ASHISH NATHU
January 20, 2022
2:46 pm
On this episode of The Rich Equation Podcast, Ashish is joined by guest Jonathan Reynolds. Ashish and Jonathan speak about leadership and how technology is impacting the recruiting business. Jonathan tells us exactly how employers need to treat their people. Ashish and Jonathan discuss how people leave managers not companies and that is why building relationships and making your people believe they are important is the key to retention and successful teamwork. Ashish and Jonathan also discuss the customizable lifestyle we are all living in and how we have the ability to control the majority of our environment. This episode shines light on how employees pick their employers and Jonathan provides us with the advice we as leaders need, to make our companies attractive to high achievers.
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 – Ashish shares a brief introduction to his guest Jonathan Reynolds 4:00 – Jonathan shares how he used to be called the talent thief because he was working as a head hunter 7:17 – Jonathan speaks about technology in modern day business and how it aids the hiring process 14:14 – Jonathan talks about the importance of treating your staff with grace and treating them like the high achievers that they are 20:55 – Jonathan speaks about how people don’t leave companies they leave managers 22:00 – Jonathan shares how people leaving managers is a relationship issue and that’s why Tides are so focused on developing relationships 22:32 – Jonathan states that people need to be believe that they are really important to you 23:45 – Jonathan talks about how we are living in such a customisable lifestyle right now and how we can control a lot of our environment 24:40 – Jonathan advises employees to ask their employees, what are some opportunities they would like professionally that they can help them grow in over the next 12 months 27:29 – Ashish asks Jonathan about what he learned most in 2021 as a leader 27:51 – Jonathan states that if we don’t take care of our people, someone else will 30:45 – Jonathan shares his daily routine 32:50 – Jonathan talks about a rough season he’s been going through and how he overcomes ‘off days’ 34:35 – Ashish mentions how it’s very easy for us to automatically default to work to try and work through life stress 37:10 – Ashish asks Jonathan about what he’s afraid of 39:3 – Jonathan speaks about how true richness to him is knowing he was faithful with what God gave him to do 41:23 – You can contact Jonathan through LinkedIn: Jonathan D. Reynolds Titus Talent Strategies
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Website: https://therichequationpodcast.com/
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanreynolds
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Ashish Nathu Welcome back to the rich equation podcast. I am so excited for the person I have on the episode today, today I’m joined by one of the best people leaders that I’ve ever met. And he actually happens to be in the recruiting business. Jonathan Reynolds is the CEO of Titus talent strategies. He is energized by inspiring company leaders and equipping them with unique approaches to help better understand their people, foster organizational alignment and create optimal performance among their team members. This episode is such a great reminder about how we must treat our people. How often we think about how we need to keep and retain our employees. But Jonathan’s mindset about people really challenges us. He asks us about why they should stay. He helps us remember about how we can bring all our employees into helping us find a winning plan and sharing the wins, how he must have a United mission within our teams and our businesses so that everyone knows what’s in it for them. Cute reminds us that the people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. And so what we can do as leaders to build strong, genuine relationships with all of our people, this episodes is straight from the source. I know you will get so much from this here he is Jonathan Reynolds. And remember if you enjoy this podcast or find it valuable in any way, you have a duty to share with someone else who may indeed hear this message or can get value from this content. And remember to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review so we can continue to bring massive value to you and go to our website, the rich equation, podcast.com to be added to our mailing list for special access and content. Now here’s the episode.
Narrator Welcome to the rich equation podcast. Are you ready to discover how to live rich today and not wait for retirement? If you’re tired of struggling and want to live your best life now, your in the right place, outdated principles will no longer work in today’s environment. It’s time for a new approach. Your host will help you discover methods to live the new American dream. It’s time to start living the good life on your own terms and experience a new way to live rich grit. Now here’s your host. Ashish Nathu,
Ashish Nathu Mr. Jonathan Reynolds, welcome to the podcast. Really honored that you’re here today
Jonathan Reynolds Thanks for having me.
Ashish Nathu Absolutely. I’m really excited for this episode. I think, you know, your subject matter and the work that you do, you know, with Titus, and I’d love you to introduce Titus a little bit, but it’s so important right now, this moment in the economy as business owners in this grand, you know, what do they call it? Now? The, the, the, the grand resignation or something like that, you know, you are in the people business, you run a very successful strategic recruiting firm. I’d love you to talk about Titus. I am. I’m actually a client of Titus, and I have worked with you before and really believe in your process in your philosophy, which is I think a really Testament to how you think about life in the world. And so let’s start there, tell us a little bit about Titus and what, what Titus is all about and your philosophy. And then we’ll kind of get into more about a few other topics. Go ahead, sir. Love it
Jonathan Reynolds And allow it. Yeah, well, I’m just going to be here. I’m sitting in Chicago when I met you. I was living in San Diego, Chicago now for three weeks and it is cold.
