#8: Daniel Eberhard, Founder & CEO of Koho - Trying to be Useful at Scale

[00:00:00] Daniel Eberhard: I think that 99% of business books are bullshit. There's certain things which are evergreen in terms of the usefulness of their knowledge that are way more useful than, I don't know, some book about smart shortcuts. You can take around Excel or something that.

[00:00:25] Rob Pintwala: Welcome to Actualize a podcast focused on the intersection of performance, ambition, and mental health. I am Rob Pen, and I'm joined by my co-host Kim Foster Yardley.

[00:00:38] Kim Foster Yardley: Rather than fixate on the wins and successes, our mission is to uncover the whole picture of the UN being behind the performance. Join us as we interview top performers across business, sport, and the arts.

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[00:01:30] Kim Foster Yardley: Actualize is also presented by the Mental Game Clinic. The Mental Game Clinic was founded by myself. Kim Foster Yardley. I combined my 20 years of experience as a clinical psychologist with my passion for sports psychology, and I built a team of therapists who specialize in working with high performers, Olympians and founders find us@thementalgame.me.

[00:02:01] Rob Pintwala: Today's guest is Daniel Eberhard. Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Coho, a Canadian FinTech company. Coho was founded in 2015 and recently surpassed the 1 million customer mark. About 350 folks work at Coho, and in this episode we get a glimpse into Daniel's leadership style, how he thinks about psychological safety in the workplace, values about being a parent, about living intentionally.

[00:02:27] Rob Pintwala: Daniel is open about his experience with therapy and coaching, and discusses how he thinks about these tools both in his professional and personal life. Please enjoy this episode with Daniel Everhard. Daniel, it's great to have you here on Actualize. I wanted to jump right in and ask you about meaningful work, and I've heard you say in the past, and maybe I'll paraphrase a little bit, but that you can only control two things if you're proud of the work you're doing.

[00:02:55] Rob Pintwala: And if you're proud of the people you're working with. And I wanted to ask you a little bit more about how you landed on that and if that's always been the case.

[00:03:04] Daniel Eberhard: I don't know if it's always been the case. So I think, I think kind of the, the real teaching lesson so just my background was in wind energy and built the business in that space.

[00:03:15] Daniel Eberhard: And then after that company, no. Talk about this too much, but I built a business in the e-commerce logistics space. And it was, it was, I think in the first year we like grossed 300 grand. It was, it seemed like it was a real business. And this was in the heyday of group buying. I dunno if you remember like e Groupon and, and these kind of, these kind of folks and what.

[00:03:34] Daniel Eberhard: Happened was they basically created a lot of incentive to  highly inflate the prices of things and then sell the cheapest thing that you could. So you'd have this big manufacturer suggested retail price and then you'd be like, it's 80% off. But what that incentivized was a bunch of just low quality stuff that you just couldn't shake.

[00:03:52] Daniel Eberhard: The feeling was gonna end up in a landfill. And so even though this business was kind of working, we shut it down after the first year just because it was, the least energizing thing to do. And it was act in fact like such a drag. And so, you know, I think, I think that like the way that I kind of frame this is there's a two by two and you know, you want to, and on one of those axes is are you paid well or not?

[00:04:17] Daniel Eberhard: And on the other ax axis is, is the work purposeful or not? And I actually think if you want to have a great career, you have to be in that top right. And you also have to be working with people in that top right. And there's lots of personal injury lawyers who make a lot of money but probably don't feel a lot of purpose in what they do.

[00:04:32] Daniel Eberhard: And there's lots of folks in NGO who  probably feel a high degree of purpose but don't want to, but don't get paid very well. And I think the best folks in the world are in the top rank quadrant, can do work that they care about. And so it's you know, I think it's just  the, it's a precursor if you want to be competitive in your career with the best folks in the world.

[00:04:50] Daniel Eberhard: And so, yeah, I mean, I think, I think I clicked on that a little bit earlier than most, and it was one of the things that has kind of served me very well in my career. I'm curious

[00:05:00] Rob Pintwala: if that has anything, this is a selfish second question here, but if that has anything to do with, How you've positioned yourself around raising capital.

[00:05:09] Rob Pintwala: Does that have anything to do with just  accelerating the speed at which you can hire great people and like afford great people or nothing

[00:05:16] Daniel Eberhard: for, for sure. I think it's an enormous, there's this heuristic I always liked, which is like, what makes one thing, what one thing makes everything either easier or unnecessary.

[00:05:26] Daniel Eberhard: And it's having a great mission and a connection to that mission just makes. Work so much more fun and so much easier. And you also, it actually creates a lot of common threads with the people that you work with because they generally see the world the same way. And so it is this great kind of unifying principle.

[00:05:44] Daniel Eberhard: And it also applies to investors who are like, they're people at the end of the day too, and they don't, they wanna feel like they're funding useful businesses that are impactful and they, they have emotional components to their decisions too. And so it's, it's been an, I think, the big thing that was like you know, if you think about a business which is like a million dollar business versus a billion dollar business, the person who builds a billion dollar business can't possibly be a thousand times smarter, more hardworking, whatever, than the person who builds a million dollar business.

[00:06:12] Daniel Eberhard: And so the real variable there is luck. And so you can build a wonderful business and succeed for. Good or bad reasons or fail for good or bad reasons. And so there is this big externality that you price in when you're gonna start businesses of like how much external things can will inform you.

[00:06:29] Daniel Eberhard: So that, that's kind of why I try to connect and anchor to a career that I will always hopefully be proud of, even if we don't do the things that we say that we wanna do from an equity value creation perspective.

[00:06:44] Rob Pintwala: Love that. Yeah. On your, on your LinkedIn profile you have listed on their reluctant banker I, I find that hilarious and I think I understand it, but I'd love for you to, to explain that.

[00:06:56] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah. I don't like There's a, there's a saying in banking and it was, and it, it's changed a lot, but the old saying in banking was 360 3, and so it was like, lend money at, or borrow, buy money at 3%, lended at 6% and be on the golf course by three. And so, but look, I mean, I think that banking. In its current manifestation in CO in Canada is hugely problematic.

[00:07:21] Daniel Eberhard: But I do think that if you want to change this industry, you have to do it from the inside, not from the outside. Like I don't think it's gonna be crypto or web three, I think there's roles to play for those kind of things. But I didn't plan on starting a bank that wasn't, it's sort of ancillary to the idea of what we're actually trying to do, which is just to give folks a great financial foundation and, and democratize access to the best financial products.

[00:07:43] Daniel Eberhard: And in doing so, build a really big business.

