How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Akeem Shannon [00:00:00]:
When you start to tell the story of your company or your business, your personal story and journey, the story of customers that you've had, ultimately, that connects with the human side of other people. No matter how high up they are and how big the company is they work for, at the end of the day, they're just people.

Kenny Lange [00:00:21]:
Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, a show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Akeem Shannon. He is the CEO and founder of both Flipstick Inc. And Akeem Shannon Inspires, llc. Just in case any of you were wondering what sort of corporation it was. After losing his college scholarship, Akeem leveraged his sales skills from a $10 an hour job to become a top sales professional and not just one, but two Fortune 500 companies. Pursuing his entrepreneurial dream, he scaled Flip Stick from a single mall kiosk to an ink magazine top 50, not 550. Fastest growing consumer brand, gaining support from celebrities like Snoop Dogg.

Kenny Lange [00:01:08]:
I almost said Snoop Dogg just out of habit. You know, there's. There's an old me that tries to rise up. And he had an appearance on Shark Tank, which I watched. It was awesome. He starts it off with a rap, and I think he won some sort of like on honorary award for first rap introd. Akeem's aspiring journey has been shared on stages like south by Southwest, ces, Fast Company, bank of America, and the Smithsonian, which sounds fancy. Welcome to the show, Akeem.

Akeem Shannon [00:01:38]:
Thank you. Thank you. The Kenny Lang.

Kenny Lange [00:01:43]:
I actually found the Kenny Lang on a couple of platforms because somebody snatched up my name. So, like, Instagram, look.

Akeem Shannon [00:01:53]:
That'S typically how it goes. At least you didn't have like 10 people Snatch names and you just had to be like, KL, the real guy, 6. So, you know, I should.

Kenny Lange [00:02:04]:
I want to make a T shirt now that says my handles are. Or like those people that. And if you're one of these people, Akeem, I. I would say I apologize, but I'm going to hold firm to my opinion here. That put that their Instagram handles on their vehicles. I don't know who these people are riding around thinking that they're promoting. I'm always like, man, did. Did life not go the way you thought?

Akeem Shannon [00:02:30]:
I'm really. Yeah, I thought it was a good.

Kenny Lange [00:02:32]:
Idea to have that.

Akeem Shannon [00:02:33]:
That's what the guy at the rat place told me when he sold it to me. So I'm just kind of, you know, taken aback, honestly, that, oh, well, you don't think highly of my life decision.

Kenny Lange [00:02:45]:
The short interview. See, we were talking about canceled, Bam, done got canceled over a stance on car wraps. Well, tell me Akeem, what is on your mind, man?

Akeem Shannon [00:03:00]:
You know, I just got back from Silicon Valley. I had an amazing week meeting, you know, with pretty much a who's who of all the top companies in the area. And the top of mind for me is, man, your story. The story you tell people determines everything.

Kenny Lange [00:03:23]:
That's interesting because you have, like you said, you're with the who's who, like the Googles, the Facebooks, the so and so's and we know them because of these huge like billion dollar companies that they've grown into. But they're old enough now that I don't think we connect with their stories. Or maybe do they even value storytelling? What did you walk away from being like? I mean, not that you're insignificant in any, but definitely insignificant in that town. Right? I mean you could say comparatively. But what did you take away that cemented for you? Because you do talk a lot about story. If anybody has followed you or watches anything from you, story is at the forefront of your, of your messaging. But what about that experience cemented that for you?

Akeem Shannon [00:04:19]:
So here I was, you know, Apple, GM, Coca Cola, Chase bank, like pretty much just Fortune 50 companies all around. And when you're in a room with executives, you know, of that caliber, and you're just little old me that no one's ever heard of, it's very difficult to get someone's attention for them to take time to sit there and talk to you, to have a genuine conversation. And I saw a lot of people moving around the room from small and medium sized businesses and they weren't getting the same type of attention that I was getting. But what was happening to me is I would talk to one person, they say, oh my God, let me introduce you to this person. You have to hear a team's story. And it just happened from one to the next to the next to the next to the next. And here I was getting warm introductions to all of these different executives. Why? Because I told one person my story and they just needed for somebody else to hear it too.