Ashish Nathu It is cold you look all nice and cozy though. I will say,
Jonathan Reynolds I’m saying, what kind of shirt, I guess just want a really warm shirt. So it’s, it’s cold outside, but, but now it’s going to be incredibly on your show here. So I’m, I used to be called the talent thief many years ago, people would call it it’s happened to me cause I was in the business of like stealing people, head hunting. But since we’ve grown, you know, I’ve grown, grown up in my I’m a big boy now. And I just found myself really, really passionate about the people’s space. So every, every company is, you know, greatest assets are our people, but really how do you do that? Well, how do you, as a company, as business owners, as leaders, how do you really honor people on your teams? How do you help them grow and develop and engage them and help shape them? Not just to retain people. He was the great resignation. How do we retain people? It’s like, what, you know, like, how do we trap, you know, like not try to trap them. And if she does, she pauses Zack. And I think these are real people with real lives, real hopes, real dreams, real aspirations. Maybe they went to school for doing whatever they’re doing. Maybe they never went to school for it at all, or wherever they went to school for that they are hopes and dreams. And how do we really tap into those and help people become who they’re made to be and at the simultaneously get them to do what we hired. So it’s like, it’s, you know, Hey, I’m really, I did hire, you can do a job, you know, and I’m paying you a salary or a, some form of income for doing what you’re doing. And there is a, there is an agreement is an employment agreement. How do I do that in a way that actually makes me pause and just go, they’re real people. And I want to be invested in them. I want to honor them. I want to respect them. I want to grow and develop them and then get whole teams doing that. So as Titus, we just, we are passionate about people strategy and helping companies with the people component of their business. We’re not an HR company, we’re not legal process and compliance. We do care about process personally. I’m not very good with process. I’m really thankful for people on our team developed, developed that. And, but, but yeah, helping companies with getting the right people in the right seats and getting the most out of those people, well, really growing and developing.
Ashish Nathu I love that. And you have a, you have a philosophy about in apologize if I butcher this, but I it’s head heart and briefcase. Right. And, and looking at candidates or people in all of these three major functions to really try to get a holistic view of the person to make sure they’re not only a, I guess, a technical fit within the business and what needs to be done, but also is their head in the right place. And are they emotionally connected to the business and its values in, in the right way? And I think that’s a really different way of aligning and bringing people into a business than I’ve ever been exposed to. And it was a really, you know, it was a slower process than I expected, but it was a, it’s the right process, which is why it takes so much time. So I guess I get, and you get a lot of credit for that. So I just love that, that process that you developed there, and it really makes you, you know, way above everyone else from a, from a brain trust perspective on how you approach the talent acquisition process. Yeah.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. It’s interesting, as you know, light lightning, fast speed and increase the technology to do people’s jobs and AI and all that kind of stuff. I do love it. I’m not anti-tech. I think it’s amazing. But one of the funny, funny phenomenons in hiring is often when we have an open position, our company, we naturally, we look around and see, you know, a company who may be able to do that job, let me think, Hm, could this person do it? And this person do it most of the time. They’ve never done that job before she were considering to move them into a new role. They’ve not done this new role before, but we based on the fact that I believe that they can do it because they’ve proven themselves here, here, and here and here. And there’s a bit of a learning gap. It’s not too big and we can invest in them. And that’s often how we think, you know, as, as a fair point, as easier, you run a business as well, then you move people around and you have a belief that they can do it, give them a new opportunity, et cetera. Now, when there isn’t anybody in our organization to do that, or we can’t spare them and move them over. When you look outside the organization and then suddenly we change our approach, then we look to somebody, who’s got the exact skills and experience who doesn’t need any training or stepping up into it. But we’re looking for this, right? This job description. And we write things like five years experience, seven years experience that’s two years. You know, we, we nail this whole thing out, all right, stick it out there on the internet and then have some kind of a job surfboard service match us with a resume. And it comes back. We got you three people with 98% match is yes, a 98% match. That means I only have to do 2% of training and development ta-da seems really easy. And they kind of base the history of the person, matching it with this new robe. Reality is when you re thinking your best, the best people, they’re not going to quit and leave your company for a 98% match job. This job, they’re not going to do it. They’re not