Strengths On Fire

Sarah Collins (00:01.164)
Mr. Bill Dipple, we're here on a Friday. How you doing, sir?

Bill Dippel (00:05.915)
Love my Friday still. Every time I get a good Friday with Sarah jumping in with me, we're going to take some weeks off. We've got some holidays coming.

Sarah Collins (00:14.828)
Yeah, the holidays are coming up and we're going to take a little time off, but the listeners will not take time off because we've got podcasts for them.

Bill Dippel (00:20.957)
You will not, you will not notice that is correct. But I, I'm just saying that because I'll have to, I'm going to have to take today's episode and live with it for a little while longer to carry me past the next Friday or so, because you know, I'm

Sarah Collins (00:33.454)
So true. And by the time people hear this, we'll be into almost February, probably. Into February.

Bill Dippel (00:40.445)
People are going to be like, holidays, what are you talking about, Valentine's Day? you know, what holiday are you two taking on? That's ridiculous. So yeah, loving it. a good, having a great Friday. Super excited. I'm not going to say it about our guest today. I don't want to, I don't want to, maybe I, you know what? I'm going to prep it just a hair. Can I? No? You don't want me to? I'm just, I'm just, I'm so.

Sarah Collins (00:45.484)
How racing!

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (01:05.752)
Sure, I guess. Now you have.

Bill Dippel (01:09.573)
I'm tingly with excitement how much I get this to say this. We, we, you do, we, we have, we have the, the, the debate over what to call ourselves. think lately though, in the last two weeks or so we've solved it. It's arsonist or hotshot, but I am an arsonist. I am all in. I love the arsonist. I want to before.

Mark Ellison (01:13.932)
I made you tinkle?

Sarah Collins (01:15.726)
HAHAHAHA WOO

Sarah Collins (01:33.719)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (01:33.812)
Absolutely.

Bill Dippel (01:36.847)
Our guest even comes on today. I'm going to say number one arsonist, the arsonist that has listened to every podcast and many of them multiple times. He also comments on our Spotify frequently. We actually got to find out who he is and he goes, I'm not going to say his name right now. I'm going to say.

Sarah Collins (01:51.203)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (02:03.71)
teaser.

Bill Dippel (02:04.645)
I'm going to tell you that his name when he is doing the comments on Spotify is Marcus Aurelius. So if you go look at the Marcus Aurelius quotes, you'll now have a voice to go with that. I'm just saying I'm super excited. We get to meet an arsonist number, I'm kind of saying like our number one arsonist. I'm in, I am in. He loves it.

Sarah Collins (02:14.221)
you

Sarah Collins (02:26.766)
Top fan, top fan.

Mark Ellison (02:28.878)
That just like, you know, sets me up for, you know. I really have to bring it now, yeah.

Bill Dippel (02:31.899)
Yeah. Knowing it, knowing it well. Yeah, I totally agree. yeah. hit me. All right.

Sarah Collins (02:32.546)
Success. Yeah.

Okay, well I have a question for both of you because Mark you can go ahead and jump in here too. You know the the rodeo and I've got one for you. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? What's your strategy?

Bill Dippel (02:56.765)
wow. I'm going to fight one. Horse sized duck. And the reason is. Sarah, I don't think you know this about me. I. I don't like horses. It's not that I it's not that I hate horses. I actually really love. I like horses a lot. I you could, you know.

Mark Ellison (03:05.247)
and

Sarah Collins (03:14.414)
so a-

Bill Dippel (03:24.157)
There are so many reasons I like horses, been around horses. They frightened me. I don't like being in an arena with an animal that can just kick me and kill me. I just don't. And I haven't since I was pretty young. So I am just saying that, anytime I can get in an arena with a duck instead of a horse, I am and not a hundred horses. I don't want to end. I don't know. Mark, what do you think?

Sarah Collins (03:28.814)
you

Sarah Collins (03:33.111)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (03:37.741)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (03:46.478)
I gotta go the other way. I gotta go the other way. I love horses and so just you know we'll get that out of the way but duck-sized horse I'm not really afraid he's gonna kick me and kill me

Bill Dippel (03:58.125)
Exactly. That's why I'm taking that, right?

Mark Ellison (03:59.726)
I mean, it'll be a little bit of a nuisance on my heels, but I mean, that's a really big duck. I mean, really, what do you do to that duck? And ducks get angry, like more so than horses most of the time.

