#379 - Steve Cockram - Founder of 5Voices - Know Yourself, Influence, & Building Stronger Relationships

Chris Powers: Steve, welcome to the show. 

Steve Cockram: Thanks, Chris. 

Chris Powers: Do you know anyone who has a relationship that they don't wish was better? 

Steve Cockram: No. Every person I've ever spoken to or asked, when I say, which is the one relationship you wish was better, everyone knows what it is. 

Chris Powers: Okay, so Steve and I met probably two years ago, or maybe not even two years ago, and the way you were introduced to me was this person understands people and relationships as well as anybody on the planet. 

Steve Cockram: That must have been John Marsh, who's my personal marketing department. Yeah, no way back after that.

Chris Powers: As entrepreneurs or highly driven people who are listening might understand, while we're really good at having relationships, we can also struggle with relationships. And that's when we were introduced. So, before we get into how you became somebody that is so influential in this space, I think it would be important to figure out how did helping people understand the relationships in their life become something that you kind of devoted your life to?

Steve Cockram: I think the best place is to go back and say I was probably the least emotionally intelligent 30 year old you'd ever have met. So, 25 years on, it is largely amusing to me and to many of my friends that somehow I've become a guru on people and relational health, and it came out of cataclysmic failure. So believe it or not, I ended up helping to set up a nightclub in central Manchester that was funded by the Baptist church that I was a part of and on staff. So, I don't know how much of this you want to know, but the basic gist of it is a friend of mine basically became a Christian out of nowhere. He was a big DJ, nightclub, that was his world. He was on Radio 1. He brought all his dancers from the nightclub to our church. He's such a charismatic connectee. He just persuaded them that this was what they had to do. They all came and sat in the front row, and they never came back. We thought we were really kind of cutting edge, kind of on the edge of culture. He just said, Steve, look, the reality is most of these people don't finish work until five on a Sunday morning, and I promise you, they're never coming back. But I think they need what it is I found. And there was born, really, a vision of saying, he said, I'd love to own a nightclub where actually we can be in that culture, we can partner with the police and the drug services, but actually love people where they are rather than expect them to come out to the suburbs and come to our church where they're never going to come again. I hated nightclubs. I mean, I just said, look there's no way, Cameron, I'm ever going to do that. And he said, well look, go and pray. Anyway long story short, I ended up helping raise the money, recruit the staff, and I was half time pastor for youth and children at a Baptist church and half time overseeing this nightclub project, and 126 families put in a million quid, a million pounds to basically get this thing off the ground considering most of them were T total in a Baptist church. I think you probably realize we had super powers long before I realized how we can manipulate people. This thing was a disaster from the moment it opened. It broke every rule that I would now understand of start up entrepreneurial finance. We went all in, we never ran a pilot. We opened at 1200 capacity, meant to be full all night every week, and after three months, actual revenues were about 30% of what had been projected. They then said to me, Steve, we need you to go and be full time on this thing, and I'm going like, guys, I've never led a business. And they're like right now, that's not what we need, people trust you. And I felt so guilty, I mean, like everyone I knew and loved in the world had been tapped up for this thing, and I had never failed at anything. It was like, oh my goodness. They gave me a guy who'd been a CEO at one of the FTSE companies, like a fortune company, and he spent 10 months with me, a day and a half a week, trying to make this nightclub break even, and it never did. The best month we had in the 10 months we traded was a 20,000 loss. And I used to get the numbers on a Sunday night, four in the morning, five in the morning, that would tell me we had no means of paying the bills again this week. And then I had to go to church on Sunday morning. Of course, everyone wanted to know what amazing things were happening. So when it went into administration, liquidation, I did the most expensive MBA ever. I think it cost about 2 million pounds in total of my friends' and family's money. But I probably learned an awful lot through that process. So how do we get to the people piece? Out the back of this, I'm kind of wondering what I'm going to do now. The church were not particularly- it was obvious Helen and I were not going to be part of the future. They wanted their house back, and I needed to do some work. Friends of ours came to us and said, Steve, we're going to give you a gift. I'm like, okay, well I like gifts, and right now I've not got much going on. They said, we're going to pay for you to go to Oxford to study two things. I'm like, okay, what? They said, well, one's Myers-Briggs and the other's called FIRO-B. And we think they'll be really helpful for you. What they really meant, it would be a real gift to Helen, my wife. So, I'd never studied hard at anything all my life. I'd felt quite embarrassed about it, and I'd vowed whatever I do next, I'll study with all my heart, soul, mind, strength. So, I bought the textbooks, I tried to study the way Helen studies, which I used to laugh at. I learnt it and that journey of self-discovery was the one really where I began to see my own behaviours and my own failures and how extreme stress takes you out. So, Myers-Briggs and FIRO-B, those things became the lenses through which I began to look at all the relationships of my life. So, if you think about it, now I'm coming out the other side of this disaster with a pretty reasonable understanding of how businesses work, mainly because we just couldn't make it work, now aligned with why people behave the way they do. So, when you have people interacting with business strategy and capital, effectively you become- people start inviting you into their world because most people who are experts on people are usually much more touchy-feely and they're not really entrepreneurs who love winning at things. And so that was really how that journey began, and 22 years later, effectively if you look at it, I've continued to mine out why do people behave the way they do, always love business, always love growing things, but effectively have ended up with this kind of Jedi superpower that kind of almost like the Matrix is able to understand why people behave the way they do. And you're never out of work, Chris, if you can help people make the relationships in their life work more effectively, whether that's at home or whether that's a business and whatever it might be. 

Chris Powers: Okay, I'll ask you a broad question and you just said the words, but why do people do what they do? Like is it nature? Is it nurture? How do people build internally the mechanisms at which they approach life, and especially relationships? 

Steve Cockram: Most people are unconsciously incompetent. They don't really understand the impact they have on the world around them. That's where I started. I had to go back and apologize to a lot of people. I used to think silence was agreement in team meetings. It wasn't. So I think what starts is you have to understand there's a nature component. I believe having spent 22 years doing it that we actually are born with a personality. I think it's genetic. I think it's the same way that your human genome is unique to you. However, the nurture story for all of us is unique and different, where we grew up, our parenting, our successes, failures, education, gender, ethnicity, whatever you name it as, there are so many variables at play, and then we have free will, we have choice. So, if you think about it, you and I have the same nature, and we have a lot of things in common when we connect with each other, but your story is different to my story and where we grew up and the experiences we have. So for me, I would say that most people, the first stage is becoming consciously incompetent. You suddenly look in the mirror and go, oh my goodness, this is what it's like to be on the other side of me. So self-awareness is the absolute foundation of others' awareness, and if you think others' awareness is where the relational dynamics are at play. So if you're unaware of the impact you have on others, it's very unlikely you'll be successful in relationships, unless they happen to be like you, and then you being accidental will mean you and I could be accidental with each other with zero self-awareness and still be friends. But I promise it doesn't work in our marriages. 

