Cal Riley: Special Ops, Grief, and Why Your Business Needs a Heart
Meet Cal Riley, a special operations commander from the US Army, now transitioned to entrepreneurship. After inheriting his family’s construction business under intense pressure, Cal navigated burnout and chaos before discovering EOS (The Entrepreneurial Operating System) and transforming the way he operated.
But it wasn’t until the tragic loss of his brother to suicide that Cal began to deeply reevaluate his purpose and eventually write his first book, Compassionate Leadership: An Entrepreneur’s Journey Through Suicide, Combat, and the Discovery of Compassionate Leadership.
The book launched this September in recognition of Suicide Prevention Month, and it’s rooted in the belief that driven entrepreneurs can and must lead with more empathy.
Links to Platforms:
We discuss:
How military battle drills shaped Cal’s approach to business leadership
How EOS changed about his company and personal life
Why compassion is both a moral imperative and a business advantage
Tactical ways Cal builds emotional awareness into his leadership habits
How journaling, meditation, and presence help fuel resilience and clarity
If you're building something ambitious and want to do it without losing your soul, this conversation is for you.
Quotes from Cal:
"The more compassion I showed my team, the more profit we made. It’s not soft—it’s smart."
"They’ll never care how much you know until they know how much you care."
"Every really good unit has this thing called a tactical SOP—just like your business has processes."
"EOS gave me the ability to step back, let the team lead, and focus on building the future."
"I went from working 90 hours a week in the business to now doing one meeting a week."
"The business stops running you, and you start running it."
"When we can be driven and compassionate, the sky’s the limit."
"As entrepreneurs, we’re good at putting out fires—and if there isn’t one, we’ll start one just to feel busy."
"My brother’s death has to mean something—this book is how I make sure something good comes from it."
"I want to create a million compassionate leaders and prevent a hundred thousand suicides."
"This isn't about monetizing trauma—every cent from the book goes to suicide prevention."
If you’re considering writing or publishing a book, come talk with my team at Scribe Media.
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If you’re considering publishing a book, take 20 minutes to meet with someone from Scribe to learn more about the publishing landscape. To get in touch with Scribe, click here or email me to get started.
Learn more about Cal Riley:
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Nat Eliason: From Blogging to Sci-Fi Novels, Writing Books That Last, and Owning Your Audience
Paul Millerd: Profits in Publishing, Why Self-Publish, How Authors Make Big Money
Episode Transcript:
Eric Jorgenson: Cal Riley, it's good to have you on, man. I'm excited to do this.
Cal Riley: Good to be here.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. We've had quite a few off-the-record conversations, and I learn something from you every time we talk. So, this is going to be really fun and I've been looking forward to this book coming out, seeing it develop over the past months and years. You’ve got a really awesome story that I'm excited to share with people.
Cal Riley: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on and appreciate the time. And I’m really excited to kind of share a little bit more about this and yeah.
Eric Jorgenson: Hell yeah. Let's start with your background and kind of establish who you are, where you're coming from, because you've got a really unique story and unique mix of talents as an operator.
Cal Riley: Sure. So, I started professionally, my career really got started in the military. So I was an officer in the army in the global war on terror. And then first in the infantry in the 101st Airborne Division, and then later in special operations command. And was in for about 10 years, multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Africa and Afghanistan and then transitioned out, and I joined the family business, so I joined my dad's business. I'm not one of these guys that was always wanting to be an entrepreneur, was an entrepreneur when they were six years old or whatever. I kind of fell into it. Joined my dad's business and the way that I kind of- that it kind of ended up evolving is my dad actually passed away shortly after I joined the company. So I had to figure everything out. I didn't- there wasn't this long transition plan. It was just a sudden unexpected thing. So, grieving his loss, still trying to figure all that out, I learned a lot of things the really, really hard way, really quickly, which I don't know, maybe that's a good way to learn, maybe not. But it certainly wasn't a pleasant way to learn. But I think that's my initial background, my foray into entrepreneurship. So, kind of a military leadership into like, how does that convert into being an entrepreneur?
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. First of all, thank you for your service.
Cal Riley: Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks for your support.
Eric Jorgenson: From somebody who's never served, I'm curious about the nature of that work. When you say special operations command or leadership in a military setting in active deployment, like give me some context. Like what does that feel like on a daily basis? What kind of work are you doing?
Cal Riley: Yes. I mean, it's either training when you're not deployed or missions when you're deployed. So, it's everything from combat operations to we did a lot of counterinsurgency. So, counterinsurgency nation building is what they were calling it back then. And it was a lot of securing the populace and trying to get the host nation government and military to kind of stand on their own in Afghanistan and Iraq. But a lot of it was, it was complicated and it was kind of getting people to do things that, we’re trying to motivate them to do things that maybe they weren't really quite motivated to do. There's a saying, I never know if this is attributed to Iraq or Afghanistan, but they used to say that you guys have all the watches, you guys meaning the US military, and so you guys have all the watches, but we have all the time, which I think means we're just going to wait you out. So trying to combat that, we're hard charging US military, best military in the world, because we find ways to get things done because we've got a fantastic NCO core, which is the working class guys that actually get the work done. Other militaries, they don't have that. But a lot of it was combating that watches mentality versus our, no, I've got to get this thing done, man. I’ve got to find a way. And they are like, no, I’m just going to wait. I'm just going to wait six months and you'll be gone somebody else will be here. And so, it was great, though. I mean it was a lot of working with very different personalities on both sides, like within behind the wire, like with our guys and our teams. You grow up in a certain area and you get thrown into this mix of like every single different kind of human being that is... and it really is just, it's really cool. I mean, that was one of the things that I loved about the military is they just throw you right in to all different kinds of people, and it's fantastic because that's what the world's like. You're going to meet all different kinds of people, different kinds of mentalities and mindsets, and you’ve got to figure out how to make it work. Hopefully, you grow a little bit too and you learn, oh wow, maybe I need to check some of the things that I think about and the ways that I think about different things. But yeah, we did all different kinds of operations, man. I mean, I've done air assault raids, so like from a helicopter, we've done kind of cordon and knock raids. We've done dismounted patrols, reconnaissance patrols, ambushes, a lot of key leader engagements, stuff like that. And then when we're not deployed, it's hopefully mostly training. There's a lot of bureaucratic stuff that you have to do. But yeah, you try to get the right- setting up the right training plan. So, like one of the things, and I write about this in the book, one of the things that we were encountering in Afghanistan was this green on blue attack. So I don't know if you remember this. Do you remember that phrase, green on blue?