[00:07:47] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I think it's interesting to hear people, I mean, the banking experience in Canada is not great by any means, but with all this uncertainty set through the border with the banking system, it almost lends to the fact that we're accepting of a subpar service because they're so anti risk and, oh, we're safer.

[00:08:10] Rob Pintwala: I don't know, maybe that's just my

[00:08:11] Daniel Eberhard: bias opinion, but, but no, look, it's, it's. It is like, it's a very Canadian thing to think that somehow, and this is like the big thing that I wanna unwind in Ottawa and across this country, but like people somehow think that like competition is count a counterweight against systemic stability.

[00:08:29] Daniel Eberhard: And the truth is like there's World Bank study after World Bank study which says you actually need to foster competition if you want to create a long-term healthy, scalable banking system. And we as Canadians are like, yeah, our Canadians have beg, have been. Like systemically stable, but they are also like 50% more profitable than banks in the United States.

[00:08:48] Daniel Eberhard: And so, like, where does that money come from? It comes from Canadians. It's like a zero sum game, right? And so you know, it's, it's just like, it's, it's a, it's a false dichotomy in the sense that somehow these are opposing forces when they're actually like complimentary forces. That's great

[00:09:04] Rob Pintwala: insight. Yeah.

[00:09:05] Rob Pintwala: So I want to talk a little bit about how just. The weight of being a CEO of such a large company now, and the pressure that comes along with it. Like I've, I've worked at some venture backed companies and I've heard about the pressures from investors and from like delivering that return. But now you've got over 350 staff.

[00:09:24] Rob Pintwala: You've got, you know, nearing a million customers. Tell, how do you manage the pressure?

[00:09:33] Daniel Eberhard: Not that well, like Now look, it is something that you, you kind of get used to. I think. I think it's a very strange position to be in, in the sense that like, and, and it's a necessary position in the sense that somebody's always in this seat, in these companies, but it's, it's, it's wild to be responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars and And hundreds of employees and like, you know and not that I'm solely responsible for it, but like certainly the nucleus of a lot of these things.

[00:10:03] Daniel Eberhard: And so, but look, I, I think what you try and do there, there's kind of like two things that exist in tension to each other. And there was general in the US Army, his name's General Sherman, and he always, he said this thing which always struck me, which I always liked, which is like, it is very exp when I learn from experience, people die.

[00:10:21] Daniel Eberhard: And most of the lessons that I need to learn, most of the battles that have been fought, people have taken those ideas and written them down in books or talked about them or whatever. And so like it is, I'm obviously massacring this, but it is like irresponsible, borderline sociopathic to not take that responsibility seriously in terms of learning and getting better and trying to be self-aware and like all of the things that you, I think are incumbent upon somebody who, with any position of responsibility.

[00:10:48] Daniel Eberhard: And then within that you also, and this is kind of the hard part, you kind of have to, and I'm not good at this set, quite clear, emotional, social, you know, work type boundaries in your life because it's very easy to be in the trap of like, I should always work harder and I have a responsibility to the team and to fundraisers and like you can always do more and that.

[00:11:12] Daniel Eberhard: But you gotta kind of recognize when it's no longer serving you, you know, when you're going too hard, when you're burning out and all those kinds of things. And so I, I certainly haven't got it right. I have a bunch of tools that I used to try and get it right. But it's, it's tricky man. It's, it's easily the hardest part of the job.

[00:11:28] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah.

[00:11:28] Rob Pintwala: I would love to ask you about those tools maybe a little bit later, but was wondering if you could anecdotally talk about some of the. You know, hardest times maybe at coho in your role or even before that and then like how you ended up getting through that, you know, if there was any, you know, hindsight,

[00:11:46] Daniel Eberhard: I mean this is like, so there's, there's been a few times about Cohos been near death and we've had like five weeks of pay and.

[00:11:55] Daniel Eberhard: How, how it typically shows up for me is I, it, it's kind of like a vicious cycle where I don't sleep very well, and then very often I'll like wake up in the middle of the night and just be like, drenched in sweat and then, you know, not sleep. And there was like times when I spent, you know, kind of weeks living in, in those kind of states and then looking back, it seems crazy and a little bit removed, but so it's, it's less of, so there's been a few times like that and I'm happy to talk about them, but the way that I kind of think about this is, Careers are like a function of like talent, effort, and skill.

[00:12:29] Daniel Eberhard: Or excuse me, luck, talent and effort are like the three variables in a career, right? And so talent I think is probably fixed. Iq, eq, those kinds of things are, you can, you can certainly like. Work around them, but like those are innate natural qualities. And then how much you effort is like, how much do you develop those things to be successful?

[00:12:47] Daniel Eberhard: Read whatever those things are. And then and then luck is the third one, but effort is like the real variable that we control. And this comes back to the mission where it's like, if I was doing something that I didn't care about, I would've quit a long time ago. Right, and so there is like, effort is actually a function of like how hard you can push on something but also how hard something pulls on you.

[00:13:08] Daniel Eberhard: And I think pull is like a way more useful idea than push. I can summon some amount of discipline or whatever to go do some body of work, but like I am pulled by the idea that I think if we win, we can change millions of lives for the better. And like that will, so when shit gets hard, I dunno if I can swear on this part.

[00:13:29] Daniel Eberhard: When, when stuff gets hard, that's kind of the thing that like is consistent throughout, and so you kind of don't really have the choice of going backwards, you know what I mean? It's like you're burning the bridge behind you because you care deeply about trying to create the outcome that you're trying to create.

[00:13:46] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can definitely swear too. No, that's amazing. I mean, I think what I notice is just like in hearing you talk and, and, and listening to you some other podcasts and stuff like that, is that, you know, you, you, you seem to be able to step back and like, Pull yourself up into like the, the higher altitudes and like, we actually, one of our first episodes here on this podcast was with Mark McLeod, who you may know from like the, I know Mark and CEO coach.

[00:14:13] Rob Pintwala: And he's talked about altitude, you know, a lot as a ceo e and like being able to, you know, be on the ground but then left yourself up and transition. Has that come natural to you always? Or have

[00:14:24] Daniel Eberhard: you had to work on that? I, I'd say that it comes like very unnaturally to me. There, the, the thing that I think is, is sometimes misunderstood is like it's totally a skill that needs to be developed, you know what I mean?

[00:14:35] Daniel Eberhard: And people earn it in their career and you get some system shock as a function of like your manager leaving or whatever the, the for volatility is. And it feels like so permanent, but the ability to like, you know, as Mark calls it, we call it we just got like zooming out or whatever, but mark change altitude.