Chris Powers: How would you understand then... how would you become self-aware? Like how would you... it's one thing that people say like I'm self-aware, but how would you actually become aware of the things that you don't know you're projecting on people? They're blind spots for a reason because they're blind. 

Steve Cockram: So, there's two ways I always say to people. One is if you're brave enough, go and ask the people who know you. If you ask them, what's it like to be on the other side of me? What do you really love about being in a relationship with me and what do you really find difficult? That's quite a brave question. People have got to believe that you want to actually answer that question. So there's the data you can get from the people who love you. And if you're honest, they'll give you answers back. The other, of course, is to do a little bit of study and a little bit of work to go, how can I begin to understand how my nature shows up? What are my superpowers? What am I gifted at? But also, what are the weaknesses, the things I'm going to have to work at. And obviously, I became a Jedi master in Jungian typology which Meyers Briggs used and William Schutz did FIRO-B, and I've kind of added and layered over it. So you can go and get an expert to, if you've got two or three hours, I can give you one of my team that will unload who you are. But if you want to just get a quick and dirty version, 5 Voices, there's a free assessment that basically in 80 questions will get, for most of you, about 75% of the way there to nature. So that begins to give you a lens and a mirror. I would say that everything we've created is both a lens and a mirror. One is firstly to look and go, okay, this is who I am, but then a lens to be able to look out into the world and go, okay, so if this is true of me, how does that impact the relational dynamic I have with you, Chris, if I happen to know, I'm a Pioneer Connector, you're a Pioneer Connector. Well, that means we're likely to get on reasonably well unless we're competing. And then it's a fight to the death because however much we like it, neither of us like losing. 

Chris Powers: Okay. I want to get to 5 Voices in a second, but probably a lot of people taking this have taken a test. I’ll speak for myself. I have. I understand my nature, and I would say the work that you and I have done, I still make the same mistakes that we could agree are predictable mistakes that I would make, even though I've acknowledged I'm the type of person that would make those mistakes. So, it's one thing to take the test and understand it. I guess my question is, how do you begin to put those things into practice? 

Steve Cockram: So, most people start as unconsciously incompetent. You just have an impact on people around you, you just think that's just the way it is. So the moment you actually become self-aware, you actually become consciously incompetent. You suddenly start to look at the world and go, oh my goodness, I'm probably responsible for blowing that up, or my tendencies that are hardwired into my personality and nature, when I'm accidental, I have this impact on other people. But I always say to people, you can't get to conscious competence without going through the valley of being consciously incompetent because you have to actually look in the mirror, as people like you and me, we’re like 700 pound gorillas who think we're the sweetest thing ever, and we walk around in Kevlar body armor carrying a shoulder launch grenade and wondering why people won't play nice with us. I was like, really? Is it like that to be on the side of me? And everyone's like, yeah, no one wants to get on your bad side. And I’m a pussy cat in comparison to you. Here’s the thing, is to go everybody wants to know why would I want to become self-aware? Is the prize worth the price? Now, to somebody like you, I would go how much influence you want to have in the world, Chris? 

Chris Powers: A lot. 

Steve Cockram: How successful in the chosen career would you like to be?

Chris Powers: A lot. 

Steve Cockram: So in the sense, I go the only way you're going to maximize your true potential as an entrepreneur is to learn how you have an impact on people, how you communicate with people, how you're able to draw the best people to you and create environments for the people who work for you are outstanding and think you're amazing. So how attractive does that sound?

Chris Powers: Pretty attractive. 

Steve Cockram: So, I've sold it to you in a way that I know you wish to receive it. And if I'm talking to your wife, I’d do it differently. And different entrepreneurs are wired a different way, but a lot of entrepreneurs are wired like you and I. There are certain personalities that can live with chaos, love the fact they can build things out of nothing, and largely never want to work for anyone else. 

Chris Powers: But you have to go through kind of that valley of despair. 

Steve Cockram: You do. 

Chris Powers: It's part of the journey. 

Steve Cockram: You do. The problem with, so you as a Pioneer Connector, okay, who carries a huge force into every relationship, when I show you the impact that you've had, let's just take key relationships in your life, like with Jason, with Michael, with your mom, I'm showing you, I'm holding up a mirror and going, here, Chris, this is what it's like being on the other side of you, because you think it's everyone else's fault. And then you begin to get to the point where you go, crap, it's probably me. Actually, there is only one common denominator in all three of these relationships, and you like all of them and they like you. What's happening? And that's where I think when you went, I want to get better. I mean, I want to be the best entrepreneur I can be. I want to be the best business leader, husband, communicator. And if you can show me effectively how to see the green letters and numbers going down like the Matrix where I get choice, that's the big difference to your question. You still have to choose the action. And I always say to people, your tendencies are hardwired into your personality. They'll never ever change. The real thing for you is to go, I'm going to intentionally choose my action even if it's not my default tendency. Because you'll have some brilliant tendencies and some which are deeply unhelpful, and the problem is when you're as powerful as a voice as you, when you get it wrong, you blow everything up. And so therefore, maturity is saying even though I know I don't normally do this, I'm going to choose to do it. Now here's the answer. None of us are perfect all the time. It's really annoying. If I had a pill that made you perfectly self-aware and behaved, I'd be a very wealthy man. But what I can do is I can give you the most precious thing, I can give you the choice. You now have a decision which is, am I going to learn to become more relationally intelligent? Am I going to learn how to navigate the relational dynamics of the network of influence that I live in? And hopefully you'll look at it and go if I could do what you do and add that to my superpowers, I may never get to be 23 years expert on why people behave the way they do, but I promise you, you can become a lot more relationally intelligent. I sat in your team meeting this morning. It was outstanding. I'd celebrate you, and I'm not somebody blows hot air up at people's backside. I watch your team with nurturers and guardians actually saying what an amazing culture you created for them. So, you can do it, it's just most entrepreneurs focus all their energy on the place where they get the win that matters most to them. 

