How Ed Brown Excites Business by Blending KPIs, Energy, & Nervous System Leadership

Hello, hello. Today on Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin, I'm joined by Ed Brown, who spent over 20 years in corporate America and now is a consultant and coach with CEOs and finder of companies of 5 to 50 million. This man is A beautiful combination of logic and strategy and data and KPIs and past life regressions and human design and emotions and human intelligence and just this beautiful combination of the two. Our conversation gets into bottlenecks and leadership and where leaders need to let go and what that actually looks like when you work with somebody as magical as Ed. Join us. Your nervous system sets the tone. Your energy speaks before you do. How you show up is the culture. I'm Dr. Tamsin Aster, and this is Hot Habits, conscious leadership in action. Hello, hello, and welcome back to Hot Habits Conscious Leadership in Action. Today's guest is a beautiful example of how some of the most powerful habit shifts in a leader's life don't always happen in their morning routine. They happen in their operations, their systems, and the reactive patterns quietly running the whole show. Okay. I met Ed Brown, welcome, at the Hope Makers Conference in Stowe, Vermont. We were in an AI workshop run by Peter Swain, and we'd been asked to seat ourselves according to our AI needs. And I walked over to Ed's table, sat down next to him, and we started talking. And within about 30 seconds, we were deep into human design and energy with this kind of explosive-laden passion that told me instantly we were going to be friends. So that was how I met you. So Ed, welcome. Ed is the founder of Empowered Dynamics and a fractional chief growth and operations officer for founder-led B2B service companies in the $5 to $50 million range, where sales are growing, margins are tightening, leadership is stuck in that kind of reactive mode, and the founder has a bottleneck. So over 20 years, he's led multi-region sales and ops platforms, owned full P&L across markets, generating $600 million annually, and built the layered leadership infrastructure most companies and founders need, but don't know how to construct. Today, he's the embedded operator companies bring in to align revenue to capacity, clarify decision rights, install a real KPI-driven execution rhythm, and reduce founder dependency so business can scale without the founder's nervous system collapsing. So his scale executive operating system helps companies identify the actual growth constraint, not the imagined one, strengthen accountability and build a business that grows stronger instead of heavier. So in other words, Ed is doing the structural and systems level work on exactly the problems that I work on at the habit and nervous system level. Conscious leadership, operations edition. I can't wait to dig into this conversation. Let's go, Ed! Let's go, let's go. Thank you so much for joining me today on Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin. So at the start of every Hot Habits conversation, I asked my guests to bring an object with them, something that represents a hot habit in their life as a way of bringing leadership out of theory and into everyday reality. So tell me, what object did you bring and why did you choose it? I brought my little rabbit back. Yes, it was gifted to me. And it was around a conversation about growth and change. So we were having a conversation. And then earlier in my life, I had a block to the color purple. I couldn't see it, didn't understand it, didn't like it. I didn't even listen to Prince because of it. I'm like, how freaking petty was I being about the color purple? And yes, some girl broke my heart. And that was her favorite color. So I built this whole nervous system block around it. And I had this epiphany during a meditation session. And I got to see, open up. I got to open up. I got to see the past. I did a timeline therapy. The lady that was guiding me through the meditation, had on a purple dress, purple lipstick, purple eyeliner, and I didn't see it. And when I came out, I was like, I told her, have you been wearing purple the whole time? Did you go do a wardrobe change while I was under? She's like, Ed, what the fuck are you talking about? And I'm like... I couldn't see the color purple until right now. And now I see it everywhere. And my buddy, Michelle, she loved that story so much. She went out during our conference and found that rabbit for me. And she's like, here's a purple rabbit. Go, go, go, go, go. And please don't stop because you have a gift to give to the world. So I keep it by me all the time. I love the story of it. I love your honesty about where it came from. But also, like, you know, having grew up in England, like, purple is the colour of royalty. And it's the colour of royalty because it was the hardest colour to produce before we had fake dyes. Like, it required a combination of particular natural elements, which was really difficult. Most people were wearing, you know, like, grey and dirty brown, right? So, purple is a regal colour. So, I'm just going to flag that for you, darling. It's a regal colour. It's legal. Let's go. Amazing. All right. So you've spent 20 plus years in operational leadership. What was the version of you at 25 or 30 that would be shocked by the work you do now as this kind of embedded nervous system aware, you know, energy, human design, past lives, curious operator? Yeah, the 