Episode 12
Vision, AI, and Navigating Business as a Misfit with Curt Kempton - 12
In this episode of Business Misfits, we explore the intersection of ethics, purpose, and profitability in the modern business landscape. How do you stay true to your values when faced with difficult decisions? Can a business prioritize integrity and still achieve sustainable growth? We tackle these pressing questions and share real-world insights to help you align your mission with your bottom line.
From navigating ethical dilemmas to building a culture rooted in trust, we dive deep into the challenges and rewards of leading with authenticity. You’ll hear strategies for fostering meaningful connections with your team, customers, and stakeholders while staying competitive in a fast-paced world.
This conversation is all about empowering you to think differently, challenge the status quo, and embrace the misfit mindset to create a lasting impact—both in your business and beyond.
Transcript
Curt: Right now, I am in Northern Arizona at a family reunion.
Melody: Yeah, your fashion, it seems like it might be cold based fashion.
Curt: Yeah, I normally do not get to be in cold weather, but right now it is 43 degrees, which to you is probably nothing.
I know.
Melody: That sounds hot, but [:Curt: Yeah. Yeah.
Melody: So the first question I always ask everyone is, do you feel like you're a business misfit?
Curt: I don't know if I feel like I'm a business misfit, but I do. And I guess this is going to fly right in the face of that is I feel like I'm making everything up as I go along. And I think that business is, has been like the way I've provided for my family since almost day one. So I don't think I like, like missed, it feels like a, like I'm somehow somehow an outsider.
hink everyone's making up as [:Melody: I love that you said that right off the bat because I, as you know, I feel the same way.
I don't know what I'm doing ever. I have a lot of knowledge. I have a lot of things that I've learned. I learned in masterminds just like you. Do you have imposter syndrome ever? Or do you feel like that's something you've gotten over or?
Curt: I mean, I Melody, I don't know any other way to be with you, but candid, and I know this is going to go out to a bunch of people and it's probably a horrible thing to like put out into the world.
Melody: No,
Curt: I've said it to my employees. I don't know that I'll always be the CEO of my company. Like when you say, do I have imposter syndrome? I see other CEOs. Who I'm sure also make it up as they go along, but they've got lots of different kinds of history, even corporate America history, which as much as I'm not a big fan of corporate America, I do think that people who get that sort of experience and then like, you know, corporate America, you just go get it and then you leave and who cares?
, we just see it all the way [:I'm ready for that. I love that.
Melody: for saying that too, because I literally say the same thing. And we're so similar in that way and I'm not afraid to say that like I would love to be the chief vision officer for my company forever or the chief cheerleader or mostly I like just visioning, you know, we're both the sparkly brain human who loves coming up with the million ideas and also loves solving problems and then also has a huge list all the time.
But what's wrong with saying that more people need to hear that kind of stuff. Yeah.
g too many ideas, the CEO is [:And then, and then I ended up begrudging them because they can't keep up and then they begrudge me because I can't stay the course. And, and like, it's, in a sense you have to quash it. If you have to quash it, if you're going to be good at it. And you know, like a horse, it operates best with a bridle, right?
If you want to ride a horse around, you need to not kill the horse, but you do have to bridle it and you do need to control it. And you know, whatever that bit feels like in a horse's mouth. I don't know what that feels like, but I'm assuming it's not great because you can control a whole big old horse with that little tiny thing in its mouth.
Anyway, I appreciate you throwing me into that, but I will say that when I watch you in. Conversation or in business or in friendships, like not even just our friendship, but like watch you in friendship. One of the things I've always admired about you is that you can just like spit that bridle out at the appropriate times and just be just like wild and free.
And like, I don't, I wish I could do it more. I wish I could.
Melody: You could.
Curt: I could.
ody: Kurt, here's the thing. [:Like, it was like a good thing back then. It was definitely not, but I wanted to understand my brain and in the world, the business world that I was in at that point, there was really nobody who was like me. You were the first person that I met in that world who was like me. And you, you were willing to talk about it in a way and you lived it in the way that you did business.
e a back and forth about it, [:I don't want just people saying yes around me,
Curt: but
Melody: it frees me to have all of that openness in my brain and not to feel constrained. I don't like feeling constrained because it's painful. Do you have a vision strainer for you?
Curt: Well, Aside from my wife. Well, my wife, my wife actually would let me run. She thinks I could run through a brick wall.
So she wouldn't even try to stop me. She would just like push from behind. I do have a couple of people at my company. Particularly. I'm thinking of Brittany. Brittany is the one who will tell me the hard truths when it's time.
Melody: Yes.
Curt: And I'm actually thinking of like 18 different conversations, just rushing through my mind right now of where I'm like, I know no one else is going to tell me I'm crazy.
thing. And I'll be like, uh, [:So both of, you know, so anyway, yeah, I think that, um, having someone like that in your life is great. And, and I have other people in the company who will do it. I've never certified someone like that though. Like, like you have, it sounds like you have someone who wears a badge that says,
Melody: well, we just call her that on our.
Accountability chart. That's one of her things. She's the vision strainer, but it really helps me to like, she's really just an integrator or an operations manager, but her personality, um, is just the perfect match for mine where she can listen. She's very patient. I don't, you know, I'm somebody who has to talk out my ideas.
My brain thinks too fast to write it down. And then, but she listens, which is the first most important part of it. And then she validates. And then she says why we need to wait on that thing or why. But at least I know that it's been heard and it's in a pile somewhere. My assistant does the same thing for me.
And it's [:Everything I ever tell her goes on this list in order of, you know, importance or urgency. But there's also like who's in charge of it. There's one called Christine Polk Mell, because those are the ones that I'm going to fight. So it might be that I should be responsible for it. But I'm not going to be because she has to poke me and we both have to acknowledge it.