Eric Jorgenson: No.
Cal Riley: So back in about, geez, man, about 12 years ago or so in Afghanistan, there was this thing called green on blue. And what it was, was basically we were partnered with Afghan local host nation forces. And our job was to train them up, and then we want them to start leading it so we can get out of there. So, we want them to start doing the missions. They're doing the raids. They're doing like all of the things. Well, what started happening was that the enemy was infiltrating their ranks. And Afghan soldiers and Afghan local police that were compromised would go up and conduct ambushes against our forces. So, like you'd be in line at a chow hall or you'd be at the gym, and a guy would walk in and he'd throw a grenade in there and open up fire with a machine gun, like inside the patrol base. Yeah. So that was happening right before my last deployment to Afghanistan. So, we're trying to think about like, how do you prepare for a mission where somebody could walk up and shoot you in the back of the head, like in your patrol base. So, we're thinking about this, and I'm sitting down, I'm thinking about like, all right, how do we get ready for something like this? Like how do you ever prepare for this? So, I came up with this green on blue battle drill. So, in the military, a battle drill is something that you do it automatically. You don't even have to think about it, it’s just something you do. So, we've got battle drills for all different kinds of combat situations, from entering and clearing a building, how to clear a trench, how to react to a near ambush, a far ambush, movement to contact, all that stuff. Those are all like battle drills. So like when a unit gets ambushed, everybody in the unit that's getting ambushed knows exactly what to do. Like you don't even have to think about it. We've just practiced this so many times. It's just like muscle memory. It's just like, I guess, for an entrepreneur, your elevator pitch. It's like you can do that thing like in your sleep, like you could be at a party like hanging upside down from a tree and give that elevator pitch like no problem. It's like that. It's like, how do you do these certain tasks that you know you have to do. So green on blue is happening. We're about to deploy, and you asked me about military and what's that like and just to talk about that. So, we're trying to train up for this mission, and I'm thinking like, all right, we got all the regular stuff, like we know how to do a KLE, we know how to react to an ambush. What are we going to do? What am I going to do with this green on blue thing? Like that's happening, that's real, and man, I got to bring these guys home. Like I don't- nobody wants that to happen. So, I developed this battle drill, and I just talked about what a battle drill was, and I talk about this in the book a little bit, but every really good unit has this thing called a tact SOP which is a tactical SOP or standard operating procedure. So that's like as an entrepreneur, you’ve got your SOPs or your processes, like hey, we do this every single time, like when you get a warm lead, you follow up within X amount of days and then you do the email. When the email comes in, you whatever, whatever, whatever. So, army units are just like that. We have all of those things down. It's kind of how we do those battle drills. So, in developing our tact SOP, our tactical SOP for this deployment, one of the things I considered was green on blues. And I’m thinking about like, all right, how do we prevent this? So, what I did was I developed a battle drill where two guys, so everybody has to move in a buddy team. So, two of our guys, when a target would present itself, the first guy would draw his weapon and engage the target. And the second guy would be facing the opposite direction. So, he'd be standing right next to him facing the opposite direction, because what the enemy was doing is they would engage you from one direction as a faint, and then the guy would come up behind you and throw a grenade or something like that. So, I wanted to make sure that nobody was going to get engaged from their six o'clock which is their rear. And then what would happen is once the primary operator who was engaging was almost done with their magazine, they're almost out of rounds in their magazine, in their weapon, the other operator would turn around and start engaging so they could do a magazine change. Anyway, so I went to the range. So we go to the range in preparation for this deployment. And we're like, all right, let's go ahead and do this a couple of times. So we go to the range, we're all kitted out in all of our stuff. We've got our beards and we're just like looking pretty gnarly, like about to deploy in two weeks or whatever. And we start doing this drill and this group of trainees is there, and they're looking at us like, what the hell are these guys doing? Because they see that like one guy's facing down range. And when you go to a range, it's like people notice when you're not facing the right direction, people are like, ooh, but it's like it's how we got to get ready for it. So, one guy's facing down range like engaging the target while the other guy’s got his weapon drawn but facing the other way, and then he turns around. And it was funny because you could see when the instructors are like, oh, I see what they're doing. The trainees are like, what the heck? The instructors are like, okay, we get it. And some of the instructors came over and started talking to us. It was like, you guys are getting ready for green on blue, right? It's like, yep, that's what we're doing. So that's like just one of the things, but it's interesting because this concept around watching each other's back, which is essentially what we were doing, ties directly into what I’m writing about in this book, which is entrepreneurial compassion and compassion more specifically. If you know that I got your back and you got mine, I mean, man, the sky's the limit. We know that we're going to help each other. We know that we're going to watch out for each other. That's just a morale bump. So, like the whole deployment, we never had a green on blue. I don't know if that's because we were just incredibly well prepared or lucky or both, but the whole deployment, that one aspect really brought our morale up. So that’s just one of the things that we would do. As a soldier, you train for the fight that you anticipate. You try to get ready for that. Just like as an entrepreneur, we look at the market and see how are we going to attack that market, how are we going to best bring and build value for our clients.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. So, tell me about this transition into the family business. What's the business, and what was that transition like? I know that's a really tough period for a lot of service people, let alone going into a business and your father passing away. Like that's a pretty gnarly...
Cal Riley: Yeah, it was very difficult for me. So, the military, there is not this... the danger is a mortal, your life is on the line. In the entrepreneurial world, you're probably not going to die, but there is no financial safety net. In the military, the financial, you know you're going to get paid. The US government is not going to ever not pay you. Like, there's a huge problem that ever happens. But you join, you leave the military and it's like, whoa, I'm still checking my back every once in a while. And it’s like all that stuff is taken care of. But what is not safe or what is not known is how are we going to do. As an entrepreneur, it's like you’ve got to find a way to make payroll. You might be the one who's like, man, I'm not going to take a paycheck this month or this year. Like that stuff doesn't happen in the military. So that was a huge mindset shift and just like figuring out the profit motive. In the government, there's no profit motive. It's just, you just spend whatever you can get, and then you get whatever, and it doesn't... there's no like efficiencies to be had or that's just not something you think about.