25 version of me is like, you're boring, old man. He's because the 25 year version of me was all go. Didn't listen. Bull in the China shop. Got results. Got results the right way and the wrong way, meaning sometimes through people, sometimes through people. Like not good. I would run over people like it's my way or the highway. And then I met this beautiful, beautiful place called Hawaii. And Hawaii, that does not work there. It's when I got introduced to myself like, hey, brother, this don't work over here. Like, you got to calm down. So they slowed me down. I got embedded into culture. And then I started learning that, you know, you can you meet people where they are. You understand what their needs are. You understand you slow down to go fast because they never stop. And that's where I learned at, and it was funny because I look back at myself at that time and like, how the hell do people tolerate me? And why do they still talk to me? And I've asked a few people and they're like, you know, we always knew you had our best intention at heart. You were just harder on us because your standards were so high, but we like the version of you now because you allow us to grow. So that's, that's what my 25 year old self would say. Yeah. I love that. And I love that the people who stuck around recognized the core of who you were, even if the packaging was a little dysregulating for them. So I think my lead on question for that is... Did that awareness or the experience or the process that has got you to where you are today, is there a particular practice or a habit that has become non-negotiable in allowing you to step into this version of yourself now, rather than that more kind of bullish energy of the 25-year-old you? You watched me go through it. When I met you, I was going through this transition. And my morning intention in meditation has been, and that habit for me has been built over time, to meditate in the morning, to give gratitude in the morning. And I started doing intentional meditation around move from peace, not pressure, because I performed so well under pressure, it became normal. So when normal is always pressure, I was always creating chaos in the world so I could go fix and solve and perform. And then when I started moving from peace, I got introduced to awareness and choice. And when I got introduced to awareness and choice, they came with my friends' judgment and control. So I started learning how my modus of operandum operated. It operated from pressure and from peace to peace. I made better choices because I was more aligned with it because it brought people along instead of pulling people along. The language I use for that is often like pause, notice, choose, right? And that we need to create practices to be able to be aware, right? Like whether it's interoceptive awareness, like how do I feel in this place with this person in this job, in this building, right? Like what is my nervous system telling me? Or the space for metacognition, right? That area of the brain that we have that goes, how do I think about this? Right? Right? And so creating the space and time to do that, which I feel like is really hard in our current world because everything is currently coming. Everything comes up. It has to be an intentional practice to say, I'm going to do these things that give me space so that I can listen. And in your space, in your example, your personal experience is to completely shift your fundamental operating system, which I see with founders and CEOs all the time that I work with is this change. You know, we are so driven by this pressure model, right, to succeed. Like, I'll sleep when I'm dead, you know? And like, the fact that, right, like, most Americans check their email when they're on vacation. And I go back and forth to Europe, and I go to Europe, and I'm like, you know, and people take the whole month of August off, you know? And Americans are like, what are you doing? What can you do? Right? You know, or you go to Copenhagen and people stop their work day at like five or in Holland, you know? And yeah, so that I love that you created that shift and that there was that moment. And what, I mean, I think what you're really speaking to too is the willingness to slow down and listen and be aware. as I think about who you work with, right? So let's just take a, I mean, if you can give me a concrete example without it being, you know, a violation of, you know, a DNR or whatever, but what does a founder usually think the problem is when they call you? And what is it actually? Do you see with your practice and expertise in slowing down, pausing and noticing, the people come to you and think, this is what my problem is. And then you're like, They typically don't know they have a problem. They just know something's not working. I hear this all the time. I'm putting in 12, 16 hour days. I'm like, okay, you run a team? Yes. How many hours are they putting in? You know, they only put in eight. And I tell them, I'd love to work for you. You're going to not only pay me for eight hours and you're going to do my job. I want to work for you. So and then that opens up. They're like, all right, smart ass. What are you saying? And what I'm saying is you have a decision issue problem. You don't have clear boundaries in your business. You're trying to hit a target that you're doing the work for other people. So I usually ask this question right after that. Where's your revenue at today? And I'll hear $5 