Curt: So Brittany, as amazing as she is, there's so much of her. I still, we actually just had the conversation like Wednesday or Thursday. There's so much a mystery about her to me that I don't, I don't understand. And one of the things is, is that there's certain things I'll say that show metabolize differently.
old her that she's the one I [:The way I didn't intend, but I thought it was so interesting when she pulled me aside and what I would have categorized as a fight, right? Like, but it literally did it. Yeah. Well, it was, yeah, it was one of those times when it was like, look, I care about you so much. I'm willing to fight for whatever it takes to like, understand this correctly.
But she's like, I know what it means and you know what it means, but other people, I don't want them thinking that you're fighting with me because you and I are far beyond that. And it's just interesting because you use, you just use the word, you know, fighting and poke, poke, melt, you describe it as fight and I know
deprecating to me, it's self [:Curt: Yeah.
Melody: And you probably meant it. I imagine the same way of just like,
Curt: well, I love it when she stands up to me and I'll call it that. I'll be like, stand up to me and push me. And what we've always said is that I'm fighting for the customer. I'm not fighting against you. I'm fighting for the customer and she'll say the same thing to me or I'm fighting for the employees or I'm fighting for this.
Now, just to be clear, Brittany's role is product manager and she is so smart. She is so stinking smart, but her heart's big. And that's to me, being smart is really not even half the battle, right? Being smart is cool. Being smart does allow you to come up with cool and creative is another thing. Being smart and creative are not necessarily the same thing.
But they can really go well hand in hand. She's both, but it's the spine, that spine, that courage, man. I love that. I respect the heck out of it.
d, he doesn't like to debate [:Finding somebody who can, who doesn't mind doing it, who it's not painful for to have that back and forth is so exciting to me because it's, because I'm growth. We're both emotionally intelligent, growth minded humans. Well, I'll speak for myself. I know that there's so much I don't know. And when I get an idea and a vision, it seems so clear.
And it just feels, because we're looking so forward and in all the circle around us, it's hard for other people who aren't like that to see it the way that we do. And also, sometimes I'm missing context. Sometimes I'm not paying attention to important things right in front of me, or especially when it comes to my team.
do business the hard way, of [:Yeah, we just our partnership broke up last year. And so, but from that, some good things came, but I'm a collaborator. And so to lose that collaboration was really devastating. And so there's been a lot of change in the company and to have this person who's Denise. Um, I have Denise. I have Christine. I have people in my company.
Like the best team and that we're all on the same page and part of that is because I can sell them the vision and you are a vision seller to I know that about you, how do you do it? How do you help people to see the impact that you want to make? And how do you keep moving forward with your team?
Curt: You told me I'm a vision seller.
owner, and I feel like I was [:I can't make it come alive fast enough. And it really like, it's something you have to live with and you can live with it lots of different ways. But one of my coping mechanisms was to just always assume that the future is where all my hopes and dreams are. And so what would happen is when people didn't understand my vision, I felt that it was a waste of time to talk about something that's going to happen five years from now.
ran up from problem because [:I keep seeing you know out of development We keep producing all these great things, but they're not compatible with the current things and they can't you can't show them to the world I can't do anything about it and we got stuck there I thought we were like talking about three months and we didn't know Being like five years before we rolled anything out.
And you know, it's funny when we finally broke free is when I started talking about people about my whole vision. And it kills me to say this, but I think I stalled my business probably for years by keeping people in a box of just, here's what needs to be done now. Yeah. And when I went back to my more invigorated self, about a year ago is when he first launched the cascade of all of the new stuff that's been coming out for a year, about a year before that is when I finally started saying, guys, you don't understand how this all fits in the big picture.
a place of frustration, kind [:It was because if I, if I put it down, I wouldn't bother people.
Melody: Did you think they couldn't handle it because you had felt like they couldn't handle it or
Curt: I felt like they had a to do list that was a mile long and I was just adding things to their to do list that would just overwhelm. I don't know if I didn't.
Yeah. You know what? I did feel like, look, if you guys can't roll out what I want in the next three months, how in the world could I tell you about what I want in the next 10 years? I'll kill you. I'll break all of you anyway.
Melody: Yeah.
Curt: So you're married. You have kids in your marriage. If you hold back and you don't communicate and you don't bother the other person, you will build up resentment.
trophe after catastrophe. In [:I'm lucky I survived it in my business, but I see it now. I see what I did wrong now. And, um, I always talked about this finish line that we're trying to get across and everyone was okay with us. Working towards the finish line. The fact is, is it was just a tiny little milestone within a big, huge journey.
And when it went into that right context, boom, we just start rolling stuff out, rolling stuff out, rolling stuff out, rolling stuff out. And it's like, it's not even the same world anymore. So just to kind of get back to, I think we're here question was headed is like selling vision. I took some time off from selling vision and it was a huge mistake.
No,
know, like the vision in my [:You have to be selling something more than just money and benefits and so. You actually were somebody very pivotal in my business journey, I remember because I've always had an intuitive understanding of how I wanted to serve people or how I wanted to put myself forward in front of employees as a leader, but I never felt confident in my leadership.
ployees in a way that I felt [:I was shocked at how much it mattered to them.
Curt: And
Melody: so you and your company and your former companies, I've specifically remember pancake breakfast breakfasts for your clients, which inspired some of my coffee. Thank you. I don't know what I'd call it. It's not a party, but I would invite all of my clients to coffee, but I was terrified they wouldn't show up, which I was like, how did Kurt get all those people to show up to his pancake breakfast?
But I offered a thousand dollars to anybody like that could be split among local nonprofits of people's choice if they showed up. And that's what really brought people in. Then they would sit with my employees and we'd all talk and hang out. It was amazing. That was inspired by pancake breakfast, Kurt.
So
all their employees serve me [:But I remember being afraid that if I pronounced it as a customer appreciation, I was afraid that people would think it was like the car dealership that has customer appreciation to get people to come buy stuff from them or whatever. And, uh, so I remember we worked so hard to frame it in a way where they understood that we genuinely want to serve you in a new way and just show you how grateful we are to have you as customers.