going to go and do, Hey, I’ve been doing this for the last five years. How about I go and do it with a direct competitor? Exactly the same job. They’re not gonna do it. You know, that’s not how top notch people make removes. They go up, they go up in that crash objection. And so we do. It’s a funny thing. When we do, we hire people, we try and find resume matches. And we think when we hired a resume, they just don’t resumes. Don’t show up to work. They never have people show up to work like, oh, heck there’s a lot more to them than their, than their resume. And so you actually write the head heart briefcase to a methodology, or just philosophy of people. When you hire somebody, consider the whole person, the, their behaviors, that culture values, heart passions, why, and then the briefcase, their skill set, experience and education and things that come to the table. But, and then, and then in the same way, when we hired them, we used to manage them that way you can’t just manage the resumes or manage their briefcase. I’m going to help grow your career. Now you’re actually going to care about their motivations and who they are as a person and their value system. And it’s amazing, not everybody values the same things that I value. I’ve discovered that, you know, in managing and leading people is you have to find out what motivates people, right? And sometimes it’s safety and security. Sometimes it’s significance. Sometimes it’s status. Sometimes there are different of things that motivate shape people. That’s the heart component. And the same way when we hire people, we have to manage them in that way and tap into their understandings and then behaviors and columns. And this is like, how do they behave when the pressure is on? And the is off at work, you know, it’s, we all do. You know, we all behave in quite unique ways when we’re under pressure. And if we can figure that out, man, it’s so much easier to get team.
Ashish Nathu I mean, it’s such a good reminder, even for me as a, as a leader or as an employer of all the things you just said about how we need to think about our people and how we really need to connect more about what, what they need. Right. I mean, why I’m so excited about talking to you today is not only are you a subject matter expert in, and you speak so eloquently about this, but also you’re on the other side of the table, too. You are an employer, you have a business, you run, you know, you have your own employees and you deal with the same exact challenges as your clients and your customers. Right. And so I guess, and I’m going to try to frame this as a question, but let me just kind of go a little bit in a big circle, but I guess what’s showing up for me is that, you know, as an employer, I think about all the things you just said, and I think they connect with me. Right? I hear them. I want to embody those things. Not only as a leader, I want to have those things for my team. I believe like you said that they will perform at the highest level, if they are motivated to chase their aspirations and their goals, and they are living their best life. Right. And so I agree with all of that and intellectually, I think that what I go back and forth with, and again, I’m going to try to get to a question here is I think there are times where leaders, you know, and I can just see it in you and the way you manage and lead your business is like you come from a very abundance mindset. Yeah. And it’s very challenging to operate in this framework that you’re speaking of, if you come from let’s consider it to be a scarcity mindset, which is, you know, you work for me, you’re not making enough return on your investment. I don’t really care about what’s in your heart or your head. I just care about you delivering your skillsets and, and doing the results. I’m not really engaged with you as a person, because that costs me time and money that’s takes too much time away from what I need to be doing, blah, blah, blah. Like I think that owners can go on this spectrum. Okay. And I’d love to hear your perspective on that. And then secondly, I think, and I know I’m experiencing this now, is that when business is flourishing, it’s very easy to come from an abundance mindset. And when business is struggling, which I’m sure a lot of people who are listening are going through their own challenges. This is a very difficult time. We’re recording this in January of 2022. Like there are a real life market challenges. And then B it’s very easy to get into a scarcity contraction, you know, retraction type of mindset. And we treat our people that way too. It’s just like kind of a natural spectrum. So again, I, don’t not sure where the question is, but I really want to, I want to get your perspective on how we can think about this as leaders and as owners, because I think, I think we all want to be in this other side of the spectrum of really treating our people with grace and care because they’re going to give us the most. Right. And they are loyal and they, and they care for the business. So I guess just speak to that.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. I think we, as a, if you go to the same engine, you’re the head coach of the team, whatever the sport is, doesn’t really matter. And you’re the head coach and you, the goal is to win the championship. I know it’s kind of a big thing these days. I got used youth in sports when teens or teenagers in sports. So it was kinda like, we want to shape the whole person and it’s not just about winning championships. And I’m like, yeah, I like to win championships.