million, $15 million, $20 million. I'll ask a question. If you do exactly what you're doing, how long will it last? And three years from now, what will your revenue be? I've yet to have someone tell me they can double their revenue in three years, which now opens up a path. And I say, okay, what if we 10X your business in three years? What would that look like? And I verbatim hear that's not possible. So now what I'm intentionally doing is trying to understand how they think about their business, the mindset that they're carrying into the decisions, the type of people that they have around them. I'm making all these deductions based off of my revenues growing. I've even had people tell me I'm killing it on revenue. OK, love it. What's your margin? What should your margin be? So either way, there's always an iteration to happen. So the patterns are the same. And the mindset of the leader is where I start. What I love about this, right, is this sort of drawing attention to things which we often don't see when we're in it. I mean, I think that's one of the things that is so powerful about working with a coach or a consultant is having somebody come in and go, but I see these things, right? Which when you're embedded in it, you're like, you just are completely blind to, right? So when they have that initial kind of, like, I feel like something's not right. Do you see sort of different paths with whether it's a slow burn, kind of like, you know, like it could be like we're maintaining, but we're not growing. If there is a crisis, like what does a crisis look like in this when there's a bottleneck? Because I think like that leading into awareness is what I'm getting at around this. So I have two examples that come to mind. I have one I'm working on currently where two people, they run the business together. They're equal partners. One side of the business is growing and the other side of the business is not. And I asked the question, the same question, if we tend extra business, what would that look like? One new guy told me it's not possible. The other guy, but like, that'd be amazing. I could do a jet. I could do the thing. And I'm like, okay. Okay. So the gentleman who didn't believe it was possible also said, and I asked him the question to bring the awareness to him, do you even want to grow? And his answer was, no, I'm actually good. And so I literally turned my conversation to the other guy and started talking to him about growth where the other the Gemini didn't want to grow. I was actually talking to him through the other guy. So I was asking the growth guy questions around, you know, what were you thinking about growing? What do you think that you see? And, you know, the intricate questions that coaches ask and around how they look at the business and the awareness came up. He goes. You know what? I would like to go to he's at four million. He's like, I'd love to go to six or seven million. OK, tell me how you think about it. What they're trying to do is that, OK, Mr. Smarty Pants, you know everything. Tell me how you would fix it. And I never solved the problem at the table. I only give them ideas to think about it that they're not thinking about and how I know we're in alignment. The question always becomes, how do we work together? When someone says to me, how do we work together? They've identified themselves with a problem. And then the very next question is, what problem are we solving? What have you come to conclusion that you want to solve? And then we put a monetary value on that. And whatever timeframe they say they want to do it in, I cut it in half. Amazing. No, but I mean, I think part of what you're identifying to you is, is, and this is something that is really important, you know, when you work as a coach and a consultant is, is the locus of control is the person in the room having the conversation with you. able to take personal ownership over their role in the situation? And are they willing to do the work to shift it, right? And, you know, one of the things that I learned very early on was to kind of ask questions of my potential clients about, you know, like why they were stuck where they were. Right. Right. So that I wouldn't end up being blamed because if they said, you know, it's my my husband's fault, my wife's fault, my PA's fault, the government's fault, whatever. I was like, it's going to be my fault one day. Right. Like, you know, right. So what you're doing is you're helping them. I really take ownership and identify that. When you do this, do you find difficult, interesting, or do you make a choice about working or not working with people where there is a significant break between the CEO or the founder and the team? Because that connection to me is really, feels really important in so much of this work that we do, right? Is, again, the locus of control. Like, to your point, they're working eight hours, I'm working 12 hours, right? The team feels this, I feel that. sort of assess that piece of the puzzle. What I'm doing in the conversation is assessing, will they make a decision right or wrong? They will take a choice because also in the question is they have to come to their own awareness. They have a problem. I'm not going to point it out. Right. So once they say that, then I know, OK, what do you want to do about it? So now it's can you or will you make a decision? So I ask about questions around how do you make decisions when things are tough? When your team's not doing what you're