And, um, that's all we're trying to do. And we did it.
Melody: Well, you're a giver like I am. And I think sometimes people don't know how to just like, why would you just want to give something for no reason? That doesn't make any sense. That's what my brain is always saying that those people are thinking. Because I can tell what's
Curt: the catch here.
[:Melody: I think that's been an actually a problem for me because I'm so afraid that people are going to think that I'm trying to catch them or trying to fool them because I'm afraid of that myself that I, I undersell and I always have. Because and i think that what i do and every time i've ever had a business and i think the same for you i have always done it with all my heart and i've given so much into it and it's never been motivated by money of course money matters but it's for me it's a sense of purpose a sense of impact.
That drives me and continues me.
eople who were in it for the [:And it felt so hollow to you. I mean, I'm just saying it cause I know we're the same person in this way. So
Melody: many times.
Curt: Yeah. And so you're like, there are people who are driven by money and will, they would absolutely scam me out of anything or blow me up because all they care about is money. And uh, you're like, I have to be wherever they're at on the spectrum.
I got on the opposite side because I am not. And then we pay this crazy price because we've overcompensated, overcorrected, you know, it's not right. It's. Where money is important, you know, and I've gotten to the point where money's not important. That's wrong. Money is the fuel of your airplane that your business is trying to fly.
You have to have fuel. And if you draw, you know, you turn your big business, your business into this big service project, your employees will pay the price. You will fail. Your kids will pay the price. Like you can't do it. So this overcorrection that you and I are prone to, and I think there's others like us.
I mean, we're not the only authentic people in the world. I'm sure almost every list.
Melody: Yeah.
trap and it's, it's a deadly [:Melody: Well, somebody, one of my business coaches once told me something that completely changed my mindset. And it's very simple. A business can be a ministry, but not a charity.
And for me, it just was like, Oh, I get it now.
Curt: Yeah, my window cleaning company, we used to have a thing where we would wash our customers feet. So he's talking about ministry. Obviously, washing people's feet in today's day and age is weird, but it was really important to Christ when he was on earth. And Jesus taught his people to love one another and to serve one another.
And people paid us to come and clean their windows, power wash their house, do all the stuff we did. But I wanted to somehow bring this element of washing feet in without weirding anybody out. So the way we did it is we had a special bucket and a special sponge and we had, um, just like a special brush, like a brush.
or. And the way it worked is [:The other person just quietly goes to the front door, does this little ritual thing. Like not, not like rituals, not good. I don't like the way that came across. That
Melody: sounds great. Cause anybody listening gets it. So
Curt: yeah, we would come in, the bucket would get clean water, you know, not the dirty wash water we just used for the windows.
Clean water, clean soap, we would sponge and clean, you know, brush all the dry stuff off, wash it, dry it with a nice fresh towel. And that was just a moment where we were just saying, if the customer asks, we'll tell them what we're doing, we're not hiding it. But, this is, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna clean their front door threshold and it's washing their feet.
And we knew what it meant. You know, and so that was part of what we would talk about.
go a little bit deeper, not [:Curt: It was an actress and I was, uh, painting her toenails. Okay. Even better.
Melody: That was the best commercial. You were way ahead of your time. I just want you to know that, but it was really smart and fantastic. So one of the things you were just talking about your faith. I grew up in faith as well, and I still have.
asier if i just did whatever [:The way that everybody else does, and that makes business very hard. And so how do you, I'm guessing that you're like me in that way. How do you make sure that the way that you do business is in alignment with your values without pushing people out? You know, it's not about people. It's about the way that you do the thing, if that makes sense.
I
Curt: wish I could think of an example right, right off the top of my head. I'm struggling to come up with an exact example, but if I took you back like 10 years with me or even 20 years with me, when I first started business, I went to grin to the grain, like everything was a new system for me and I didn't care what other people did.
gh every single process. And [:And I need you to know about this way of doing it because my way was the best way. And You know, I felt like that's what I had to do to be authentic to my vision is that don't don't adopt anyone else's vision. Don't adopt anyone else's processes. It's not authentic enough. It's it's kind of like trying to make Italian food, but throwing some ragu sauce in that's your red sauce.
Like, wait, are you making authentic food or not? You know, and the fact is, is that along my way, I've learned to figure out what hills I want to die on because I really did almost. No, I didn't really almost kill myself. What do I mean? I truly was wearing myself out much faster than I needed to be worn out.
I may have. A tiny touch of [:Sometimes it's very painful to sometimes just say, I know this is in your head. And I know that this is what you think it has to be, Kurt. And I know that you feel like you're not being true to yourself. If you look outside of yourself to see what other people are doing, but Kurt, for your own good, for the health of your company, for the health of your other people around you, please pull your head out of your butt for just a second.
Look around. And just see if there's a red sauce out there that is rated well, delicious to the masses. You could even maybe put your own flavors into it additionally, right? But just give it a second and look, and that hurts. Like that can be really painful because like, no, I have to go grow my own basil.
on't have to do that. And so [:Melody: no.
Curt: Okay. I know you're
Melody: getting there.
Curt: So your question to remind the viewers of like, since I've been down a few rabbit holes, your question is like, how do you deal with the fact that people in the world operate different than the way that your DNA is driving you?
And that wasn't not
Melody: just DNA, your values, your integrity,
Curt: Okay.
Melody: But
Curt: it's
Melody: woven
Curt: into you. You can't get away from it. And you can spend your whole life. I mean, I spent so much time being angry that these people are doing business wrong and look at them succeeding. And there's just a bunch of charlatans out there winning.
I have had to learn to just [:I'm going to adopt it. I'm going to bring it in and I'm going to make it my own if I have to. But if it doesn't fit my values, I'm not gonna be angry about it. I'm not going to, I used to get so angry. In fact, I can name to you people in our industry who I just really disagree with their business practices.