Eric Jorgenson: Direct quote from every government employee. There's no efficiencies to be had. You get what you get, you spend it, it's fine.
Cal Riley: So, I don't know if you- when was it? I think it was a couple years ago maybe when the government, they were saying, oh, we're going to send all the non-essential people home. What do you do as an entrepreneur with non-essential people? Yeah, you don't have any... You don't have like people sitting around, and they're like, oh, these people could probably go. Anyway, so very different and hard to- that was a tough transition for me for sure. And I think on top of that, coming into a business, the plan was for me to do more on the real estate development. And I ended up seeing, because that's kind of what- that was another line of business that we had. And I ended up seeing that kind of where the bread was buttered was really in the construction company. That was what was feeding everything.
Eric Jorgenson: What was the overview? What was the whole business when you stepped into it?
Cal Riley: Yeah, commercial construction. We were very- frankly, we had some great clients who we still have, but it was a little bit of waiting for the phone to ring to tell you the truth. We didn’t really have- we prided ourselves on not doing any sales and marketing, which is like, I'm sure people are hearing that and being like... But it was the old school like, hey, we're a contractor that does good work, and hopefully you do enough good work and people will call you. Well, that was one thing like right away, I’m like well, okay, I can take care of that because I don't mind banging on doors. I'll call everybody. I can get us some more work. So that was something that initially that I kind of looked at and saw as something that we could probably work on a little bit better. But where we started was we were doing some renovations, fit ups, a lot of office, some medical, an okay amount of medical, but we ended up really expanding the medical renovations front and that's just something that we're just really, really good at that. And then when I took over, being a veteran, we're a veteran certified company so we can do the VA work. So, more government stuff, and that VA work, it is challenging because it is, yeah, it's the government. I mean, it's huge, huge bureaucracy. But that's our go-to-market. Really, it's federal and then medical. I think the way that the transition happened, we talked about, your question was around the transition. There really wasn't one. I mean, I didn't know what a P&L or a balance sheet was. My dad passed away I think eight or nine months after I joined the company. I had acquired a majority interest from him a couple months before. It's almost like he saw it coming in a way, because if that didn't happen, then it would have been a huge problem with the bonding company and everything. But yeah, it was totally trial by fire. And it's interesting because I would have been so much better off if I used my military training on leadership and, hey, let's get buy-in. But for some reason, I didn't do that. I reverted to this drive and this go, go, go that is just natural for entrepreneurs. We have this natural drive, and it's like, get out of my way. I'm going to fucking do it. And I reverted to that, and I ended up working 90 hours a week, and everybody had to come to me for it for everything. So, I've got guys that have been doing this for 30 years, asking me questions that I don't know the answer to, and I'm giving them answers. Like, how crazy is that? And fortunately, I found out about EOS. So, I went to a conference and there were these entrepreneurs there. And every single one of them, it was like, holy crap man, these guys are just lights out. They are just doing amazing things. They're doing things that are forward, that are future-based, that are exciting. They're capturing opportunities and changing the world. And I'm like putting out fires and like reacting to stuff. Like what is the- why am I doing this and they're doing that? And I got a couple of them together, and we just talked. And I asked them that question, how come you guys are doing these amazing things? Like how do you do that? And they said, man, you just need to run your business on EOS. I was like, what, okay, what is that? So I found out about EOS. I don't know how familiar the audience is with EOS. But I found out about that. We implemented that in the business, and I got to the point where I was able to do that, where I was able to go out and capture some of those opportunities. I went from 90 hours a week working in that business to now I do one meeting a week in the business. I'm able to do things like write this book, which I really hope to make a huge impact with that. And I'm able to coach other entrepreneurs on how to do that in their business. So that for me was the turning point. I think I'd probably still be working, I probably wouldn't be working 90 hours a week, but if we didn't discover EOS, I'd probably still be at like 70.
Eric Jorgenson: That's an area actually I'm super interested in because I think I'm a few- I'm definitely a few years behind you on the implementation, but I'm super interested in it. And I had that same sort of realization of like, oh, a bunch of the people that I look up to as operators either directly run EOS or at least modified it, sort of made it work from there by modifying it to their business but use it as a starting place. So, I'm hoping you'll- could you give us an overview of what it is for people who are unfamiliar?
Cal Riley: Yeah, totally. Just as a side note, I don't want to make this about EOS though, but yeah, sure. So basically what it is, is it's an operating system, it's a way to run your business. It's a simple set of proven tools and solutions that help the entrepreneur get better at three things, which is vision, traction, healthy. So in the army, we were all about, there's this concept called commander's intent. And like if the guys know what the intent is, hey guys, we need to conduct a raid on this building and we need to get and capture this high value target, they'll accomplish that intent without asking you like, hey, should I breach this door? Hey, there's a dog. Should I... what should I do with this? What about this? Hey, there's guys running out of the objective. Like they know what to do. So that's what vision is all about. Traction is all about instilling a culture in your business of discipline and accountability. So that way, no matter where you decide to kind of take the business, you can see people executing on it consistently. And then healthy just means making it like a more fun environment. Life is too short, man. Like I know when, I've been through this before, when you've got somebody in your business that isn't a good fit, we are what we tolerate. That person who was the toxic person, like we got to get them out of there, and I know it's hard, but it's like, man, that short term pain of making that change, that is truly compassion. And honestly, it's compassion not only for the people in your business and for you, but it's for that person because they're miserable too, and there's somewhere out there that's a great fit for them. Anyway, but that's vision, traction, healthy, so that's what EOS does. And I will say too, I was talking to somebody the other day who was like one of my clients was like, hey, I want to tweak this or tweak that with EOS. And I told him and I said, I've been running my business on EOS for 10 years, whenever I have a problem in the business, it's because I'm not doing something well from EOS. It is the more rigidly you implement it, the better it works.
Eric Jorgenson: That's interesting. I like that a lot. So, what was sort of that transition? How long did that take you to kind of go from, what is this thing, I'm working 90 hours a week, this isn't sustainable, to I feel like really my business is transformed, my relationship to my business is transformed?