Ashish Nathu I love that we’re out to win
Jonathan Reynolds win something together in this that you just learn how to play, you know, like, come on. I want to know if I opened up a board game, if I want to, you know, open up a game, my, how do I win the gang? And then give me some of the basic rules and I can bend a few, but I want them to know how do we win and how do we win together? And what’s our competition. And so winning together, I think you need to degree together. And it starts with, you know, leaders actually establishing, what does winning look like when we’re winning? What does it look like as a company? And then every person on your team shouldn’t know what excellence looked like and their position on the team? Like, what does it look like to be excellent in your role and in your role and in your, and then the coach’s job to encourage champion, to cheer on team, to help shape, give feedback real-time coaching right there You know, some coaches when they’re calling things on the sidelines, I do that. Yeah. You need to give feedback and encouragement and cheer on your team members. But remember the goal is actually winning together. And so I think if you, we miss it when we don’t establish for winning together, as now, from my perspective and Titus, I think there needs to be winning together needs to be more than, Hey, as a business owner, I want maximum profits in this right. People don’t I find the people on our team don’t get as excited about how much money that’s funny like that, you know, it’s interesting. I don’t really care. You know, I might stroke X amount of million dollars that we want to hit this year. It doesn’t really affect them that much, unless I can tie it to something that does affect them. They’re like, well, how much am, I mean, you know, like, let’s say that to me. Like, we, we think that way and people want to know how they fit in the picture. If I show a group photograph of your entire company and I take a picture of it and I text out to the open, the, everybody by default, we’ll look at the picture and find themselves first. They just naturally do you do it? I’d do it. I mean, where am I? Where am I? Okay. I look okay. Oh my gosh. How did they balloon up that big, you know, Hey, I know, actually I know how I blew it up. That big, it’s been about 20 years. It’s just becoming more and more me. But we, we D by default, by natural sort of the way of innate for ourselves in the picture. And so when you look, when you’re saying here we are as a company, and here we are as a team here we are. As a, as a, you know, whether it’s sporty, we want to be here in three years time. And this is what it looks like in three years time, but you can’t just talk about numbers. You got to say, where’s the picture and where do they fit in that picture and make sure that they’re motivated by the same future as you. And if you can get everybody motivated by the same thing, that’s when you become unstoppable. And it’s really easy then to start putting, getting all the levers working well, because we’re all motivated by the same common goal for us, our 10 year picture or tenure targets by 2030. So eight years ago, by 2030, we want to give back to $30 million to transform communities for the greater good, right? So that’s something as a United mission. We will, as a company. And some people are more motivated by that, by that Elance. And I was told by one of our senior leaders, I know you keep talking about this, Jonathan, but I, I know you’re really passionate about it. I understand that if I ever else, is that passionate about it? And I’m like, all right, that’s fine, but I’ll, I will help them become more passionate about it by taking them to physically go and help people and transforming communities for the greater good. I just think that I can take them on a journey to do with their own hands and their own heart and their own eyes, helping those in need because of the abundance that we have. I think that I can tap something, everyone on our team they’ve got enough heart in them. I would say that was pretty impactful. So, but it’s getting people rallying around a common vision of common picture and a future picture. And then, and then helping them be motivated to she kind of live out and live a high clip of, and so we are all about performance status. Like we had driving hard out on performance where we run really, really hard. I can tell you right now out of the 160 salary team members that we have, I got one person who’s a C player and two B players, meaning they’re between a B player for us between 90 and a hundred percent output. Everybody else is very clear what their performance objectives is. And they’re hitting at least 100%, which is really encouraging, not 160 people to have three, three people who had built up
Ashish Nathu A performance.
Jonathan Reynolds And that’s okay, because we have to ask the question then they’re not just, it’s okay to say, Hey, what’s going on in your lifestyle. Need to know like, is there, can you help me understand why you’re sitting in this clip? Like what’s going on? Like, oh my gosh, you four of your founding teams have coats. Well, no wonder you’re struggling right now. Like, Hey, take a breather. It’s fine. We want to get you back into when you’re in a healthy stage. Like you’re more, you mean more to us than just in numbers and we’re here for you. So take a breath. You know,
Ashish Nathu I mean, this is th this is definitely a unique time for employers employees, right? If you, if you listen to what people are saying, and again, this is why it’s so valuable to have you on the podcast today. Cause you, you were beyond just the hearsay. You actually are seeing the facts of what’s happening in the marketplace. People are complaining that it’s really hard to find good people and good people are leaving and they want to resign and they just want to sit at home. And, you know, there’s an entire labor force of people that are, you know, not coming back to work. And like, so what’s, you know, from an employee standpoint, what’s in the minds of employees today. I mean, I think we talked a little bit about how as leaders, we can, we can approach employees and connect with them. But like as an, as an employer and as an employee, like what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of people today.