And I actually found myself, if I was being true, I wouldn't have ever said it out loud, but if I was being true to myself, I actually felt that I hated them. And I'm saying that out loud right now, I'm saying it not as a badge of honor. I'm saying it just to be really true here is that there are people who didn't deserve my hate.
They just saw the world differently than me. I really disagree with their business practices. And I would allow it like. I'm not going to be in the same room as that person. And uh, that's not healthy either, but you do need to be true to your values. And there is a point where letting, turning the other cheek is appropriate.
here you do have to stand up [:And I'm doing it too. And since getting a SAS business coach, I've done a lot of that. And, um, and then there's other times when it's like, look, I can't find a way that's true to my values unless we do it my way. And I'd rather own a business that lines up my values in a business. It's worth 10 times the amount that it is.
And I'm just, that's how I'm going to get to sleep at night.
Melody: It's interesting because, so I've did the same thing. I started by doing everything the way that my head said it needed to be done, not because of disregarding other people, but at the time, it was really when I was diagnosed with ADD, I'd spent the first half of my life feeling really stupid.
isfit by the way i define it [:It's capitalism. And I mean, if you're looking at it, the most basic level, and I think of a misfit as somebody who is more focused on people and also having fun and being creative. So I just, I think there's a lot of different definitions for it.
Curt: Well, under that definition, I accept the definition then that I did not
Melody: already knew you were
Curt: okay.
Oh, I had said, I don't think I am a misfit in that sense then by your definition. Let's join
Melody: you are like i'm sorry but i was going to tell you that but yeah but in the beginning it was because i was so excited to have this new framework in my brain of how i could make things work so of course every system had to be the most complicated system in existence and now we both know that the simplest system is always the best usually because people won't follow complicated
Curt: yeah.
Melody: I mean, I, sometimes [: on the back end even if they [:And I have overcompensated by underselling in that respect, even though I believe we do really, really like we're exceptional at what we do. I never it's the 1 time when I'm like, we're the best that it's going to completely fail. That's my brain tells me. So it's been a really hard transition for me to be okay with selling.
With sales, with the funnels, with all the things, and of course, that's the easiest way because it works. And we, I mean, we know that it works because people told us that it works and we see it, but I also kind of, I don't know if you're like this. I go the opposite way too. I'm like, well, if everybody right now is doing this thing, shouldn't I be looking ahead?
Of this,
visionary or not. If there's [:Okay. Love to hear your thoughts on that. But he was a visionary in my example, to the extent that Adolf Hitler was a bad guy, like the top of the heat, like he was the, the, the worst of the worst. And, and Steve Jobs was the visionaries to the visionary, but, and all extremes, you know, I think you can vision to a point where like, after reading the autobiography of Steve Jobs, I, I think I'd like to talk to him, but I don't think I'd like to be friends with him.
And because he was so in love with his vision that he was willing to just slit the throat of anybody on his team or on another team. But you know what he, where would the world be without him? Right? Like he really pushed the whole smartphone industry forward in a big way. And he, you know, he made glass.
mewhere of so many different [:You basically just start taking off this farmer the whole time. Anyway, they were showing me some of these other video games and they're showing how you can power up these different areas and stuff. And of course as a business person, my first thought is, is that, so this is how you make, so that no two people are the same.
You can be really powerful in one area and weaken another, and then you'd be really powerful in that area, but maybe not so powerful in another. And this is exactly how human beings work that, you know, video game people have figured out that there's 17 elements or 150 elements or whatever that makes up each person and we are all on a continuum somewhere.
couldn't give a flying leap [:I have a son that the only thing he cares about is that I can ride my mountain bike fast. And that. That's what makes him just talk to me and tell me stuff. And I hate that. I hate that being a good mountain biker is his litmus test for whether I can be trustworthy or not with his heart. But for him, that's super key.
I have another kid who he's just a, he might as well be a standup comedian. He's just so funny. And so when I get. Loose and silly with him. He just comes open and alive for me. And so I have those little sliders that I'm working on as well. And then there's my wife who, who thinks that I'm not that funny.
Like, like every time I tell a joke, I look at her and I'm like, I'm not getting the approval I'm looking for over there. And being a visionary, she, she really thinks that I am like a Steve jobs. Like my wife would just run through burning buildings with me for her. There's the tender love, the care, the stopping.
I both, I think we have some [:And then I think that what's cool is we are different and we have Different things but the danger is by saying I am this slider. This is the thing Who I am and then I think you lose you lose life.
Melody: Yeah. Well, I always I talk like that, I just said always, but I do, I talk like that, I say those words, and yet I am always pushing back against it as well.
I'm always trying to outgrow it. This podcast is sponsored by HomeserviceVA. com. As an always recovering workaholic, I know what it's like to lie awake at 3am with your mind racing through endless mental task lists. And constantly choosing between growing your business and having a life. That's why I started Home Service VA.
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Actually, my word of the year, and I don't even know if I believe in word of the year, but I do now because I said it. It was health, but that's boring. So it really is unlearned. There's so many things I have been learning and learning and learning for the past decade. I have not stopped. It has been led by a lot of people who, you know, especially in the industry we were in, my journey in development was led by men.
had a different life. I'm a [:That was like, this doesn't work for me, but I also want to be one of the guys. So, you know, I don't want to do that anymore. I've, I've really had to work hard to outgrow that. And I feel like even though my words that come out, I know words are very important. I'm always also fighting against just accepting that I am a certain way.
I'm very growth minded in that way. And I'm excited moving this year. If I stay focused on unlearn. It's really going to be about unlearning things that stay in my brain that I cannot let go of easily that have been there forever. And it's like the hardest work. I don't know why I said I'm excited about it.