Cal Riley: I'm a slow learner, so it took me like five years, but most people see it in about two years. Most of the time, it's about two years for them to get like, oh wow, this is like a totally different... the business stops running you and you start running it. You're like, no, we need to do this, we need to do that. I'm not going to react to this business anymore. I'm going to be proactive and I'm going to say, hey, we need to make sure we're ready for this and that. You're seeing things before they come. I remember when we first implemented it, we had the issues list. So, you've got this list of problems, challenges, obstacles, opportunities, and ideas. In the beginning, it's all problems and challenges, and they're big ones, and it's like, holy crap. But as the years go by, the issues list changes into opportunities. And the cool thing that's been happening that I've seen is like I remember when we first implemented this, I'm the one who's bringing in all of these ideas. So, I keep bringing in all these ideas, and the leadership team is like, oh my God, that's insane, we can't do that. And now we're at the point where they're bringing ideas, and I'm like, oh, I don't know guys, that's pretty aggressive. It’s really cool as the entrepreneur to see the leaders of the company start to take ownership and start to say like, hey, I want to see us being X, Y, and Z. And I want to see us grow here and there.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, that's super interesting. I think a lot of people- I'm looking through this conversation as sort of seeing you evolve; you became this badass in the military, sort of had to leave and start over as a beginner again in the business world.
Cal Riley: There were a lot of dudes that were more badass than me in the military, a lot. But thank you for...
Eric Jorgenson: It's a big military. If you're doing air raids on a helicopter, you're a badass in my book. I'm sure the scale goes up from there, but that qualifies. Going through this transition of like the business is running you to running the business, and then I know there's other transitions too, like you went from kind of hard charging, grind it out entrepreneur to this mindset that's really the foundation of your book, which is the compassionate leadership kind of view. Is that the next kind of transition that you went through?
Cal Riley: Yeah, I think, for me, I think what ended up happening after we implemented EOS is I found that I had all of this time on my hands, and I was like, okay, what am I going to do with all this time that I now have? Because I've got- I'm letting the people who know how to run certain parts of the business run it, and they don't need me as much. So, I'm doing my one meeting a week. I'm going to my L10, which is like an hour and a half. But then the rest of the time, like, what am I going to do? And what I found is I'm the kind of guy who like I'm really good at putting out fires. But if there isn't a fire, I will make one... just to give myself something to do. So, I'm like, I got to find like what's my new purpose? And the more that I thought about it, the more that I came to understand that I want to help other entrepreneurs get this level of freedom that I've achieved, and I want to help them to implement EOS. So, I became an EOS implementer, so I've been doing that now for about three years, which has just been so much fun. And it's really cool to see that entrepreneur come in that first day and they're just like, oh man, I don't know, this is just... like my business, it's this and this, and it's running my life, and then see them like even just a few months later, like holy crap, they can see the light and they're starting to dig their way out of it. I just love that feeling because it reminds me a lot of my dad. My dad died, he passed away at 61. And I think a lot of the reason why he passed away so young is the business was just so stressful. He was just used to it being a stress machine, and it ran him. I mean, it was tough. He was a great business guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, but running a business that big not on a system is just really hard to do. Anyway, so I became the EOS implementer, and then I think I want to say it was like 2023, things were going pretty good for me, man. It was like, I honestly was probably pretty arrogant. I thought that I had life pretty well figured out, successful business, EOS implementer, teaching and coaching other entrepreneurs on how to do this in their business. And then out of nowhere, my brother died by suicide, which was just a shock for me. I think I was just blown away by the loss. It just totally, totally took me back. So, I spent a couple months just grieving the loss and just trying to make sense of it. As I'm doing that, I'm starting to just look back on my life, and I came to kind of the conclusion and started looking at everything through a totally different lens. So, like when you go through something that's life-changing like that, it changes the way that you look at things. Obviously, it's life-changing. So the way, and I think, that I started looking back at my life and my experiences, I started looking at everything through kind of this lens of compassion. My brother left, he left a notebook with some notes in it, and one of the things that he wrote about was how if his boss was more understanding, maybe he wouldn't have done this. I don't think- and he also wrote that he didn't necessarily believe that, so obviously there's mental health stuff there. And I don't think, and the way that I thought about that is that it can't hurt to be more compassionate. And I think if maybe he had a little bit more of that in his life professionally, maybe he would still be here. Maybe not. But I started thinking about this concept of compassion and how important it is. And if I can- you can't go back. As a suicide survivor, which is technically what they call somebody whose relative or whose partner dies by suicide, you live in this world where it’s like you know there's nothing you could have done because the past is the past, and you can wish all you want, but it doesn't change anything that happened. At the same time, there's a world in the future where you can make things better. So, it's like, what do you do with that? So, that's kind of where I decided to write a book about entrepreneurial compassion. And the premise of the book, and the book really comes from this understanding and my discovery in looking back on my life that entrepreneurs, we're driven, man. We are so driven, which is great. The problem is, at least for me and a lot of the people that I know that are entrepreneurs, sometimes that drive comes at a cost. We'll push people aside. We sometimes turn people off, sometimes we're not super compassionate, and what I found through kind of re-evaluating my life is that the times when I've been really successful are the times when I've been able to harness that drive and also be compassionate. And that's like a magic recipe, man. It's like a secret recipe. Because when we can be driven and compassionate, not only is it better for the health of the employees, not only is it a suicide prevention technique, does it help prevent these kinds of things from happening for the employees, it's good for us as an entrepreneur. There's a book called The Wonder Drug, and they talk about how compassion, what it does to your mind when you treat people really well, like it's really good for you. So, it's like we want to do the right things just to do them, but it's also really good for us as human beings just to take really good care of people. And oh, by the way, not only is it really good for us and for our teams, but the teams that I've worked with and when I've done this, the teams that I've worked with and me, they accomplish their goals and they make more profit. So it's really like, it's like a no brainer, but it's not something that's talked about much. A lot of these business books are more on the tactical. And this is just a way to think and a way to be. So, in the book what I write about is my journey and then my takeaways and some things that I've learned and some tactical things that I do to help me to be more compassionate every single day. And I'm not perfect at this by any means. Just this morning, I can give you like three examples where I'm like, oh man, that wasn't very good. But I think part of- a lot of it comes from awareness. It's like we just have to try. And sometimes just trying really hard at it is good enough. And it's not about being perfect at it. But I can tell you from experience and from what I've seen is that the more that we can be compassionate while we harness our drive as entrepreneurs, the more that we can achieve. It's insane the amount that you can achieve as a compassionate entrepreneur.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, I love that and I love that you see that trend in so many of the great leaders we admire, that they- sometimes the word compassion may or may not be the label, but either respecting people or appreciating people or aligning people. I think compassion is a really great frame for it. Tell me some of these stories about moments where you combined your drive and your compassion that when you reflected really changed how you thought about leadership.