Bill Dippel (04:04.103)
That's a big duck. Yeah. they get mad. Yeah, they get mad. They got the wing thing going on. They got the biting nipping. Yeah, the nippy thing and you know,

Sarah Collins (04:04.439)
really big duck.

Sarah Collins (04:12.142)
That big beak?

Mark Ellison (04:14.67)
Yeah. But I would, mean, I love little horses, know, you know, Shetland ponies and stuff. No, it'd great.

Sarah Collins (04:19.626)
Mm-hmm. So you would do the hundred duck-sized horses.

Bill Dippel (04:21.234)
Marks.

Mark Ellison (04:22.998)
I'll do the 100, I'll do the 100 depth-side forces.

Bill Dippel (04:27.195)
Wow. That's see, I just think I'm getting kicked. I'm getting kicked a hundred times right there at the same time. I can't, I don't know what it, and much respect to all the horse people out there. Love it. I even mentioned on a previous podcast episode, I would love to jump into the Yellowstone stratosphere as a show that I wouldn't mind jumping into and checking out. I really like that culture lifestyle, right? And I get that. but there is just something about me being in an, in an arena with a horse.

Sarah Collins (04:29.262)
Two different answers.

Sarah Collins (04:49.016)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (04:56.593)
where I am always avoiding the back end, like completely away from it. And I know so many people are like walking right up, doing everything they need. I, for some reason, it is an irrational fear of mine. So.

Sarah Collins (04:59.182)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (05:08.182)
It's okay. You don't have to, you, it's okay. We know that you respect the horses and you also have a bit of fear and there's no shame in that. This is a safe space. It's okay.

Bill Dippel (05:13.159)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (05:16.657)
Yeah, totally. And I love writing them. I just don't want to be around them. And if they're kicking me or...

Mark Ellison (05:22.968)
See, I just think the chaos of it sounds fun.

Sarah Collins (05:23.758)
Well, it does say fight.

Bill Dippel (05:26.715)
You think you say that again mark you think what sounds fun?

Mark Ellison (05:28.492)
I think the chaos of it sounds fun. Yeah, well, no, like when you go to the rodeo, you know, you have a rodeo here in Reno every year and, know, when they do like the, they do the, the company event where they have to, you know, catch the tail of a cow and you've got like 30 companies out there trying to catch, you know, a steer and tie a ribbon on its tail. I mean, it's awesome. It's just, it's crazy chaos and it's That's, that's where I'm at with the hundred horses. I'm just, I'm, I'm all in on the hundred horses.

Sarah Collins (05:30.338)
the chaos of a hundred duck-sized horses.

Sarah Collins (05:45.144)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (05:52.135)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (05:52.918)
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Bill Dippel (05:56.527)
Wow. He's it. I, I respect that. I totally, I totally and completely respect that. So now, now let's, let's, let's make that happen.

Sarah Collins (05:58.54)
All in.

Sarah Collins (06:02.114)
Well, now let's put some context to the voice in the room. The number one proudest arsonist that we have met to date. Mark, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Bill Dippel (06:10.683)
Yes, yes, Mark.

Yeah, Mark, want you, can you hit us? Start by telling us your top 10, right? I want to know what those are and then talk a little bit about who you are. How did you get to where you are? How did Celtic fish get its name? That's obviously about to come up here in a moment. How did, you know, well, you know, there's a lot of stuff I want you to, I mean, I, you hear us all the time. I want to hear from you. So, so hit me.

Mark Ellison (06:19.927)
Okay.

Mark Ellison (06:31.15)
This is like 25 minutes of questions, man.

Mark Ellison (06:39.554)
All right, let's start with the top 10. So my top 10 are learner, adaptability, restorative, achiever, communication, woo, responsibility, productivity, context, and included.

Bill Dippel (06:57.937)
We'll take productivity. I don't want to take that away. He took productivity. It's not a Gallup theme, but I'm going to take it because I happen to know you to be a really productive guy.

Sarah Collins (07:00.046)
product.

Mark Ellison (07:00.286)
Or sorry, yeah, sorry, positivity. I don't know why I said that. I know what the word is.

Sarah Collins (07:06.456)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (07:10.861)
I am.