Chris Powers: And is it fair to say, especially from an entrepreneur standpoint, most entrepreneurs are not seeking to build better relationships until they've kind of hit some type of rock bottom or blown something up? What usually causes that kind of awakening to go, yeah, I should probably think about maybe everybody else isn't the problem, maybe I'm the problem? 

Steve Cockram: Most entrepreneurs have to fail at it and get to a place where the pain of what they are doing, the price of actual growth is worth the price they're going to have to pay because most entrepreneurs have to go backwards before they go forwards. Usually when you become self-aware, actually it's a really painful place to be because you look at all the relationships and all the people perhaps you've unknowingly hurt, manipulated, used, whatever it might be, because most entrepreneurs are myopic. It's like this is what I'm going to grow, this is what I'm going to win, and you're either with me or you're against me. And I think there's that moment where either through failure or they meet somebody who's strong enough to hold up a mirror, I mean, most people would be totally intimidated by you. I just smiled. I watched you on stage, some patsy in a marriage show, and go, no, no, you need to come talk to me, and I in two hours read your mail and said, Chris, I can help you, come over to London and spend a week with me. Well, people like you don't do that unless something happens where you go you  showed me something, but you also gave me hope that this can be different. And part of the reason I think why people are able to receive something from me far more than they do from the classic people people is I'm not a classic people person, I'm just somebody who goes you might as well make different mistakes than the ones I've already made, and if you, 15 years younger than me, get to have a better marriage and a better team, that would be amazing to me because I've reached a place where I go I actually probably take more delight in seeing other people be liberated and able to change the world than necessary I have to do it all now. When I was younger, I had to be the one who did it. I probably spend more time now helping other people do it. 

Chris Powers: This might be a dumb question or maybe the question you weren't expecting, but maybe if my daughter was listening to this, who's eight, why is it important to have great relationships? Maybe there's some people listening going like, I don't need people or I like just being by myself. Is that actually a thing, or were we designed to have great relationships? 

Steve Cockram: Well, I think the thing is people often normalize their own experience. So if you haven't got relationships, why would I want them? If you're manipulative, you probably don't have many. But every study, people who've written about happiness or even their kind of longitudinal Harvard study of like 75 years, it actually shows that human beings, the thing which actually allows them to be fulfilled and flourish more than anything else is meaningful relationships in their lives. It was the biggest determinant at the age of 55, how long you would live and how you deal with pain was not your bank balance or where you lived, it was the meaningful relationships that you actually have in your life. So, I would believe that human beings were created for relationship. We were made to be relational beings. And whether we really understand it or not, actually, it's in the places where we go, I feel you know me, not just the me I project on TV or podcasts, but the real me with all the flaws and all the insecurities and all the kind of foibles and addictions and all the things that we all come with, and you still choose to love me. So, when you have relationships where you are loved unconditionally, not for what you provide or not for who they think you are, but who you actually are, then all of a sudden, something happens in our humanity. So, I'm a relatively new convert to this, but I actually believe that we are at our most fulfilled when we're able to feel, when we're able to be, when we're able to actually go, oh my goodness, you choose to be with me, I feel desired, I feel known, I feel loved, which is not necessarily what an entrepreneur thinks they need, but I guess I also, in my old days, did enough funerals with people who it's interesting what people talk about at people's funerals. And a lot of entrepreneurs I think would benefit from almost forward fasting to the end and going what are they going to say about you when your life comes to an end and actually thinking about most people don't talk about how much money did you make, how much money did you leave the next generation to fight over and ruin their lives, or he was an arsehole but he got things done. The things people remember are usually about who you were as a friend, as a father, as a husband, as a business partner, as whatever it is. And it's uncanny how the things people talk about when they celebrate people when they're gone. We Brits are terrible at it. We never say anything nice until people are gone. Americans are much better at it. It's never the things that most entrepreneurs are chasing. So actually when you- it's nothing wrong with being, achieving things and driving things and making things. But there's a lot of people who end up with a lot of money and a lot of fame that are deeply unhappy. 

Chris Powers: That's almost the norm. To find somebody that's not that would almost be finding a needle in a haystack. 

Steve Cockram: Well, you probably know more of them than I do, but I would say that in my experience of working with high-charging entrepreneurs, you usually go, you can help me win. I go, I can. And then they find me helping them win means not just in their business but in the other areas of their life. I would say that the health of marriages is inversely proportional to the bank account success of the male entrepreneur. So something happens in that dynamic and I observe that usually success and money cause people to be isolated from other people. What do you want me for? It's very hard to know what's the agenda when I feel I have money or I have success or I have power. And what you end up with is a degree of paranoia, which is to go, well, does anyone love me for who I am, who cares for me for who I am, or are they all just on the take? And I watch people become very cynical, slightly paranoid, and you look at it and go, that's not what life is for. If that was what you were aiming for, then you probably set your focus in the wrong direction. I think it's possible to have both, but I don't know how you do it without some kind of tools and lenses and help because most people who are highly successful are the alphas of their entrepreneurial world and most people don't feel they can challenge or speak the truth to someone like you or people who listen and that's usually where people like me come in handy because I don't really need your money, and in a sense, if you don't want me to help you, well, I'm not going to be deeply offended. 

Chris Powers: Are you sure? I'm kidding. 

Steve Cockram: I always say if you manage to offend me, I will shake you by the hand and go, Chris, that was really cool. I'll probably... because it's a bit like going, I have Kevlar, and I also have a huge amount of grace for people like you because you've let me get to know you, you've let me walk with you, in the honest parts of who you are, and I still love you. Do you believe that? 

Chris Powers: That's tough. I don't know if I could do it if I was in your seat. You said who you actually are. So, most people think they know who you are... think they know who they are, but I think you would make an argument that most people are kind of living maybe it's like how other people want them to be rather than who... What do you mean by who you actually are? It's almost like you're talking about somebody being two different people.