asking them to do, when you clearly thought that you had set the boundaries and the expectations, and they're still bringing things back to you to decide, what do you do? How do you do it? Because I'm deciding whether they will be able to let go of that and bring their people. Because if they don't let go, they still stay the bottleneck. And when they say, sometimes it happens early, and then a lot of times it's like third or fourth session, where I sit there like, you know what? Because I make them take a day off during the middle of the week, which is counterintuitive to people. So it's like, I want you to take a day off in the middle of the week and I want you to go hang out with your family. Because you told me in somewhere in the conversation, they tell me what they value most. And I want them to spend that time during the middle of the week so they can detach from the outcome and let the team do it. And now they can bring the team up there. And coach them in that moment. And that's the first step. So that's how I understand if they will or will not make decisions. And I always do a 90-day check. At 90 days, I decide whether I want to continue with you. And you decide whether you want to continue with me. And then at six months, we do it again. At six months is when we're locking into 12 or 18 months. But I want to go 90 days and six months because in 90 days, we can get a lot done. You know, I don't. If you'll make decisions. If you won't make decisions, I'm not your person. I'm not your guide. And it's the decisions and then the action taking. I like, that's definitely something that I have a, like the people who I like to work with are the people who will then take the action. Right. I mean, I call it to imprint the shift. Right. Like, you know, people need to take take the action to imprint the new habit, to get rid of the old habit, to imprint the shift of letting go of control. Right. And that's part of this whole. So tell me a little bit more about your scale executive operating system. Like, what does it actually do? Right. that other frameworks don't? Because I think, you know, I feel like that's your, like your unique take based on your history and your, you know, your work, what you've been doing. Like that, I'm curious, like what do you do? Well, it's not checking our weight, that's for sure. We're not getting on the scale of seeing if I lost some pounds. We're looking to see if we added some revenue and profit. So the first thing we do is we unlock the constraint. And once we unlock the constraint, now we are actually... being able to say, what is the system doing versus the owner or the person? So I'm building a system around the thought process. So I'm basically installing the decision matrix. So then we connect that constraint to the strategy. So then we say, okay, what's the process that led to this outcome? And who are the people that are managing this process? Once we have that, we assign clear decision rights. So once we say, okay, we know what the problem is, we connected it to the strategy, we know the outcome we want, so we have where we are and where we want to go, right? Now we're connecting that and we're assigning the ownership of that. Okay, what is the frontline associate's responsibility in this? What is the person that manages it in this? What is the person that reports to the founder or CEO? However many levels is everyone has a responsibility to this, but they are not allowed to do the person's job that reports to them. Everyone has to do their part. Then that'll show up in a metric. So we have KPIs. I'm very KPI driven. So what are the KPIs we're going to try? We're not going to track 10. We're going to track three. We're going to move one at a time because the one we move will affect two or three others, right? Then once we do that, we get a cadence around reporting on it, seeing it, understanding it. And from there, we can expand the process. And there you have a scaling system where the system scales with the revenue. Because what I find a lot of times is sales will go out and bring in a bunch of revenue and operations can't fulfill it. And then they're fighting against each other. So we put in a system that scales at the exact same time. Where does the bottleneck in the system where if we brought in double the revenue in one day, where would it break? We go fix that. And then we ask the people, we say, okay, Tamsin, what's wrong with this system? Because everyone's got all the greatest ideas until it's go time, right? So we asked the people, they're like, this is a stupid idea. Okay, cool. What's wrong with it? And we list it. Okay, now that we have those listed, what would make it work? And we do what's wrong with it. We fix that first because now we've taken away all the excuses. So now no one can blame you because we fixed everything you said was wrong. Now we're going to go do this. There's only one thing left. Okay. So, I mean, so if I get this, if I understand this right, like the decision rights is really about making it very clear that you do essentially what your job description is and the people aren't picking up the slack for you, right? And so in many ways, I feel like, It's one of those things a little bit like the work I do with habits. It sounds simple, but it could potentially be quite brutal or difficult in practice, right? Because as the leader, as the founder, you're the person that has to say, like, that's not my job to pick it up. I mean, it's a