Cal Riley: I had an employee who came to me, a guy on my team, and he had a pretty serious health issue, and he was going to be out for a while. And I told him, hey, just go and get better and come back when you're better. He was out for like three to six months. I think it was six months. So, he's out for six months, and he's like calling me, he's worried. He's like, what about the... and I kept him on full benefits, full pay the whole time. He's worried about the job. He's worried about his projects. I’m like, don't worry about it, we got it, just come back when you're better. And when that guy came back, he was like, man, I am all in, I'll never go... you have me as long as you want me. So that's a monetary way to invest in compassion. As a scarcity-minded entrepreneur, you would look at those six months of his pay as a cost. But when you think about it from an abundance place and a place of compassion, you think about that as an investment. That guy is not going anywhere. He loves working here. I had another thing that I was going to bring up too... when COVID hit, COVID shut down. I mean, we had- there was nothing going on. I think it was like March. And we had bonuses to give out from the year before. And I was talking to my peers, my fellow CEOs and entrepreneurs, and none of them were giving out bonuses. And they asked me what I was doing. I said, I'm giving them out. In fact, I gave them out already. And I did that as an investment in the team and as a way to show that I cared about them. So, there's like a monetary way to be compassionate with people. I could have said, no, we don't know what's going to happen. It's too uncertain. But man, these guys have earned that, and what does that tell them? I have the confidence in us that we're going to be fine. We're going to figure this out. You've earned these bonuses. I'm not going to hold on to them. I'm going to give you guys the bonuses that you've earned. And a lot of companies did not do that. A lot of my competitors didn't do that. But when we did that, it just created this wave of just an incredible amount of morale that the guys showed, and they knew that I genuinely cared about them. And I think when we think about compassion too, there's this false understanding that compassion means, oh, let me hold the door for you, or let me ask you how your day's going. It's got to be authentic, because they'll never care how much you know until they know how much you care. And it's got to start with yourself. So, we, as entrepreneurs, that negative self-talk that we do, that way that we think about ourselves, the way that we treat ourselves, the way that we treat our bodies, we can only treat other people as good or maybe not quite as good as we treat ourselves. So our teams see that. They know that, if you've got some poor coping mechanisms that you use, if you are doing the negative self-talk. It's got to start with the entrepreneur. And I kind of outlined, there's a ton of different exercises that you can do, but something I want to share with the audience right now is something that you can do. It's really easy, every day, just take a couple of quiet minutes and just journal, thinking about your thinking. Slow it down. Journaling and meditating, I think, are two of the most impactful things that we can do. So, like what I do now, before I take any calls, before I do any meetings, and I didn't do it this morning, so now I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, but I'm not perfect at it. I'm not perfect at it. I did do it yesterday. But what I try to do is I try to prioritize my own taking care of myself and my own headspace first. I did journal this morning, but I didn't meditate yet. What I try to do is I try to sit down and meditate. I'm not going to lie to everybody and say I'm perfect at this and I do this every day. But the days that I do it, it is incredible the amount of presence and wherewithal that I have, the ability and the tank that I have to be compassionate. As an entrepreneur, when things get tough, that tank, it gets pretty low. Our stress level goes up. We get a little testy. We get a little snappy with people. We start telling more than asking. We're not quite listening as much. As an entrepreneur, you can't scale you... We've got to leverage the insights of the team. So, when we get into that tell mode, we've got to shift that mindset. And the best way that I found to do that is to be compassionate. And we've got to start that with ourselves and our own self-development.
Eric Jorgenson: Do you journal and meditate on a specific prompt to like get in that headspace, or is it just a process of kind of emptying and reflecting?
Cal Riley: Yeah, the meditation that I'm into right now is transcendental meditation. So, it's 23 minutes. So, it's 20 minutes of meditating and there's science behind it. I'm not a scientist, so I am not smart enough to explain all of that. And then it's the journal that I do. I have a prompt that I use, and I share all this, but it starts with, I call it bonus. So, these are the things that you've got to do because you didn't do all the shit on your list. So, this is the like, man, I pet my dog for 10 minutes today, or I was really present with my son when he told me about his day. At the end of the day, I wasn't like thinking about the next thing. Or I get to go on a nice walk with my wife and with my kids. Or I meditated. So, these are just like conscious stream of thought. What are the things that you did that you got to do because you didn't do the stuff that you were- like on your list. Like this is being a human being, not a human doing. It's like, what were you really present for and what were you really checked in for? And then I think about just a conscious stream of thought, so we write those bonus things and then we write conscious stream of thought, just whatever comes to mind, just write for as long as you care to. Just like get it out, just get it out of there. There's this thought clearing thing that like meditation does that I think this helps with it too, of like your mind is having a thought, and that's okay, sometimes we just have to get it out of there. And I know like from a veteran, this sounds like, all right man, this is pretty touchy-feely stuff. But there is this stigma around this type of stuff and around mental health that we've really got to get rid of. It's in the military, it's in business. Going to therapy, that's a bad word. Like nobody says that. I had never really been until my brother died, and then I was like, holy crap, I need to go. I need to go get this checked out because I don't- this is a lot. In the military, we actually call it, when somebody has got to go see the therapist, we call it going to see the wizard. So just a pejorative way to think about that. But same thing with our corporate culture. It is like, shut up, nobody cares, work harder, that whole like... We’ve got to take care of our minds, man. And it's a paradigm shift that is long overdue. And I think part of that comes with compassion of like, hey, are you okay? But that's another thing that I have in my journal for me is like therapy, stuff that like, oh, I need to talk about this. I need to talk about this with my therapist. And then I put in there lessons learned from yesterday. So, I try to journal every day, but I have like, what did I learn today? And then what did I learn this last week? Like every Sunday I do a journal too. And then I set my intentions for the day. Let me be- For me, it's let me be more compassionate. Let me be curious. Let me be peace. Let me be understanding. Especially on the weekends, let me be present. Let me not think about work, although we want it to be toward not away from because if we say like don't think about the elephant, then you're just elephant, elephant, elephant. So, we need to make it toward. And then I have a... my next one is a list of successes. What were my successes today? What are my wins? Cause there's a lot of wins in there. But as entrepreneurs, unless we get that huge win, we're like, eh, that was bullshit. Like, I don’t care about that. It’s like no, that stuff is wins, man. Doing this podcast was a win. You did a podcast today, Eric, and so did I. We can both put that as a win. And then I've got a scorecard, in true to form EOS, EOS wise. Like I've got my own personal scorecard. Like, hey, did I meditate today? Did I go to the gym today? Did I play catch with my son today? And then my last one that I do for journaling is what do I need to learn to get to the next level because what got me here won’t get me there. So, what are the things that I want to learn about to help me get to the next level? So that's kind of how I think about journaling. And again, it's not a perfect thing. It's a do it a little bit more. So like, that might be a lot for the listener to take on, but maybe you just do the conscious stream of thought. Like that's a good place to start and it's a good quick win. Like just jot down some thoughts. What are you thinking about right now? What are you thinking about today? And I can tell you I've started doing this ever since my brother passed away. I've been really diligent about journaling, and man... I've filled up like probably five of these books in the past couple of years. And it's really helpful to get those things out of your mind and write them with a pen and turn off the computer, turn off the email, turn off the AI stuff, and just to kind of wrap your mind around what's going on in your mind and just to check in.