Steve Cockram: Yeah, so I'll quote William Schutz on this. He was FIRO-B. And he said this, he said, I'm always thinking in pictures, so I’ll see if this helps. If you think of a lily pad on the surface of a pond, that is visible, it's beautiful, it flowers, that's what people see when they meet Chris Powers or Steve Cockram. That lily pad is connected with a root, it's connected to the bottom of the pond with a root thing, a stem, that's unseen, but without it, you wouldn't have the flower. And then there's basically what Jung called the subconscious and the unconscious. So there's things we see on the surface, those behaviors, those things people see are really predictable because of the drivers that we kind of can understand. So what I've been doing with you and what I've been doing with other people is to go, it's possible to understand what drives the behaviors people see on the surface. What gets more complex is there's an awful lot of stuff in our subconscious and even the unconscious which massively shapes how we behave, but we're really unaware of how that happens day by day. So early life development will tell you most of the identity upon which your confidence for the future is built happens in the first three years of life. Well, I have zero memory of the first three years of life, but I know somehow that obviously good things went in because I haven't had to have it undone. So for me, I'll often get people to say, tell me your story. So, if you think of nature, I'm really good at getting to nature, I've got a process, I learnt how to do that. Nurture is the story of your life. I mean, I don't know how many hours we spent doing yours, but it's incredible when someone takes the time to listen to the- I always say to people, what have been the key moments of your life that have shaped you as a person, as a leader, whatever it might be, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And if you do it chronologically, you see, because we store memory as visual, I can actually ask people, no, go back, what was primary school, what were some of those highlights, or high school, or when this happened, and I think I have some of the most incredible privileges of saying, I sometimes spend four or five hours with somebody walking through the life that they've lived, and what I'm really doing is I'm helping them pull some of the subconscious memories into a place where they begin to go, oh my goodness, my dad told me I’d never amount to anything, or that teacher, oh, look at the self-sabotage that happens. So for me, who you are, I don't think any of us really know who we are completely because there's unconscious stuff we just don't know, but I think there's ways of getting at perhaps not just what drives our behaviours, but what are some of the underlying experiences of our life or the choices we've made that allow us to have a far richer understanding of who I am. But you usually have to look in the mirror and go, I don't really like what I see, I don't mind what I project to the world, but I know that I'm a complex mix of all kinds of sins, temptations, ego. I try really hard to be as well behaved as I can be, but anyone who says that they don't struggle or occasionally feel insecure or wish things were different or feel like a failure in a relationship, I think what makes us human is when we can own that. It's not that I'm going to spill it all over a desk in a podcast and tell you all these things, but if you and I are going to be real friends, I've got to be vulnerable enough to trust you that I'm going to share who I am really, and what usually happens is we take step by step, and I go well, I'll share that with you, and oh, you didn't reject me, well, maybe I can share a little bit more. And what happens is those relationships become, I think, for individuals, particularly entrepreneurs who are very self contained, you don't need many of those relationships in your life, but you do need some in order to feel fully human, I would say. 

Chris Powers: Okay, this is a personal experience, but when you say like, you look in the mirror and you see the things you don't like, that's obviously, there's no human on the planet, because we're all sinners, that shouldn't be able to look in the mirror and find something about themselves that they don't like. I think, over the last few years, where I've gotten stuck is I really start focusing on what I don't like about myself and stop appreciating my strengths. It's not self-sabotage, but you get in this circle of just looking for every mistake you're making rather than... So, the question is, we can agree and acknowledge it's healthy to be self-aware and identify weaknesses. But how do we use those for good and not for this spiral of like I'm a bad person and that's who I am?

Steve Cockram: So, self-awareness starts with, we usually go, oh wow, that's what it's like being on the other side of me. But here's the thing as well, we also have superpowers. We actually have incredible gifts, talents, expertise, both through the things of who we are by nature, but also the things we've learnt and the skills we've developed and the things we've become masters at. So for me, the calibration for you of support and challenge is, Chris, this is who you are when you're amazing. These are the things that you're brilliant at. I so- you wouldn't have built what you built without some superpowers. So it's trying to balance the challenge, which is to go, but you can be successful and still not feel great about it. So how do you actually own and be able to say, Steve, this is- I'm really good at this. I have incredible skills, some of which I was given, some of which I've worked hard to develop, and some of it is just disciplining talent over time. But I also know there are things which, if I'm not careful, will sabotage my leadership or undermine my influence and almost cause me to be less than I could be. So the balance of those two things, so for example, if you think, I'm always saying, how do I calibrate those in a way that you feel empowerment and the opportunity to grow without effectively me just saying, hey, you're awesome Chris, great, no worries. So I would say it's really hard to do it on your own. It's a lot easier if you've got somebody who loves you and cares deeply about you but is actually able to help walk with you in the relationships of your life. And not everyone can have that, but when you can, I think it becomes incredibly valuable. 

Chris Powers: Is that why most entrepreneurs or CEOs have some type of coach? 

Steve Cockram: I think so. I think the wise ones will. Because in the end, leadership is lonely. 

Chris Powers: Why? 

Steve Cockram: Because unless you have a co-founder or somebody that you actually are talking with every day, there comes a point where you go, who's really on my team? Where do I get to share how I feel? And entrepreneurship is always a challenge. Let's put it that way. You're balancing a lot of relationships, demands, banks, blah, blah, blah. And most entrepreneurs, when they're honest, go, well, I've got my executive team or my senior team. I love them, and I share quite a bit with them. But I can't share with them how awful I'm feeling right now and how frightened I am for the future. If you have investors, they're not interested in, oh my goodness, I'm pretty close to the edge, this could all go, that would cause difficulty. And so, what a lot of entrepreneurs do first is they take it home, and it's great, Helen or Michael will sometimes try and listen for a little bit, but you suddenly realize, that's not particularly helpful because they don't have any way of helping me and now I'm terrifying them because they think the business is about to blow up. So you fundamentally look at it and go, okay, who do I get to be real with? And the answer is, for most entrepreneurs, you've been in YPO forums or you have a coach or you have a mentor or you have somebody who's been ahead of you, but fundamentally what you usually need is a safe place to talk out loud. You're an extrovert Pioneer Connector, you actually need a place where you can ideate and dream, where I know it's provisional. If you do that with your team, most of them think this is what the new direction is, and therefore they're already terrified of how it's going to happen. So how do I as an entrepreneur get to dream, ideate, how do I own how I feel? How do I feel frightened, sad, ashamed, like, oh my goodness, what's going to happen? If you internalize it without ever articulating it, it will never be healthy for you. So, I'm a passionate believer that you need somebody, but ideally someone who understands your business. So a lot of people, a lot of leaders I see end up with about five different people. They have a therapist, a marriage counselor, a life coach, a physical trainer, and a priest, kind of the whole gamut as it were. I don't know whether I'm unusual in the sense of going, I probably combine pretty much all those at some point. But I think most entrepreneurs need someone who's willing to understand their business, willing to understand the relational dynamics of their life, and actually have skills and superpowers that the entrepreneur thinks actually what you bring helps me win, which is usually what most entrepreneurs are interested in. 