[00:14:53] Daniel Eberhard: But the idea is to like zoom out and contextualize this against the broader trend line of what's happening in your career or with coho or whatever is a superpower, right? Because so much of burnout is, I think, a function of framing and not of like actual workload. And if you're contextual and like.

[00:15:09] Daniel Eberhard: Burnout happens a lot because people don't feel like they're making progress. But mostly that progress is just because they're zoomed in way too far and it feels like they're going backwards. But if you actually can zoom out 3, 6, 9, 12 months it becomes like way easier to draw energy off these things.

[00:15:23] Daniel Eberhard: But I'm not always good at it for sure, and I'm, I'm probably like bad at it objectively.

[00:15:29] Kim Foster Yardley: Daniel, just a question about that. How, how, what have you used to learn to get better at it? Yeah. Because you're saying, you know, like you, you, it's, you sound super self-aware actually around noticing when it's happening, when it's not happening, and I'm just wondering what are some of.

[00:15:48] Kim Foster Yardley: The strategies you've used to help you to be able to do it?

[00:15:53] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, so fortunate to rely on a bunch, like at different points in my life I've relied on coaching, mentors, therapists, all those things are like forcing functions. It's, it's, the real beauty about any of those things is they force you to check in for an hour a week and they actually, you do it is like the job to step outside your day to day to think about those kind of things.

[00:16:15] Daniel Eberhard: And so if you can like, Pre-wire some of those things. It's a big help. I'll show you folks this, this, this is what I've had some success. This is called like a method. I don't know if you folks have seen this, but I'll, I'll share some links and you folks can share it in the show notes. But it's it's basically kind of the pillars of my life and there's things like family, being a father, being a learner, joy, financial independence, ceo longevity, and then I have like pillars attached to these things and I just review those things at night.

[00:16:42] Daniel Eberhard: And so with a little sharpie and a little dry erase marker. And that's been like a useful habit for me. And then the other kind of third one that's, that's been consistent throughout my life is exercise. I try not to judge being in a negative head space unless I've exercised. And then if I've exercised and I'm still in a negative head space, I feel like I've in that head space.

[00:17:01] Daniel Eberhard: That's amazing.

[00:17:02] Kim Foster Yardley: Wow. That's amazing. That's incredible. Yeah. So, I mean, what I'm hearing is that you've, You've, you've done a lot of the work in terms of getting that support that you need to help you to have that mindset. And I'm, I'm curious to see more about the pillars and how you, what that process was for you.

[00:17:21] Kim Foster Yardley: I don't know if we have space in this discussion for that, but, but also giving yourself that space, like just doing that exercise so that you don't. Kind of take your own head space too seriously. Too quickly. Yeah. Is what I'm

[00:17:35] Daniel Eberhard: hearing. I mean, I think that the real trick, right, is like everybody knows what the right things to do are.

[00:17:41] Daniel Eberhard: The, the hard part is remembering to do those things. And, and this is like just kind of a, it, it's, this is not in a hippie sense, but it is a consciousness question in the sense of like, So much of us is just living inside the own like linear stream of thoughts. Like that's 99% of all our lives. And so if you can create the ability to step out of that, and then you will have a better chance of like having a more grounded perspective across these things.

[00:18:08] Daniel Eberhard: But it's like I literally, you know, this was maybe a little bit over the top, but I used to say, I used to have like reminders that would go off every two hours on my phone, which just would say like, how are you spending your time? And it was just like a little reminder to be like, oh, where am I? Am I present?

[00:18:22] Daniel Eberhard: You know, and it's not like go work harder sometimes it was, but it was more just like, stop, like stop just being on autopilot, you know? I love that.

[00:18:34] Kim Foster Yardley: I mean it's, it also sounds like that technique helps you to check in with what's important to you and what you value. I mean, totally. I think that circles back to what you were saying around the pull rather than the push, and I, I just wondered what are those values and.

[00:18:51] Kim Foster Yardley: And how did you develop them? Because it sounds like you, you are working from a very value-based leadership style, so I'm curious about that.

[00:19:00] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. I mean the, the, the values that, like, I think we all, we all internalize a lot of values that we like the, the core values and beliefs that we have, we often get in our childhood and from our parents and from our community and those kinds of things.

[00:19:16] Daniel Eberhard: And so I think I grew up to a single mom who, you know, worked very hard that, that's like work ethic is I think part of what I'm good at. And I don't think that's, I think that's consistent with that. And then we also like, You know, relied a lot on the community growing up and I, we weren't impoverished planning stretch.

[00:19:33] Daniel Eberhard: I don't wanna create that picture, but like, to go to hockey practices and games and like, there was just like a lot of community support. And so I, I do kind of feel a sense of social responsibility as well. It's not overly complicated for me. It's just like I'm trying to be useful at scale and then if I'm useful at scale, I'll feel like I'm a good person.

[00:19:50] Daniel Eberhard: And then if I feel like I'm a good person, then I'll, you know, I'll I'll like sleep better at night, you know.

[00:19:57] Kim Foster Yardley: Wow. Thank

[00:19:58] Rob Pintwala: you. Sure. Yeah. I've, I've heard you talk about how you view humility and the importance of humility too. And I wanted to ask you Yeah. If you, as you value humility so much, like do you believe that you can be like fully sort of expressed and fully confident and remain humble?

[00:20:16] Rob Pintwala: Or how do you sort of balance that?

[00:20:18] Daniel Eberhard: Hmm. There is a tension there for sure. Like, I, I, I, I. You know, I, I, I think there people conflate like humility with subservient sometimes, and that's not, or like meekness and that's not at all the case. I think humility as particularly as you get higher in your career is more important because it's so easy to get confirmation that you're right all the time.

[00:20:40] Daniel Eberhard: You know what I mean? Right. And so humility is like really just staying open to the possibility that you're wrong and creating the conditions that folks. You know, psychological safety is a word that's thrown around a lot and is not as a, a janky word for a lot of reasons. But like, folks need psychological safety so that they can tell you when you're wrong, you know?

[00:21:00] Daniel Eberhard: And so we, we do care about that here at Coho. So I think like humility in that sense is really important. I, I think that false modesty, which is often humility, is not a, a good service, particularly cuz a lot of Canadians are like falsely modest and I think it does not serve us well. I think it's okay to have some bravado while also being humble to the possibility that you're wrong.

[00:21:20] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna ask you about the psychological safety and, and actually I've been in, I've been in the in the shoes of being a, an employee and having the c e and, and feeling the power of that authority. Like, and, and knowing that like, oh, I actually like considered them a friend, but being.

[00:21:41] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, it's like this force that's hard to explain that. Like you don't want to challenge it or, you know, like, so yeah. What do you, what do you do to, to maintain those conditions and like, do you, have you found success, like, you know, being able to be challenged in such a biased position at UN Asked?