Akeem Shannon [00:05:21]:
And I think that, you know, when you have a business and you, it's not a household name, right, Like a Facebook or Google. It doesn't stand on its own, own top of mind for somebody that you meet when you start to tell the story of your company or your business, your personal story and journey, you know, in your business, the story of customers that You've had who have bought things from your business. I think that ultimately that connects with the human side of other people. No matter how high up they are and how big the company is they work for, at the end of the day they're just people. And I think that for me it showed me, oh, you know what, I think I still got it.

Kenny Lange [00:06:03]:
Yeah, it's definitely a good encouragement. So you may have just floated back. You didn't even have to fly back home. Now what you're saying sounds so intuitive, it's almost. Well, duh, right? Humans think in stories. We've been, you go back thousands of years. We had, we were exclusively a verbal storytelling oral tradition.

Akeem Shannon [00:06:30]:
Absolutely.

Kenny Lange [00:06:30]:
Exactly. We know all of that. But it seems like people highlight story people like yourselves that are just great storytellers and on stages. It's so different. But if it's so intuitive, what are people doing that's different? What is the prevailing wisdom that makes storytelling actually stand out and not be like, well, duh, yeah, that's what we're all doing. Doing.

Akeem Shannon [00:06:58]:
I think a lot of people don't actually value the story aspect. They in today's day and age, I think data and value is what we think about, particularly when we think about a company or our own business. We think, okay, you know, what can we provide? What are the value added services that we have? What are the benefits that we offer? What's the data that we have to back up this information? And those things are all important. Don't get me wrong, those are incredibly valuable. However, people hear that stuff all day, every day. And we live in an attention economy where people's attention spans are so, so tiny. They're so small and they want to move on to the next thing instantaneously. But what people do sit down and take the time for is a good book, a movie, a TV show, a reality competition about people who have never met each other but fall in love for some reason after not seeing each other.

Akeem Shannon [00:07:50]:
Like, these are the things that we spend our time and we remember. And the reason we remember them is the story that's attached to all of those other things that is like that throughput. And so I think that, you know, for example, I was, I was at Salesforce at the early part of the week and I was speaking to a number of small and medium sized suppliers to Salesforce. And you know, Salesforce is a very data focused, AI heavy, you know, company, very much enterprise software. However, you're still selling to another person. And so for another person to extract value out of there it has to be personal. And so I think the more you can make these conversations personal, the more opportunity you have for more conversation. And I think that typically when we just try to dump all of our features and benefits that we have on other people, they kind of take it, put it aside and then move on.

Akeem Shannon [00:08:49]:
But when we tell them a story that they can get behind now they're interested, they want to know more and they get.

Kenny Lange [00:08:57]:
Now something you said, you know, we're living in an attention economy, right? And different people threw it, throw it around the fir. One of the first people I heard that a lot from was Gary V. Or Gary Vaynerchuk for those of you who have been under a rock. And he, he talked. Something he said stuck with me a long time ago was a lot of the conversations he was having with executives when he was starting his media and marketing company was around the fact that they intuitively they bought. Like what you were saying is they paid attention to stories. That's what kept their attention. And then they went and they made purchasing decisions based on that.

Kenny Lange [00:09:42]:
But when it came time to sell, they sold in a totally different way. And it was a disconnect between how we buy and how we sell. And it's something that reminds me and I need to be reminded of this often because I'll get so nerded out on like, well, look, and this framework does this and it maps to the thing and the science behind it. Forgetting that I was like, no, I'm just talking to another human being who has a problem with like to make forward progress towards circles and maybe something I have could help them and let's figure that out. Do you find that a lot of people have that disconnect in between how they buy and how they sell and maybe that. I don't know if that's an oversimplification.

Akeem Shannon [00:10:28]:
1000% that is the case. I don't think it's a oversimplification at all. When we buy something, think about one of those viral products in the last 10 years that everyone is taking right now and everyone is buying right now. It's Ozempic, okay? Ozempic has taken the world by storm. Now let me ask you a question. Could you tell me anything about the chemical makeup of Ozempic right now? No, absolutely not. But I'm sure if you ask just about anybody, you could tell me about a celebrity, a famous person, maybe a friend, maybe a family member who has a story of how they lost X amount pieces of weight or a news story, you saw about how somebody did this or a story that you heard about how celebrities were hoarding the medicine and now no one can get it. So it must be really good.