Eric Jorgenson: I like that a lot. I appreciate all the detail on that. That's actually extremely helpful. Some of those are great prompting questions for a team or a conversation, like even outside journaling. You kind of connected two dots for me that I think are interesting. Do you think about combining the EOS operational clarity of a scorecard with the practice of compassion? Like if you were looking at your team, your company, your family, or maybe even your unit, whatever your community is, through that lens of like how is the emotional health, how is compassion being created in this space or amongst these people? Is that a thing that you think about in like quantitative terms? Do you just go on vibes? Like how do you create progress there? Or do you not need to?
Cal Riley: I think that EOS is the operating system that you're running on. Compassion is the way that you show up with the team. So, I think if we create metrics around this stuff, I think it makes it inauthentic. So, I think starting with yourself and doing the journaling and stuff, like that is the foundation. And then from there, you can grow into- because we've got to have self compassion first. We've got to take care of ourselves. Which builds awareness. All right. So, now that I'm journaling and I'm meditating, now I can be present and I can understand and I can see, oh Eric, why the look, man? What's going on there? Like I can see, all right, Eric's thinking about the next thing. He's not really with me right now. Or I can see like, ooh, something's going on with this person. I'm not going to load him up with a bunch of stuff work-wise because, guess what, if somebody's got something else going on that's personal, 90% of our brain is thinking about the personal stuff anyway. Maybe not for an entrepreneur. But certainly for your employees. So if we load them up with other stuff and we're not checked into the fact that like, oh man, they got something going on at home, like, hey, what's going on at home? Yeah, so that's kind of how I think about it. I think the journaling as much as possible, just to keep it simple, the journaling and meditating as much as possible I think will get that into your day-to-day kind of mindset. But I want to go back and kind of correct something that I said – doing this to make more money will not work. So, like you have to actually care. Like you can't fake it. This is not something where it's like, oh well, I asked. I asked three people how you doing today... like that shit ain't going to... people read right through that. I had a guy who I had a tough conversation with him and I shared this concept with him of like the team will never care how much you know until they know how much you care. And he was like, well, you didn't know that when Sally was sick, I sent her a get well card. And I'm like, dude, that's not getting it. Like, that's not showing that you care. Like, that's one card. Nobody- that’s not going to get it. That's not what I mean. We've got to really know our people. We've got to actually care about them. That's kinda how I think about it, I think.
Eric Jorgenson: I like that line a lot. I think some people, there's the shallow version of it, and you kind of feel like you're checking the box, but it's very, like humans, I think, are extremely deeply intuitive. And there's a bunch of like really subconscious cues that we are all processing that sort of bubble up into a like, does this person give a shit about me as a unique individual human being or not? And it's so difficult, maybe impossible to like reverse engineer and create that. And so, I really like the kind of mindset of start with yourself, figure out how to get into that correct headspace where you can really see people and play that long-term game and build trust across trust and alignment across everybody that you're working with.
Cal Riley: Yeah, because it's not like, oh, here are the ten questions you need to ask people to show compassion. It's more being deliberately present with people of like being checked in. We're asking those curious questions and being curious with people. That's how we show that we care. If we show up with some checklist and try to like do a thing and have like a, oh, I have this like strategy of questions that I ask to get what I want, people know that, man, like people can feel that. People aren't stupid. But if you show up and were being authentic and were present with them and we can tell, and were reading their body language and were checked in, were not- you ever go to that networking event or that thing, and you’ve got that guy you're talking to who is like looking for somebody else to talk to or trying to find like the best person in the room, and it's like oh god. Those things drive me crazy.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. I think the best way to probably internalize this, and I'm constantly trying to look for ways to improve on this myself, is just collecting stories. Can you share more stories of maybe even times when you feel like you've done this really well or times when you feel like you haven't that you learned from?
