Hey, good afternoon everybody time steward here. I'm with Liz and our guest today is Marcus Sharon and hey Marcus How are you today? It's a great day? Let me tell you that and I'm glad to be here. I think we're gonna have a great conversation Awesome, you're you're one of our favorite Speakers Marcus you always bring it and you know, I gotta admit you're inspiring when you speak and it's like everybody's taking notes And you're sitting there thinking well, I hope half these people go back and do a half of what it is Do half of it Tom.  It's the ultimate you can take a horse to water, but you can't make a drink, right? And you know, it's like it's one thing to inspire people it's another thing to inspire people to take action and They're two very very different things and only You know, I mean I would say I would say That I'm at the point in my career where I don't even judge the talk anymore in the moment It's more six months later a year later What are the comments that people make to me? Hey that thing you said I applied it changed my life and That's the idea right changed my business saved my business That's also why a book is really helpful because you you start to see some of those Practical applications and I just I want to I don't want to speak in theoretical You know when I give people ideas that they can apply Personally and professionally to their life right then and there in a perfect world That's what we want and speaking of I got to say this one other thing speaking of like This industry Man the events I've done in this space and I'm not just saying this I think it's one of the best like audiences of any Community I've ever been a part of just like the general passion that you see from Attendees is significant. It's really really fun really fun. Why do you think that is Marcus? Well, I think I think part of it is a lot of a lot of the folks started off as just Hardcore just blue collar workers that were just trying to just trying to succeed right just trying to make an honest living and They worked hard enough to grow it into something that that now requires them to Think more about Stepping out of the business and working on the business versus constantly working in the business, right? And I think also that there is Probably not enough places where where industries like this can get together and really just Share and feed off of each other and they're the trials the tribulations the wins the losses and And I I have absolutely felt this like with I say like others like like Like absolutely is a different. It's a different vibe The one I did I forget where it was was electric. It was electric It was a bigger audience, but it was just awesome and that's why I'm I'm excited to do, you know more of it here soon Yeah, the residential cleaning industry as a as a special community, you know I mean for one thing you see more hugging within a group. You see what you see way more and in fact people ask me sometimes Like what type of events are you doing these days Marcus post COVID and what's funny about this is solopreneurs Entrepreneurs and small businesses are having all the in-person events right now Because they're just and I think somebody asked me why do you think that is because corporations are not and My answer to this was because I think entrepreneurs And in small business owners are so used to risk taking like that's they got bit going into business is a big fat risk in and of itself So it's like everything I do every day is a risk just trying to make payroll this Friday is a risk So going and meeting with people that I love to make my business better. It's gonna be a risk I'll I'll take that gamble. I'm not saying that everybody's like that But I'm just saying like this is consistently what I've seen so almost every in-person I've done this year, which I've done about 10 or 11 in-person events this year It's it's all been Solopreneur small businesses types. No corporate stuff.  I mean, you know respecting the rules and being safe But out there in the general public doing what we do every day Well, yeah, I mean, that's There's so much here that I could just I could just go into about this it's You know, let me just say the respect I have for the residential cleaning space is pretty monumental and This is an industry that wasn't saying hey I'm waiting on the government to come fix my situation They went because for most of them they've always just said I'm I am going to dictate my future I'm gonna go make it happen. I'm gonna go make magic. I'm gonna do what it takes It's a very do what it takes attitude to be successful in this particular industry and And it was it's been pretty it's been pretty cool to see and you know I can relate to a degree as a pool guy, right owning a swing pool company Where we started with out of a beat-up pickup truck 21 years ago for me right out of university, right? It's like I I That's that's the road that I've been on. It's super salty, right? Very salt to the earth There's incredible satisfaction that comes with that though and so that's why That's why it's industries like this and events like this that I just I frankly I just look forward to more and the audiences tend to be a lot more receptive to the new teachings It's a new ideas. That's that's another one. It's not there's no way it's gonna work for us So I think that's I think that's important here Yeah, and you know the motivation for a lot of the people in the residential cleaning industry Maybe it's a little bit different than some of the other industries you speak to I mean large corporations for instance Their success is pretty much baked in it's just a matter of how much wealth they're going to accumulate Whereas a lot of the folks that you're working with at an arc see event and an ISSA event are still fighting for You know food and shelter making payroll each way. That's it. It's it. It's a dog fight It's a dog fight and it's only gotten, you know, that much more challenging Since COVID of course, I think the demand for a lot of these services and certain arenas have it have increased as well I mean, it's there's been give and take all right There's been there's been odd blessings that have come from this and then there's been You know call it challenges as well But that's that's your what yours what you I'm totally picking up, you know, what you're putting down and you know That's why one of the things I'm talking about this year is I'm gonna be talking more about how we can have transformative conversations with our employees as leaders and If we know how to have transformative conversations Then we build way more loyal team members that will never leave us because we got a lot of you know like challenges in our space one is Recruiting and hiring is just a mega issue and then we have retention and and You really shouldn't talk about one without talking about the other because then sometimes you're just spinning your wheels You got a great marketing team for example, but your customer experience stinks up the joint Well, it's like you're you're just once again spinning wheels because you're turning customers out really really fast So it doesn't matter right exactly you're the hamster and so I'm gonna be talking about creative ideas that Creative ways that we can find more people stand out from our competitors who are also looking for Team members and at the same time How can we once we get somebody on the team? How can we have them there for life? and much of that gets overlooked and it's what nobody taught us in school and It's how can you as a leader whenever you have a conversation with an employee? Make it truly transformational and meaningful to that person so they feel heard and so they think to themselves Every time I meet with Tom every time I meet with Liz. It's just something they just make me a better person It's like they use the phrase like I can't even describe it. I just know I'm gonna be better off I'm gonna be better for it whenever I meet with them they bring clarity to my life They help me with my direction. So what is that like? How does that manifest itself when you're having that one-to-one with an employee or when you're having that difficult conversation with an employee with a team member? I'm gonna dig into that because you don't hear nearly enough about it and I'm really doing good at it And I can't wait to talk about it and frankly everybody that's heard me in the space has heard me talk about sales and marketing stuff But ultimately what I teach people how to do is how to build trust through communication sometimes that manifests through marketing Sometimes that manifests through a sales conversation But lots of times that manifests every single day when we're having conversations with team members individually or collectively Or potential team members well in bottom line. It's just a relationship again That's that's what you're always teaching is building that relationship and building and building and building and building And then so the question becomes how do we build the relationship, right? because Because the problem is if people stay with us purely based on pay Well, that's a zero-sum game because there's always probably somebody that's going to pay more Right. And so we have to be able to Fundamentally offer them something that makes them say it's just not worth it to leave it's just not worth it and So what is the thing that we're offering that makes them say it's just not worth it Well, one of that is and this is one of the one of the questions. I love to ask managers and leaders is this How often when you're talking with a team member, do they have a light bulb moment? And this is how this is like to me This is the highest level litmus test of your efficacy as a transformative Communicator and leader So what I mean by that is we all know what a light bulb moment is and you can tell that it just happened when the person says You know what now that you mention it or wait, I know what I need to do or hey I've got an idea or I Realize from talking to you. This is what I need to do So all those are there's are like nuanced manifestations of a light bulb moment They just made a discovery in their mind and they're ready to share it with you the problem that most leaders have is Somebody comes to us with an issue with a need or we see that they have an issue or need and Generally speaking somebody comes up to us with an issue or need because as leaders because we've seen that many many times Probably over the years or something like that and we're used to being a leader We quickly tell them what we think they should do This is prolific The problem is if you just tell them what they should do What have we really done? Do they own it?  