[00:22:01] Daniel Eberhard: Totally. But it's, it's

[00:22:02] Daniel Eberhard: This is the only like real job I've ever had as an adult, I would say. And so I am it took me a long time to realize how much weight was attached to the title, like too long in terms of like how hard it was for people to speak up if they had better information than me or whatever. And so what I, what I try and do now, I am a CEO is like fairly operational and we'll go, like, click around and go do stuff.

[00:22:24] Daniel Eberhard: And I think that that's the right posture and I don't like apologize for that. But what I do do is I front load this with the team, which is like, look, it's not in my interest if my hit rate is low. And so I will go do this and sometimes my hit rate will be high and sometimes my hit rate will be low and this system only works and, and it is a system.

[00:22:42] Daniel Eberhard: If you folks just tell me and be like, This is no longer productive. And then we can have that conversation as whether it's productive or not. But you have to create the conditions in advance for people to tell you to shut up or tell you that they think you're wrong or people to, you know, of course correct you.

[00:22:57] Daniel Eberhard: And you gotta surround yourself with people who will do that. There's, I, I certainly have those people here, at least at the highest levels, and I'm, I'm trying to like sprinkle it down through the organization. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:10] Rob Pintwala: Go ahead Kim.

[00:23:11] Kim Foster Yardley: Yeah, I just, I think you're saying something so important about psychological safety.

[00:23:16] Kim Foster Yardley: Well, a couple of things actually. But the one is that it is something you set up in advance. It's not something that'll, that you suddenly try and get into in the moment. It's really about that trust in the relationship to begin with. Right. And I, I was just curious about what are some of the. Kind of characteristics you look for in, in people that you end up hiring that tell you that they would be those people who will tell you when you're

[00:23:44] Daniel Eberhard: wrong.

[00:23:45] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah. So just maybe like, I, I think that people think of psychological safety in the context of like, em, employee safety and, and that's like an important but much smaller part of the equation, like psychological safety pre is a precursor to high performance. And I think if people wanna be on their front foot, they have to feel like psychologically safe.

[00:24:04] Daniel Eberhard: To like go take risks and do things and be wrong and all that kind of stuff. And so I think that's like an important nuance and distinction. And then look, when, when it comes to the team, I think that there, there's kind of like three qualities that map to this. One is like humility. There like there is, if, if folks have a lot of ego wrapped up in what they do, then you tend to have really unproductive conversations and, and not objective conversations and it's much harder to get to truth.

[00:24:31] Daniel Eberhard: The other side of that coin that I really look for is actually warmth. I think like warmth creates an openness in the culture and is a very useful posture for folks to have and like just a fun and. Nice thing to be around is, is people who are warm versus kind of standoffish. And then the the third thing is like horsepower, intellectual and, and sort of in the sense that like, if folks want to be able to do this, they have to be able to keep up intellectually and, and like, Basically procedurally from the way that we're operating at coho.

[00:25:04] Daniel Eberhard: And that takes, like, that takes a certain degree of like acumen and competence. And, and that has to be like clearly and, and visibly available. And I think if you have those three things, then, then you're set up quite well. And then yeah, if you, you gotta like front load the conditions to let folks know that that is their expectation.

[00:25:19] Daniel Eberhard: And if they're not doing, if they're not speaking up, if they're. You know, not, not operating on a disagree and commit model, but sort of a passive aggressive, you know tight posture than, than that is them not doing their job. And so clearly setting the standards and the expectations to reinforce is, I think an important part.

[00:25:36] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, that's, That's super interesting, I think where my mind goes. And, and before we started recording, you said the company's mostly distributed now, and I think about the warmth trait and how Yeah. I like, I could see that being so important. How do you, how do you create that warmth on like a distributed culture?

[00:25:57] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Do you have to, you know, actually create the system to like, Help it or to keep people just show up like on Slack or in meetings and exude that,

[00:26:08] Daniel Eberhard: exude that warm. I, I found very little success in like, what I call like manufactured culture, you know? Like, I don't know, I don't know if this is exactly where you're going, but we tried like coffee relax and like zoom chats and like all the kind of like bullshit hangouts.

[00:26:24] Daniel Eberhard: They just don't work. They're not fun. Everybody has other stuff that they want to be doing. And and so we haven't really been able, so the, the, there's two things. I think one is like, I do think that this is kind of an innate quality and, and you can hire for it you know, warmth and like, and with that, with warmth, you tend to get, I think is probably correlated with more of like a resilient optimism, which is, which is certainly a useful posture for folks to have.

[00:26:47] Daniel Eberhard: And then the other part about all this kind of, Is like when we get together and we do get together as a leadership team once a year and as a company, excuse me, once a quarter and then as a company, once a year we may actually increase that. It kind of is really pure, like we're just there to connect as people.

[00:27:02] Daniel Eberhard: Cause we do all our work on the remote, on the remote day to day. And so when we're there, we're like really just building connective tissue, you know? And it really is like in the best interest to pro just to like go for a walk in nature and have some laps and whatever. And so we, we try and over rotate on those things when we're together to build the real.

[00:27:18] Daniel Eberhard: Relationship and I think, I think we are a group of folks who, who care quite a bit around each other and seems to be working.

[00:27:25] Kim Foster Yardley: Hmm. I mean, I think, Daniel, you're quite right. My other job is mentoring and supervising therapists. And when I, when I choose someone to supervise, I, I also look for warmth and because I feel like warmth is something that is innate.

[00:27:44] Kim Foster Yardley: It's, it's just temperament. Whereas the technical skills can be learned if the person is dedicated enough and has that intellect and that resilience and grit to do the work. So I'm, I'm really kind of in, I'm so intrigued by this conversation just. Because it sounds like you've done a lot of the, the psychological back work to make the performance easier when it comes to the actual day-to-day running, although there's something thoughtful about that that I'm hearing.

[00:28:19] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah. May like maybe, I think, I think that what we're trying to do here is. Like I, I do think all these things are completely couched in building a great business. You know, I, and I think in some ways, and there's lots of different ways to build a great business, but I think they're all like supportive of that.

[00:28:36] Daniel Eberhard: And having a bunch of warm people around the table, just like, think about if you had a company filled with warm people versus a company filled with like standoffish people, which one of those companies gonna have better information flow on better decision making? Like it's not even close, you know?

[00:28:49] Daniel Eberhard: And so yeah, I mean, I, I, I think so. And some of these human, more human things are not talked about as much and and I think that they're actually, they're quite important in kind of being intentional, culturally, culturally intentional.