Chris Powers: Okay, for the sake of a great podcast episode, we'll use the lens going forward because the people that listen are either entrepreneurs or people that work for entrepreneurs. So, they'll be able to take the answer to these questions and look at it through their lens. But why do most entrepreneurs, I guess, maybe not even entrepreneurs, what causes most relationships to go wrong? Is it communication? Because I don't think anybody listening to this has ever, assuming they're a good person, has woken up going, I'm going to make some bad relationships today. It's a byproduct of X that's happening. 

Steve Cockram: So, I often say I never did marriage prep with anyone who hoped it would end in a messy divorce and arguing over custody of the children. I've never helped- I've never met business partners starting out on a new venture who hope it ends arguing over intellectual property and who owns the money. So, something goes wrong because the intent was never pain and breakup. And I think you're right, I think that the absolute key is that communication begins to break down over time. And the hardest thing of all is when people who are used to succeeding have tried everything they know they've got and that relationship is not getting any better. So, I would say that people in relationships either miss each other, collide with each other, or in the end just give up on each other. And when you find that happens in one of the most permanent relationships of your life, it causes huge pain. So, when a marriage breaks down, it's not because two people really decided this was going to be the end, it's because they've tried everything humanly they have, and it gets worse, not better. And that's just a painful place. Same with business partnerships, same in teams, whichever relational dynamic you're in. I watch a lot of estranged parents with their children. So, nobody sets out to have a relational breakdown, but when it happens so often, it's because people have lost the ability to really hear each other, and there's so much baggage and hurt, that it's a bit like going, whenever it goes wrong, everything from the past gets dragged up and you don't get a fair fight anymore. 

Chris Powers: Is there a common reason though why relationships start to go sour? Is it communication? Is it lack of trust? If you've seen a lot of them go bad, is it usually around a few things that cause things to start going down the wrong end? 

Steve Cockram: I think it's kind of where there's moral failure. That often kind of triggers a catastrophe in the relationship. If you find your business partner has been taking money or whatever it is, it's very hard to come back from those. But I would say that the vast majority are people drift apart over time because they usually are very different personalities. I mean, opposites attract both in terms of partners we choose and also in business. And the reality is if you happen to be partnering or married or have a child, whatever it might be, whichever relationship you are thinking of right now, who is very, very different to you, the reality is you being accidental will not actually lead to growth. I mean, I'm married to Helen who's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, you know Helen. I'm a Pioneer Connector ENTP, she's a Nurturer Guardian ISFJ, whichever language you use. We had no tools at all, Chris, at the beginning. I mean, how we stayed married through the nightclub disaster I've no idea. We look back on it sometimes and I go I was physically present but emotionally and intellectually absent for about two years thinking how do I get out from under this thing. But what happened was, Helen and I would increasingly miss each other without any idea. I mean, I still remember when I gave her my first business plan of how we were going to change the world, and she sent it back within 30 minutes, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, this woman is incredible, this is going to be the most exciting partnership in marriage, she's going to fulfill everything I've ever dreamed of, and she's hot as well, and she corrected the grammar. And I'm like, that wasn't what I hoped would happen. And I think what happens is over time, we talk about expectations. Most people start a relationship with unrealistic expectations of what's possible. It soon becomes realistic, and then over time, becomes limited. It's like, well, I hoped I could have shared that with you, but it doesn't look like I can, and then occasionally we reach resigned where we literally go, I've tried everything I know, and this is getting worse not better. Do you want to hear the worst date night story ever? So basically Helen and I were going to go out on a date night, and she said, Steve, I just don't think we're going to be able to do this tonight. I said, why? She said, well, I'm just struggling with this, I'm struggling with that, and I'm worried about my dad. And I'm like, okay, well, good news is I can probably help with this. So I go, oh, this is slightly embarrassing, but I go into my office, wheel out the big whiteboard, because that's what I use. Wheel it into the- this is making you feel amazing. Wheel it into the drawing room. 

Chris Powers: Such a hero. 

Steve Cockram: I know, I know. This is going to make you all feel better. And I put the three issues up on the wall and I said, okay, so these are the three issues, here's the process and tools we use. I think we can have a great night, and we can do this in half an hour and then we can go out. And I'm thinking, this is going to be awesome. Helen's now in tears. She says, you do not understand me, you don't get me at all. And I'm going, you're right, I don't understand you, I don't get you at all, you've just told me what the issues are. I'm actually really good at this, people pay me for a living to help solve these things. I was going to have a dinner, hoping we might have sex at the end of the evening, but now it turns out you don't get me, I don't get you, I don't know where we go. Do you see that- at that point, I was really trying. I wasn't trying to ruin communication between us. But what I found was, it turns out, she wasn't looking for me to solve her. She was actually, the issues she was sharing were nothing to do with what the real issue was. She wanted to know would the person who loves me most just sit and be with me, not try and solve me, and just give me grace and a cuddle. I mean, like how do you know that? When I'm wired always, whenever you tell me, I think I can make this better for you. Well, that became the communication code. So if you think about it, there's a whole range of books and resources that are literally written out of what did I learn from failure, largely in trying to make a marriage work, that 32 years on, Helen would say, we're more happily married now than we've ever been. But we still have to work hard at it because we look at the world so differently, but we've now created a way that I can truly celebrate her superpowers. There are things she does which just I've no idea how anyone has that much patience to care for children, to lovingly sacrificially day by day by day take them to the piano lessons, take them to the dance lessons, cook healthy nutritious foods that always appear on the table at six o'clock, build incredible homes. I look at that and go like, we're so different, but the difference is she now believes that I think who she is is amazing. And rather than try and make her like me, I've actually learned to celebrate the superpowers that God gave her, and we've ended up creating some degree of synergy, particularly with our kids because they get the best of both of us. I'm very good at visioning big futures for them, but it's Helen that provides the metronomic drumbeat detail that turns a vision for being a concert pianist or a ballet dancer into something which can actually happen on the ground. So that's what I think happens in the best relationships, be it in business, be it at home, be it with friends, where we actually say I love who you are, and I'm going to celebrate the superpowers you have, I'm not going to try and somehow assume you have to be like me, or I don't get you. There's a lot of work required to actually get somebody, but they know when you've got them. I know when a wife looks like she feels cherished and loved by the husband, and I also know when she doesn't. I know when people who are in senior teams and executive teams feel like they're treading on eggshells around the CEO, founder, whatever it is, or when they actually know that this person is for them and is committed to helping them be the best they can be. 