Everybody's got something going on or multiple things. Yeah, and in that moment We can say to them or I could hypothetically say to you So I want to help you figure this out Liz and I think we can figure this out together Is it all right with you if I ask you some questions and We figure out what we need to do here Person says yeah, okay, and now now They have said I am ready to receive But really what's happening is because you are going into it with I'm going to ask you some questions. It's not I already know what you should do It's I'm going to ask you questions because here's what's so fascinating about humans and human beings Most of the time when we have a problem inherently even subconsciously we know what we need to do But we just haven't verbalized it or it hasn't come to the surface The great leaders in organizations They help draw it to the surface, but here's the key You are the one though as the team member that comes up with the idea In other words, it's self-discovery Whereas if I as the leader say here's what you need to do Here's how you're going to solve your problem. Let me tell you what you need to do Which I'm telling you that's 90% of what leaders think leadership is and I'm not saying the people listening this right now Necessarily say that but we do that more than we realize. Yeah versus when they come to us. We walk them on a journey and When we go through it, they just say things like oh my gosh, I never realized this about myself Oh my goodness now that you say that and the that that we just said was a question It wasn't a here's what you should do and really the only time we should say what they should do is when we're essentially saying I Agree, that's what you should do that thing. You just said That's it now. You're tracking. That's exactly right. I know you can do that You're capable of that But they discovered it for themselves and because they discovered it for themselves now they own it Whereas if we just tell it to them or force feed it to them or communicate it to them because we might be Articulate enough to do that because we've had the experience when we just dump it on them sure It's fine. They might do it, but they haven't changed And we haven't galvanized something really special with that person because of it This is the thing that keeps from somebody from leaving for five more dollars an hour for seven more dollars an hour for ten more dollars an hour And somebody might say Well, I don't know if I can communicate with my team members like that Maybe there's a language barrier. Maybe there's a this barrier or that barrier I'm telling you we got to find ways to make those special moments happen otherwise There's always other options and that's going to be difficult for you to build a team much less Create a farm system of managers and leaders. I'll shut up because I know I'm just talking like So I want to give you a chance because otherwise I'll just go and go like a wild man Say one more thing about this one more thing about this speaking of this if you look at what most leaders managers do people come to us and They come to us with problems and often some are like this is so basic like it's so obvious what you should do now Because we're busy because we've got a thousand texts. I've got thousand emails. What do we do? We answer the question The problem though is when we answer the question and I'll pick on you for a second time If you just go and you immediately answer their question, which this is prolific by the way This is not this is not a typical. This is the norm. Yeah, this is my go-to mode. I'm the answer I got stuff to do you got such a do when you do that and you immediately give them the answer It teaches them to do what ask more questions. Yeah That's every time I got a problem When they have a need a problem they need a solution go to Tom he's Google he's got all the answers and The issue is if you talk to leaders and you say well Marcus are you expecting me just to go through this long journey with them because I don't have the time for that I Think to myself. Okay. Okay, so let's see what's happening here. You're saying You don't sit them down and say, okay, let's figure this out together because if you're great with a few questions And not many but with a few questions you can get them to a point where they're saying, you know Marcus, here's what I think I should do and you're able to say as the boss That's exactly what I would have said as well well done now run with it And next time do that same thing you don't have to come to me because you know inherently what to do Now the person feels like oh, I can do this. I'm I'm empowered. That's how you raise essentially a farm system of leaders Future managers future CEO's whatever that is within your company, but if we teach them to keep coming to us All we're doing is creating a situation where we get more text in the middle of the night We get more emails in the middle of the night. We're dealing with more problems and You know if we're being really honest with ourselves, and that's the only way to be The reason why we tend to do this as leaders other than the fact that we argue a lie that it's more efficient From a timing perspective. It's because we like to feel smart We like to feel necessary. We like to feel important and Thus people come to us We want to give the quick answer And we love hearing man, I knew I knew you'd have an answer Brilliant, you know Describing something it sounds like an indulgence That's right, and there's a shot of dopamine that just comes with the look at me But eventually that same shot of dopamine is what kills us to burn out and fatigue Because we never ever created a self-sustaining team of problem solvers and Even worse than what do we do afterwards? What is wrong with these people? They can't answer the simplest question Great point and we're not even looking in yes We're not looking in the mirror and saying where did I go wrong here in terms of my ability to train these folks You know, it's like I have two companies About 150 employees right now almost all my time as One of the owners of Both these companies is spent teaching them how to communicate at a higher level that is Other than the things that I do like my main role is Establish this culture and we call it in both Both companies we call it a culture of question first question first Somebody comes to me with a problem I'm going to as a leader question first So as to help them start to think if some customer calls me and complains about one of my employees Before I blow up question first Understand seek you first to understand right? That's the idea if I'm meeting with my team and I'm having just a team meeting Instead of me pontificating all the things that we need to do to be successful this week or this day Question first So folks we got a big day ahead Let's talk about what we got to do to make it great What do you think and then they start to say and then we're developing people Developing their minds. We're developing their intentions, but yet you generally don't see I think we like learn these bad habits from either Going to lectures at universities where all we get like this is what so like drives me crazy about College education as a whole you go to a classroom That you could have easily just stayed home and listen to the recording Because you didn't have any actual interaction if we ever have a team meeting where there isn't a clear Interaction and where the team isn't suggesting the majority of the solutions We failed as a leader We failed as the leader if everybody is the CEO as the CEO if everybody Sees you as the visionary the ideator the one that comes up with all the good stuff We're failing to develop the talent. It probably also means that we're way too bloated in our like own belief of like our Great innovations and our ideas and how like it's all here when people say to me as businessly. Yeah, it's all here You know what I mean? I'm like no No, I don't know what you mean at all because that's a train wreck waiting to happen And that also says that you have a leadership development problem like if it's all here like No, you're gonna fail eventually. You're not gonna be at a scale You can scale maybe a couple employees like that and once you get above 10 you're screwed I mean you're gonna be in big big trouble So Marcus, I think I have the title of your new book. I think it should be they ask you ask That's like Liz that's that's really good. It's really good. I like it I really like that What you're saying and one of the things that you said really struck me hard is Because one of the things that we teach is that Self-confidence comes from self. That's what it's called self-confidence. That's right And so a lot of times when you're trying to build people's self-confidence You'll like tell them things and give them answers and try to tell them how great they are But using your strategy helping them to be able to come up with their own answers They figure out how great they are and how smart they are and that's how the self-confidence is built, right? It's all about you make them the star And there's so many different ways you can do this. Let me give it Let me give you an example I do actually all the time at events and now I mention this if somebody actually watches me do a q&a They're like son of a gun. He just did what I saw him do that one time So usually at events if you have a q&a at the end of a session Somebody asks a question And then you answer the question and that's what everybody does Because again speaker person wants to look smart So what I tend to do is And let me give you a perfect example one time. I was speaking in uh, you talk There's a few hundred people in the room Just given this keynote. It was leading a q&a and this person In the crowd says I mean Marcus This was and I just got so I'm so flooded with ideas right now. This was so great Tell me what do you think I should do first? I mean now now I mean because I got all these ideas. What do you what do you think I should do first? now 99% Of teachers or speakers or presenters or leaders are going to tell them in that moment what they should do first Now if you just respond, why do you think you should do first? You haven't done anything good either. It's like, you know, it's like look it up No, it's no good. That was dumb that our parents used to tell us look it up Instead of hey, let's go figure this out What I said This particular day and we'll say that his name was Tom I said to him the person that said it Tom This is great My sense is From your passion and enthusiasm as you've been sitting here You've had some impressions as to what you should do first So here's what we're going to do if you would tell me what you're thinking you should do first And then I'll tell you what I'm thinking He said okay He said I think I should start here here and here I said really why do you think that he said well because then I could do this this and that And I said in Tom That's exactly what I would have told you as well And then I said ladies and gentlemen give Tom a huge round of applause And that was the end of the talk for the day Right. So where did we land? Tom was the hero Tom was basking that moment in his like like yeah, who me they're clapping for me. Yeah, right That's glorious and he was able to take that and own it because in his mind he discovered the thing For him all I did was confirm That's the highest level right there and I'll be frank in saying if you watch Listen to most conversations You do not see that as the case. You don't see that as the case What what you just did there I think is is is really important it's huge because The quick response is that's a good question What do you think you should do and you really aren't setting them up for success right framed it in a way where I know you know the answer.  