[00:29:03] Rob Pintwala: I think it's a good time, Kim, to, to a ask Daniel about his experience with therapy and coaching and, and Oh yeah.

[00:29:11] Rob Pintwala: Like personally and within the organization. Cause I know you're very deliberate and intentional about, What goes on? But yeah, I'd love to hear like what you've gotten out of therapy and or coaching and also how do you distinguish the two?

[00:29:26] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely different, but, but probably on the gradient, right?

[00:29:31] Daniel Eberhard: And so so if, if on one side, like therapy, a, a good therapist should. I'm making these numbers up, but we'll be like 80% personal and 20% business. Like, they're obviously deeply correlated, are deeply related, especially when you're the c the founder. And so you can't really untether them all the time.

[00:29:49] Daniel Eberhard: And then, and then you'd kind of flip that equation for a coach, right, where you're talking like very specific problem set around tactical things that you're dealing with. But, but in order for either relationship to be successful, I think you have to bring both parts of the equation. Otherwise you're just missing a huge part.

[00:30:04] Daniel Eberhard: Of the map, you know so look, I, I've done therapy in the form of like a lot of personal therapy couples therapy, and, and we still do couples therapy and it's, it's like more of a tune up and I think we do it like once a month. And our current, our current thing is like, I have a week with a therapist and then my wife does, and then we do a couple's therapy, and then I do, and then she doesn't.

[00:30:25] Daniel Eberhard: And so it's kind of, that's where we are today. I think that it's like, as I said, it's kind of a forcing function to step out and important to step out. And I do think that there's a guy named Jerry Colonna who's a, a really great c e o coach at a company called Reboot. And I remember him saying, wants that like your whatever, whatever bullshit you carry as like a founder will show up in your company, right?

[00:30:51] Daniel Eberhard: And so if you lack self-awareness around these things, like it will show up. And your company is an outward manifestation of many of the things that you are as a human being. And so like, you kind of, I think it's smart to work on those things. And the way that I think about all this stuff is like, just self-awareness is just kind of like the filter that every conversation we will ever have is passed through, right?

[00:31:10] Daniel Eberhard: And so if you can actually catch yourself and say, oh, I'm triggered, or whatever, you'll have a better chance of navigating that conversation successfully. And then coaching is like we've, we've always had coaching at Coho. We have three full-time coaches at Coho. I can talk about the ROI of coaching, how we think about it as a business, cuz I think it's a no brainer.

[00:31:28] Daniel Eberhard: And I think the math is super clear for me. It's been, you know, like therapists are useless generally when it comes to solving real business problems. And so the ability to like combine those two worlds of like real experience that you can draw on, particularly as a CEO where you kind of. There is, you can't be totally honest with your team.

[00:31:49] Daniel Eberhard: A lot of times we're, we're, we're there now with a strong C-suite, but like, and you certainly can't be totally honest with the board a lot of times. And so is there like this objective neutral party who's there just for you is an important part of like being able to think through some of these things?

[00:32:05] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, I I, I think it's incredible and I, I, I. I feel like you're doing an incredible job at sort of explaining all these things like coaching therapy, leading with values as all like the business case for it, which I totally get behind. And I think that's, it's very like, professional almost hearing you say that like, I think on this, on this podcast, like, and then and our Kim and i's businesses, like, we just think that's just the way to do it regardless.

[00:32:34] Rob Pintwala: And I, I guess like, you know, if you weren't the CEO of a, of a big company like. You know, would you be doing these things anyways if you had the means to? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, which is it? Which comes first?

[00:32:46] Daniel Eberhard: I was using coaching before I started coho. Like the first coach that I found, he was like, like I knew nothing.

[00:32:54] Daniel Eberhard: He, I, he was on Oprah and I, he was like, oh, he must be legit. He was on Oprah. And so I just found him on some like, coaching website like a decade ago. And yeah, I, I was paying for that one. I didn't have very much money, you know what I mean? Just cuz yeah, I felt, I, I look, I, I think that it, like, it comes back to self-awareness and like, it's just this like, consistent theme throughout your career.

[00:33:15] Daniel Eberhard: So I, I am doing it for like very rational reasons, but I think that those rational reasons are like the emotional reasons that a lot of folks connect with, you know? Yeah.

[00:33:26] Rob Pintwala: And I'm sure when you have to justify it to the board too, you're, you're damn good at that too.

[00:33:30] Daniel Eberhard: Totally. Well, but it's, yeah, it's like, it's super easy, right?

[00:33:34] Daniel Eberhard: If. If you make one or two or 5% better decisions as a function of coaching, then like it pays for itself many times over. Ah, that's

[00:33:42] Rob Pintwala: incredible. Yeah, I wanted to transition a bit into like why do you think you, you went down this road of entrepreneurship, if you were to backpedal a little bit, like do you, did, did you have to push yourself to become an entrepreneur or was it just like you knew that you were

[00:33:57] Daniel Eberhard: giving yourself.

[00:34:01] Daniel Eberhard: I think that so I think that entrepreneur, like when, when I was little, I wanted to be a pirate, you know, and it just like, I think that life of like adventure, my son, when I'm on my front foot, I remember that most of being an entrepreneur is just about the sense of adventure. And so I think I was more solving for that.

[00:34:18] Daniel Eberhard: You know, Kent, when I went to uni, when I was finishing university, I went and interviewed at some places and the idea of like, Those people controlling my destiny that were interviewing me was like terrifying to me. Like, whatever happens in my career, good or bad, I'll live with it, but I will be in control of that outcome to the degree that I can, you know?

[00:34:41] Daniel Eberhard: And so I remember just interviewing the, like a supply chain logistics manager for Husky Oil or something like that. I was like, this seems like a nightmare. And I'm, there's no way I'm like putting my chips on this table, you know? Yeah, because like that you can do the conservative thing in your, sorry, go ahead.

[00:34:59] Rob Pintwala: Oh, I was just curious, like, did, did you have that sort of like sense of like, clearly you weren't thinking like, I need to get the first job that I'm offered, like Yeah. You know where did that sort of like, I guess like early sort of like, I'd call it confidence or early patients or autonomy, like come from, do you think?

[00:35:18] Rob Pintwala: Yeah,

[00:35:18] Daniel Eberhard: probably like. Look, I mean, I, I think that I would probably, if I was gonna guess like draw that back to just a sense of self-worth that was instilled by my mom, you know I took a year off after high school and I went traveling for a year and like that was supportive and I think that that gave, I'm super, I think gap years are amazing in terms of giving folks a sense of like, once you realize that you can kind of.