Jonathan Reynolds Well, you hear this, this thing that people don’t leave companies, they leave their managers, you think? Okay. Tell me more about that. So, number one, I would say it’s about relationship. It’s not just about output. It’s not just about performance and it’s not just about career growth and development. It’s much harder for people to leave people that they love and who loves that? Oh,
Ashish Nathu Yup. Deadline. Yeah, of
Jonathan Reynolds Course. When, and especially, and that’s one of the hard things so much as in the remote workforce right now, there’s less of a connection that people were used to prior to now we’ve been a hundred percent remote company. We call it mobile mobile company for nine years. Now, nine years we’ve been running a hundred percent remote and we say mobile, it’s a bit of a semantics, but we want people to feel like they can move around versus being remote on an island. So, oh, your mobile, come, come and stay with me in San Diego. Come and look at me for a few days if you’re feeling a bit isolated. So w w we get kind of a, more of a transient workforce moving around the country, but w if people leaving managers, this kind of the sense of like, why it’s actually a relationship issue versus companies think, well, we need to invest a little in our relationships. So we were very, very intentional in relationships, coaching relationships, caring relationships, really kind of understanding people’s family members, the dynamics of their life, et cetera. That’s really, really important to us. You guys always say we put our people first, even before our customers, even for-profits people, then partners and profits. That’s what we call our customers partners. So people have to believe that they are really, really important to you. I love that. I don’t go to my wife. Hey, what do you mean? You don’t feel loved? I proposed you 19 years ago. I’ll give you a rate. What do you, what else do you want from me? You know, I don’t know. I’m just kind of a demonstration that I’m number one for you in your life. Like what, you know, like, just to smell it out for me, like a day night, maybe like, didn’t we do that last month, you know, like, can we just do a once a year? I’ll tell you how we do it in our relationship, performance reviews and things like that. The annual review. I’m not sure if it was more of a good dating relationship when it’s actual, genuine, taking time to know one another calf. This might sound really funky. But I think if you do this really well with genuine chat, people realize like, there is also this other side, which is the performance component they’re hired to get a job, but the big is resignation. I think it would be a lot less. If people have better relationships with the people in their teams and their managers, et cetera, and they felt genuinely cared for the next thing. So there’s one is people component real, genuine relationships. The next is what’s next. People want to know what’s next. We live in such a customized society right now where I’m and gen Z and millennials both have grown up with an app for everything, customize everything for me. If you want to go into Starbucks and talk to somebody and order your drink, you can, if you want to show up and it’s sitting right there and you don’t say hi to anyone, you can do that too. And you can have it your way, your timing errors, you know, like I go to bla no, yes. I would like the temperature being 72 degrees. And I would like, no speeding. You know,
Ashish Nathu Like you can control a lot of your environment is what you’re saying.
Jonathan Reynolds And we’ve become accustomed to that. Then we go to work and we’ve got old school mentalities and leading people think, no, I want to customize career paths. Like you have a job. I’m paying you a salary should be thankful. You have a job. Well, those days ago really scrappy right now. So one of the things we can do as leaders is customization. Like, what’s next? So just asking the simple question, like, Hey, over the next 12 months, what are some opportunities that you would like professionally, but I can help you grow it. So, and if I can help you, is there somebody else in the company or outside of the company, you could help you grow in this area because we want to help you provide that. Remember we asked this point about five years ago, we asked every other company we’ve been practicing this ever since. It’s kind of, what’s one thing you want to grow in professionally or an opportunity to have an experience to have as experienced generation, right? That you would like to have in the coming year that we could help. And one guy said, I would love to fly on an airplane. I think you meet with one of our clients, take them out from me. And then he his position in the company, but we wouldn’t have normally been picked to do that in his role. And we were like, all right. You know, for whatever reason that would make him feel like I’m a profession, right. Young guy in his early twenties. I dunno like, Hey dad, I’m known on an airplane. I’m flying down to Orlando to meet with a client taken from me for him. That would make him feel like I’m not just working from home, sitting down behind a desk on the phone and doing what’s fulfilling
Ashish Nathu Him and whatever he’s searching for.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. Yeah. And I’m like, how flipping easy for that. Yeah. That’s right. For us to go gun.