I mean Which by the way, let me just say this is a quick quick communication tip Once you start asking questions In in in living this question first mindset You will oftentimes because they're not used to it Because many of them aren't even comfortable enough with it yet or don't believe you're serious about it yet. They'll say I don't know I'm not sure and So often the person that let's say they just got through some Communication the session with Marcus are like I tried it and they said, I don't know Here's what you say next and it's so simple You say and let's just be hypothetical. Let's say Liz you you said I had asked you a question And you said Marcus I really I don't have any idea And then I would just come right back to you and say all right. It's just totally fine But if you had to make a guess If you had to what would it be? And now all of a sudden you're always going to render an answer If you had to choose one, what would you choose? Just a guess if you had to say What you might do in that moment? What would it be? and now you you're going from a place of I don't know what I do right now, right to a place of I'm living in the solution I'm thinking in terms of solutions and you know sometimes um people Especially managers leaders come up to me and is like I'm just sick of like Employees complaining. I said, okay. Well, I understand that but it sounds like you've got a cultural problem And there's different reasons why they complain but one of the one of the things that we within my companies we have the You know different core values And and one of them is living the solution and as part of that we have a general rule which is If you want to complain about something and I'm not talking about something that's like sensitive or HR related But if you wanted to you know say hey, you know, it's we've got this the way We're doing this certain thing is really inefficient, right? And I just think it's dumb Well, if you want to complain about something the rule is you have to also come with what do you think we should do about it? What's the better way? What's the alternative? So if you think the method stinks, right? If you think I hate the fact that we leave at 8 a.m in the mornings Okay What would you suggest that time is and they know when they come to the table? They're going to be asked what they feel the solution is because the only thing that matters is What's the solution now again the caveat here is if it's something If it's a sensitive problem or an HR that's we're not going to do that then but if it's literally a situation where they say You know, I feel like you know the route that you have me on is a really dumb route. Okay So if you could change it How specifically would you change it? What would you suggest? Well, I don't know. I mean, you're the boss. I know let's pretend you're the boss for a second If you had to choose Well, would you suggest would be the route that you take and then eventually they're going to give you an answer At which point you could say, you know, I knew you had it within you Which is why liz you have the capability within you to be a manager one of these days But what you just manifested there that? Live in the solution That's what we need to manifest all the time. Do you have that within you this suddenly says I guess I do Thank you for that And now we've had a conversation where liz hopefully ideally is thinking the rest of the week about, you know what? Yeah, I gotta do better. I can do that I'm totally into this so Marcus we've got a few uh people uh chiming in through chat Our good friend Diana Henley is uh, hi Diana just bought her bought her ticket to uh, vegas I think it's uh, you see you You sold you sold one good job. I hope to not let you down Diana And that's going to be like my whole my like i'm gonna put it to the universe right now Do not let Diana down deck audits. She's coming to this event to hear you Marcus. All right. So you better do well I have to tell you that Diana and I did a really cool thing Um based on your book And I and we saw you somewhere. I can't remember where We filmed. I don't know how many different videos. Do you remember Diana? You probably have an answer at least 30 You know, they ask you answer videos and and for our for our cleaning companies And it was a lot of fun. We we really tried to channel you while we were doing it It was so you said you want to you How you gave the success of one of your speeches is on results. Well, there's a result for you So that was really really good for us. We do Oh too, Tom Yeah, we do robin, uh ask a question just a little while ago He's uh asking how would a leader approach turnover and retention of employees differently Well, I mean so I think there's a there's a little bit to the of clarification to the uh to the question, right? It's like how can leaders Do it better when it comes to turnover retention, right? And I think a big part of it is I will go back to Where I started with this How often are you having transformative conversations? With your team members. I've got some Well with at my agency at impact. I've got some people that are like superstars superstar talents And they could easily get jobs at other places. I'm sure they could get paid more But one of the things that they know would be different is They wouldn't have those magical conversations with me and their and their other Let's just call it peers on the team because we've created such a culture of question first of uh radical candor with each other Of high caring yet high directness with our feedback our conversations The stuff that we're going to talk about In this is how we can Retain that's just one way. I mean, there's many different ways, but that that's one way And I'm going to talk about some of them. I think there's a lot of creative things that we can do. I'm starting to see how smart leaders are Making the workplace fun by simple Means when I mean by that, let me just give you just give me an example and this is non gimmicky, but it's like How much friendly competition do you have with staff? That they can talk about And when I say friendly competition you create some type of competition where there's a clear um award At the end they get they get something for the thing that they did And it's something that they can all talk about they can have great banter about But it's not such a big deal that it causes them to be overtly competitive But it just becomes a fun component a gamification almost of doing their job I know I've done a lot more of that in the last year or so and it's been working really really well But the thing that I like to talk about is what we've been talking about is the way we tend to Communicate with staff and whenever anybody says how can I get how can I do better with retention? And turnover I go to that first and quickly I can generally tell that there wasn't A deep-rooted relationship with that Employee with that team member the question is why what was lacking there? How many times did that employee come to you? um with something difficult that was going on in their life Over the course of their employment Because we know there's lots of difficult things that we're going through But if somebody's going through those things alone and they never share it with you as a leader I would argue that we haven't created that special bond and that special connection And so it's not like we're just constantly looking for problems But we're creating a safe space to where someone feels like Although marcus or whomever Might not have the answers. I know i'm going to be better off If I share this with him Somehow i'm going to benefit from it and be a better person Yeah, that's that's great. I love that too Stephanie's uh sharing here that When she's doing interviewing Um before um, she's taught new office staff to communicate this way. So I guess she's uh answering a question with a question Um because this is great. So there's a there's a communication principle Uh That I'll be talking about in vegas and What I call it is vanguarding now vanguard the original phrase comes from The part of the roman army That went into battle first. So they were the first ones to go in and what they did is they formed a Like a v-like formation with the army and they would they would they would go in And like I said, they were the first one to go in and solve the problem. So vanguarding is The process of knowing the issues the doubts the concerns the worries that somebody would have Before you're confronted with it and addressing it early so that it never manifests Because in life the greatest way to solve a problem is to address it before it becomes a problem So just like earlier time we had that little conversation where I was pretending you were the audience member And you asked me the question. What do you think I should do first once again? Like you said and we we actually showed an example of vanguarding Because you notice it very keenly. You're like mark is you you didn't just say hey, what do you think you said? So i've been watching you during this Speech during this presentation tom and I can tell by your enthusiasm that you probably have Quite a few ideas. So before I tell you what I think you should do I would love first for you to share What you think you should do and then I'll share your mind now The beauty behind that is it doesn't come across as again confrontational Now let's say that you want to do use this question first mindset with with team members You notice earlier When I said this I said the key was you have to come out with Are you willing to go on a journey together? All right, so sometimes that would be somebody comes up to me and says marcus I Am lost and I don't know what to do Okay, great. Thank you for sharing that with me now listen I want us to figure this out together, but in order to do that. I'm going to have to ask you some questions Would you be willing to honestly answer those questions for me? And if you are I think we can get there. Would you be willing to do that? That's the vanguard That sets the tone in the stage That takes the person from a potential defensive position To a place of yeah, I'm I'm I'm willing to do that In other words, they're turning the guard the lead over to you But if they do not allow you to be The leader in that moment in other words In other words the one that's driving the questions And they see themselves as one receiving the question and then giving thoughtful answers Well, then they could see it as an interrogation because you didn't set it up with a vanguard They could see it as meandering Once again because they don't understand the why behind it So that's the vanguard I there's many manifestations of this So somebody says something to me like hey um Um, let me let me give you an example. I've got one of my one of my greatest team members at my agency When I came on board Because our companies merged together And he at the time was the acting uh c coo of the company and um So I saw him give a presentation to the team And after he gave this presentation to the team he came up to me and this was like our first main conversation ever He's like hey marcus. So, um, I'm so glad to hear what what did you think of my presentation today? And I have a choice I can just be pass them say oh, it's fine But then I'm not being hide caring nor highly direct because if I cared about them I'm not enough. I saw flaws I'm I'm not going to skip that because it's not going to make him a better person At the same time if I just come right out and say hey, man, you got some clear issues Then I've just totally torched the relationship in his confidence. So he doesn't feel the caring So I've got to have high caring high directness when I talk to him at the same time I've got a vanguard whatever I'm about to say To see if he's truly wanting or in a place to receive that feedback right now Oftentimes people say hey, I want feedback, but they don't really want the feedback in that moment And so I want praise I want praise So in that moment with him and he later on told me that this was a life changing moment for him I said to him I really enjoyed watching you and I would like to give you some feedback Do you really want To have honest feedback for me right now He said I really want to have honest feedback from you right now I said when you speak Do you notice who you tend to look at? He said The audience I said the audience was one of the groups that you were looking at But you kept staring over To the CEO Whose name is Bob And so I said did you realize you kept looking at Bob the whole time? He said no, I I didn't realize that I said now Now that you know that you were looking at Bob Why do you think You were doing that even though you didn't realize it subconsciously you were doing it now that you know You were doing it. Why do you think you were doing it? He said