Sounds really
to go out and start digging [:I can't wait to work with my hands. I love to do stuff, but yeah, hard work to me is fun. Standing in line at Disneyland. I, I truly, every time I'm at Disneyland, I am like, people paid money to be here. This is crazy to me. We're going to have five seconds on a roller coaster. We're going to have four hours in line and we're going to do it again.
We're going to keep doing it again and again. And that's fun for people. I don't get it. That's okay. Whatever. So yeah, I get your idea of hard work being something exciting I I just you know It's the same reason people are sweating their guts out on a basketball court Just putting their body through the ringer and having the time of their life doing it voluntarily in their free time You know, whatever.
ng about how, you know, mom, [:They see the world through and that filter. They started building it when they were little kids and then they just every day. They've added to that filter of the way they see it and the way you see things. You know, my parents at this age, like they're in their seventies now, you know, their filters are deep and very set in and, you know, it'd take a lot of momentum to change that filter at this one or unlearn as you're saying, like unlearn the thing because, you know, once you experience something, you can't unexperienced it, but you do need to, like, make room.
For what other experiences can bring and it becomes difficult at the age of 70 and you know Thank goodness that melanie you're learning this at this time in your life But I guess the the point is is that every employee that comes into your life Every customer that comes into your life every new friend every person you work in the community with every like Every person like as you drive down this little game.
his like, get out of my way. [:What are they talking about right now? Are they talking to their kid? Do they have a kid? Did they just lose a kid? Have they been married before? Are they currently married? Are they having an affair with their spouse right now? Are they doing really great at work and they're super excited about getting home to tell about something great?
Like I like to just imagine these like crazy stories of like that's what's going on in that car. And then you look around at all the cars. There's these stories going on. And that filter that people are seeing the world through is you can't fathom it. Your filter is not capable. And so what you're doing right now is I think, you know, you're calling it unlearned, but to me, it's like this, like new agility that you're giving yourself is the ability to say, my filter needs some flexibility.
t. So if I'm willing to pull [:What are the odds that I wasn't born in India? Whoo. Good thing. I dodged that bullet that I didn't have to, grow up believing, you know, you know, something completely different. And then you start thinking yourself, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If you believe what's true is true. You got to let go of it for a second, hold it lightly and go grab something else just to see because truth doesn't fear the test.
And you're doing that with your experiences. And I just, I love that. I love it for you. And I need it for me.
e service for so many years, [:I'm also in a part of America. That's very liberal. I've also traveled throughout the world just like you. And so I think just traveling alone that brought a depth or just insight into exactly what you're saying. Like, everybody thinks so differently. We all kind of want the same things. We all approach it very differently, and so I really try to hold a lot of space for people, even when it's very hard, and sometimes it's very hard, but that has allowed me to make a lot of friends and to have a bigger community as well, and it helps me to continue growing, because I do feel like if my brain stops growing, then I'm dying.
the bad guy is doing what he [:I think the one time I've ever watched a movie, I think there's been several of them. Only one comes right to mind, but there's been times where they flip you from you think you're watching the good guy and you find out he's actually the bad guy, but there's. Marvel is wonderful as I don't follow movies very much, but Marvel movies, I'm sure people are like, wow, Kurt, you really like deep movies, but there's this guy who wants to have her.
Didn't you
Melody: just watch with wicked? Isn't that what that movie is about?
Curt: Oh, my gosh.
Melody: I
Curt: had to stop halfway through and come out here.
Melody: I haven't even watched
Curt: it, Kurt.
Melody: Oh, you haven't. I'm going to trust me. I have to. I know.
Curt: Yeah, even that was even better. Like Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Find out she's got a heart of gold and you're like, what the heck?
l the jewels in it. He wants [:Yeah. And wicked. The thing is, is that If you don't give space for the bad guy to have good motives, you're gonna be in a fight. where maybe you're both right, right? And, um, and I think that that's what, what, you know, politics in the United States for sure right now is like, we just need you to believe that one side has it all right.
And then we're fine because then we'll be able to keep our upheaval going, you know, and, uh, it's so toxic, but we just have to, we have to know that everyone you run across, even the people that, you know, remember the people I was telling you about earlier that I, that I literally did. I mean, if I'm being honest, I think I even hated them at one point and I hate saying that I would think that way, but I'm not there at this point in my life.
ng to figure out how to just [:Melody: Yeah. And I think the other part of that is, and maybe this is just because I have way too much empathy for everybody in the whole universe, but everybody has a story. Everybody has pain. I've always said about the home service industry. It's full of a lot of people who have had a lot of trauma and, uh, came out of school.
Maybe they didn't know. You know, a lot like me, like, I didn't feel like I was smart. I didn't quite fit into the system and or maybe they didn't fit in another ways and they want to prove something. And so even as they, I think what I've learned about certain industries is that they have a quote unquote growth mindset.
n't realize that when people [:You have to be, you have to understand how to be a good leader or good, you know, with your employees if you want your business to grow. So it's like, I think people kind of become, it becomes an offshoot of their growth because you have to as your, but it doesn't lead to that inner growth. And that's the work that I really, I want to do.
I don't know why I've always been like this, but I want to understand, you know, The world i want to understand my brain and your brain and and it'll never happen like i'm not going to understand everybody's stuff right but i want to be open to understanding it and i think that a lot of people aren't there yet do you feel that that's something that you've witnessed i've always thought of you as being very emotionally intelligent very.
e managed to be something of [:Curt: I've, I've learned that there's actually a few. Okay. Well,
Melody: that's on them. That's on them.
Curt: If you really want people to like you, that can be really hard too. You have to, you have to grow past that as well. Melody, you say I'm a modest person and everything, but here's, here's my experience, the person that thinks they're great in my experience, they're just not that great, not in the way that they think that they are.