Sarah Collins (07:10.882)
He's got that achiever in there. He just flipped that positivity to productivity.

Mark Ellison (07:13.676)
I did it. Multitasking.

Bill Dippel (07:14.811)
He did. He just ran with it. But, I also know Mark is being pretty positive. So, and, and I should let, I should let our listeners know too, aside from being super excited at the, at who we have on today, Mark, this is going to be a little different episode. Mark's fairly new to the Gallup culture. We have aimed this at, strengths enthusiasts, people that tend to be strengths aware, wanting to dive deep into it.

Mark Ellison (07:19.446)
I try. But yes, positivity.

Bill Dippel (07:41.181)
Mark has only recently assessed and has just done his basic strengths discovery with me from a coaching point and then we're going to start bringing in the people at where Mark works in order to build on that on that momentum. So today's a little bit of a special episode for those of you that are in that same boat. Hey, I wonder what this looks like when it starts. How might we build that momentum? What does it look like for someone that just did it? Mark's a perfect example of that. So so thanks.

Thanks, Mark, for coming on and being willing to jump into that strange framework. I love it. I love it. All right. So we've heard your top 10. Talk about you. How'd you get here?

Mark Ellison (08:12.087)
no, I'm excited to be the guinea pig for this. This is gonna be great.

Sarah Collins (08:14.816)
Yeah.

Mark Ellison (08:19.598)
Well getting here, so I've been an electrician for 24 years now Mostly in the Reno area and for the last seven years I was running another company and The culture wasn't where I wanted it and I couldn't really control what my boss was doing and I didn't really have a way of making that those changes happen that I wanted to see and After a while you just reach a point where it just doesn't feel like you can salvage something

he was, you know, it was a two state company and he was running the California portion and I was running the Nevada portion and it just wasn't an equitable, you know, we, we, we weren't getting along anymore. And he and I were friends before that and I didn't, I didn't want to keep being angry every time he called me. And I knew he felt the same way that every time I called him, he was just like, my God, he's on, what do we have to talk about now? And it was a terrible place to get to. And we just, I decided it was time to break away.

I had had several people over the last three or four years talk to me about becoming a contractor myself and so I decided to go ahead and start taking that leap and I got my license this year and so we broke away and started our own company in September.

Sarah Collins (09:37.228)
Wow, so you are a fresh entrepreneur. Congratulations.

Mark Ellison (09:41.122)
I am. This is all brand new. But then as far as the strengths portion goes, really, Bill's in my business networking group that I've been a member of and Renee was in the group before Bill. And so I'd gotten to know Renee a little bit, but Bill is his woo, just makes it a little bit easier for me to get there with him. And so I finally decided I'd go ahead and.

take a shot at the assessment, because I want to improve. That's always a thing I'm striving for. so I went ahead and took the assessment, what, one month and nine days ago. That's how rookie we are. So as soon as my report printed, I started reading through it I was just immediately, my God, that's me on paper. And that was fantastic. And then when Bill and I had our first meeting, one of the sheets that he gave me was this,

Bill Dippel (10:20.987)
Yep. Yep.

Sarah Collins (10:23.106)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (10:37.848)
theme contributions and needs.

Bill Dippel (10:41.435)
Yeah, for the traditional I bring, I need sheet that comes out of the cascade reports for coaches.

Sarah Collins (10:46.851)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (10:48.782)
And as I was reading through that at our first coaching session, was just, you know, the entire column was, yeah, that's what I didn't have. That's what I didn't get. That's what my previous boss didn't give me at all. And so as soon as we got done with our appointment, I came back to the office and I made three copies of it and I gave it to my partners. And I said, this is exactly why my last company just didn't work out at the end. And I'd rather you guys understand, this is what I bring to the table, but this is what I need from

Sarah Collins (11:02.892)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (11:19.106)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (11:19.368)
And soon as I handed it to them, they started reading through it and they were just like, my God, where'd get this? And so that's gonna lead us into, my partners are gonna take the assessment right after the first of the year and then we're gonna start working with Bill to build that culture from the top down. And our goal is to get to where every new employee we bring on, part of their new hire packet is gonna be taking the assessment on their first day so that we can work them in and.

Sarah Collins (11:45.815)
Wow.

Mark Ellison (11:48.386)
have an understanding and a language that we can communicate with.