Cal Riley: Yeah. I've got a lot of them. I was coaching, it's hard to pick one, but I was coaching my son's football team, which is funny because I don't know anything about football. The story starts, my wife takes my son to football, this was years ago, his first flag football game. She comes back and she's like, this coach is toxic, you need to come in and take over. And I'm like, I don't know anything about football. She’s like, it doesn't matter, this is not a good thing. Apparently, the coach is screaming at the kids and just like it was not a good thing. And it's like these are seven-year-olds. It's like come on, dude, like it's seven-year-old flag football, like who- it's okay. So, I show up, and they're like, who wants to be the coach? And nobody raises their hand. I'm like, I'll do it, and I don't know anything about football. So the very first thing that I did is I'm thinking to myself like, all right, this team's not going to win because I know the best plays. They're going to win because they work well together as a team. So I got to get these guys to start acting like a team. So, let's do- we did a couple main games. We did a couple of get to know each other games. What's your favorite video game? Not a lot honestly. It wasn't- half an hour of stuff like that for the whole season like one time. And then what I did is I said, all right if we're going to win, we've got to execute simply. So these guys care about each other and they've got to take ownership of this. So I said, guys, here's what we're going to do. We're going to run right every single time. That's all I want you guys to do. Partially because like I don't know that many football plays. I can watch it, but man, I just don't know. And partially because I want to keep it simple for these kids. And then they asked, well, who's going to play quarterback? I want to play this. I want to play this. And I said, guys, everybody's going to play every single position. So this is where the compassion comes in. Everybody's going to get a chance to get what they want because they all want to play a certain position. And it's like, let's make sure we're taking care of that. So what we did is every four downs, they rotated. So, the center, who’s snapping, would go to be the quarterback, the quarterback would go to be the running back, and I'm doing pretty good with remembering all the positions, so I'm proud of myself here. Running back to wide receiver, etc. And guess what, they crushed it. And the rule was once you guys are up by three touchdowns, you do whatever you want. I don't care. Like do whatever you want. They crushed it. We won every single game. And I think when we talk about compassion, so I showed them that I believed in them, and I didn't micromanage them. So that's a way to show your teams compassion. Like they're the ones that have to win, not me. So, I'm on the sideline. I'm cheering them on. Come on, guys. You got it. Good job. Meanwhile, the other coaches are on the field. There's like- it's just me. So, I'm a one man show. Our opponents have like three or four coaches. They're on the field with like clipboards and iPads and their kids are running around everywhere, like the most confusing thing ever. And we're just playing hurry up offense and just go, go, go, go, go. And we're just crushing people. And I'm not even getting on the field. So, I think that that is compassion, and a lot of different forms of compassion. So, I know that to the listener, that may not sound like compassion, but the reason why that's compassionate is I'm showing the kids that I believe in them. We come up with a plan together. They buy into the plan. Because they all get to play quarterback and they get to do- or running back or whatever, and they get to do whatever play they want as long as we're up by three touchdowns. They're like, okay, sounds good. That's a good plan. So, they're bought in, and then I could back up. Which is basically what I did in the army is you have a plan, you get the buy-in, and then you back up. It's what I did as an entrepreneur. You make a plan, you set the quarterly, hey, this is our quarterly, these are our quarterly priorities, our rocks. And then you back off and you say, okay, you guys got it. I'm here if you need me, but they got it. You shouldn't need me. Same thing with the kids. Make a plan. We all buy in. They go, they execute. So that example comes to mind. In terms of a business one, I was thinking about I had- I hired somebody who- I had aspirations to like really grow. I wanted to just like... wanted to knock the cover off the ball, nothing wrong with that. I hired this guy who was like, I'm going to, yeah, I can do it. I'm the guy who's going to help you grow. Get him in the leadership team, and I start noticing like this guy is not really listening to anybody else. He's kind of doing his own thing. And it was interesting because when I interviewed him, I ask a question designed to kind of snip this kind of thing out. It is like, what do you love to do and what do you hate to do? And the question is just designed like to show self-awareness and to show me is this guy or gal going to be a good fit. When this person answers the question, they said, I love everything. And I said, oh, perfect. All right, you're hired. And it's like, when looking back on it, like no, that was the wrong answer. It was either not being transparent, so like, okay, we're avoidant here with this question. There's a lack of trust there maybe, or you really think that, and it's like, well, that's a pretty arrogant person to have. You really think you love everything, you're either not self-aware or that you're good at it. So, I think that that's a, if I were journaling and I were doing my meditating and I was checked in and I was really truly being curious, I think I would have followed up with that and I would say, oh, hold on, like everything? Interesting, tell me more about that. But as an immature entrepreneur, you get a guy who's like all right, I'm going to grow your business like crazy and I can do everything, you're like, yeah, okay, great perfect, that's what I need. So I think that's a perfect example of remember how I talked about harnessing the drive but also being compassionate? That's a perfect example of all drive, like all right, baby, foot on the gas, great, this guy's going to make it happen. And I think, I don't know, it probably happens a lot. I see you smiling. Have you had a similar experience like that?
Eric Jorgenson: Oh, I just think it's so- those the moments where you see the decision with 10x the context that you have now and you see the moment in hindsight and you're like that was my first clue and it should have been the only clue I needed, but now I have these other ten clues that show me that that first clue was very correct.
Cal Riley: Yeah, as entrepreneurs, we keep getting the lesson until we've learned it.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, well, I think that's part of building that intuition. It is like the number of times that you see that one clue turn into ten proof points and you're like, all right, maybe you see it once and you're like- once or twice, maybe you see it two or three times, and you're like, all right, now I have intuition for this. Now I can extrapolate, from that one data point, I actually know how the next two years are going to go. And it feels, yeah, it's really powerful judgment to build. And sometimes people are like, well, you don't know. And it's like, this might be the one out of a hundred, but like I've seen five out of five, and so I know I don't want to roll those dice.
Cal Riley: Yeah. I think when I think about- I was just thinking about how much different my culture is at my company for having embraced this. And I want to make it clear to the listener that when you do this, you're going to see major changes in your organization. You're going to see an environment that you really are excited to go into. Your clients are going to be excited. Your people are going to be excited. Like this is a game changer. I don't want to undersell how impactful this is.
Eric Jorgenson: And just to clarify, like this is with the same humans. Like this is personality and behavior changes that come around.
Cal Riley: Yeah, some of them. I mean, I think part of- and that's a good point. Like we talked a little bit about this earlier. Part of being compassionate means knowing when to let go. If somebody is not a good fit and we've got the death grip on this person or you're letting them stay in your business, it's, man, spoiled milk does not get better with time. It is not compassionate. I have conversations with entrepreneurs where I'm talking with them about this concept, and I hear a lot like, well, compassionate, sometimes I have to fire people. That is part of being compassionate. Holding on to somebody who's not a good fit is not compassionate. I write in the book about how there's a big difference between being kind and being nice. Being kind means you're making the tough decision for the greater good. You're willing to have those tough conversations. Being nice is typically, you're experiencing that long-term pain. You're not going to make that short-term tough decision. I've had that happen too before where it's like, you know what, you finally let that person go who is like, this person is not a good fit here. And it's like the entire organization knows it. And the second that they leave, the next day, it's like the organization's totally different. So don't mistake this concept of compassion for the need to experience and put long-term pain on people, because it is us doing it to them as much as them doing it to themselves. If we hold on to somebody who is not a good fit, we're doing them a disservice because there is somewhere else where they would be a great fit. But by not letting them see that, a lot of people will just stay with the same job forever. Sometimes we, as entrepreneurs, we're change agents. Sometimes we got to make the change.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. And sometimes that toxicity is them sort of expressing that they would like to be somewhere else, but they don't act on it themselves and it just sort of escalates until the decision is made for them. It is a very interesting way to look at it.