Akeem Shannon [00:11:19]:
Like those stories are what drives the sale for that business has nothing to do with the mechanics of the product. And so I think that when we're buying something, we always look for that because I think in general we are, we are less statistical and we're more anecdotal. Right. We love to hear about an individual, their experience with the product or service. Then we really want to hear about an overarching percentage because we can't really connect. Most people, not a scientist, of course, but most people can't connect, you know, with that data. And that's why when you see, you know, Apple, when you see Apple run an ad, they don't talk about how many megapixels are in a camera. Apple never discusses that.

Akeem Shannon [00:12:06]:
Right? Apple never discusses storage. Apple never discusses how fast the processor is. They may tell you at some point, but you will never see that in an ad. It's not on the website. What they talk about is, here's how your grandmother can have a conversation with you and she'll even be able to figure it out. They recently released the feature where they allow you to remote into a friend or family member's phone to give them tech support. Like, are they going to talk about the resolutions and the speeds that you. They're not going to talk about any of that.

Akeem Shannon [00:12:41]:
They're going to show a teenager helping their grandfather figure out how to do something on the phone. Because when we see that, it triggers in our mind like, oh, I have a family member like that. When we see somebody FaceTiming, it's like, man, I would love to talk to my family member like that. We don't really care about what enables it and the features behind it and any of the data. We just want to know that it works and that it'll work for someone like me. And even though that is a product directed at consumers, the same thing happens on the commercial side. Just to give you an example, personal example, when we were going to Target and we wanted to sell Target our product, Flip Stick, little phone accessory. It's stick to the back of your phone.

Akeem Shannon [00:13:25]:
You know, we didn't go in and tell them all this, how it's a NASA based adhesive and it could hold £4, you can wash it 12 times. None of that mattered. What mattered to them was why are Gen Z customers not coming into Target? Why did Gen Z customers rather talk about how great Target is on TikTok. Rather than come into the store and buy something from the website, what if you had a product that was designed for those types of people that would drive them into the store and that was our sale to them. We will drive influencers into the store to buy the product in the store, to talk about getting it in the store. And ultimately that will bring that new customer base that you're looking for for your business. And then that's exactly what we did. And so for them, that is a lot more tangible than all the features and benefits and how much product we'd sold.

Akeem Shannon [00:14:14]:
Because truth be told, we hadn't sold that much product. You know, like all the numbers, they really weren't there to substantiate it. But what was there was a great story and they understood that we were reaching a different demographic, a demographic that they wanted to be driven into their stores and into their website. So I think that when you make things very personal and you talk about your potential, your past and potential customers and how that aligns with their past and potential customers, or how they can see themselves in one of your customers, it makes a big difference.

Kenny Lange [00:14:49]:
Yeah, because everybody's the, you know, it's said a lot, everybody's the hero of their own story and they're trying to figure out how to make that progress or get what they want. And if somebody intersects and says, oh, hey, by the way, let me tell you this story. Oh, yeah, okay. I could see, I could see myself in that story. I could see myself benefiting from that story. And then you kind of just, it's almost like falling into a stream. Is he just like, okay, well, I'm going to follow this a little bit like somebody else's, and then I'll go on my merry way. Like you're, you know, in business.

Kenny Lange [00:15:24]:
You know, the joke is, I heard somebody say it just this morning is, look, I'm not trying to propose marriage on the first date. Like, we're not asking for anything that serious. But let's, let's tell a story and see if we can connect and keep the conversation going. Because that's what, you know, as you mentioned, being able to network through a room or something else, you're not going to convert an opportunity. You're not going to make business right there. It's the follow on conversation. So you're always playing for that next one. And it sounds like story and telling your story or a compelling story about your company is one that can get you past that initial introduction and get you into real conversations where we don't have the distractions.

Kenny Lange [00:16:11]:
We're one on one. We finally get to talk. And I can ask you a few more questions about what's going on and how I could help. Because what people say, a lot of times it's not B2B or B2C, it's H to H, just like you were saying. It's human to human.

Akeem Shannon [00:16:28]:
Yep.

Kenny Lange [00:16:28]:
Because that's who's there at the end of the day.

