from that and what others can give us feedback. Pro and con. There's so much I've learned from Maria, what she said and how she showed up, our relationship, working relationship over the years, the personal friendship that's blossomed from that on both sides of it.

Jay Doran:

It's like there's no greater gift in business than to be able to work with people, to work and enjoy the process of those you get to work with. Like Peter Drucker, the founder of, I think, of management, he said on the purpose of those you get to work with. Like Peter Drucker, the founder of, I think, management, he said the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. It's like when we get away from our customers and we get away from why we started which naturally I think happens as we grow the business grows and we grow in our how long we've been doing. Whatever we're doing, we can get away from it.

Jay Doran:

It's happened to me. It's happened to because I don't think, just because I'm trying to especially, you know, research is me, search psychological term, like just because you're a teacher doesn't mean I'm avoiding. Or if I have a consulting business doesn't mean that as the business, we're immune from the same things that the organizations and all the different industries that we serve would go through. So there's an organizational, we get away as the organization grows. We can get away from the fundamental purpose of a business and also, as we grow as people, we have different life events.

Jay Doran:

We age like we can grow away from the center of the business, which and we could even talk about real estate like the purpose of business, like why is it exists, it's about other people that need goods and services and naturally we can get away from that and I guess I can. You know, I don't need to shame myself over that, just be aware of oh man, I got to get back on target. What's the vision, what's the plan? Who needs me right now? Where do I need to be? Consumer, facing, right Employment facing. So it's just in conversations like this whether we have this, this is how we talk when we're not.

Jay Doran:

This is a normal conversation for us. We're just talking before we hear a report. You share what you think, I share what I think, and then all sorts of cool things come out.

Maria Quattrone:

That's just some thoughts that come up when you share that. You know, jay, something extraordinary happened for you, I thought.

Jay Doran:

Anyway, you got to admit, you got to interview somebody that you highly respected, highly respect and dr jordan peterson and I'm curious to know what that felt like there were two jays there today backstage, I felt the uh, overwhelming, um, I'd had the opportunity to meet prior, uh, but this was a very different context because of the intimacy of that, being preparing for the stage time. He asked great questions. He leans in, he was prepared, he was thinking about the customer, which is incredible, not just us, because we're, because the people bringing him in, but who's in the audience. So his questions were around who's in the audience? So that's exciting from a standpoint is okay, you've studied the textbooks, you've used it. You haven't yet met the teacher from afar. Who are they? Because there's who you might think they are and then there's who they are. So that's inspiring. I was Dr Peterson is truly a teacher and who you'd hope he'd be there, and it's like hey, um, I could feel the anxiety and the excitement of meeting someone more deeply that you admire, that you haven't yet meet, and it was in my physiology and my, my X, my energy. And hey, would you sign maps of meeting? I've read so many. It's nice to see a well-worn book. Like all of that, there's a fan element that I'm trying to also prepare the teacher to present to these students in the audience. So there's that, jay. It's a very elevated heart. It's like oh, there's John Wick, I love John Wick movies. Let me. There's a fan element that you're trying to temper. But then if anyone hasn't seen the interview, I would love feedback on it.

Jay Doran:

He did a keynote and then I did a keynote. I sat in the front, took notes on it because I figured as much, based on the conversation, he was going to change his talk based on the conversation backstage, which he did, because he gave a different talk based on the conversation. I had to throw away the 70 some odd questions that I had, but I have been preparing for 10 months. Abraham Lincoln said if I have six hours to chop down a tree, I'll spend four hours sharpening my blade. So for 10 months I prepared, I'm preparing for a lot of things all the time and prepare before we did this, even if we're not going through those questions or those contexts that I think we might. I've sacrificed. I am invested in this show with you to honor the opportunity to be on the show. So I've prepared, so I prepare, and I didn't always prepare, I prepare, and so the me that was on the stage, the feedback I've asked from people and the feedback I've received. It was a professional, well put together dialogue, synthesizing the keynote, which was very abstract and educational to tactical, more tactical, what the audience needed. I was asking questions and taking notes, but I had been preparing for months and I think that's an important lesson for those listening. I am excited.