[00:35:40] Daniel Eberhard: What your floor is, and your floor is a lot higher than people. I think naturals intuitions are meaning, it doesn't take that much to have a job and pay your bills and do all that kind of stuff and just be independent and like that. Life is still a pretty good life. It kind of gives you more air cover to go and take a swing.

[00:35:57] Daniel Eberhard: And like, like the other, the other part that's not lost on me is like I had the. Financial means to do so, and many folks do not. You know, many folks have $80,000 in student debt and like not a lot of, and so like, you gotta go get a job and like the thing that pays down the student debt is the next step.

[00:36:13] Daniel Eberhard: Very rationally. And I was, you know, fortunate that I, I didn't ha wasn't saddled with that kind of stuff.

[00:36:20] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. I can draw the connection to the, what you just said about finances and your role at coho and building coho, and that's, that's badass. Kim, I feel like you got something good to say. Yeah, I

[00:36:29] Kim Foster Yardley: do actually.

[00:36:30] Kim Foster Yardley: I, I wondered do, because I, so I'm South African and now Canadian, so I come from a different culture. Even though I speak the same language, it's very, very interesting to me. Do you think the time away. That gap year helped you to think about Canadian culture from a more objective point of view. Cuz it sounds like you've done, like maybe is it just because you're in the banking sector that, that you've kind of really thought through the Canadian culture and approach?

[00:37:02] Kim Foster Yardley: I. To the sector, did going, did traveling or did something else help you to be able to have that objectivity?

[00:37:11] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, I mean, not, not so so all in, I've spent about two years of my life traveling, like combined at various stops and starts. Not so much that gap year cause I was 18 and I was mostly interested in, you know, drinking beers and Byron Bay or whatever it was at the time.

[00:37:26] Daniel Eberhard: But but I did go to school in Europe and then I did very directly get exposed to a very different banking climate and a very different, and then I came back and I was like, this is crazy. This isn't how it's in Europe. And I think without that, you don't know. And then I, I also think like when you go traveling, you and I, I've spent a lot of time in impoverished countries and, and you start to kind of realize, Well, we've al already kind of won the lottery if you're living middle class or even lower class life in Canada.

[00:37:53] Daniel Eberhard: Right. And so you know, I, I, I think that it does kind of inform a bit of a sense of w a, this is probably a less obnoxious way to say it, say this, but like a bit of responsibility as a global citizen to just try and be useful. When you see how many people are living on $2. I remember being in Nepal and watching an 80 year old woman.

[00:38:13] Daniel Eberhard: Work in a mind, smashing rocks with other rocks, you know, and like, and you just can't unsee that stuff. You know, in terms of how it informs how you think about your, like just what it is to be helpful. I think, do you

[00:38:29] Kim Foster Yardley: think that's part of that drive that you have for sure to be useful? Like, cuz you, you spoke about that and I thought that sounded, cause I was gonna ask you about what motivates you, but it sounded like that desire to be useful and those experiences and memories.

[00:38:43] Kim Foster Yardley: Kind of instilled that in you, besides your Yeah. Your values growing up.

[00:38:47] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah. I mean, I think that, look, I, I think there's values growing up. I, I think that that's, that's definitely part of it is, is seeing some of that kind of stuff. Can't help but but shape you. But it's like, Yep. And then, you know, part of, and part of this therapy conversation, it's also cuz I've got like deep self-worth issues around you know, like, maybe not deep, but I've got, you know, these are things that are like part of my personal identity in terms of what it is to feel good about the person that I am and, and my hardworking and am I, whatever, you know.

[00:39:20] Daniel Eberhard: And so I think we all tell ourselves stories around this kind of stuff and, and mine happened to be correlated to. To working hard, I think.

[00:39:30] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about being a dad. Sure. And where, where does that fall into your, in terms of the roles that you play as a, as a human? Where does that fall into level of importance

[00:39:42] Daniel Eberhard: for you?

[00:39:44] Daniel Eberhard: It's been fascinating. It's, it's a superpower in the sense that like, Hey, you have a really bad day at work and my three-year-old doesn't care. You know, and it's, and so it's like look, there's lots of parts that are like hard and time consuming or whatever about it, but it's, it is just such a superpower because it is another one of those things that should have said it earlier, but like forces you to be present in reality and non spin out about work, you know?

[00:40:08] Daniel Eberhard: So it's like, Yeah, it's, it's, it's been a amazing in that regard and like what, what's been interesting is, and, and just I'm being very open, but like I have had to learn to measure myself as being a good father. And like I, a lot of the days I would measure that day predicated on whether I did good work or hard work or a lot of work that day.

[00:40:29] Daniel Eberhard: It was a very unnatural and remains a very unnatural. Thing to be to at the end of the day be like, ah, maybe I wasn't that great as a CEO today, but I was a great father and I was a great partner and like creating feedback loops, which actually give me energy, which are actually part of my identity in those worlds, is like something that's very new to me.

[00:40:46] Daniel Eberhard: And I'm not particularly good at it yet.

[00:40:50] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, I, I can relate

[00:40:52] Daniel Eberhard: to that. Have you, have you found that, like, do you think about a father as your identity at the end of the day? And we were talking about the line about you having an 18 month old. Yeah, I

[00:41:01] Rob Pintwala: think about it actually, like it, first and foremost, I think, you know, the more you listen to successful, you know, in air quotes people at later in their life and they're always talking about time with their family and, you know, sure.

[00:41:16] Rob Pintwala: You know, if you see the number of. Separations that occur, you know, when you are an entrepreneur running a business. So again, I, I'm also quite fortunate to be able to go at my own speed a little bit. But it's extremely important to me and I think like every day right now, I'm biking my son to daycare.

[00:41:34] Rob Pintwala: Cool. Like, not only is it amazing physically, but it's like, Yeah, it's

[00:41:38] Daniel Eberhard: really, really special. It's hard to have a bad day when you do that stuff, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So Tim, that's awesome. Tim Urban has this great, he's a blog called, wait, but Why? I don't know if y'all have seen it, but he, he, he reverse engineered the math, and it's like by the time your kid leaves and is 18 and leaves the house, you'll spend 95% of the time that you will ever have spent with them.

[00:41:59] Daniel Eberhard: In other words, you in total days together, you get about 19 years with the average kid. It's. Changes dramatically if you live in the same town. And it also can be viewed out with lens, lens of like time left with your parents. But like it is, it is, you know, after they turn 18, it's like it's very little.