Ashish Nathu And all you had to do was ask.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah, we just, w we put on a plane, I went with him, actually. I was like, yeah, let’s go and went down to Orlando, Florida, or this is a letter. And we took the client out for a male and he had so much fun. And I’m thinking it’s fantastic. Cost of replacing that person would have been a heck of a lot more than that trip. Right. And all we had to do is ask and then provide an opportunity. The reality is if a recruiter call them, say, we’ve got this job, or once a month, you’ll travel, you’re going to take our clients out for meals. He probably want to jump ship. They would have jumped ship from that. And it wasn’t about more money. It was just an experience and an opportunity. And it’s different for everyone. Some people I don’t, I definitely don’t want that, but I would, I would like, is this, I would love to take a course, an online course to better my skills. Okay. So easy, you know, and it’s just tapping into the heart of our team. What’s important to you. I want to know. And if you want to be really raw, and if you’ve got a very trusting environment, like, Hey, if a recruiter called you today, what would be the, what would be the thing that you would listen to? Because most recruiters they’ll really hit the nail on the head and they can click no. Interesting. But there’s something that you would listen to. What is it,
Ashish Nathu What am I, that’s an abundance mindset right there.
Jonathan Reynolds I mean, and, and the reason I’m almost used, no worries. I’m fearful that you’re going to leave because I want to provide that for you.
Ashish Nathu That’s right. What’s the magic question that somebody will ask you that Pearl will perk up your ears. I love that. What is,
Jonathan Reynolds What is it, you know, for you,
Ashish Nathu As you reflect on 2021 and start to think about like, what your direction or strategy is for 20, 22? Like, what do you think you learned most from 2021 as a leader?
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. I think it’s probably just the continuation of loyalists stuff. Like we, we must keep developing a B if you don’t, we don’t take care about people, somebody else that’s, it that’s it. They have options and flipping hat. We’ve got an amazing team of people. They should be recruited every single day. They should be. I should expect them to be recruited because there’s that good?
Ashish Nathu Yeah. That’s, that’s a good perspective, right? Because we think about it. Like you, it’s very easy to get angry or upset or disappointed. Like, what the heck? Why are you guys talking to other people? Like, well, if they’re a players, they’re going to be hunted, right? Like you said, you’re the stealer of good people.
Jonathan Reynolds And I, and I know actually I think if I have my mindset guide and any recruiters go here this week, you know, and I’m not going to get insecure about it. If I don’t take care of you, that’s on me, man. You know, I shouldn’t be shocked if somebody, I don’t think anyone should be shocked when there’s an employment separation about to happen. We have to separate employment with somebody on our team, for whatever reason I don’t. And I say it to our team members. I’m like, so you’re telling me that this is going on and you’ve gone through a performance improvement plan or a behavior improvement out of character improvement plan and nothing’s changed yet. So you’re telling me if I call this person today and say, are you, would you be surprised if we terminated you today, they will be not surprised at all. And I always get you back on our team members, our leaders. And they’re like, they know I’m going to Austin so that there will be no surprises. I just don’t think I should be surprised if we care about we will enough. They should be like, I knew this was coming, you know? And the other surprise is I just, I don’t think we should be surprised when somebody resigns.
Ashish Nathu Yeah. They’re not engaged. They were, they were not engaged by us. Yeah.
Jonathan Reynolds We need to. So cab for our people that we know where the head, the heart and the skillsets around how we’re developing each one of those. And if we’re not, I just, like, I just think we should know people so well that when we do these surveys and every now and again, somebody, if somebody on a team that’s showing a low engagement score, we’re like Elysium. We think you’re not supposed to, we’re trying to look at it holistically, but there is a part of me, which is like, who is that? Who’s not so engaged right now. Then we don’t think of it. We’re not developing, you know, like he was having challenges with their management. It would deliver, people’s no science behind. It is just people understanding people, highs and lows challenges and dips of life. And
Ashish Nathu It really, it really reminds you of how to take extreme ownership of your people as an employer. Right? Like it’s so important. I have a few more questions about you personally. And you know, you are such a bubbly, energetic leader and, and just a strong guy. Do you have a personal daily routine that helps you perform at this level? And what is that daily routine?