little bit like parenting, right? Like, with my kids, I had them doing their own laundry from the age of eight. And what was interesting about that is, I would go traveling with my kids sometimes, and we'd be like, let's go out for ice cream. And one of them would go, I can't come because I don't have a clean T-shirt. And I could say, well, you could wear a dirty T-shirt and come, right? Or not, right? And it was interesting watching, like one of my kids was like, I'm always gonna wear the dirty T-shirt or put it inside out and go for ice cream because it's ice cream, mom. And the other one that's like, I am not gonna go outside in a dirty T-shirt. right? But again, it's like, it's like, it's the, it's, so it's this sort of interesting chemistry. You have to like support them through that, I suppose, right? And help them, you know, enact it in a way and held people to it. You know, I, I mean, the way that I frame that I have three pillars in my business of the daily habits, the big juicy why, and the mindset. And this for me comes under the mindset for me is split in two. It's the inner work, of the mindset, how you speak to yourself and all of that, but it's also the mindset of how do you let others impact you, right? How do you hold your boundaries? How do you let those little voices in your head of your grandmother or your ex-partner or your teacher who told you you'd never do it, right? What do you find most beneficial in this decision rights piece to help the leader kind of let go, right? And have a supportive conversation with their direct reports so that the decision rights thing doesn't feel like it's something that's like a sort of brutal, like, you haven't done what you're supposed to do, right? So it's really cool. I believe if you can apply something at work, you can apply it at home. If you can apply it in spirituality, you can apply it in health. So at the center of everything that I'm doing is Identity Shift. So I'm helping the founder become identifying with being a leader that empowers us people to make mistakes because we learn more from our mistakes. And the way we do that is up front. In that very beginning, in the first discovery, I asked, what are your top five values? You'd be surprised how many people can't answer that question. So we define the top five values. And then I have them live their values for a week. Show me how you live your values at home and at work. And then we apply that to how they make decisions with their people, because I believe the world is a mirror. So the world is showing you what it is that's internally, externally. And so if you're very, my number one value is presence. So right now, if I'm over here checking my phone and looking at this and looking, I'm not present with you here. And it's definitely, it's 10 times worse in person with people that report to you because they're following your lead. So you're telling them it's okay to be distracted. So we practice the values at home. We practice them at work. And you would, I have not had one person come back to me that says my ultimate compliment is always, my wife says I'm better when I'm hanging out and talking with you. Fricking gold. I'm like, okay, get my right to say the same thing, please. But, um, So if you think about it in terms of how what I learned from you is, you know, I'm binary. So I want the simplest, most easiest thing for me to do because it stacks over time. That skill set becomes an autonomous habit. And that's how I've trained my nervous system to not respond under pressure. Just like, OK, step back. What are the facts of the situation? Here's a true. And I'm installing Ed. into the founders that I work with in their own path, in their own values, in their own mission. So it becomes their own system that they can use anywhere in life. as you were saying that, it was making me think about, like, the connection between what you do and what I do and the way I talk a lot about it in terms of, sort of, like, nervous system and how, you know, we are aware of our own, right? But also, I mean, because conscious leadership I define as aware, influence, like, are you aware of your impact? Are you aware of your influence? Are you aware of what you're doing around others, right? So you talk a lot more about systems, which is, you know, essentially what I do with habits. Where... Do you see the systems end and the humans start? Like that kind of what we used to call human-computer interaction, right? That kind of concept of that, like that, you know, which in this world of AI, right, is becoming even more with like agentic bots sort of. But where do you see the systems end and the humans start? And how do you conceptualize that in what you do? Yeah. So for me, it all starts with one person leading themselves, right? So one person learning to lead themselves is a success formula in itself. So what do you do to create your own success formula? How do we expand that to help people that are in your ecosystem have their own success formula? And how do we point that at one target? So if it's revenue for a business or if it's experiences for a family and in leadership, what I believe is you can lead yourself. Yeah. then you can lead another. Once you can lead another, you can lead multiple. And once you lead that, you can lead leaders and then train leaders. So that entire ecosystem for me is expansive. So I look at it and it never ends because when you get to the next level, there's another iteration. Right. One