Chris Powers: Okay, I think we're going to talk about 5 Voices for a second then. I think this is a good chance to get it in, but before we say that, okay, if you go back to that date night, and maybe you didn't have that epiphany 10 minutes after you made her cry, it probably was 10 years later that you had the epiphany. If somebody's listening to this and they're like, look, I've never taken a personality test, I didn't even know these things existed, is there a way for them to understand that common language with other people just serendipitously or on their own, or would you have to take something to really understand who you're dealing with and how they want to be talked to? 

Steve Cockram: So, I guess conceptually you could sit down with the person you want to work at the relationship with and ask great questions and jot down the answers. So you could do that. 

Chris Powers: And most people don't do that for some reason. 

Steve Cockram: No, not really. You could literally sit down and say, I want to be the best business partner I can possibly be to you. Can you tell me the things that if I did this, that will work really well? And what are some of the things I do that annoy you that causes to be a part... You could do that, but most people don't think that way, Chris. They just get frustrated that someone's not who they want them to be. So that's one option. The other option is to go you actually work together at a common vocabulary and language which gives you lenses and mirrors to understand what's it like to be on the other side of me but also how do I relate to you in a way that you would wish to be related to. I would say transmission of information is not the same as communication, because if I send you information without any clues as to how I want you to respond to it, when you respond differently, I just feel like, well, you weren't listening. It's not that. It's just I didn't provide the context of explaining how I wanted you to respond. 

Chris Powers: Okay, let's talk about the 5 Voices for a second. You had become a master of Myers-Briggs and what's the other one? 

Steve Cockram: FIRO-B. It's called Fundamental Interpersonal Relational Orientations and Behaviors. So, I have no idea who the marketing department was, but that's why that one didn't do as well. 

Chris Powers: Okay, how did you go from, which obviously it's kind of a universally adopted personality profiling, to thinking like there's something missing here? Like what did you solve by creating 5 Voices? 

Steve Cockram: So, the reality is, I always say the therapy is only as good as the therapist. So if you're going to do a personality assessment, find someone who's really good at it. There's an awful lot of people who are rubbish at it. That's another story. So Myers-Briggs is brilliant when there's an expert in the room, but it doesn't scale inside organizations or inside families once the expert's gone. And when Jeremy and I started Giant 12 years ago, we basically said one of the things we had to do was the new world is visual more than, or the digital world, and critically everybody is so overwhelmed and busy in this world, the only way we will build tools that leaders and individuals can use is if we set the benchmark that an educated 13 year old can understand it, use it, and teach their friends. So, Jeremy and I were living as two families in like a big country house in England like Downton Abbey, and both of us had educated 13 year olds. Mine was Izzy at the time. That's how long ago you know it is. And Izzy came to me, my eldest daughter, and said, Daddy, I love the fact I'm an ENFP. I love the fact I can use it, understand it, and that you've helped me grow up using it, but it's too complicated to teach to my friends. So doesn't that violate the principles that you and Uncle Jeremy say you're building Giant on? Pioneers never usually admit they're wrong in anything in public. So I go, yes, good question, Isabel. Let me come back to you on that. Well, what she'd actually pointed a finger at was to go, it's great when you're using it with us, but it doesn't scale. And you said, if you were going to build tools for leaders in the new world, it had to be for me. So, 5 Voices, believe it or not, and I still don't quite understand. It's a little bit like most people have a beautiful mind moment at some stage once in their life, but I actually started to play with the concept could I create archetypes of behaviors that were five rather than 16, was there a way of harmoniously predicting the voice order of how those five archetypes would play in order that actually was correlated directly with Myers-Briggs? Now even when I say it, it sounds rather convoluted, and there's a whole kind of four-month study that those who want to learn how to do it can. But what ended up was 5 Voices became simple enough to use without becoming simplistic. Because in a sense, with the five voices, I speak all five. It's just some are more natural for us than others. So, there's a direct correlation between the two, even though in order to prove the validity of 5 Voices, we couldn't use Myers-Briggs because most academia doesn't really think that- they don't like Myers-Briggs, but they love the big... I don't know. I mean, Myers-Briggs has spent millions and millions of pounds trying to prove to them it's legitimate. And actually, Big Five is the only personality that the psychologists and academia accept. So ironically, we proved 5 Voices using Big Five more than MBTI. They couldn't believe it when it actually came out with a higher correlation than any of the other assessments out there, particularly as I know how it was made. So like most hypotheses you play with it over time. Four years in, when we had to record the video series that were going to be definitive for each of the 16 voice orders, I made a couple of tweaks based on I think that reflects more what the nature is. So it wasn't pure hypothesis straight to end point, but the vast majority of them actually were able to be predicted simply by using type dynamics and archetypes from Jungian type. 

And most entrepreneurs don't understand how to celebrate the gifts that are very different to theirs. Kudos to you. I'm in a meeting with your exec team this morning. There are three nurturers and a guardian, and they are looking at you going, we feel seen, heard, appreciated, we feel collaborated with, you actually let us communicate the change rather than you try and do it. And I'm going, see, you can do it when you put your mind to it in the relationships which are most valuable. So, you created a team culture where everyone gets to bring their superpowers. 

Chris Powers: Can you go deeper there for a second? What me or anybody like me, why, while the message they have to deliver here might be the right one, why they should think about having different people on the team deliver that message? 

Steve Cockram: Yeah, so it's hard I guess, I mean, go and find the 5 voices, you can at least listen to some of the videos. 

Chris Powers: Everybody should go to the 5 Voices, take the test, download the app. 