Everyone is great. They're greater than me in some way, right? If we go to those sliders I was talking about earlier, everybody has a slider above mine somewhere, you know, I mean, go to that person who's sitting in a, a wheelchair in their nonverbal, you know, and you're like, wow, this disabled person with cerebral palsy.
re goes. Right. But the fact [:I'm not just trying to be humble. I'm trying to be cognizant of the fact that I will never be whole in this life. And there are other people who are more whole in areas that I am not, and I, it is up to me to find in that person that I'm working with, if I want to continue in relationship with them, I have to find out where do we build each other and where do they build me and how can I build them and what slider, you know, if, if we're going to be in that kind of a relationship, you know, you've got your casual friendships and you know, it's not super critical there because I can't hold that many relationships.
y is. And I don't have space [:You know, like I just. I'm emotionally sort of at my red line, so to say, you say
Melody: that it's exhausting because it because you don't have time for like BS because you go deep. Is that why you think so? Because for me, yeah, well, for me, I don't have time for surface level relationships. I've had a lot of those in my life and I feel like that is emotionally exhausting to me because I never get from those relationships real, real connection, real.
Yeah. Real talk essentially. And it's, it feels debilitating. It feels like I'm trapped when I'm in those kinds of relationships. Whereas when I have somebody that I can deep dive with, yeah, for the wrong person or it can be really draining if that's not their way of being, or if it's not a good connection, I'm not going to say the wrong person because that made it sound like.
here. I'm not sure if I can [:And I don't want people to think Oh no. Yeah.
Melody: That's not what I was implying. I don't have time for, but the space for that exists in the relationships that matter to me. Yeah. I'm willing to do the hard work with that person of hearing them. That's the thing. You can't have a lot of connections like that because they can be draining.
I can be draining when I'm going through my deep dark times, right? We all, we don't talk about enough, but entrepreneurs, we have the, There's a depth inside of us, or maybe it's vision. I don't know what it is, but it can lead to depression. It can lead. I'm an all or nothing person. I see sparkly or I'm like, why am I even here?
There's middle ground, but
eful. We, we both have to be [:I know it was like, but honestly we could unpack this forever. And I, I, this is the sort of thing that like really, truly, I feel like this is what I'm here on earth. For is to really talk about and understand what does God really want right now for me? And not just what does he want from me, but what can I give to his plan?
ences and i've you know made [:Melody: think that there are certain people who would want that, but not everybody.
Most people don't want that. You're right. And also I wouldn't want that if you're calling on the phone every day. I hate phone calls. So that's not going to work for me,
Curt: Kurt. Oh, amen. Amen. Is a box or nothing for me? Yeah, it's
Melody: fine. Yeah. Your face is fine this because you exist if you're in my face, but phone calls.
I, I just don't
r every day on the phone for [:And I'm like, that is a level. Even don't want to ever, yeah,
Melody: that's a lot
Curt: there. That's how they love each other.
Melody: Yeah. I, well, I love your family. Your family is so, um, I've had the pleasure of meeting them many times now. And they're just, they're just really wonderful.
Curt: They really are.
Melody: Yeah, very lucky. And they love
Curt: you, by the way, when I told him I was coming out to do this, my mom, You know, my mom, I guess, because I know your
Melody: mom.
Yeah. I was like, Oh my gosh, Melody Edwards. Oh, I love your mom. I've met your mom, your dad, your kids, all the people. And I love Rachel the most because she is just so solid and so wonderful.
Curt: I wake up almost every morning and I'm like, oh, she's still here. I can't believe this is happening.
Melody: Oh my God.
love hearing that. I have a [:And is it hard ever? Or have you had to learn?
Curt: Well, I learned it on the window cleaning. I learned it in my window cleaning business. I learned to always leave my tools in my path back to the van. So, if I was done with the ladder, it had to be on my path back to the van. If I was done with the towel, it had to be on the ladder on the path back to the van.
Or just In a bucket on the way back to the van. I had to have a path back to the van. I learned that day, like seven, probably on the, in the, cause you leave enough stuff behind and, you know, you're driving, kicking yourself. And so you start building systems. And the systems that I built was take advantage of the path that you're already on.
oth really important because [:I love milkshakes. I love sugar. I love brown sugar and powdered sugar and every kind of sugar. And so like, don't do it, Kurt. You're not, you will fail before you start. So I just start building away. I'm going to have meetings every morning. I'm going to talk in those meetings every morning while I'm walking.
I will walk on my walk and I will do all of my meetings in the morning while I'm walking and you know, walk five miles a day. And do you, yeah, well actually I've swapped it for mountain biking now with my boys. So I actually have had to change my ritual, but I'm just telling you that for about a decade,
Melody: do you mountain bike and take meetings at the same time?
Cause that would be amazing.
o I, you know, I'm not above [:m My time 8 a. m East coast and I could be out before the Sun was getting too hot because the Sun comes up about 5 And I'd be out walking and I'd get my 5 miles in shower get ready for the rest of my day I could get into all sorts of rituals. But here's here's the point I'm trying to get to is that now I use my calendar If it's in my calendar, I promise myself I'll follow it and I don't break that promise.
And one of the things that I have to do to keep myself sane is I have to put those mountain bike rides into my calendar. And when it's summertime, it's 5 a. m. and I've moved my meetings to get out of the way. And when it's wintertime right now I actually, because I'm in Arizona, I now move an hour different.
m. every day and I'm on the [:I just look down at the counter. I go, look how much space there is until you get to mountain biking. You can do it. You can push through. You can make this happen. Everything that I do, like I knew I was going to do pushups. I want to do pushups. Well, while I'm waiting for the water to get hot in the shower, before I get totally right in the shower, I'll turn the water on to warm and I'm going to do 10 pushups.
Then I'm going to get in the shower. I was already going to be getting a shower. You're getting, if you were to break a sweat, wouldn't matter. You're going to get in the shower anyway. And I know I don't like pushups, but anyone could do 10 pushups. So I would do 10 pushups before I knew it. I'm like, you know what?