Akeem Shannon [00:16:31]:
Yeah. I mean, I think one of my former managers, the way he used to always say it, he's like, we're not selling our service. We're trying to get more time. That's all we're ever selling is, can you give me more time? And I think it's very true. Because the more time you spend with someone, the more you know them, the more they know you, the more you each know each other's products and services and the more likely it is that you'll find like, hey, this makes sense for us to come together on this opportunity.

Kenny Lange [00:16:57]:
Yeah, that it's. That's so good. Now what, what are people missing? What, what is this downside? If they say, but, but Akeem, you don't understand how cool and great my product is and how many people it can help. And it's life changing and it's mind altering and particle physics or something. I don't know. Whatever it is that they think is so cool, what is it costing them to not move into story? Whether they've told themselves a story, that they're not great storytellers, which is a little ironic, or they're just saying, no, that's not. I refuse to acknowledge that that's how people buy, because I buy based on which thing is which specs are the best.

Akeem Shannon [00:17:48]:
Yeah. So I actually see this a lot. I think that most business owners, most inventors, most founders are generally great practitioners rather than storytellers. They're great at either creating the product, are running the distribution, are delivering the service that they've gotten down, and they're really good at it. And honestly, that's where their passion lies. That's what they love. What they're usually not good at doing is how do I tell that to someone else? Not in two hours, not in 30 minutes, not in 10 minutes, but in three. How can I tell them that in three minutes, but pack in as much information as I would give them in two hours? And so to me, what they're losing is they're losing the opportunity to even pitch the amazing product or the Incredible service.

Akeem Shannon [00:18:40]:
That's what they're missing because they never even got the chance. I was, I don't want to, I don't want to speak too many details here, but when I was at this event, I was sitting there and I was talking to a very large retailer, was there and I was sitting there chit chatting with them. You know, we had a great conversation, end up getting their email, their, their info, all that, this good stuff, right? Someone else sits down and they start talking to this huge retailer and they start talking about how they had entered the information to the portal, they had filled out the rfq, their company was more than qualified, they hadn't heard back from them, all this stuff. And as I was sitting there, my heart was breaking for this person because I'm like, you got the people right in front of you right now. You have to tell them something that makes them say, forget the portal, forget the rfq, forget all of that. We're doing business with you in the story. And that to me is the difference when you, if you may have the, the best thing since sliced bread, but if you can't even get to the next meeting, then you're stuck. And I think that in today, you know, when you look at decision makers, you know, within, within companies or even consumers, like, it's tough to get people to give you that extra bit of time.

Akeem Shannon [00:20:11]:
And so I always like to think of it like a movie trailer. It's like you have to take your features, your benefits, your story, your founding. You have to sum it up in a movie trailer to get people excited, to give you more time so that they know enough that they know what you're about, but they don't know so much that they're done talking to you. And so that's what I always try to do when having any conversation.

Kenny Lange [00:20:36]:
Right. Two questions come to mind. One's maybe more philosophical, the other really practical. The philosophical one is, does it, does this all just boil down to the old saying of people buy from those they know like and trust?

Akeem Shannon [00:20:55]:
Absolutely.

Kenny Lange [00:20:56]:
100%. Storytelling is a mechanism to create. It makes you more like relatable and influence people.

Akeem Shannon [00:21:03]:
Absolutely.

Kenny Lange [00:21:04]:
It'd be a great title for a book. The other is, and this sparks something for me, you mentioned founders and you're a founder, I've been a founder and hopefully there's a few listening here and they're listening to this. I hear you say, oh, okay, maybe I have them making it too complicated and going heavy on these features and I'm not telling the real story. Would you advise founders to seek someone that they can collaborate with, that maybe is naturally or has or has practiced the art of storytelling, or do you think that that's something that they should be developing within themselves and they should seek out coaching or conferences or some of the resources you put out. Which direction would you be advising people to go if they're listening, thinking, I'm not a great storyteller, so what do I do?