Well, and here's the discovery light bulb moment right now that you mentioned it I think i'm probably looking at bob for his approval to see if i'm saying the right thing I said yes But the problem with you doing that chris and his name is chris The problem with you doing that chris is what? What is your audience perceive in that moment? he said Well, I guess my audience perceives That i'm not as confident and when i'm telling them as I should be You're exactly right But if you stop That will change He never looked at bob again Never looked at bob again Does bob feel bad about that now or is he okay with it? Bob is thrilled because this is what leadership development looks like because if the team still sees him looking at bob Guess what you don't have a coo Or yeah, you've got somebody that's a mouthpiece from bob And so if you look at if you just take that one though There's there's a whole bunch of principles of communication there of transformative leadership communication I come right out Question first mentality right do you really want? That feedback from me right now also a vanguard getting in front of the potential issue He gives me the yes I come right back with another question. Do you notice who you keep looking at? He didn't notice it since you looked at the audience. You also kept looking at bob Now I could have said in that moment. Here's the problem with that But I said to him what's the problem with you looking at bob? What's the perception that your audience receives? He says My audience doesn't see me as an authority. It's exactly right. So see he's having these light bulb moments Because his brain's being stimulated and I'm just massaging it the whole time Helping him become the leader that he can be today. He's a world-class leader in communicate. I mean he is off the charts Off the charts, right? And so that's what's possible That took longer than if I had said You did great It certainly took longer if I had said you need to stop looking at bob But boy was it worth it Yeah So there's a vanguarding issue that that individual had that asked the question That's a vanguarding issue. That's a vanguarding issue. You're not setting it up You're not getting the permission To approach it in the way that it needs to be done. The other thing about this notice how I said it needs to be a We-based conversation so I want To help you figure this out, but in order to do that we need to have a conversation I'm going to have to ask you some questions. Would you be willing to do that so we can figure out what we need to do together? Person is almost always 99 percent of the time. They're going to say Absolutely Just like, you know from a like a let's let's look at this really quickly just from a personal relationship side sometime my wife has Like everybody has something bad that happens that day And she'll start to dump on me right which I want her to because that's what I signed up for now I though need to have the self-awareness and the situational awareness to say Not just to be clear Would you prefer that I I just listened right now? Or do you want me to help you work this out and figure it out? Of course at this point she knows how it works. Sometimes she's like I just want to dump right now awesome I'm ready. I'm ready for it. I just want to hear it all right And then I just go in like receive mode. Yeah anything else. What else is bugging you? Yeah, I feel you there What else happened? Right, so it's just like keep giving it to me keep dumping because here's what's funny If you do that you say that eventually she's going to say in my case I felt good So what do you think I should do? First she wanted to feel like she was heard Yeah Didn't want to go in solution mode Many people like that many employees are like that This is consistent. It happens All the time absolutely I I'm super excited about this van guarding because you said a word that I run into a lot and people will think that I Being combative or attacking if I'm asking them too many questions Or especially if I asked them in a like quickly or in a row without first van guarding You're right And the thing about this too loses As you're going through this and you're living this philosophy of question first with with peers friends family team members You'll even have to vanguard sometimes after they've given you permission and after you go and it comes out in subtle ways So let's say that you and I were getting there, but it's it's work. It's work to get there It's work for you to discover a thing. I might Get ready to ask another question But before I do I'm going to say something like now doing great. We're almost there keep going This one's going to be difficult, but I know if you really lean into it We're going to probably make a discovery and then I'm going to say the question So I'm going to reiterate The hey, this is worth it. What we're doing. I recognize this is hard. Whatever that whatever that thing is And now the person almost feels recharged or at least they feel understood or heard that this ain't easy sometimes I'll say to like I'll say to somebody in the midst of a series of questions I might say now, listen, I know it might seem like we're just This is frustrating because we're not getting there But I promise we're making progress So just a few more questions and then it's all going to make sense And then I'll ask the next question because that's probably what they're thinking Humans tend to be very forgetful. We tend to be impatient And so we want to feel like there is a there there, right? It's like what is What what is the landing? What's the in game here? And so if I remind them this is going somewhere, I promise We're getting there That is going to significantly help them to recharge And essentially finish run through that finish line These are nuanced skills That take practice. None of the stuff I'm talking about is just like 100 natural And it starts for many of us as children. We ask our parents questions. They give us answers And so consciously it teaches us Just to answer the question So in life people come to us with questions. We give answers And that carries over to when we're parents and our kids ask us questions When they're two and three years old, we tend to just Give answers and some kids especially the really smart ones ask 100 questions an hour And parents that aren't putting this together. We love our kids We keep answering 100 questions an hour and it just teaches them keep asking questions And they drive us crazy because they're always asking questions But we never stop for a moment and say why are they asking all these questions? We're teaching them to do that and then we become leaders of organizations And as we become leaders of organizations, we have to do the same thing And then we create a mountain of texts and emails because we haven't developed leaders Or we haven't developed those really significant relationships. And oh by the way, we're not the only ones that should have these The reason why I believe so much in in teaching transformative communication is so i'm not the only one that knows how To induce discovery and have these light bulb moments with team members If I could teach it to team members, they can teach it to everybody else And now all of a sudden we're communicating in a level that you just do not see in organizations around the world That's powerful And it's possible. I know it sounds like I don't know if that's even feasible It is feasible it is Even if even if english isn't their first language it is feasible To still develop this pattern and style of the way you communicate within your company And it sounds like it's akin to some sales techniques in a way because You're motivating the person that you're talking to To really want to work hard to answer your question When you're vanguarding and setting it up in a way, it's like You know, I'm I'm not going to mail it in and say I don't know I'm not going to give a lazy answer because Marcus makes me feel really good and I'm going to bust my butt to try to give him the very best answer I can 100 tom and that's why this is a principle-based conversation You know, sometimes I'll teach a A sales class and I'm like here's what we're not going to do. I'm not going to give you 10 closing techniques to use To close the deal because that's not principle driven I'm not going to give you 10 perfect responses if they ask you these 10 questions or say these 10 things Because there's another thousand potential responses you're going to get If you know principles of communication You'll never seek to find the thing you won't be caught in the snare You you you won't have a situation where you're stuck or don't know what to say or do You know, you started this tom with a really nice compliment. It's like, you know, Marcus We we love you as a speaker and one of the things that That started me teaching so much on communication in the first place I actually happened With first it was with other professional speakers that came up to me They would say Marcus. I saw you with the audience today the way you went in the audience you were asking questions and It's like I just don't know if I could take that risk Can you teach me how you do that without blowing up in your face? And so I started getting that question a lot a derivative of it And then I had some situations where audience is Started to say to me The way you teach is different. Can you teach me how to teach my team the way you taught us today? And then once I heard that a few times My they asked your answer brain took over and I said you should probably Start to think about how you're doing this So that you can teach each other because the marketplace is telling you Marcus They want to know And so that's why like I'm excited to talk about that Some like some of that this year in vegas Because it's not something anybody certainly in the residential cleaning space or in most spaces even know I talk a lot about although it's one of the great passions of my life Yeah, this is awesome fishing and kids That's I kind of all go together so that's yeah I So you are speaking Monday at convention november 15th convention is like the 15th on a monday and it wraps up thursday 18th maybe yeah, and you're going to be there you're speaking like the first day you're doing two programs right marcus yeah, i'm doing Essentially what i'm doing is i'm going to spin my first section just talk about creative ways that we can find more Employees more team members recruit. What can we do about that? Okay, so we're just going to try to look at creative options in ways and then the second session or the second half of my Program it's going to be all about transformative leadership communication for better retention um and less turnover in the company and we're going to be talking about these like We're going to be discussing some of these principles and it's going to be astoundingly eye-opening to anybody that is there Like really it is because because just like today. I think anybody's listening to this Everybody is reflecting on how we do the scenarios. We've talked about our typical habits The ones where we know she's like I probably could do that a little bit better now. I'm thinking about it I don't sometimes I just answer right away And am I really inducing those light bulb moments and like these are the things that are going through our heads I love teaching this stuff because it reminds me I need to do it, right? That's what's so wonderful about teaching it and so anybody that comes to that session Here's my promise to you if you really lean into that session, especially the second half You'll come back to me in six months and you'll say if you applied it you'll say Not only change my business But my personal life and the relationships I have on a personal level with friends and family Has been significantly affected by that session Marcus Yay Yeah, I get it. This is awesome. Look Robin's going to be in both sessions All right, Robin. I'll be we can sit together Robin. So for anybody that doesn't know It's monday the 15th and marcus speaks from nine to ten And then again from 10 30 to 11 30. We need that half hour break to absorb the first hour And then Then we'll be able to work hard on that second hour. All right, diana is going to be there too. I'm excited. You're going to be there diana Yeah, this is uh, this is going to be so cool I had no idea marcus.  