I'm 50 real quick. I can just do it. Like it only takes like 30 seconds to 50 pushups because you just, it just gets better and better and stronger. And then guess what? Pushups were so hard. So then I was like, you know what? Before I even turn the water on, I'm going to do 50. Then turn the water on and do 50 more.
And then you're like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening. Can I ask, are these girl
Melody: pushups or boy pushups?
l, they are boy pushups, but [:And so, Next time you and I talk, I will be able to do one arm pushups. But, um, but yeah, these are full fledged pushups, but 10 was hard day one. And you know what? I don't even know why I'm telling you all these things that the point I'm trying to make is, is that it is really fun to do things that you're good at.
And it's really not fun to do things you're not good at. So if you can schedule it in, in a way that. You'll do the thing and not take it like I've learned from an exercise program and diet if I am so sore I don't want to work out the next day. I won't work out the next day if I am eating what I'm eating I am going to binge like crazy.
rinks that taste just like a [:Melody: There are yeah,
Curt: and so guess what? I found some stuff that I can use to like, like really work the system, you know, and um, so I don't, I'd love to hear your approach because what I have found is the ADD is a game that you have to be willing to play because you get hyper focused and you lose focus.
Like both of them are just as strong as the other. So you have to leverage it. So how do you, how do you leverage it?
Melody: Well, the very first thing, I mean, people are going to think this is crazy maybe, but Anything that I need to do for self care, like brushing my teeth or doing, you know, washing my face or any of those things, they all live in the shower, because if I have to do a 5, 10 step ritual of self care, it's not going to happen sometimes.
r teeth, but I don't want to [:So if I don't want to, I'm going to put it in the shower where it's just a part of the thing that I do in there.
Curt: You do the same thing.
Melody: Yeah. And packing. I was traveling so much the past three years. And every time I have to pack for a trip, it was very painful. It's like, I'm doing it for the first time and I never know what to put in the bag.
And so, Now, all of my toiletries live in like toiletry bag, even the ones I use every day. I just leave them there so that when I go somewhere, it's just ready to go.
Curt: Your travel toothbrush versus your regular toothbrush travel besides the toothbrush.
Melody: Yeah. But like everything's already there. It's ready to go.
I even got so good. Almost had a, um, I had travel clothes and I had regular clothes and never the two shall meet because.
Curt: Oh, smart.
Melody: Well, and it's usually just versions of the clothes I like wearing anyway, but
Curt: I
doing it so much that it was [:Curt: So, so your, your, your suitcase, mine's already half packed before I start kind of for the same reasons, but your suitcase is fully packed. Before you
Melody: I said was fully packed when I was traveling a lot. Yes, I got out of that habit. And now it's still painful if I go somewhere, but I'm not traveling the same way as I was, but yeah, it would be pretty much almost fully packed.
I even tried to make visual guides because I'm such a visual person. So if I have to, and I'm dyslexic, so I have to think in words. If I wrote down a list, it's going to be harder for me to focus on that than if I just have pictures that have three of this outfit, for instance, not three of that outfit.
manager and in our company, [:So most of my assistants don't stay with me very long. I'm about to lose another one. Christine is going soon and it's not that she's leaving the company. She's leaving me. She's learned my brain. And there are other places in the company where that she can be really successful for us. And also, I'm like a 2 person job when I'm really open and my brain is just like, able to do all the things that it wants to do.
It's exhausting for Christine. It's exhausting for anybody who would have to be. She is my executive functioning skill, literally. That's what she is. And so that's kind of how I view it because I know that it's really exhausting. It's energy taking to think a lot for me. So even like zoom meetings to start a zoom meeting is hard for me sometimes because I have three different zooms, anything more than a three step process.
. So I have really come into [:I need to save that for things that aren't like starting zoom meetings. So it is a game. I'm always trying to figure it out. And because of that, I think it makes us able to be successful helping other people who don't maybe think this way or who never got diagnosed when they were 30 and didn't have 18 years to study things.
alk about robots for context.[:Two years ago, when AI just kind of blew up right, right around December, I don't remember what year it was, but I really got scared that me, the person who had started a virtual assistant company was going to lose their business because everybody already calls virtual assistants, robots, sometimes AI. And so I started learning and I've been deep in the learning ever since.
I don't talk about it a lot. The reason for it is because I really want to empower The small business owners that we work with through their virtual assistance knowledge as well. However, it has been quite the journey. I've gone to a lot of different events and tried just trying to keep up. It's all new.
So even the people who know, they don't know because it's always changing. It's always evolving.
Curt: In fact, that's how you know, if they know. If someone tells you they know what's going to happen, they don't know enough.
but it's a lot of marketing [:Curt: Copy and like planning. Yeah. So
Melody: I just got back from one actually. And what I was thinking about for you is as a software company. This is, I mean, it's changing the landscape every day. Every software company's marketing right now is like, and we have AI empowered this and that. Now AI has always been in software.
Artificial intelligence guys. I should probably say that because there are people who don't know about it still. How are you planning? Like, how do you do that? When you have a software company that's been around a while, you had, you have plans for the vision and then this. It's electricity, basically, and electricity was just invented, and it's blowing up the world, basically, and it's new thing.
Old ways. How are you keeping up with it? Staying in front of it? And how is your vision changing? Or is it
e in our software was always [:And people say, well, why don't you bring AI into it? If you ever chat with an AI chat bot, the best place to exploit AI is that it can be pushed around really easy. It's very movable and it forgets the earlier part of the conversation. So for example, I was using chat GPT as my coach for cycling and I, and so I built a thread, a GPT called coach GPT and it was really great for like three weeks.
ber my power output for, uh, [:I'm seeing a lot of good application of AI and we, I've made a commitment to our Brittany, our product manager that I don't talk about stuff that hasn't shipped yet, even though she does test regularly. So without breaking my promise to Brittany, I can tell you this, our philosophy is, is that if AI. Is doing something for you that adds value without input.
t now is allowing AI to make [:But then those insights have to be thrown away, essentially either turned into data and stored or thrown away and waiting for the next data AI. So where we feel the AI is not good is Continuing to build strategy on top of strategy. It's already built or continuing to build intelligence upon the intelligence that it has itself declared because what happens is then the outliers start to really sway what it's doing or even worse than that.
just spit out this garbage. [:But like anything else where there's a lot of data points, those things, those outliers start to show themselves. So we also have to start collecting a lot of data, but then you have privacy concerns about what are you feeding my data into from an AI perspective, and we have to respect the fact that people don't want Open AI to have their data, uh, as an example.