Steve Cockram: 5voices.com. So assuming you have, there are 73% of people speak Nurture and Guardian as their first foundational voice, they're the sensors in Myers-Briggs language. They're the present detailed people. The nurturers do the detail for people. The guardians do the detail in relation to task and money. So 73% of people, when they hear somebody like me or you, hear charismatic visionaries about to lead us over the cliff into yet more oblivion. Because they are risk averse. Not they don't love vision but they are hardwired to ask difficult questions and be slower coming into the future. So, the reality is I may think I'm an amazing communicator, most pioneers think they are, my presentation is incredible, the piercing logic is staggering, but everyone when they hear me speak knows that I'm a great salesperson in their mind. So, they're actually on the defensive trying to find out, hey, remember you're about to be sold a timeshare, and I don't see the pain that other people experience. So here's the thing, the moment I am humble enough to realize that actually the way I communicate terrifies three quarters of people, even when I'm on my best behavior, why would I be the one that actually stands at the front and tries to share everything with the whole team when I have nurturers and guardians who are amazing at helping people navigate change when they hear it in their voice. Now when I hear it, it sounds dull, there's no huge amazing presentation, there's no fireworks, there's no wow, there's no pizzazz. But 75, 73% of people would rather hear change communicated through a voice and a personality that actually they trust more than they trust people like you and me. So, if I empower my team and I help them craft the message, so I always say, my advisory group, as I said before, is I'm a pioneer connector, I always go and talk to creatives but particularly gardeners and nurturers before any external communication goes live. The bigger the strategic change, the more I have to listen. And what usually happens is, what I think is simple, I show it to them, and they go, you haven't sent this yet, Steve, have you? And I go, what do you mean? And they go, well, if we receive this, this is what we would hear. And we're like, no, that's rubbish, that's not what I'm trying to say. And then the humble says, well- they ask me, what are you trying to say, Steve? And I say, well, this, and they say, well, would you like us to have a craft at the message? And then it comes back, and it looks nothing like what I would say, but what I watch is I gather everybody and go, guys, I inspire them with a sense of this is an amazing organisation, all the things that pioneers do great, and I thank lots of people. I want you to know I appreciate you, I appreciate you, I know all the hard work that goes on, and I name a few people, and I celebrate certain achievements, and I go, and I also know the next hill is going to be a tough one. But in order for you to hear the heart that lies in the details that lie behind the change we're about to make, I'm going to introduce my so and so, so and so. So I bring the guardians and the nurturers and the connectors up because they're better at communicating even though I think I'm a better communicator. So, the humility of an entrepreneur, which is not usually what we're famed for, is to realize we're not that great at communicating change, and actually when we communicate vision, we often terrify people, particularly inside our organization. 

Chris Powers: So let me challenge you a little bit there. 

Steve Cockram: Come on. 

Chris Powers: You, on one end, could say they're not trusted as much as a, call it a nurturer, guardian in messaging. 

Steve Cockram: Yeah. It's not integrity. 

Chris Powers: Yeah, not integrity. At the same time, you could say they command the ultimate trust because people are working for them, their careers are there. So maybe the question is, tell me about that balance. Why do we trust in one thing that's the thing maybe, but not in other things that are more day-to-day rhythms of how we talk to the company? 

Steve Cockram: I'm probably being harsher than is actually true. When we communicate, we do a good job. What I'm doing is saying, if you want to lead the team and the organization that performs at a level beyond what it currently is, the best cheat I've ever found for doing that is to actually create an environment where every voice believes in the company that what they bring as their superpower is heard, valued, and appreciated particularly by the alphas who often sit at the top of organizations. So, the reality is it's as much, I guess, me communicating in who I put up to communicate my appreciation and celebration of gifts and superpowers that are different to my own that probably actually reflects even better on me as a leader. Because don't forget, as a pioneer, I want to win. My conclusion was I actually win by occasionally choosing to lose, by not being the one who stands on the stage and gives it here's where we're going, this is what's going to happen. All that happens is people actually think more of me, not less. So, to your point, the relational trust for influence grows because they go, Steve is self-aware enough to know that actually we need to hear this both from him, but also from people in our own language and vocabulary. So if I'm honest, I may go, let the pioneer or the connector go up and inspire people with a vision of where we're going. But when it comes to describing how we're going to get there, that's probably the nuts and bolts which you're much better off passing on to the people who are going to do it but also communicate it. Always let them shape the message before you go live. They need to be part of the team rather than you just doing your bit of the presentation, then asking them to give theirs. 

Chris Powers: Okay. If I was in a bad relationship at work or at home or with a friend or with a colleague somewhere, what is the best way to start mending a bad relationship? 

Steve Cockram: I think the first is to go, what do I need to apologize for? So, if a relationship- 

Chris Powers: You have to get to a point where you realize, I have to apologize for something? You can't take the stance of, I did nothing?

Steve Cockram: Well, you can, but that doesn't usually go well in my experience. So, when things have got bad, they haven't got bad overnight. Communication doesn't usually break down in an instant, it breaks down over time, and people begin to get limited, resigned, and then they stop trying, and then they just become transactional. We deal with the kids, or we deal with the- we sit on the management accounts, whatever it might be. And then what happens is you realise over time that you've grown apart, you're not communicating well, and there's tension in that relationship. In my experience, you have to be the one, and the louder your voice, the more powerful the individual, you actually have to be the one who goes first, and you can't go with I'm saying sorry, but I'm not really saying sorry, I'm just giving you a chance to say sorry to me. They see through that, by the way. I want to come and go. I say, Chris, I'm aware this relationship is not the way I want it to be, and I don’t think it’s the way you want it to be as well. And I want you to know, I’m committed to doing everything I can to find a way to restore or make as whole as we can because where we are now is not life giving to me and I’m sure is not life giving to you. And what I want you to know is, first of all, I’m really sorry. I know I play a huge part in reason why we've got here, and I want you to know that, that actually in the end, I'm really sad we've got here, and I'm prepared to own everything of what my responsibility is now. The louder the voice you are, the more forceful the personality, the more power you carry, you have the duty of care. So once people believe you mean that, the question then is to say, well, how do we begin? Where do we go from there? And I would say, depending on how broken the relationship is, if you've got to a point where when you're in the same room with each other, it flares up really quickly, i.e., I haven't really forgiven you, because there's trigger points that when you mention that or this or the other, you probably need somebody to help you have the conversation. You need somebody to hold the space and just to create the context where you hear each other. Now if it's not too bad, particularly if you've got tools and lenses that actually allow you to have some degree of self-awareness, others awareness, I always know with Helen, I know something's gone wrong because all the nice care that she usually gives me is gone. And I'll say, are we're going out for dinner? I want you to know I'm really really sorry for whatever it is I did, said, or haven't done that's caused it to feel pretty transactional right now. I know it's on me, and I want, over dinner, I want to understand, I want to be able to say sorry, I want to be able to learn from it, and I really want us to be good again. So, you usually have to reverse in order to go forward when a relationship has reached a point where you're not happy. If you bulldoze in and say, right, this isn't working and most of it is you, my experience is that doesn't usually go well. 