That's right. That's exactly right. That's right and the more we're aware of it The more we can start to notice it when it pops up when it comes up during the day and we'll stop ourselves Don't fall back into that habit I could just yeah, I could just say the thing right now, but i'm not going to do that right now I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go on this journey because it's going to be well worth it And they're going to change and our relationship is going to change because of it. So This was super exciting y'all. I'm excited to see everybody Uh in a couple weeks. It's going to be it's going to be great. It's going to be great All right, and those of you that are on this this uh smart business moves right now I'm speaking on monday at three And when I do my q and a I want you guys to give me the eyes Making sure I do it the right way I'm going to do it be doing it the new way Yeah, well, you know liz. I would just say you might not want to practice that day But it's something to think about at least There might be at least one question that there's an opportunity for you to say, you know, I'm going to I'm going to try it I'm going to be looking for it. I'll give some answers because I know that's the expectation I'm looking for the opportunity I'm I'm going to be raising my hand liz. All right, you don't say tom. I can tell by your enthusiasm And how much you're into this that you have some pretty good ideas. If you don't take me down that path.  Thank you very much for for taking this hour and sharing it with us So welcome. I will see everyone in a couple weeks. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Bye. We'll see you Monday. Um five o'clock eastern We'll limp by well, we're giving our best. Okay. Take care. Bye. Bye


My name is Sam Kelly and I live in Scarborough, Maine and I've been involved with an organization called Vet2Vet here in Maine. It's one of the best things I ever did in my life, believe me, and I'm a veteran from the late 60s, US Army spending a year in Vietnam. And getting involved with this organization, Vet2Vet is literally one of the best things I ever did in my life as far as giving back to my fellow veterans and just giving back to my community. And anyways, in here in Maine, we have about 100,000 veterans and it's just a great organization here for the state of Maine. And anyways, tonight I wanted to introduce the people that are very involved in this group. Two people in particular is Sue Gold, who is the creator of the Vet2Vet operation and Lynn White, who is a fellow veteran, been on the, been involved with the Vet2Vet group for years and on the board of directors. And I just wanted to thank you both for coming in tonight. Thank you for having us. The first question I have is, tell us a little bit about Vet2Vet, if you could, Sue. Sure. And how you got involved. Okay, well, Vet2Vet goes back a ways, Vet2Vet, Maine. We got our start in 2014 as a program for Southern Maine Agency on Aging. They created a VISTA position for volunteers and service to America to help research and develop a program that would benefit older veterans in York and Cumberland counties. And I was a VISTA volunteer and I applied for the position and got it. And so I did some research on what would be helpful to older veterans in Southern Maine. And in my research, I had a number of veterans tell me that they would never ask for help from anyone except another veteran. Really? Wow. And I had some experience with peer-to-peer support groups and I felt very strongly from that evidence as well that a peer program for veterans would be very beneficial. And I also learned in my research that more than 50% of veterans in Southern Maine are 65 or older and many are living alone or with an aging spouse and many are living with adult children who work. So they're virtually alone most of the day. So I was thinking we really need to have some way to help these veterans first who are living alone who are, some of them are socially isolated from the community and from other people. And the other thing I found was that only about a third of veterans in Maine made use of the benefits that the VA offers them. The benefits that they earned. And so I thought, you know, we really also need to find a way to connect these veterans with services that can improve their life. And so I decided that a friendly visitor program might be a good way to do that. And it, but I felt strongly, as I said, that a peer program would be the best way to connect with veterans. So we made it a peer to peer friendly visitor program. So we started recruiting veterans who wanted to help other veterans. And we matched them after we trained them and we screened them, of course. And then we matched them to other veterans who could use a friend. We didn't have any, at that stage we were pretty much exclusively serving older veterans because it was through the agency on aging. And it became very popular. Our volunteers thought that, well, they told me they were getting more out of it than the veterans that they serve. But they still tell me that. But I don't think that's true. I think the veterans they serve also get as much out of it. But on both ends, they were really enjoying that time that they spent together. And we asked each volunteer, we call them peer companions and we asked them to spend at least two times a month to visit with their veteran that they were matched with. And they were also serving as eyes and ears if they felt that there was a problem or something, some service that could benefit the veteran they were visiting. For example, if they didn't have the right kind of food or enough food, meals on wheels, they would match them up with meals on wheels. We've had all kinds of things that we've been able, services and programs that we've been able to bring to veterans through this program. So anyway, this became very popular. And at some point, we had a quasi board for the program at SMA. And the board and I felt that we really wanted to expand. We wanted to be able to bring it to younger veterans too who might, especially combat vets who are coming home and might need a mentor to reintegrate with civilian life. And we also wanted to expand beyond York and Cumberland counties. And so we looked into forming our own nonprofit and that's what we did in 2018 in June. And we also got 501C3 tax exempt status from the federal government in March of 2019. So we became vet to vet main. And we started out with about, I think, 40 volunteers at that point. We now are up to over 100 volunteers. And about 80 of those volunteers are peer companions or have been trained as peer companions. Wow. So that's the story. Good. We'll have more questions for you. Let me ask a couple of questions. Tell me a little bit about your background. You know, where you came from, when you were in the service, how long you were in the service and how you got involved with vet to vet. Oh, thanks, Sam. Well, first off, Sam and I served in the military at the same time. We went to basic training at Fort Dixon, New Jersey in 1967, late 1967. So that's when I entered the service. I was, it was prior to going to college. So I went into the service and spent, I spent three years in the army. I did my basic training at Fort Dixon, New Jersey and then went to Fort Lennwood, Missouri for training as an engineer and then off to Vietnam. I did a tour in Vietnam and then I did a tour in Germany. And after that, I went to college, got a degree in engineering and for the next 40 years ran different businesses, industrial businesses. So I retired in early 2015 and we moved to Maine, built a house, moved to Maine. And I was sitting in my easy chair reading the newspaper one Sunday morning, I think it was. And there was an article about vet to vet. And I thought, that's interesting. And so I called and met Susan. And the next thing I knew, I was a volunteer, went to the training, of course, and became a vet to vet volunteer. And just to digress a bit, two of my very close childhood friends who still are in upstate New York, both have been suffering for a time from Agent Orange. And they are having a difficult time. I spend time on the phone with them. And as I learned more about vet to vet, I thought, geez, what a wonderful thing if it were available to them. Of course, it wasn't. But I thought, well, I can certainly help some veterans here in Maine who probably may have similar difficulties. So at any rate, so I joined vet to vet Maine. I've had the great opportunity to befriend and work with three different veterans. First veteran I worked with, Paul was an army veteran. He was a paratrooper during the Korean War. He had a great relationship with Paul and got to meet a lot of his family. And that's the other thing about vet to vet Maine. Not only do you end up befriending and working with a veteran, but more often than not, you end up meeting a lot of their family. And Paul's family and the others that I worked with, they kind of accept you as almost like a member of the family. So I worked with Paul. He ended up, he was living with his relatives. He ended up in the Scarborough Veterans Home. And unfortunately, during the COVID time, he passed away. Susan then matched me up with Robert. It was very interesting. Robert was a merchant mariter during World War II. He was off the coast of Normandy during the invasion. And Robert and I really hit it off. Of course, there was a difference in age. He was approaching 100 years old. But he was from upstate New York as well. So we had a lot of stories and we really hit it off. We had a great time with him and his family. Got to spend a lot of time with his wife, Mary, as well as Robert. And he'd tell a lot of stories about not only being off the coast of Normandy and they use their ship at some times where a lot of the wounded would be brought aboard and they would help treat the wounded. He was on a lot of different convoys, very dangerous convoys, told a lot of other stories. And it was interesting because we'd talk about his travels. And then I'd meet him the next time. He'd say, Lynn, I remembered the name of the ship I was on. So he'd tell me the name of the ship. And then next time I'd do some research. I found, in a couple of cases, I found a picture of the ship and a little bit about where it traveled. And I come back and I share that with him. It was just really, really great. Really enjoyed Robert a lot. And he ended up passing away just too much short of his 100th birthday. He was doing pretty well, but unfortunately, he just took turns for the worst. But almost 100 years old. It was a good memory. Oh, yeah, that was Robert. He was Sharper's Attack, up until the Adios Sharper's Attack. And then Susan a little time went by. And Susan matched me up with Peter. And Peter was an Army veteran. He was same thing, early 50s, Korean War era. He was an artillery officer. And Peter lived alone. He'd lost his wife a few years prior to my meeting, Peter. And it was great. We had a great time. We had a great garden in the back. He lived in the Port Elizabeth.  