Akeem Shannon [00:22:03]:
I think that there's no wrong answer. Some people have it in them, you know, and they, they really can go out and tell their story and they just need a little bit of support, a little bit of help, some encouragement, someone to point out to them like, yo, that that's the real story. Like that's what you should be talking about. But some people just are not built for it, right? And they really do need either a co founder, a head of sales, a VP of brand. They need somebody to really come in and to deliver that on their behalf. And so I think it just depends on, on you as a person, what makes sense. I think for most people, they know deep down, like which one makes the most sense to them. So I don't think there's a wrong answer.

Akeem Shannon [00:22:44]:
But I often think about, you know, we talked about Apple. You know, Apple had two co founders, right? You had Steve Jobs, great storyteller, not a great coder. Okay? He did not build the Apple computer, he did not build the iPhone, he didn't build any of it. Okay? Steve Wozniak was the founder that built the actual computer. And then he had a lot of other people that built the products and services. So, you know, that's a prime example of a difference between a practitioner and a communicator. They don't need to be the same, they don't have to be. But every once in a while you do have people that are great at both.

Akeem Shannon [00:23:22]:
But I don't think it's not a requirement by any means. So you can do either.

Kenny Lange [00:23:26]:
Yeah, that's good. I want to pivot the focus of what we've been talking about, which has been sales, marketing, networking. Then those are all great things, especially if you are a founder. Like, you gotta hit the pavement and hustle and get things off the ground. But let's think about internally, inside the company leadership. You know, there's still a lot of people who favor command and control. And maybe that's what they grew up under. Maybe they're just a bunch of stressed out individuals and that's all that they can think to do.

Kenny Lange [00:24:06]:
And you got Other people who are trying to be a friend to everybody that they lead. So they're likable, but not really respectable. How do you think about storytelling and effective leadership?

Akeem Shannon [00:24:24]:
That's a great question. So I think for me, it starts at the hiring process, right? Like, it was very difficult for me when I first started to attract quality senior talent to a startup that's full of risk, you know, terrible healthcare plan, you know, I'm saying, like, is not a great sale. And so, you know, how do you attract the right people that are just going to work really hard for you and, and give everything to it? And I think for me, a lot of that did come down to the story, like my vision for the company where we started versus where we were today. My. My hopes and my goals for a company culture. I think as I told them about the type of organization I want to build and where I want to go with, with the organization, they saw the vision and they saw the passion, but they also saw how hard I was willing to work and how would never ever give up and how I expected the same of everyone who worked for me. So it was like, you know, I'm a big dreamer. I like to take chances.

Akeem Shannon [00:25:30]:
I don't have a problem with people making mistakes. I made plenty of mistakes. But what I'm not okay with is someone who's coming to be a manager are who thinks they're just going to sit back and make a report, because that's just not the type of culture that we build here. It's not the type of culture that got us here, and it's not going to be the type of culture that gets us to the next stage. So I think in your hiring process, when you are developing your company culture, you know, which is really where that storytelling, I think, plays a big role. You can set the stage for the type of people that you bring in. And then I also think that when you are working with employees in your company and you're trying to pull as much performance out of them as possible, I think it's very important. And I'm not sure how much this has to do with story, but I think it's incredibly important to have people that take ownership in the business.

Akeem Shannon [00:26:22]:
That includes giving them ownership, but it also just means like, yo, I am ride or die for this business. I own this. I love when I meet people and they're like, yeah, we have 17 locations. And they're just like a store manager, right? Because that for me tells me in their mind they're part of this business. They treat it like it's their own. And I think that for me, that is like, that's like the base that you have to start with within the employee is like, hey, you know, we're a family and we're building this together and we all take responsibility for what happened.

Kenny Lange [00:27:01]:
Right. I do a lot of work in helping companies discover and set their core values. And one that I use in a lot of examples when I'm teeing up the exercise is a company that used the phrase everybody makes a coffee as a way to say there's not a task in this organization that you are too high level, too good for. We can all chip in and do it. Now, do you have an area of responsibility? Absolutely. But it doesn't mean that you can't take your turn to make the coffee or something else. Somebody I interviewed on the podcast last year, they actually have a rotation and throughout the entirety of the company of cleaning the bathrooms, including the founder, CEO, to show, look, I will clean our restrooms, which might be considered like the lowest distinguishing task in the entire organization, but everybody does it and it gives them the sense of like, we're all taking care of each other and chipping in, kind of like what you were saying. Now, if we were to pivot that again further down.