Jonathan Reynolds Oh, that’s good. One good questions. So yeah, there, there, I wish I could tell you that I wake up at like five o’clock in the morning and, and no, I don’t. There, there are lots of things this year I’m going to change, not because of the new year’s resolution, but I am looking to get a crazy fitness year now. Yeah. Faith is really important to me. I’m very prayerful about all things in life. I should say all things, lots of things in life, but major business decisions. And my faith has been really important to me in that and thankful, thankful for that part of my life. And yeah, and rhythmically did not as much daily disciplines, but rhythmic disciplines with a team. My family and my, my work teams, very, very rhythmic in of family nights, apparently meals homes rhythmic on the business side, in weekly meetings that we have, which are real raw, honest, multiple times a year, we get away together. Sometimes we bring our significant others with as well just to connect and, and build a relationship next next week or two, each time I’m headed down to Mexico about 30 of our team members, just to, just to relax together, to celebrate together. And we find that those things really, really jealous together in on the relational side of things. And some, yeah, I think often in rhythms and one of the rhythms of life in that way, but
Ashish Nathu I liked it, I liked the word rhythm more than routine.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. It’s got a nice fit. It’s got to steel to it. Yeah. It’s a little bit more kind of flowy and also not so robotic, but a bit more of a kind of musical. So
Ashish Nathu You have, do you have off days,
Jonathan Reynolds Meaning when I’m mad, I’m just off today or I’m like
Ashish Nathu No off days. Like you’re not, you’re not on like, things are not working out for you. And what do you do when those things happen?
Jonathan Reynolds Oh man. I’m in a rough season. I mean, I’m a three personally. I’ve been in a really, really tough season, just transitioning my life, my family, going back to the Midwest from Southern California, all of the, the, the winter blues are coming to Chicago, freezing cold, all of that kind of stuff. And then take my teenagers through and trying to be optimistic. And they’re looking at me like, damn, this is real, you know, how can I, I can’t play soccer all year round you. And like, you can, it’s just in the dual doors, but no, just yeah. Personally kind of trying to lead my family. Well, well being real about what’s going on in life and the not so great things. And one of the other things is just what I found in parenting. And if your listeners, your parents, and I’m sure many of them are way ahead of me in this, but it’s easier for me to throw my time into work than it is to my family. And the reason is I can see a quicker tangible results in business side, finding this. I know these things can happen, right. But when it’s purely on with my family, I’m like, if I go and do this, and I don’t know is going to have a quick impact or not, it’s a way longer game. And I’m like, I want quick results. Now I’m quick. It was like flip it. I just spent an hour and a half with you, you know, doing whatever. And now you’re going to treat me like this. You know, I’m like, cause the teenager lets you know, but so I, I would find my, when things are stressful, I tend to go to work because I know that I can actually have quick impact on stuff’s there. And I hear that as being the lack of health of that. So I hear
Ashish Nathu There that brother, I needed to hear that. And I appreciate you sharing that. Just a really open, vulnerable thing, because I think it’s very easy for us to automatically default to work, to try to get problems solved. And, but we do it for a family. We do it for our personal life and fulfillment and it’s so easy to just ignore or take those things for granted. So it’s a really healthy,
Jonathan Reynolds Less about businesses don’t care. They want relationship, right? That’s right. It’s the same stuff I’m talking about was how you treat people in the business. They don’t really care if you’re going to make a hundred million dollars this next year, they actually, one of them do care about me and you care about me growing in my, my life. And so I love that it’s the same kids and same with my spouse, significant other it’s like, Hey, I know you say you’re doing this for me now. You’re not really doing it for me. You’re doing it because you want to build your, whatever it you build. Like it makes you feel better about yourself. That’s another huge part last year, learning kind of why do what I do? Like what’s, what’s the kind of the deep rooted question of my life. And I’m trying to get on set every single day and every situation I’m doing and realizing that Hey, for me, and often it comes to some childhood stuff. Kind of where’s is it, am I safe? Am I, am I loved? And we known and am I significant? Am I making a big enough impact? That was the big once a week. Am I making a big enough? I mean, is my life significant? So everything has to be about significance because that’s not significant if I don’t do it, if it’s not significant and is in the field really significant, I get really excited to hear that change in the world, change the world to the world, choose. Well, we’re going to go change the world together and manage the people in our company are not wired that way. But I start talking about changing the world and they’re like, okay, I don’t really care. I’m not motivated by that their eyes
Ashish Nathu Like, okay,
Jonathan Reynolds Am I secure? Am I, is it is, is, is tight. It’s going to be around in five years time or all my hits, my wagons were uncovered, right? Like yeah. Other people have different questions that are asking, am I safe and secure? And I’m going, oh, we’re going to be w we’re going to change the world. We would take big risks and we’re going to be significant. And they’re thinking, I know my question is trying to be answered. And so I’m having to recognize the first time in my life. I realized that no, everyone has the same question that they’re looking to answer to spin me. So it’s asking people what motivates them and why do they do what they do? And I’m like, okay, you know, very, very different, well, what are you
Ashish Nathu Thinking? What are, what are you afraid of?