And it was really great. We had a great time for quite a long time. And then, unfortunately, Peter had some difficulties. He took a couple of falls. He wouldn't give up going out and moaned his lawn. And he had like a steep lawn aside. I remember driving into the driveway one day, and he's got a lawn that slopes down. And he's down the lawn. He's kind of pushing the lawn more up. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, he's going to fall. He never did then. But he did fall in his garage and banged his head and was in the hospital for a bit. But at any rate, he ended up passing on his sleep very peacefully. So I had a great experience. And as Susan mentioned, I certainly have taken as much from the program as I think the veterans that I've been friends with have gotten out of it as well. But it's been a great program. I've had a great time being a part of the program since, well, I was in the second class, I guess. Second class. I don't even know a class I was in. So it was a great program. And now, as Susan said, when we were at Sma, we wanted to expand. And we thought, hey, having a veteran-managed, veteran-run organization would be the best way for us to be able to expand within the state of Maine and hopefully be a model so that the vet-to-vet type program can reach out to other parts of the country. Because there are so many veterans, like the friends I have in New York, that would really benefit from having a friend. Oh, I agree. I agree. One thing I'd like to add, too, is that Lynn has been a fabulous support as president of the organization since it started. And also, he was part of the original quasi-board at Sma, too. Oh, really? So he's been the leadership helm since pretty much day one. Well, along with Susan and some others. Yeah, that's true. And he still serves as president. Well, like I say, I've been involved for maybe four or five years. I can't remember exactly how many he has been involved. But I'm on my third veteran and the first veteran, he was living on his own. And he really shouldn't have been. He shouldn't have been living in his own house. He needed services like somebody to help him cook, clean, shop, et cetera. And anyways, I remember calling Sue and saying, geez, my vet could use some help type of thing. And Sue, through her magic, was able to get somebody to come and help him in his house like five days a week. I don't know if we probably don't do that anymore because of that was when you affiliated maybe more with Sma, a Southern Maine agency on aging. We still work very closely with our collaborators and one of whom is Sma, Southern Maine agency on aging. But there are a number of others too who help and the VA help us get services for veterans. Unfortunately, because of COVID, it's been difficult to get home care. But we still are working through collaborators, collaborations to do that. What a service that was for this guy. I mean, because he was about 85 or 90 at that time type of thing. And he desperately needed somebody to help him with cooking and shopping and things like this. And the vet provided that. And then he passed away two years ago. And then my next veteran was a guy who was in a nursing home here in Portland. And I visited him for about three or four months. And he was a Vietnam veteran also. But a little older than me. And we visited him. He was a wonderful man. Just so enjoyed being around him. He was just a good-natured person. But he passed away after about four months or so type of thing. And now I'm on my next veteran. And he's a second world war veteran and living with his wife in Portland. And we don't use the last names here. But so I visited him once a week. And he's a known person in Portland. And a lot of people know who he is. We have a wonderful time. We really do. And again, through the vet to vet just recently, he has always had problems with his hearing aids. They would fall out of his ears, down his shirt, and like, try to get down his shirt. I couldn't do that anymore. And finally, we were able to get some headphones for him. But I was able to call to the VA and tell them the problem. He's a veteran, obviously. And within like two weeks or a week, we had earphones in the mail for him. And I attribute a lot of that to being able to use the vet to vet organization as a resource and to knock down barriers. And he's a wonderful person. I mean, like I say, 95 years old, I was with him yesterday. And he started singing these songs from back in 1935 or something, you know? And I go, how do you remember this? And then I'm joking. Do you remember the $100 you were going to give me? I didn't. That's the second stop. Well, I think that's a great example, though, how wonderful the volunteers are in finding ways to help their veterans. Because we got a very glowing report from this gentleman's VA case worker who said that Sam was instrumental in getting help for him and for socializing him, helping him get out into the community again and talking with other people. Because he had been isolated in two ways, isolated at home, but also by not being able to hear anything, he was isolated that way, too. And now he can follow the conversation. Yeah, he can. It's amazing, just those earphones. What a difference it seemed to have made. I know it's easier for me, when like, because I'd go over there and for 45 minutes would yell at each other. And that non-exaggeration would be, you know, five feet apart and we're screaming.  And I attribute this to Vette to Vette, you know? I mean, the great success, you know, I'm a great supporter of Vette to Vette and it's a wonderful group. And, you know, Sue, Lynn, you know, as far as it's a great board of directors, it's a great group of guys, people, I shouldn't say, because it's not all guys, because there's ladies involved also. And it's about how many veterans do we have in the Vette to Vette program who are the volunteers visiting now, approximately? Well, right now, I think we have about 70 matched up, 70 payers, but we have about 10 more, well, we just graduated 10 more volunteers, a new crop of volunteers. And we have about at least that many veterans who are waiting to get matched up. So we're always, and there's always some turnover because of the age, the advanced age of the veterans who are helping. So, but often when a veteran dies, that veteran's peer companion might want to take a couple months off, just to grieve, I think. The relationships become very close.  And other peer companions want to get right back in because they miss that relationship, I think. But I tell people, these relationships often develop into lifelong relationships. And we've had a number of cases where our volunteer has sat at the bedside of their veteran as he dies. And I remember one in particular that it touches my heart because this man, he was referred to us by a case worker. And she said, he has no one. He doesn't even have an emergency contact. The only people he had in his life were workers. He had a wonderful person who came and helped clean the house and prepare meals. And she was very fond of him. But of course, she was an employee than his case worker. So the person, I matched him up with this wonderful volunteer who became so close to him. And at one point, he had a lot of health challenges, his name was Franklin, and he had to be on oxygen. He was in a wheelchair. And he told his volunteer that he had never been able to see his wife's grave. She had died the year before and he had never been able to see her. She was at the Veteran Cemetery in Sanford. And so the volunteer talked with the nurse, the visiting nurse and said, okay, I need to know how to change his oxygen because the tank wouldn't last that long on the trip. So she showed him how to do that. He loaded it up, put the wheelchair in his vehicle and they headed out for Sanford. And he wheeled Franklin to his wife's grave and left him there for, said, okay, when you're ready, I'm gonna leave you here for a while to communicate with your wife. And when you're ready, just raise your hand and I'll come and get you. And that meant so much to Franklin. That's kind of a gift that you can't buy. You can't buy that kind of caring. And that's why it's so, I think that's why it's so rewarding for the volunteers too, because they know that they've given so much, such a gift that cannot be replicated. It's something that they have to give from their heart. Oh my God, yeah. And there's so many stories like that. Before the COVID, we would get together, I say we all the volunteers typically would get together once every couple of months, case review and go around the table and we'd all share stories and what was going on with the veterans we were working with. So you got to hear a lot of really great, great stories. I mean, some were just hilarious, some were very sad and they just range the gamut from just all over the place but it was just so interesting. And a lot of times you could take something out of those reviews and it would help with the relationship you had with your veteran. Somebody maybe was having some difficulty, maybe with the setting that the veteran was in with their family or whatever the case might be. And you learn something from it that would help. And again, it would be sometimes very entertaining, very sad, very happy, it was just great. Now we do them via Zoom because of the pandemic and hopefully in the not too distant future we'll be able to resume our in-person meetings. So that's another great part of the program you get to meet, not only do you get to meet other, the veterans that you're gonna be a friend and work with but you get to meet a lot of other veterans like me, UCM and other veterans on the board and many of the other volunteers and you get to share with them as well. So it's a great network that you can, of veterans that you can meet and work with and learn from and enjoy the company of. It's a great program. What kind of training do the people have to go through here or how does that work anyway? We have about, it's about a nine hour training at this point and they learn how to communicate. They get some real good tips about how to communicate well, how to listen effectively, how to set boundaries. They learn what kinds of problems that they might encounter, how to deal with PTSD, dementia, various things that might affect their veteran. They learn, they have, we also have a panel of volunteers who have been out in the field, peer companions who've been out in the field and they talk about their experiences, let the volunteers know what's in store, how they react, relate to their veterans. We have another panel of resource experts, so someone from the VA, someone from the main bureau of veteran services. We have someone from Southern Main Agency on Aging. Still involved. Yeah, and we have some other, sometimes we fill in with other people as well who talk about what services are out there and available for veterans so that they'll know what they might be able to offer their veteran. And then we have a number of other, we certainly talk about our policies as an organization and what we expect of our volunteers and we go over the paperwork and all that stuff that they have to do. And then sometimes, and we also go over, we give them some strategies to use if they encounter some of any difficulties. And I always tell people, this is an opportunity to have a wonderful relationship. But sometimes the first time we don't, I'm pretty good at matching, I'm a matchmaker by heart. But it doesn't always work. So I really reiterate and tell them, if it doesn't work, you know if it's gonna work and not usually, you can tell. And if it's not gonna work for you, then that's fine. Just let us know and we'll find somebody else for you and we'll find someone else for the veteran. And I've done that, one fabulous example was early on, we had a veteran who was very compromised. He couldn't, he was very, he wasn't very mobile. He