Chris Powers: How do you gain influence in relationships, maybe as a leader? So let's say you, well yeah, how do you gain influence? What is influence? 

Steve Cockram: So, I think influence is where people value your wisdom, your insights, your perspective on things when they don't actually have to. So, it's easy to lead through positional power and title. I would say the influence is where people choose to follow you because they trust you, not because they have to because you give them a paycheck. So, I think influence is one of the most powerful currencies for any leader. I always say to people in the digital world, if you've had to use positional power, thump the table and go, I'm the CEO, I'm the founder, we're doing this, and everyone kind of head goes down and they droop out. Well, you've basically burnt a lot of your influence. You can get compliance that way, but you never get the dynamism you're looking for. So influence is the ability, I think, to have a level of integrity where people trust that what you say and what you do are highly aligned. I think the days when who you are morally and what you are as a leader, I think you're going to struggle to get away with that with the generation that are coming through that are looking at you and going, are you authentic? Are you for real? Have you actually managed to live long enough and where's the track record of the relationships of your life and what state are they in? I think that's what I'm seeing in the generations that are coming through. They're going, I don't care how much success you've had, if there's a trail of broken relationships, broken bodies, people who've burnt out because you've made them work 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. So influence, I think, is the ability for people to go, I want to follow you, I want to learn from you, I want your wisdom in my life because I respect you, I trust you, and on the whole, you have a track record of being somebody that is worth listening to. 

Chris Powers: Okay then, why do people that tend to have a bunch of metaphorically dead bodies in the wake and terrible relationships, why do they tend to hold all the power and sometimes have the largest businesses and the most money? You would think, oh, people like that would flame out and they could never get there, but they actually tend to be the people that go the farthest with some of these things. Not always. Why? 

Steve Cockram: I think because it's a very good question. I don't think there's an easy answer to it. A lot of them were kind of adopted. There's the common denominator of actually wanting to prove something based on nurture that someone told you weren't or you didn't have or an absence of that causes a level of drivenness which often is aligned with an element of genius that causes people to be some of these larger than life characters that we're all aware of. So, I think the question is to go, you always have to look at the relational dynamics of the people who work closest to them. I always remember we had a lunch with, a dinner with Jack Welsh from GE, for those who remember that. Everyone always asks the same question, why do you fire 10% of people every year? That's ruthless, cold heart. And he said, Steve, he said, everybody who gets fired knows it's coming. There's never a surprise. We always give everybody a year's grace. We're just saying at GE, you're either the best or you're not. And there's no disgrace if you're not. But at least he said people knew. You would never be surprised when it was time for you to leave. And I went, okay, I respected that. But I think that some of these alpha characters, whether it's Steve Jobs, when you read his autobiography, you go, see, why do you have to be such an arsehole to your daughter? I mean, how difficult would it have been to just be a little bit generous with all the... So I often ask the question which is to go, who is the most wealthy in a room? Who is really wealthy? I mean, you Americans idolize financial capital. How much money do you have? What are you worth? How much is your balance sheet? It defines a lot of people's identity. It stunders a Brit when we lived here and people go, what do you make? I'm like, I don't really make anything. I go, at the time, I'm like, well, I make disciples. And they're like, no, no, no, what do you earn? I'm like, you don't ask questions like that. We're British. But so, we tend to... 

Chris Powers: You care about intellect. 

Steve Cockram: There you go. We idolize intellectual capital. In Britain, it's not about how much money you've got, it's well, how did you make it? But I've often thought, in my mind, I go, look, financial capital is the least valuable. The people who know that, by the way, are people that have it. I have the privilege to work with people who have more money than they're ever going to spend in their lifetime and most of them would sort me in a heartbeat the quality of marriage, kids, relationships. So I usually to go, if you think of relational capital as infinitely more valuable than intellectual or financial capital, the quality of the life you lead is usually made up of the quality of the relationships you are able to establish, maintain, and develop and be the kind of person that when people tell the story of your life, it's the legacy you want to leave. Now if you want to leave the legacy that you were the richest man in the world, like great, go for it. But I still wonder what will be said about them at their funeral and what type of husband they were, what type of father, what type of friend, what sort of colleague, what sort of... So I guess it's which wall you're trying to climb or which way you put your ladder up against. So, for me, I don't envy, I admire... it's like Elon Musk at the moment, I mean, the guy's a genius. I mean, like I don't know how he does it all, but in a sense, I look at some of the other dimensions of his life and go there's a level of chaos. What will people really say who were close to him? I don't know. I'm not close enough to him. Donald Trump or people like that. There's always the question for me of going what is the legacy you want to leave as a leader? And I always say it’s worth deciding that early enough in life that you can actually begin to choose the way you leave and the way you live based on the legacy you want to leave. So, for me, how much money I leave is not really the most important thing. I want to leave enough that if I died, Helen would have enough not to have to sell the house and the kids for college or whatever it is. But there's a limit to how much, beyond a few million, really make a difference. For me, I said, look, and again, this is learned behavior, the thing that drives me day by day is to go, if I imagine that I'm 85, I'm going to give myself another 30 years, I'm dying and I know it. I've got two months to go. How many people in this world would I have been impactful and influential enough in their lives that not they would write me a card or send me an email, but how many people would drive, fly, or get a boat to come and say goodbye and to say I want you to know this is the difference you made in my life, you changed the trajectory of my marriage, my business, the way I dreamed about the future, the way I related to my kids, or the broken relationship that the things you created changed. So begin with the end in mind is one of my big things. So, if you're an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs are like and a business owner, it's really hard not to be intoxicated by the scorecard of are we winning and how's the money going. But at some point, you've got to ask the question, for what purpose? Cynic's good. What's your why? Because if your why is just making as much money as humanly possible, very few people who've made that their why ever end up happy, fulfilled, alive, and somebody that, at their funeral, there are thousands of people there who said, you changed my life. I mean, I'm always moved by the story when you describe your dad's funeral, and I kind of go, that creates a level of meaning and purpose that for me as a leader, anyway, is saying that's the legacy I want to leave, and if I don't make half a billion or a billion or five billion or whatever it is in my life, I don't really mind because in the end that's not where I probably define true wealth to be, but that may just be me. 

Chris Powers: Steve, I think that's a perfect place, and I hope one day that I'm able to say that at your funeral, because I think that's the legacy that you're leaving behind. Thank you for joining me today. 

Steve Cockram: Thank you. It means a lot.