of my favorite books is Marshall Goldsmith. What got you here won't get you there because you're to some result of everything where we're standing today. But this experience is going to make us better. So tomorrow we're going to be something different, which is even more beautiful. So we're always evolving. So the system continues to do its thing. You always look for bottlenecks. You always check the process. So it's always expanding until you decide you don't want to expand anymore. So that's where it is when you decide I'm good. And then you'll start shrinking and you're like, oh, got to go again or build something new. What's really interesting about like as we're talking, I'm starting to see a pattern emerge. But I have a couple more questions that I want to dig into before I kind of draw attention to the pattern that I'm seeing emerge. And I think the first one is, you know, if somebody is listening and they think, oh, you know, what's a habit that you have seen a leadership team install that completely shifts the temperature of the business within 90 days? I mean, I love when you said, like, let's not track a million KPIs. Let's do three, right? One, we'll build on each other, right? Is there one habit that when people in a team start doing it and the leadership team starts doing it, you just start to see this, like, extraordinary ripple effect, what I might call, like, a keystone habit, you know, like in a keystone art, like when you have that one habit and it goes... So in the assigned phase, this is where the magic happens. So you've got many different systems out there. You can use four habits, four executions, a discipline, EOS. You can use whatever you want. If communication doesn't happen as a nucleus, it'll never go anywhere because people will continue to do what they thought they heard and what they thought they meant. So having a clear cadence around communication and do not, do not, do not ever waver from that. So you have a clear system of how the meeting's gonna go. You're not in there to shoot the shit. You're in there to talk about Here's what we accomplished. Here's where we're going. Here's what's going on. You speak facts before feelings and you'll be fine. So in my world, communication, cadence, facts before fiction. So you speak facts before emotion, excuse me. Always lead with the facts. The facts are this is working. It's not working. Why is it working? Why is it not working? the logic of how you think and process through this is very compelling. I think one of the things I was struck by in the language of how you talk about what you do, which was to me a little unclear when I want to feel it, because I know you're such a big feeler, even though you're very systems and logic and words. You talk about helping businesses grow stronger instead of heavier. So what does heavy feel like or what does heavy look like or what does heavy sound like and what does stronger look like, feel like, sound like? Yeah, I love that. So, and I'll just tell you how I put it out there and then tell me if it's unclear. So when I say, why do some businesses get stronger as they grow while others feel like they're getting heavier? And then I take this picture. If you're growing, are you really growing at the rate you should? Or are you just growing at the rate your structure can handle? If revenue is up, why does the business still feel slower? messier and more dependent on you. And then you say, well, what if this isn't about effort? What if the business just isn't structured correctly because you're stuck in the middle? And if that's been true for a year, two years, three years, five years, what does it cost you to be able to just get stuck there? Speed, margin, stress. And what if it isn't about effort at all, Tamsin? What if it isn't about effort? What if it's just about building the structure to carry everything without you in the way. And for me, that's the business, you know, the difference how business can grow and the business that scales. So the weight of it is literally what you think you feel because you're like, I should be here. I should not be there. It's that internal dialogue. And the stronger, when you get stronger, you understand like, okay, that's not mine's to carry. Yeah. That's someone else's to carry. And I pay them to do this and they're on the team and they want to be here. So that's how it gets stronger. When you empower people, you get stronger and you love it. And for me, delegation is not giving someone something that I don't want to do. Delegation is if I give it to you, I believe you can do it the same or better. And that's clear up front. So now we're all stronger together and we're going to grow and scale this business together. I love it. And that's very clear because I read it and I often describe that feeling of heaviness in relationships with people or in particular parts of the world. Like you'll go into a community, into a building, into an office, into a home, into a city, and you'll just feel like... like you've got like a leaded blanket on you, right? You know, one of the things that is really fascinating about who you are and the work you do in the world is, you know, I think I was surprised by your sort of deeply spiritual, energetic literacy, for want of a better word, right? In the way that people often when they meet me and then they're like, you have a you know, people present and we make a judgment, right? And like the way you talked, I was like, it was clear