stayed in his room most of the day. His adult stepdaughter lived, he lived with her, but she worked during the day. So he was pretty much alone. And with his dog, I think he had a dog. But he was not very mobile and he couldn't see very well. So the first volunteer I sent in told us, he just didn't think he could reach him. He was not able to get him to talk. He couldn't relate to him at all. So we've matched that peer companion to another veteran and they hit it off so well that when the veteran died, the family gave our peer companion the flag that was. Really? Yes. Now back to the veteran, we matched him up with another volunteer who was fabulous. He just was so interested in people's history and he got him talking about his past and about his work and it ended up with, they spent two or three times a week talking about this guy's history and recording his autobiography. And the guy was so involved with us. He looked forward to it and every time the volunteer left, he said, no, when are you coming again? Is that right? So they both worked wonderfully well. So we really want people to let us know if it's not working because if it's not, we'll wake at work with somebody else and that's fine. Now, do you have women involved also? Oh, certainly. We have some fabulous women who've been involved. On the board and elsewhere, one great example was Charlene who was a teacher and a veteran and Vi who was a nurse practitioner in World War II. And they had a fabulous time and Charlene, they would go out to breakfast every Friday and people knew Vi, so they were shot by the table. All the, you know, it'd be a constant stream of people walking by saying hi Vi, how are you? Was Vi the volunteer? No, Vi was 90 at the time. I think she was 95, maybe 96. She'd been involved in all kinds of things. And then as time went on, she was living in an assisted living place and her daughter had tried to get a VA pension, which she felt she was entitled to but it had been held up for the last two years and she was running out of money and her daughter was getting pretty desperate because she was afraid she was gonna have to move out of her assisted living and she didn't know what she was gonna do. So they told Charlene and the daughter told Charlene and Charlene said, no problem, we'll get it done. Really? So she called us and we called representative Pingree's office three weeks later, I got a call from the daughter, said, well, we got the pension and it's two years retroactive. Wow. So Vi was able to, she had no problems with money after that and she did, she died about, I think she was 98 when she died. Is that right? But they had a fabulous relationship to just really very caring for each other. Yeah, so there are, how many women have been involved anyways over there? I would say probably about a quarter of her. Maybe not quite that many. So 20 or 30 was... Maybe between 15 and 20%, I guess. Oh, wow, okay, good. Well, that was sort of representative of what the military is, I wouldn't be surprised. Actually, it's a little bit less than that in Maine anyway. Then you have one particular person, Gretchen. Oh yeah, we have some fabulous volunteers and then we have Gretchen Evans who's a pretty much an international star as a member of the team. She started Team Unbroken, which is in Bear Gillis's, what is it, the... The race, the... World's toughest race. World's toughest race. Oh really? Yeah, she's fabulous and she's been volunteering with us as a PR person and fundraiser and she's just very supportive of our operations. She's inspirational and she's amazing. She held the highest rank, enlisted rank in the service for a man or a woman. She was a, I think, not a master, I forget what's Command Master Sergeant Major, I can't remember exactly the title, but she was injured, wounded in... Afghanistan, was it Afghanistan or was it Afghanistan? With a bomb and she lost her hearing, so she's remarkable in terms of her story and what she's gone through and very inspirational. And very willing to share her story which is remarkable in itself, I think. All of the challenges that she faced, she lost her hearing permanently and she has had injuries and just all the challenges that she faced and how she overcame that to be a world-class athlete. I mean, it's amazing. And on top of it, I think she does motivational speaking for companies, right? She does, but to benefit veterans organizations and we're one of them, which we're very fortunate. That's great. I wanted to mention that, because some people out there have a company looking for somebody to provide great motivation. There's a person that is, it's a magnificent story. It really is a type of thing.  She was on the quasi-board at SMA and continues to be on our board and works, that really helps with grant writing which is essential in our business to keep us going. And we have two fabulous part-time staff members. We have a part-time program manager, program director, Judy O'Malley, and we have a new volunteer coordinator, Melissa LaBurtier, and they're both fabulous. Just one example, I came, I was away for two days and I came back and they've worked this miracle. One of our, they were looking for, one of our volunteers was looking for a decoy that goes on the license plate for World War II veterans. And the man they were trying to get it for, it was really important for him to get it for his family so that, because his son was, I think his son was in Vietnam and his grandson was in the service as well. So they had three different decals. They wanted to have, and the World War II veteran had never gotten his and they wanted to get it so that they could have all three for the family for keepsake. Well, the veteran died before they could get the decals. So they wanted to get it posthumously. And the DM, the Department of Marine of, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles was not really cooperated. It was unparalleled. Until? Well, they said, you know, the rules say you have to, the person has to be alive to get the decal. And so one of our new volunteers was in the legislature, state legislature, and she worked, Melissa knew her. In fact, Melissa had already recruited her at Tibet and it's in the mail. We don't always work miracles, but I'll tell you, there are a lot of miracles going on in this program. There is a lot of magic that happens in this group of people that, you know, veterans out there are the recipient of, you know, type of thing.  I mean, I went to the Veterans Administration down on the new place on the Commercial Street, went in there and talked to this lady, and within two days, my veteran has it. And then she sent a nice note on top of everything else. I showed to my wife, I said, hey, you know. I said, I want $70, you know. That's good. Not all bad. Well, I think it also, I mean, the services are there. And a lot of times, veterans just don't know that the services are there. Or they need help, they need help to get it. They need to know what to do. They don't know what to do to get it. They don't want to ask, but then when they get with another veteran, then they're more willing to be, you know, they'll ask another veteran where they won't ask someone else. They'll take the help from another veteran. Maybe they wouldn't take the help from someone else. Because, you know, some of us older people get stubborn. Yeah, I feel awkward. Really? I don't feel those, yeah. So that's a big benefit, it's just that network that we can depend on. It kind of greases the skids, it legitimizes the request, if you will. It just really helps to move things along for our veterans. And that's the way it should be. Yeah, absolutely. Now, the training takes how long? Well, it's nine hours. Nine hours? We are working on an interactive virtual training that will take less time. It'll take about five hours, let's see. No, it'll be, it'll take about two and a half hours online on your own. And then we also have some other components. Well, you'll be, the person will be interviewed by program director. And then we also will require them to come to a case review, probably virtually. And that's when all the volunteers get together and talk about their experiences, as Lynn had mentioned. So that they'll get to know other veterans in the program. The virtual training will have its pluses and minuses. I mean, they won't be able to be in person with a bunch of other veterans at that time as they have before, but the benefit, and I think it's a big benefit, is that they will be able to, once they enroll, they'll be able to be trained right away and become a peer companion within a matter of a month or two, because, and then we can match them right up. In the patent, as it is now, we have two or three trainings a year. And we, when we get 10 or 12 people who wanna be a volunteer, we wait for that and then we have to set up the training. So a person could wait up to six months before they're able to go to training. And so that's why we're working on this interactive piece. How are you raising, how would some of the, obviously, need money to keep this organization going? How do you go about raising money? Well, there's a number of sources. And some of our, of course, staff is a big component of our expenses. We also have to pay 59.50 for each volunteer for their background check and their driver's license check, because some of them will be driving their volunteer, I mean, their veteran as well. And then we have other expenses too, of course, office expenses and software, whatever.  And that requires a lot of time to research them and write them and submit them and then once we get a grant to do annual or quarterly reports or monthly, even monthly reports, it depends on the grant, how much work we have to do after we get it. But there's usually a considerable amount of work after that too. Sure. And people don't want to give money unless they think it's being spent wisely and they can't blame them for that. So grants are a big portion, but we also have, we're working with local businesses to get more support from businesses who couldn't pledge a yearly amount. And that would really help us because then we don't have to guess whether or not we can have a staff member on hand. We don't want to hire someone if we don't think we can keep them on for a number beyond a year. Tell me quickly, did you happen to get a check the other day from somebody? We did. And how much did you get? And I was just gonna say, we have some wonderful, wonderful individual supporters. Among them are our volunteers, our board members, and one of our wonderful longtime volunteers, Jeff Reynolds, sent us a check for $5,000. And I called him in tears and said thanks to him. And he said he really felt it was important to support this. He felt that we were really doing wonderful work. And he is too. He's a peer companion. So he knows what is going on and what kind of work is being done. He's done a lot of it himself. But he feels that this is a way that he can help and he really is committed to this program. So yes, we have wonderful, we could not exist without our volunteers. They're the ones who do the majority of the work. They do the real work in the field. You know, we do an awful lot for very little in terms of our budget. We reach so many veterans. And with additional funds so we could hire some full-time help to help us to do the screening and the matching and many other things, we could reach so many more volunteers. Like you said in the very beginning, there's 100,000, there's a tremendous number of veterans in the state of Maine, many located, concentrated in the southern part of Maine. Although we're reaching out to some other parts of the state, particularly being able to be virtual now, that's, you know, the pandemic has its mainly minuses. There's a few pluses in that we've learned to use Zoom, et cetera, so some of the veterans that we maybe would have been unable to reach in the past were able to reach now. But it's so important that we get the additional funding so we can reach more veterans. And you know, we're one of many veterans organizations that are out there looking for funds. And we have a lot of great veteran organizations throughout the state of Maine, throughout the country. And again, we're one of many, we're very unique, we believe, in terms of being all volunteer, being a peer-to-peer program where veterans are befriending, being helping other veterans. So we're very unique in that respect. And we're trying to get the word out that, you know, we can do an awful lot with very little. So, you know, fundraising is important. It's something that many of us, certainly myself and others, we've not done that. I was in business for years. We never had bake sales and we had to do fundraising. You know, we were a profit organization. So it's new to many of us, but you know, we're kind of, we're muddling through it. We're getting a little better at it. Susan indicated we've gotten a number of grants that have helped us tremendously, but there's a lot more to do.  