[00:42:17] Daniel Eberhard: You're at the 95% mark of your time with that, that human, you know? So that's awesome. It's awesome. Me and Lola go, my daughter go for coffee as we went for coffee this morning. We usually start days that way. So, That's

[00:42:27] Rob Pintwala: great. Oh, that's the best. Yeah. I mean, I think a, a big motivation for like you and just doing this podcast, not necessarily just for like people who are, you know, lucky enough to have families, but you know, we, we talk to people who outwardly are successful.

[00:42:43] Rob Pintwala: And, and you know, part of it's selfish on my end is trying to figure out like what, like what's important at this stage, right. But I, I, I sort of, you know, really want to put a spotlight on folks that can. That way, that have that balance. I know a lot of people don't like the word balance, right.

[00:43:00] Rob Pintwala: But harmony or whatever, you know, work life balance. But you know, people who are like living a life of intention and holding themselves accountable, like that's the type of people we love talking to. And like, that's why I wanted to talk to you from the outset. I've, I've I've kind of witnessed that and, and figured that, but I guess on that point, like is there anyone that you've looked up to?

[00:43:23] Rob Pintwala: You know, during your life, it sounds like your mother was an inspiration, but yeah. You know, who are like the most badass leaders that, that you see today that you, you know, are inspired by?

[00:43:35] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, I mean, I think that, so I think that a, so a few names come to mind of various different places. One of them is Sam Harris, I think Sam Harris is.

[00:43:48] Daniel Eberhard: One of the highest quality thinkers. And I think he taught me how to think, and I think you can agree or disagree with his positions, but he's certainly like intellectually courageous and intellectually honest. And so I, I've followed his work forever and, and he's probably been the single most useful person in that regard.

[00:44:06] Daniel Eberhard: And then the, for the, the Rams have a, a. And I'm, I'm a, I'm not a big NFL fan, but I, when I find these folks, I tend to go deep on them. There's a, the Rams head coach is the youngest coach of, in the nfl. He's, might not be anymore. He was at the time head coaching chop of 32. His name's Sean McVay and he's, if you like, track down his podcast.

[00:44:29] Daniel Eberhard: He's incredible in terms of how to think about so many of these dimensions. And then the third thing is just like I read a lot books are, I've. I'm I do believe in the power of reading for sure, and fairly intentional about what I read, so I, I know that's like, not really what you asked, but those are kind of the, the big three things in addition to a mom and a wonderful stepfather and, you know, a great, great family around me.

[00:44:53] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, I was gonna mention it before when you were talking about reading and the responsibility, especially of running like a financial company in like the volatile financial world that we live in. But it sounds like you approach reading like professionally almost as like if you read advice. It's not just to be like, Hmm, like maybe we'll, like maybe this will work or not, or something.

[00:45:14] Rob Pintwala: It sounds like you're, you're looking for maybe some guidance from people who've done it before, right. Again, it's part of your job almost. Is that, maybe I'm

[00:45:22] Daniel Eberhard: wrong. Yeah, no, I I do think it is part of your job. Like, if I'm doing my job, I should be making fewer and fewer decisions of higher and higher quality.

[00:45:29] Daniel Eberhard: Right. And so, but I, I think just cuz I, I have a. Like a, a rant attached to this, but I do think people spend, I think that 99% of business books are bullshit. And I think most people read the wrong things. And I think, but if you read like history there, there's certain like things which are evergreen in terms of the usefulness of their knowledge.

[00:45:46] Daniel Eberhard: And it's, and it's history is one of those things. Human nature is one of those things. Biology is one of those things. Physics is. And so all of these things can like, be drawn on and applied to a lot of different scenarios, whereas like, The shelf life of what happened in the news today will be useless in 24 hours.

[00:46:03] Daniel Eberhard: So like the halflife of that knowledge is very quick and literally a hundred times less than the halflife of like reading a biography on like I just read the biography of the Wright Brothers, which is incredible. And you know, it's a, watching these two little brothers stand up against enormously well funded US projects and.

[00:46:26] Daniel Eberhard: You know, increasing military tensions and competition from France and all these different things. It's like you draw a lot from those kinds of things that are way more useful than, I don't know, some book about smart shortcuts you can take around Excel or something like that. Yeah,

[00:46:43] Rob Pintwala: yeah. I, I, from the lens of  being a parent and even, yeah, just  in this world of like tech and social media and now ai Have you thought about, how do you try to influence that?

[00:46:55] Rob Pintwala: Like independent thinking in the world of endless distraction and also super computers being able to solve problems for

[00:47:04] Daniel Eberhard: our kids? Yeah. You mean for me or, publicly in the, public arena? Well, or both.

[00:47:13] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, both.

[00:47:16] Daniel Eberhard: I mean, I, I have thought about it with, in the sense of my kids, I don't know what the, nobody knows what that future state is gonna look like.

[00:47:24] Daniel Eberhard: But I think the, the three things that I try and really focus on is values for my kids are kindness, curiosity, and diligence. And I think if you have those three things, you will be, and, and then if you wrap that with agency and, and the belief that you are competent as a human being and, and the ability to go, which I think follows curiosity Then I think that you'll end up in the right place.

[00:47:45] Daniel Eberhard: I, don't know what the outcomes are, but I think those are like the inputs to get to good outcomes when there's all kinds of volatility around what the job market will look like in 12 months, or let alone 20 years, you know more publicly and at a social level. Not really. I don't think so.

[00:48:06] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. Kim, Kim, I'm curious what you think about this, but I, I, I love those values. And I'm curious about the, the curious about curiosity and, and how you think about, making space for your kids to be curious because I'm not a therapist, Kim is and I've like read a lot that you know, Approaching depression with curiosity is often.

[00:48:30] Rob Pintwala: Mm-hmm. And it's not like you can't just flip from depressed to curious, but I've read that curiosity is almost the opposite of depression. And Kim, I'm wondering if you can comment on that because I think that's Oh, for sure. So interesting.

[00:48:43] Kim Foster Yardley: I mean, I think because curiosity, Implies playfulness.

[00:48:49] Kim Foster Yardley: So, and, and that playfulness is a, a lack of fear about being wrong like you were talking about earlier, Daniel. And openness to what's happening in front of you and the ability to be present. Cuz when we are curious, we are fully present in what's happening in that moment. And so if we can't trust that to depression, you know, a state of depression is a state of rumination.

[00:49:15] Kim Foster Yardley: Of either worrying about the future or the past. It's a sense of hopelessness and, and actually being very self-critical, quite a bleak outlook as opposed to that curiosity and, and that that playfulness that the Curious Energy has.

[00:49:33] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, that's a great answer. And I'm sorry, go ahead.

[00:49:38] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Does like fostering curiosity in your kids say, what does that look like?