Kenny Lange [00:28:14]:
So we get, you know, we got founders, we got other leaders inside. Let's think about that up and coming leader, that emerging leader. And what, what do you see in terms of storytelling playing a role in someone moving their way up in leadership? I think you gave a great example with the, you know, we've got 17 locations, right? That sort of ownership mentality. But do you think storytelling, whether externally, the way that they talk to those above them and their peers and so forth, or maybe the stories that they tell themselves, how do those play a role in someone's ability to progress their career?

Akeem Shannon [00:28:56]:
Yeah, I think it's fundamental, right. So I think of this from a couple different standpoints. You know, if you're up and coming within your organization and you are trying to get a project approved, you want to increase the budget of your department, you want to increase your head count. Like, part of it is your numbers, right? Showing that you've done the work. But the other part of it is the conversation and the stories you had with your direct manager, who's going to be the decision maker for that. And so when you, when you're putting together your pitch for why you should get an increase in headcount, why this new project is going to make sense, like the story you tell around that is cheap. Like, you have to be able to take your numbers and the data and explain it in a way that brings them over to your side. One of the most fundamental definitions of sales is to convince someone to the merits of.

Akeem Shannon [00:29:54]:
And so it's like, it's not just about the numbers. It's how do you convince someone to the merits of you running whatever it is you run within the organization and growing it. And so I think that that's like, that is number one. And I'll give you a quick example. So you mentioned I became the top sales rep at a couple of different Fortune 500 companies. And then I went to work for a big fintech company. And so when I was in fintech, I was in sales. Not surprising, but I ran our black affinity group for African Americans within the company, and it was the largest affinity minority affinity group within the company.

Akeem Shannon [00:30:35]:
And so when I was putting together, you know, how do we attract more black engineers? You know, how do we attract more black managers, senior management, you know, how do we create a pipeline from HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities into our organization? You know, when I was. Even when I was doing that, like, I couldn't just say, let's do this. And then people were like, yeah, let's do that. You know, this was a volunteer position, but it meant something to me. And so. And I wanted it to have more budget, and I wanted us to have more opportunity and bring in more speakers. And so I had to. I had to come up with the pitch, right? I had to come up with a presentation and a deck and pitch it in a way that showed, you know, my managers, hey, this has value.

Akeem Shannon [00:31:24]:
This has, you know, efficacy within our business. There's a business decision for why we need to do this. And those things work. They work within an organization. When I was at one of those Fortune 500 companies and became a top sales rep, you know, it always bothered me, some of the practices that we had that just didn't make sense. Some of the products that we had that didn't make sense. Now here I am, I may be a top sales rep. I may have won, you know, some big competitions, but I'm no manager.

Akeem Shannon [00:31:50]:
I'm no senior manager making decisions. And so it was, okay, well, how do I present myself in a way that I am viewed by my managers as not just a good salesperson, but as a thought leader that can provide value above and beyond just being good at sales? And so by positioning myself in that way in those conversations, ultimately it made them Say, you know what? Maybe we should listen to this guy. These ideas make a lot of sense to us, and it positioned me for better opportunities down the line. So I think that having those developing that skill to have conversations, especially if you're not in sales, but to be able to sell yourself and sell your division and sell your capability to add value to a company or organization is huge.

Kenny Lange [00:32:39]:
Totally agree. And I love that part of that definition that you shared. I hadn't heard that particular one, but it definitely rings true with the different sales organizations and trainings and stuff that I've been a part of. Well, Akeem, I think that there's a lot to digest, chew, then digest, because that's the order. I'm no doctor. I just Play 1 on TV. But someone listening to this is like, all right, Akeem, you have persuaded me of the merits of storytelling. What do I do in the next 24 hours with little to no money to take that step towards developing the skill of storytelling?

Akeem Shannon [00:33:27]:
I think it depends on who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. However, the first thing I would do is just write down, what's your ultimate goal? Not what's your immediate goal that's achievable. What's your ultimate, biggest dream goal for you to accomplish? Okay, and the next thing I do is take one. What can you do in the next 24 hours? One step. What is one step you can take toward achieving that goal? Write that down, make that your only objective, and then work backwards from that ultimate goal down to that first step and just write them down in order from most difficult thing to achieve all the way down to that very first step that you have. And then take all those other steps in that first one. Fold it up, put in a drawer. Don't worry about it.