that you were super experienced and like your business, you know, credentials, your business, like it was clear, right? But when like immediately you opened to me about all this other stuff and I love that. And I think what is really striking to me about who you are and what you do in the world is the way you have a very clear iteration of action, data, feedback, and that you are not somebody, even though you're saying like facts before feelings, you're not saying feelings don't matter, right? You're giving all of these things a place, right? The spiritual, the emotional, the like all of the like the time with the family, what you value, right? But you are very clear about the structure and the systems. And I find your description and the logic and the flow really compelling because you I think, and I think it's partly because I have ADHD, right? Like, I'm like, give me a framework. I'm like, this is a framework that makes a lot of sense, right? Because it's do data, gather the data, stop back, look, reflect. And it's this sort of iterative process that you model and you support your clients to go through, which is, you know, to sort of, you know, use a trite saying, it's, you know, you're teaching them to fish, right? Rather than fishing for them, right? Yes. Yeah. And so that to me feels like this sort of thread of what you do in the world is empower people to, you know, create these structures with your, you know, expert guidance so that they can. Because we've got this one precious life, unless we believe in reincarnation, right? Like this idea that we have to just, that everything has to be funneled into work to the detriment of all the things that we say we value is not, I think we're all starting to recognize that's not the way we want to live anymore, right? I eat my own cooking. I admit when I'm wrong and it doesn't feel good, but it's knowing, you know, the facts are I was wrong. The feeling was, it doesn't feel good. And being able to be vulnerable enough to do that in leadership is when everything changed for me, even in the corporate environment. I've gotten counseled by HR, but like, why are you so open and vulnerable with people? Because... I say things like people are real. They deserve to understand where we are and where we're trying to go so they can choose to be involved. And no one comes to work to fail. I've never met a person that said I want to come here and fail every day. No one. So everyone wants to do well. So give them clear boundaries. And what I what I learned is. The success formula that everyone has, everyone's succeeded at something, whether it was a win or a loss, you've succeeded at something. There's a step to that and there's a recipe to that. And it's repetitive. And once you apply that to every aspect of your life, so you start in one area and then you apply it to another and then you apply it to another and you look up, you're a completely different person in a short period of time, which is what I do as ill. We're like, okay, you want, we put a system in place We teach the human how to be human in the system because you're leading real people. So you have to be a human and you have to treat people like humans. And when we do that, it expands because not only have you replicated your passion, your vision as the founder, you've replicated yourself throughout however many people are in the system because now they have the same passion going towards the same goal as opposed to you just trying to hold them with you. So empowerment, influence, and then repeatability through that success formula. And my number one thing I tell people at the end of all our talks is go do something. I don't care. Take one action. It doesn't matter whether it works or not works. Just do something because the act of creating momentum will build momentum and will iterate along the way. That's what you have me for. And I have a PhD in mistakes, so I'm good. You know, but I had a professor who called a PhD, it's your piled high and deep. I mean, I think you've just answered that. But if our listeners would take one thing away from this conversation, one action, one shift, one insight, is there anything else that you would add to it apart from, you know, take the action? Before every action, take a moment and be intentional about it. And what does that mean? When you are transitioning from home to work, take a pause. Like we'll use your term, take a pause. Be intentional about engaging with your family or engaging with a client. And what is it you want to get from that? And lead from intentional... gratitude. So gratitude I've learned has, it comes in many different forms and be thankful, be joyful, be satisfied, whatever you label it as, find that center before you engage with people because they pick up on your energy. And if you can make an interaction with the person where you leave better and they leave better, we've done some good to the world. We've done some real good to the world. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Ed Brown, for joining me today on Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin. Thank you. Thank you. I'm eternally grateful and I honor what you're doing and I look forward to it blowing up! Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for being here. And thank you for taking the time to listen. Until next time, remember that the way you lead your inner world shapes how you lead on the outside. I'm Dr. Tamsin Aster. Thanks for listening to Hot Habits.