And I'm not, to be clear, we are not feeding data to open AI right now, and we don't have plans to do that either, but you can partition off certain segments of open AI and you could feed data to open AI and hope that they're following all the rules. They say they're going to follow. Right. It's really tricky.
So AI, you know what, Melody, you know, there's going to be a virtual assistant at some point that. You guys are either gonna have to be part of and you'll be guiding AI down that path or you're not gonna have a virtual assistant probably at some point.
I saw, and I've been working [:I really see the future as there are going to be AI agents in people's org charts, and I've seen people already doing it. And yeah, my vision for it is not like we made up a 40 hour work week at some point that no entrepreneur sticks to, but that's what Americans like. Right. And I could see people continuously put inserting AI into their companies in certain ways to get rid of people.
My way of wanting to use AI is to empower people to give more space in people's lives and to not just be. And I have to remember this because my brain is not open enough yet to take it all in. But my goal would be to work less to enjoy more. And I think it's going to be really hard for people to adapt to that kind of mentality.
way and who's going to just [:Curt: I don't know. Elon Musk is saying that people are just going to get paid to stay home.
Melody: Yeah. I mean, he's a visionary of. Visionaries, you know, he is one of those steep job types.
Curt: I mean, look, when cell phones came out, who really thought that cell phones were going to take us to a place where we called our taxis on our phone and we weren't, we were too lazy to go get fast food and we would have fast food brought to us.
I mean, we don't know. We just, we're just babes right now in the AI. Life, but we do know this we've lived enough. You and I grew up calling places, not people. We would dial a number. Uh, I didn't have a rotary phone. Well, we did have a rotary phone at the house. I did at grandma's, but we had touchtone phones and we called landlines and we did all that.
carry in our pocket are more [:And we'll be touched differently for sure. But I mean, they're 3d printing houses now, Melody. I mean, a contractor, they never thought that this would matter. AI doesn't matter. We could have architecture and construction and everything being done with a company coming in is printing your house.
Melody: They have, um, an AI powered window cleaner now for skyscrapers, you know how they used to have those like dumb ones that just like scrubbed and they didn't do the greatest job.
I that's coming. One idea is [:Am I making up a word here?
Curt: You may be referring to the glasses, the glasses,
Melody: like people wear glasses. Yes. Not goggles.
Curt: I mean, you can put stuff around and make them goggles though. I'm sure.
Melody: Well, think of this. How many years did it? It took me a decade to make a really great training program. I had to take all the knowledge out of my head.
I had to like, I started making little videos, but you know, it was a lot of work. Think of the fact that you can have somebody wear glasses now that can record. You can be on in a different place. And for a newbie who might be a plumber, let's say, who's in a position where something they're trying to figure out, they can be showing you exactly what they're seeing.
And you can be guiding them while also having that. Turned into some sort of troubleshooting, you know,
there and showing where the [:Melody: I've seen that. It's amazing. Yeah, Kurt. This is a two parter by the way. I just realized for sure. It's an hour and a half. So it's like, The longest I've ever gone with anybody. Also, I can't feel my fingers anymore.
Curt: Oh my God. Also, my bladder is so full that I'm starting to get concerned, but we haven't gotten to the timeline portion.
So I'm like, we're going to get there. I'm having so much fun. So
Melody: we have to do something. Well, there's one last part that I do need to ask you. We're not going to be able to do timeline. Just hold it. It's a one minute and it's the, it's the misfit minute. Okay. You ready? Sounds good.
Curt: Yeah.
Melody: Okay. Early bird or night owl?
Curt: Early bird.
Melody: Introvert or extrovert?
Curt: Uh, introvert.
Melody: More time or more money.
Curt: Time.
Melody: Type A or type? A. D. D. .
Curt: A. D. D. D. D. D. D. .
Melody: Saver or [:Curt: savor.
Melody: Well, we know what you mean when you say, I mean, workaholic or recovering workaholic. What's the gut say?
Curt: I think I'm still a workaholic, Mel.
Melody: Um, you get off at 3 p. m. to go mountain biking with your, yeah,
Curt: I know, but your brain is thinking about, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about that. Yeah.
Melody: Okay. Uh, adventure or relaxing
Curt: adventure,
Melody: things or experiences.
Curt: Experiences.
Melody: Box.
Curt: Oh, go with
Melody: the flow.
Curt: Delegate. I
Melody: know. Hands
Curt: on a little bit, but all
Melody: right.
Collaborate. Sweet or savory?
Curt: Sweet.
Melody: Quick thinker or overthinker?
Curt: Overthinker.
. You won because I said you [:But the natural tendency of our spirit
Curt: and I, I try to be true to that. Like there's things that I want to be, that I, I'm not proud of
Melody: aspirational, but they're hard work. Okay, Kurt, I'm so grateful that you did this with me. Let's start our new podcast together. As long as none of us, either of us are not doing the work to make it happen.
And I'm going to let you go and be with your family and use the, what do they call it in the Philippines? The, um, CR
Curt: comfort room.
Melody: Comfort room. Thank you. My, my team says it all the time. And I'm just so grateful to you. Thank you for being here today with me. And it was so fun. It was too much fun.
Curt: Okay.
Melody: Tell your whole family I said bye and hello.