Cal Riley: And I think the flip side to that is these non-compete agreements. It's like, oh, I'm going to put a non-compete agreement on you. I want you to stay with me. That I do not think is compassionate. I think if we're being really good leaders, you'll never need another non-compete if you do, if you institute compassionate leadership in your business. I guarantee it. You will not need it. People will want to come to work for you. You think about, what do they say?
Eric Jorgenson: Just like marriage. It doesn't need to be exclusive if it's a fantastic relationship.
Cal Riley: Okay. Your marriage sounds very different from mine, but...
Eric Jorgenson: Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Cal Riley: We'll edit that part out. Huh?
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, probably. I couldn't resist the set up.
Cal Riley: You should keep that in. I thought it was funny. No, but when you think about this, people, what do they say? They come for the money, but they stay for the boss. You worked for a crappy boss. We've all had them. You'll never work for a crappy boss again. Some of us, maybe that's why we became entrepreneurs. But when you have a great boss, you don't want to leave. You're like, holy crap, this guy's amazing. And this really shows you how to be a really compassionate and effective leader, because people want to work with people that really genuinely care about them. So, I can't just under- I can't overstate this enough, like just how amazing this will make your company and your life and your business, it'll make it more profitable.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. It's a great transition as we kind of wrap things up here because I want to tell the story, a lot of people think about writing a book or think they have a book in them, and you are sort of just freshly off this journey. So now that we sort of understand your story and your philosophy, I want to spend a couple minutes on kind of like the decision to write a book that embodies this and how it fits into the rest of the projects that you're doing and the creative journey that you went through as you wrote it.
Cal Riley: Yeah, I think, well, the decision for me was, when my brother passed, it was I've got to do something, I have got to do something. And I haven't mentioned yet, but all the proceeds from this book go to charity. So, every single cent of profit that I make from this book is going to go to charity to prevent suicides. So, for me, it's I've got to do something. And I've got to find a way to, I had this terrible experience and also which led to this amazing insight and has changed my life. I've got to find a way to share it with people so that way other people can learn it without having such a bad experience. I really and truly, my vision for this is I want to create a million compassionate leaders and prevent a hundred thousand suicides. And the way that I want to do that and the best way for me to do that, I think, was to start with this book and just to get this out there in the world, not something I'm trying to make money on. It's just something I truly want to do to change the world. And hopefully, when we're having this conversation in 10 years, my brother's death wasn't in complete vein. Something good has got to come from this terrible, terrible tragedy. And I think the journey to write a book, I've never written a book before. But I can tell you, at least writing this book was very hard. It was a lot. There's a lot of deep feelings, a lot of things that I learned, honestly, along the way. So, this wasn't something that I had all figured out, and it's something that you guys at Scribe did a great job of kind of teasing this, teasing these concepts out. I had a great ghost writer who helped me write a book. I'm not a fantastic writer. But we met pretty regularly and the structure that you guys did was just awesome. So I really appreciated that. I mean, I couldn't have done it without you guys. I definitely- I think I had 30 pages, which my ghostwriter said that was actually pretty good. But yeah, I think writing the book was really, for me, part of this is catharsis and like my own kind of therapy of like, all right, I got to process this. And my hope is that through me processing it, the rest of the world can benefit a little bit or it can just make a little bit of a difference. Because I think that I don't want there to be two tragedies, the tragedy of my brother's death and then the tragedy of nothing good coming from it.
Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, it's a really incredible mission. And we always ask authors, what is their dream for the book? What is the hope? And that's an incredible and clear and important mission. And it's really awesome to sort of approach the writing and the promotion and everything through this like grander mission. And I think that comes through in the book, and I'm really, I don't know... it's extremely gratifying to help people who otherwise couldn't maybe package their idea or know how to get on these rails and get this book out there because I think it's an incredible medium to reach people and to attract other people kind of with your values and help them develop. That's one of the things that really surprised me in having my book out is just like it really brings your network of people that share your values closer, and they sort of gather under the lighthouse of this book, and it really changes, like it gives you a tailwind for kind of the whole rest of your life to have this set of people aligned.
Cal Riley: Totally, absolutely. I mean, I don't think if I've got a potential client who is compassionate, wants to take really good care of their people, and then I've got another one who is not so much that way, I can say, hey, sorry, man. I don't think you're a good fit for me.
Eric Jorgenson: So, I know you've got a couple resources out there, the book, but also there's like a whole ecosystem of things that are ways for leaders to kind of reflect on where they're at, where they could be, and like some tactical ways to get started. Do you want to take us through those?
Cal Riley: Yeah. So, there's really three things that I think the listeners can benefit from. I have three options here. Do all three, do one or two or whichever works for you. Number one is just sign up for the newsletter. So, if you want to learn more about this, in the newsletter, I've got some free chapters that I'll be releasing. We'll have some excerpts from the book that you can find on my website. But all that stuff, you can find all three of these on my website. Number two is to take the survey. So take the survey. It's a survey on entrepreneurial compassion. I know that some of these questions will surprise you. So, take the survey, kind of see where you're at. Just do a checkup from the neck up. It'll give you something to journal on, something to reflect on. And again, all these are free. And then lastly, if you're willing to commit to this, if you feel like you can do this, if you really care about yourself and your team and your family, take this pledge to become a compassionate entrepreneur and to implement entrepreneurial compassion in your business. I know that you will see immense benefits from doing it. And obviously, feel free to order the book. I really appreciate you having me on, Eric.
Eric Jorgenson: Thank you. What's the website?
Cal Riley: Calriley.com. C-A-L-R-I-L-E-Y.com.
Eric Jorgenson: Amazing. We'll put it in the show notes, so you can click on that and go check out all of Cal’s stuff. When you say a million compassionate leaders, do you mean a million people who've taken that pledge? Like are we helping you fill that bar when we do it? Okay, that's awesome. That's very cool. What a fun mission, man. Thank you. Thank you so much for not just being here today but also like going through the hard things that you've gone through, making the best of them, and doing the work to transform your hardships into benefits for what I think are soon to be millions of people downstream of you. So, thank you.
Cal Riley: Thank you, Eric. Thank you for having me on, man, and thanks for all your help with the book, and I really appreciate the time today.
Eric Jorgenson: It's an honor to play a part. Appreciate it.