Jay Doran:

There is a selfishness in meeting someone I admire that has impacted my life and our customers and our business and all of these things. One of the many, but a huge influence, right, because I use this textbook very, really diligently and other resources to grow as a person and as a business owner, as an advisor. It's benefited everyone, whether they even are aware of that or not, and so that's an emotional, exciting thing. But because of the preparation, I was able to do the best possible job serving the customer, honoring the relationship, not making it all about me, which it absolutely hugely is about about me, because this is something that my ego and attachment is too. So the preparation helped me show up in a way that could provide value and actually is cool.

Jay Doran:

Just as an aside, if anybody's interested, there's a 14 part series on the culture matters podcast in the we have it's. It's between episode nine. It's in the 900s, I don't recall the exact number of the episodes. There's 40 episodes with an introduction and an outro. Chapters or rules, chapters, rules one through 12 of his third book, beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life. Part of my preparation was I reread the book. I highlighted, I took notes, notes and I've learned all the rules. And there's a 10 hour lecture series on the Culture Irish podcast of me as a student going through those rules and I was doing that as part of my preparation for this opportunity to so and I grew from that. That was, that was, that was exciting, it was fun. I'm not I think I've grown from that. That was a, that was a, that was an exciting, it was fun. I'm not, I think I've I've grown from that process. So that's on the cultural Irish podcast and in the nine hundreds we're almost at a thousand episodes. We will be in August at a thousand episodes.

Maria Quattrone:

So there were two.

Jay Doran:

J's, there's the, there's the fan, there's the students and everybody has heroes. You know, I was talking to Brad. He's like what's it like to meet your heroes? At first I was thinking I took it in the wrong way. But no, he is a hero for sure and I should talk about this. It is great to meet your heroes.

Jay Doran:

I actually think to be a hero you have to meet your heroes and I don't think a hero can actually let us down. It can, but to become a hero we have to meet our heroes and honor our heroesan metaphorically met his hero. How he already knew his hero, how he showed up, wasn't necessarily the best, based on his opinion of his hero. So I think that whole because the the sentiment is never meet your heroes like you want to meet your heroes and you want to honor them, even if you know maybe they don't live up to whatever expectation I think that's more of a projection of the person than it is. It's like it's not an idol worship here. It's somebody that you admire. You want to meet your heroes. If you want to be a hero, you have to meet your heroes. You have to meet them, you have to honor them, you have to learn from them. You have to. Um, that was a thought that I had because a lot of people ask me.

Jay Doran:

That was a thought that I had because a lot of people ask me have you, you know what's it like to meet your, your hero or a hero of yours? It was like it's great, it's amazing, it's opportunity to have a, to grow in the relationship that I can with my potential and potentially have a mentor, that I'm here because of my mentors and my students, that I learned from both. So, man, that that's a long answer, but that's the right answer. I feel good about that answer. There were two J's there's the fan, there's the student and then there's the prepared contemporary, at least in the sense of company culture. That's not.

Jay Doran:

Dr Peterson is a clinical psychologist. I would never consider myself a contemporary to him in that domain. That would be weird. However, I am a subject matter expert around company culture at the level that we work at small and medium-sized businesses, and that was an opportunity to ask someone who I think has a great brand and knowledge base that speaks to small, medium-sized businesses. That I think we've exemplified by using some of his teachings to help small businesses, whether they knew that was the case or not. He's a great breadth of information that could help small businesses and that's not his bad. He wouldn't say, oh, I'm a business expert. He wouldn't say that he's never postured something, but he has a tremendous value to small business and business expertise. So it was a.