Maybe we can reach some additional veterans or businesses that might hear our story and decide, hey, this is a worthwhile organization. I think I may be interested. So we hope that, you know, and certainly I'm sure before this program ends, we'll have out there our website and our phone number and please call us and we'd be happy to tell you more about us.  And maybe some corporate people might see this and say, geez, I could use somebody like her. I mean, here's a lady that was a realitary hero, she really is, you know. And who almost got killed in Afghanistan, correct. And you know, some type of bomb that landed next to her I guess it was, type of thing. Now she's deaf and, you know, she's gone through an awful lot and but she does motivational speaking. She does, she travels around the world for running and I came up with the name of the... World's toughest race. The real toughest race. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of motivational.  You know, you raise, I think it was 4,000 or 5,000. Yeah, he's been, he was very helpful. Yeah, so there's plenty of, you know, corporate sponsors and other sponsors. This is such a wonderful organization. It really is. I mean, like I said, I've been involved many years. There's so many businesses and there's quite a number of businesses in Maine who do a lot of work for the defense. Yeah, true. Businesses, many businesses have a lot of veterans that work for them. They may, and it's so important to hopefully be able to reach out to these businesses and say, you know, you have veterans that, you know, that work for you, work in your organization. They probably have fathers who perhaps could use the help of a veteran friend.  I have to give a... On behalf of the veterans that work for you, do it on their behalf. Right. I have to give a shout out to Derek Vogue and Vogue Packaging because early on, they're early supporters of, we were able to start right up as soon as we incorporated because Derek Vogue provided us with an office in his, at Vogue Packaging in Bitterford. He provided us with free wifi, with a phone, with a desk, with a coffee machine. He's been a fantastic support and we're very grateful to him. If you haven't visited the hero's wall. Right, he has a hero's wall, which is wonderful. Yes, right. That honors veterans. So he's been a very great supporter from day one. How did he happen to become a supporter anyways? Was it, you know, his motivation behind that? He's been a strong supporter of veterans for a long time. He's been a veteran, yeah. And I actually, I interviewed him early on. I, in my other life, I was a reporter. Oh, really? I didn't know that. And a writer. And I interviewed his father. Because I worked for Business Digest at the time. Oh, sure. And we did stories on businesses and so I interviewed his father. Leo G? Was it? Oh, yeah. I knew very well.  Tom Heals went to his church and so he sort of set it up for us to meet. And, but from day one, I mean, he treated me to breakfast. He even paid for my breakfast. Really? And said, oh, sure. I can give you an office space. Wow. It didn't take him a second. So it was, we were very grateful to him. Wow. And that changed, of course, since COVID is that sound? Yeah, since COVID, we did shut down our office and we're all working at home, but at some point we'd like to resume having an office someplace. Maybe in Portland. I don't know, we haven't decided that, but. Sure. And then we've had, you know, Cumberland County has supported us with a grant. United Way in York County has supported us. Just recently we got, we were selected by 100 plus women who care in Southern Maine. Thanks to Susan. They gave us a really wonderful grant. So, and the John T. Gorman Foundation gave us a great grant. So we've been very fortunate in the people who have supported us. And, but as Lynn says, you know, we really would like to expand and offer our services to more people. And with that, to do that, we do need more staff. So that's why we are out there beating the bushes. Yeah, that's right. We're going to take a little break right now and we're going to show you a video about Vette-to-Vette. It gives you a little bit more information to hopefully entice you to want to get involved and to, to volunteer or to, if you know somebody that needs some services for Vette-to-Vette, get in touch with us. I'm Phil Capalium. I live in Falmouth, Maine. I was in the U.S. Naval Reserve and I was in the Amphibious Force during D-Day. I am Florence Alquist, Link. It was getting close to the war time. I wanted to go to work and I went to work in the shipyard. My name is Dick Sproul. I live in Yarmouth, Maine. I was in the service from 1968 to 1970. My name is Vernon Francis Houston. I was working as a supervisor, a ship supervisor. I am Mary Dottie McGurk. And I went into the Air Force in 1954. My name is Eric Meehan. I served in the United States Army from November of 1961 to November of 1963. I saw an article on the paper, I think in December of last year about this Vette-to-Vette-to-Vette-to-Vette program and I thought perhaps I could be a contributor to that. I'm a Vietnam vet, and after all that time going by over 40 years, I've finally decided that I want to get involved. One of the things that you get to be my age is a lot of your friends are not with you anymore. It's nice to talk to someone so we can have quite a few things in common. I think that visiting another veteran who's housebound gives them something to look forward to, and you make good friends. Dick here has supplied a lot of information that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and I'm really grateful. I'm glad I enlisted in the program. This program has turned out to be as rewarding for me as I think it has been for the veteran that I visit. I think we became good friends. How far? That's right. That's wonderful. If there was any doubt in your mind, go ahead and do it. Lynn, you were going to say something you wanted to add into the conversation? There's so much need out there. We don't know how many... As we said here as we talked, there are veterans out there that could use a friend. They could use some help. And how do we reach them? We reach them by being able to expand the organization, have more volunteers, more networking. And you end up touching more people, and that's how we find many of the volunteers, and we find veterans as well that need the friend. For the friendship, for the camaraderie, but also for the help in terms of helping them navigate through the Veterans Administration system or help them get other services as soon as indicated, and you've indicated that you've done with your veterans. It's just so important that, again, we're able to reach out and network and grow the organization, because, again, we do so much with so little. Oh, God, yes. In business, our budget is just minuscule with the number of people we have and the work we do. It's just incredible. And so for a little bit more, we can do so much. We want to reach out hopefully to some other businesses and individuals who hear our story and say, it's worthwhile. I want to help this organization. I want to help our fellow, and there's got to be veterans out there in these businesses that hopefully will hear our story and say, you know, I didn't know about Vet-to-Vet main. That's a great organization. I want to help them out. Maybe I want to volunteer, or maybe my dad or maybe my brother can use the help or might want to volunteer. You know, met a lot of veterans, of course, and always encouraged them to get involved. And almost without exception, they go, I never heard of it. But, yeah, I'd like to get involved with things like this, almost all of them, but I want to give back, you know, type of thing. And I can't, I mean, you know, for veterans giving back, I mean, this has to be one of the best organizations you could possibly have.  And like I say, I've always been involved in non-profits from JC's to Chamber of Commerce to Project Grace, et cetera. But this is one of the best things I've ever done. And I mean that very, very sincerely. What I was able to do for my two prior veterans and for my present veteran is one of the best things. And I made a few mistakes along the way, so I need it. I think you're right. I think people do want to help. And I know that we've had great support from the Rotaries in South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Sarko, and Bitterford have all been great. And to the extent that they'll call me up at the end of their year and say, we have some extra money, you want it? Of course we say yes. We can use it. Yes, we can always use it for work. Well, we need it. But I think they see the value of it. It's just getting the word out and letting people know that this is a viable way to say thank you to veterans, which we all need to do because we have asked them to make a great sacrifice. And I really believe that it's up to the rest of us to make sure that veterans get the help they need when they come back. So that's what we're all about. I think if people hear our story, that can seal the deal. We can close the deal if we can get someone to hear our story. But it's difficult. People are busy. So again, this is a great opportunity. We really appreciate the opportunity to talk about that to that main. And again, hopefully this will help us to reach out to a few more individuals that can learn about our program. We can get more help. So we've got a few minutes left here. Everybody's been five minutes or so. So how do they find you again? It's the easiest way to... Probably our website, www.Vet2, the number two, VET, Maine, spelled out, M-A-I-N-E dot org. You can also find us on Google to say VET to VET, Maine. Make sure you put the vein on there.  You can also call us. There's a number there. There's several numbers that you can call, but we'll put them on the screen. So that would be for volunteer or for... Volunteer to... Or if you have a veteran in the family that needs... To donate. You can donate through the website. There's a lot of great information. There are some videos where some of the veterans share their stories. There's just a lot of information on the website. Yeah, and if you want to volunteer, you can enroll online. You can ask for help online. Okay. Well, I want to thank you both very much for your services for coming in and going through this whole thing. And like I say, it's one of the best things I've ever done. I think it's a great organization. And I'm thrilled to be part of it. And I think we're ready to wrap it up and thank you very much.