Jonathan Reynolds Okay. So you’re a customer about it. If our company went bankrupt today, I wouldn’t think about you and go, oh no. What is Ashish going to do? When it comes to talent? Feels so bad. You know? Like, cause we was the answer and he loves and I feel really bad. I wouldn’t even think about you one second. No, cause I don’t care about you. That wouldn’t be the impact. It would be the 160 families on our team. I would be like, no, I promised them that we were building something special and I told them to trust me. I said, I’m going to put them first and everything. And it all collapsed. Like I’ve ruined their lives. That’s how I, I know the reality. They’re all bounce back and will get jobs. But I feel, and the disillusion me and lost had
Ashish Nathu Severe responsibility is what
Jonathan Reynolds Drives you feel so deeply responsible. But I also would feel like I, I shortchange them on a dream that I told them we were going to have this really changing the world together.
Ashish Nathu Yeah. You know, I hear that man mean, you gotta be a big dreamer to make beautiful change in the world. And sometimes you got to take big swings and sometimes you miss, but it’s that, that heavy responsibility, you know, heavy is the crown. As they say, like heavy responsibility actually motivates you to keep driving and solving problems. And there are times where it gets real tough, but I love, I love how you framed that. I guess as we wrap up here, I have one final question for you. What does it mean to live rich?
Jonathan Reynolds Oh yeah man. Well, I’ll go back a little bit to faith perspective. You’ve got to, depending on what you will do is right. So I come from a kind of a faith worldview creation worldview, and I’m going to stand before God and going to count my life. So what is rich? Hey, I want to know that I was faithful with what he gave me to do, that I was faithful to do it. And so if I’m doing that, who am I now I’m feeling mom. And I think that includes things like people’s lives. My, primarily my family around me, I like cared for them. Well, by invested in them while they did them. Well, that’s one, another one is other relationships with spheres people. So big, big people. How have I been, am I catching those people, selflessly, selflessly and put them first and see them grow and develop and become what they’re supposed to be, which is there’s a big part of me. I’m like, I want to see peoples accomplish the dreams that are in their heart, why they were created that’s if I’m a catalyst and other people, I, I, I feel that that’s kind of my call on mine. And then the other is stewardship of resources. So in, in growing this debt-free company has been really, really great. Even 2020 was our best year yet. And I, I say that with a surprise, you know, it wasn’t the case for many, many, many companies and really, really tough season. We just keep growing. Like we grew another 86% last year and had to hire over a hundred salary team members just to deal with the backlog of work we have. And we’ve got another 20 open positions right now.
Ashish Nathu It’s abundant. Congratulations. So good.
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah. I feel really humbled by it, but I think there’s a stewardship issue to me. Am I okay with discipline? What are we doing? You know, what are we doing with it? Are we going to hit, I’ll go on giving goals faster. Yeah. I want to double our giving goals to 60 million. So how do we do that? But yeah, I think what does it mean to live rich? It’s those kinds of things, rich in relationships and rich and stewardship of resources.
Ashish Nathu I love that. You know, I think this was a really great conversation. If people are listening and want to connect with you or learn more about Titus as services, how can they reach out and get, got to get in contact?
Jonathan Reynolds Yeah, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. So Jonathan Reynolds, Titus talent, T I T U S talent on LinkedIn, probably the best way. And we’ll Titus talent.com is a, is another one you can find us on there and loads of videos on YouTube as well. Yeah.
Ashish Nathu Well I really honor you and congratulations on everything that you’re doing for businesses and people and the world, and just really honored to call you a friend. You have so much to give and so much energy and you know, just blessed to know you brother. So thank you so much for being on the show.
Jonathan Reynolds No, I’m honored to be here as well. If my business did cave, I would call you. I think I wouldn’t go on.
Ashish Nathu I would expect us. I would expect myself to be at least the top three. I don’t know. Okay. Talk to I’ll take it
Jonathan Reynolds Really, really appreciate it.
Ashish Nathu Well, good talking to you brother. Take care. Okay, bye.
Narrator Thank you for listening to the Rich equation podcast with Ashish. Do you want more ideas on how to live rich? Go to richequationpodcast.com for show notes and resources. Then take one minute to leave Ashish a five-star review on apple podcasts and we’ll see you.