Jay Doran:

I hope to do it again. That's a goal and it was fun to have an opportunity to share some of myself again with audiences. I get to do on your show, because I feel like Rocky in one of those movies where he got fat and like stopped training and then he had a, lost a bunch and then he had to go back and like do training and work out. That's where I believe I'm at in my life right now and I'm more successful than I've ever been in so many ways and I feel like an absolute loser. So it's like, wow, what a great opportunity to actually finally earn the opportunity to work with a hero. And it's because of our client. One of our client partners made it happen because they wanted to honor the relationship. God, I got to be more grateful. That's rule 12, by the way, in Beyond Order Be grateful in spite of your suffering. It ends the book that way, rule 12.

Maria Quattrone:

Be grateful. I start every day to talk about that, jay. Be in gratitude. Not only when you are grateful and in gratitude will your vibration elevates, because you're grateful for where you are. That doesn't mean that you don't want more, sure, you can I want to say something about you.

Jay Doran:

You have this unbelievable gift of seeing things in people that have watched it. There's probably like untold amount of agents in this greater Philadelphia and beyond area prospective customers to service your investor and residential and whatever context clients, that they're probably spread out all over the country. Whether they realize it or not, you change the paradigm by which they operate and, of course, I could say the same for you as someone that at one time Maria had me. She gave me a blow up mattress to borrow so I could have something to sleep on. It's like podcast. We've done on this a couple of times.

Jay Doran:

That'll be a future podcast maybe, but like you and I think that if people follow your show and they watch Be the Solution, they put that together. But if you'd ever seen the show, that's what you do, you've been doing it for so long and it's one of the reasons why I talk to people on the phone and your name comes up and it's happened where they said it's one of the best realtors that's ever existed in the greater Philadelphia market ever. Why Be the solution? Living that out, constant from selling stuff door to door to radio to whatever You've always been top and inspired and excited people and you know, lp mom, I still remember that Location, price motivation, agent mortgage closing was like a script that you had the agents in the office, me included.

Maria Quattrone:

Still doing it.

Jay Doran:

And yeah, that would be a great podcast.

Maria Quattrone:

We went to new agents because we have a lot of new agents right now. We went to daily. I said, like a shower Got to do it. You know, you're either practicing with each other or on the client consumer. So we're not going to practice on the consumer, we're going to practice with each other. People say, oh, I don't like to use scripts. Well, I don't care what you do in life, we're doctors. They have to ask you questions. The nurse asks you the questions you get weed. You do all these things right, it's just the same thing. We have to ask questions. We can't help people without asking questions. The better questions we ask, the better we can help make an impact we can help make an impact, be in contribution, be the solution.

Maria Quattrone:

And with that, yeah, this was so much fun. Always a pleasure to have my friend family to chip and I uh on the solution and love spending time with him. So happy we got to spend time together in person today. This is just a treat Not having to do it on.

Jay Doran:

And in person. For me, this is very special today with you and I love the conversation. It made me feel light. Thank you for the opportunity and I'm hoping that this could be a foreshadow for me to be the conversation. It made me feel light. Thank you for the opportunity and I'm hoping that this could be a foreshadow for me to be the solution.

Maria Quattrone:

Oh, you are ready.

Jay Doran:

Okay, well, yeah, okay, maybe. Sorry I'm going to hijack the ending of your show. You just got me excited with that.

Maria Quattrone:

Jay will be back on before the end of the year. See where he is with all these wonderful things he has going on, and, oh, I just love watching his journey. So thank you for sharing.

Jay Doran:

Thanks, and oh, listen to maria you've been on the culture matters podcast probably almost 10 times, almost really maybe seven. Type in uh, the culture matters podcast, maria quattro, and go listen to all those episodes and they're unbelievable.

Maria Quattrone:

And we got to get you on again in July.

Jay Doran:

So there you go, it's almost 10. It should be. It should be.

Maria Quattrone:

Like I'm upset now.

Jay Doran:

If it's not 10, then I'm upset at myself.

Maria Quattrone:

So All right, yeah Well, I'm going to check it out.