[00:49:42] Rob Pintwala: Does that just look like allowing them the space to

[00:49:46] Daniel Eberhard: explore? Yeah, so I try and be really intentional about, I don't like to say you're so beautiful or you're so smart, or kind of these fixed and innate qualities. I like to say you tried really hard and I, I like to focus on process compliments. I still tell her she's beautiful all the time, but like I, you know, that's kind of what it shows up.

[00:50:08] Daniel Eberhard: And then the re look, the reason I think it's so important is because there is more curious, you are, I think the, the faster you'll discover the things that fill your tank as a human being, you know, and so if you can give them the sense of like, they will figure it. I, I believe they will figure it out if they feel they have agency and then they're curious to go explore whatever those things are that, that.

[00:50:31] Daniel Eberhard: Inform their career or their hobbies or whatever, you know? I just think it's an important part of a of, of figuring out your, your equation. I think it's also

[00:50:39] Kim Foster Yardley: an important part of grit. I mean, what you're talking about. I, I was gonna ask you, have you read Angela Duck? Because it sounds like you have, you know, it's that, that that ability to.

[00:50:51] Kim Foster Yardley: Be focused on the process rather than an outcome or, or an accolade and you know, like I'm beautiful or I'm, I'm this or I'm that. But rather what has the process been like for me and my agency around totally

[00:51:04] Daniel Eberhard: life, right. Around doing. Totally. Yeah. And that's right. The Bill Walsh has a great book here called The Score Will Take Care of Itself and it's just, and there's lots of who have written about, that's one of my favorites and it's just, He's a also an NFL coach.

[00:51:18] Daniel Eberhard: But yeah, the, the, if you focus on the process over a long enough time, those, those returns compound. And I think, I think that's right. And one of the things that I do struggle with that I not yet, cuz she's so little, but is this notion of diligence, which is this third one, which is, you know, when your kid gets frustrated and doesn't want to go to gym class, you know, do you push them to go to gym class and for how long do you push them to go to gym class?

[00:51:42] Daniel Eberhard: Because it would, there's many you will have. Peaks and valleys in your relationship with sport or whatever those things are, but you want to do those for a long time. And I think it's doing a disservice if you let them quit very easily. But I also, there's a clearly a place where you can take that too far, you know?

[00:51:57] Daniel Eberhard: And so I haven't, I haven't figured that one out yet, Kim, maybe, you know? But it is something that I'm thinking about.

[00:52:03] Kim Foster Yardley: I mean, to be fair and honest, I don't have children. Yeah. So I can't. Speak to, to being a parent. I can only speak to dealing with the adults that are the consequence of parenting.

[00:52:15] Daniel Eberhard: Doing a lot of that. You see the down

[00:52:17] Kim Foster Yardley: facts. Yeah. I do more of that work. But I think that it depends on the child. Because each child is different, right? So there's no uniform. You're gonna apply this rule with everyone. I also think that. I mean this, I must be honest, this is my South African heritage I guess as well, but we're quite hardy people and we believe in doing tough things.

[00:52:45] Kim Foster Yardley: Totally. So, you know, so we, we pride ourselves I think, on self-discipline and just knuckling down and doing the work. And I, and that is certainly something that has been instilled in me. So I have a bias towards a positive bias towards self-discipline. And. Part of grit is perseverance. It's the ability to do something that's hard, and when it gets tough, keep going.

[00:53:13] Kim Foster Yardley: But then on the other hand the ability to be compassionate with yourself is to see when you're pushing yourself too far. So it's, I think it's a balance of both. Kind of like the breaks versus the push,

[00:53:27] Daniel Eberhard: right? Mm-hmm.

[00:53:31] Rob Pintwala: I just,

[00:53:31] Kim Foster Yardley: I dunno if that's answered your question.

[00:53:34] Daniel Eberhard: I think that was, I think that was an awesome, no, I didn't, I, I agree.

[00:53:38] Daniel Eberhard: Sorry Rob, go ahead.

[00:53:39] Rob Pintwala: I think that was an awesome, just aside there and reflection. So thank, thank you for that. Yeah. I wanna be conscious of your time and I just wanted to ask maybe one more question before we wrap it up here, but How do you view you know, you're in one role right now. How do you view the permanence of that and just maintaining your fulfillment, you know, in the next year, in the next several years.

[00:53:59] Rob Pintwala: You know, how do you maintain that?

[00:54:04] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah, I mean, I, I think that, I remember having a conversation with one of our investors a couple weeks ago and He was, he was ranting and slash venting about another co in a portfolio being, this guy just, he's not the right guy. And I have said that I'll sit in this chair until I no longer think I'm the right person to do so.

[00:54:26] Daniel Eberhard: And today I think I am the right person to do so. And then I've also said to the board, if you no longer think I'm the right person to do so, I want you to tell me. So again, I've tried to kind of front load that as well. And so I don't, I don't know, man, I, I don't have a, I don't have a long-term game plan.

[00:54:42] Daniel Eberhard: I do think that we are in a, particularly in this market cycle and where we are with the company I need to see this thing through for at least the next two or three years here and, and just make sure the company's on, on solid footing. I, I don't think anybody else. Would be positioned to do that today.

[00:54:57] Daniel Eberhard: And, but, and then, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I have a, I have a goal to take a one year sabbatical with my family when the kids are a little bit older so that they're at some point that will come to a head, but, Awesome. Who knows? It's a long ways off.

[00:55:11] Rob Pintwala: That is exciting. Yeah. And just to kind of wrap things up here, I, I believe you're, you're, are you sort of always hiring a coho and where can people find out

[00:55:19] Daniel Eberhard: more about working with these?

[00:55:20] Daniel Eberhard: Yeah. We are, we are hiring, not as much as we were, but we still are hiring. There's probably 15 open roles or something like that right now. So, Come to the website, check it out, we're in the app store. And then you can follow me at Twitter on Dan Ebbs. And then I'm, I'm more active probably on LinkedIn and, and someone on Twitter, but that, that's where I, I'm doing my stuff so,

[00:55:39] Rob Pintwala: Love that.

[00:55:39] Rob Pintwala: All right. Well thank you so much for joining us today and hope you have a great weekend. And I understand you're traveling with some friends, so thank you very much.

[00:55:47] Daniel Eberhard: Awesome. Thanks. Thanks, Daniel.

[00:55:49] Kim Foster Yardley: It was, it was great to meet you. Sorry you couldn't see me, but

[00:55:53] Daniel Eberhard: it was great to see you. Nice face in a body.

[00:56:09] Rob Pintwala: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Actualize Podcast. You can find the show notes for this episode as well as all other episodes at first session.com/podcast. If you like this podcast, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time.