Akeem Shannon [00:34:15]:
Just focus on that first step. And if you get that done in the next 24 hours, which you almost certainly will because you made it easy on yourself, I think you'll be encouraged to take that paper out the drawer and to move on to the next one. And I know that's not necessarily a story specific piece, but if storytelling is a part of that, then you can include it in there. But that's how I think of everything. And I've done some crazy. Some crazy things, you know, that make no sense on paper, but somehow I got to that end result. And the truth of the matter is, it was never all the steps in between. It was just one of them.

Akeem Shannon [00:34:53]:
It was just one of the steps that led to the end goal. But without having without having written them all down and gone through the process of taking one day at a time, I never would have achieved any of it.

Kenny Lange [00:35:04]:
Yeah, that's. That's phenomenal. I might add a little something to that to link it more to storytelling. Actually got some encouragement this morning along these same lines. So I don't know. God, the universe is something. Tried to tell me something here, but I think if you do take that step and you say, hey, like you said, you made it easy on yourself. You took a step.

Kenny Lange [00:35:28]:
Talk about taking the step. Like a lot of apps and digital people have a client that's in the ABM space, does a lot of the build in public. That's a huge part of his marketing and selling. And he makes almost all of his clients, came through LinkedIn because he's in his first year, sold a million dollars in services, which, I mean, to make it to 12 months, you and I both know, like, the failure rates of most founders and organizations. But. But to hit a million, I mean, the vast majority of small businesses in America are, you know, hitting 50, 60,000 a year. Yep. And.

Kenny Lange [00:36:14]:
And. But he's a phenomenal storyteller. But every time he's take. But he would tell you in a heartbeat, I don't know everything, he goes, there's actually a whole lot I'm keenly aware of. I don't know. And that's why I'm hiring coaches like me. He's invested in other coaches for different specialty areas of his business just to increase his knowledge. But he talks about it with every step.

Kenny Lange [00:36:38]:
He's like, hey, this is what I learned. This is what's happening. And I think that that also can be a demystifying way. That that was helpful to me because I was like, well, I gotta. I gotta conquer Mount Everest before I talk about everything. And once I finally shook loose of like, okay, well, I took a step today, and this was kind of neat. Let me share this. And other people might be on the journey as well and find some encouragement along the way.

Akeem Shannon [00:37:03]:
I could not agree more.

Kenny Lange [00:37:06]:
Well, Akeem, thank you so much for being a guest. It's always fun when we get to chat. A lot of energy. I don't know if we're allowed to be in the same physical room. It may explode. Um, but if people wanted to know more about you, more about your work and what you're doing, where would you send them?

Akeem Shannon [00:37:24]:
Yeah, so people can follow me pretty much on all social media channels at Akeem Shannon. Akm Shannon. And Visit me@akeemshannon.com and if they would like to shoot me a text they can as well at 314-789-9005. And I know you're going to put that in the show notes as well too. But yeah, feel free to reach out to me. I love meeting business owners small and large. We're just trying to grow and scale their business. Give my little two cents if I can help.

Akeem Shannon [00:37:57]:
But yeah, that's probably the best way. And I'll probably be coming to a stage near new a stage near you if I can speak right. I don't know show. Stay tuned for that as well.

Kenny Lange [00:38:09]:
Absolutely. Well, thank you again and to the listeners, thank you so much for spending a part of your day and your car ride or jog or whatever it is with us. I hope that this was a benefit to you and if it was, I'd appreciate a like a rate, a review, a subscribe, whatever platform you're on, whatever the right action is in part one. Because I want to make sure that I'm making things that are valuable for you and knowing where those things come from allows me to make informed decisions about the right kind of guests and conversations to bring back and to have. But it also could be a free and easy way for you to positively impact your fellow leaders. You never know which conversation could be unlocking a door for someone else and you promoting something may just put it right in their path and that would be just a beautiful way to pay it forward. Because leadership is hard, but we don't have to lead alone. But until next time, change the way you think, change the way you lead.

Kenny Lange [00:39:10]:
We'll see you.

Akeem Shannon [00:39:14]:
D.