Sarah Collins (11:52.31)
I just have to give you major kudos. mean, first of all, to leave a company and a job that you'd been at for seven years, and it sounds like you were pretty high up working closely with the owner, the boss, and to leave takes a ton of courage. I mean, I know so many people out there get frustrated in their work, but they are almost more comfortable in the misery than the uncomfortability of leaving.

even for potential happiness. for like super kudos starting your own thing, which takes so much lift and courage and resilience. And then to also be on a growth, a personal professional growth path where you say, I want to improve and I want to get better. You have the opportunity to meet Renee, to meet Bill, to take this assessment and say, yes, I recognize, right? I, the things I need, I wasn't getting.

I have so much to offer, bringing it to your own leadership team, then having the great intention and forward thinking to making a part of the onboarding process. You can truly get to know the people on your team. They can know themselves and y'all can work better together. I just think it is so cool. And I just, again, major kudos to you because all of that stuff takes immense bravery and foresight and future thinking.

Mark Ellison (13:19.352)
Thank you so much. appreciate it.

Bill Dippel (13:20.761)
Yeah, I, I absolutely resonate with that Mark and that, you and I are part of a networking group. I've seen you Excel, Mark Mark's under Mark's hiding the lead a little bit. He's actually the president now of that, of that networking group. So getting to see Mark in action and corral the cats that is this networking group, but also see how he's working hard towards how he's moving.

his business forward and starting to talk to him about how that worked during our strengths discovery sessions. I think that really resonated a lot with both of us that I bring I need and it was such an easy mark. Easy mark an easy mark for Mark. It was an easy way for Mark to understand what he was not getting in that previous commitment that previous job and what.

Sarah Collins (14:01.774)
You

Mark Ellison (14:04.728)
support.

Bill Dippel (14:12.337)
He really knows now, wait, I can focus on these things in the new one. I can look at these and say, I absolutely am going to bring this to the table. But in order to do those things, want to, I need you to know that these are the things that I will need in there, right? I need to have moments where I can expand in these ways. Mark, so one of the things I heard right when you were starting on that, particularly with your old boss was,

how that might have flown in the face of your positivity, right? Which positivity is high for you. And I'm on a phone call, but I don't want to be on this phone call. I don't want to butt heads with you, right? It's not that I don't appreciate or understand what we're talking about together, but I don't want to go to a place where my positivity is about to get stepped on. Does that resonate with you? Do you think that's something that probably played out from a strengths point of view for you?

Mark Ellison (14:46.766)
God, yes.

Mark Ellison (15:11.486)
no, absolutely. It, it, and it became a occurrence. And I'd be willing to bet, you know, if my former boss had taken the assessment, positivity would not be one of his top 10. It probably wouldn't be one of his top 30. and he's very analytical. There's nothing wrong with them. Like I said, we were friends. And when I gave him my notice, I told him my hope was that, you know, if I leave now, we can still salvage that.

And that really was a hope, you know, I want that relationship to be there. Because I valued him, I've known him for years even before I went to work for him. And so far that hasn't played out, but we'll see. It's still fresh, it's been less than four months.

Sarah Collins (15:58.498)
Yeah, does that kind of kill your woo, right? Woo is winning others over and sometimes the woo's, we really like people to like us. And so it can be hard even if we're like, there's good reason here, right? There's some tension, we had some work things, it makes sense. Logically, we can see that, but the woo can still be like, but please like me.

Mark Ellison (16:19.246)
It is a tiny bit, but I guess what's taken the place of that is the one thing that I have found is that every one of my former employees, anybody I ever had to like lay off when we got slow, anything like that. And then everybody that I had to behind, you know, crew wise is still calling me. They still love me. They're like, I'll come work for you any day. So I get that build back up. So my positivity is still flying high from that. just.

Sarah Collins (16:43.864)
Yeah.

Mark Ellison (16:48.886)
I understand that he's upset right now because this happened. And it is one of the sad things as you go through my profile, my activator is 34. I don't do, I don't jump. I want to investigate it. I want to think about it. I want to learn everything I need to know. I want the context. want to look at the history of everything before I'm going to jump into it. And...

Sarah Collins (17:01.944)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (17:16.5)
If my activator hadn't been quite so low, I realistically probably could have made the jump to do the strength assessment over a year ago and gotten with Renee about it. And maybe I could have talked him into doing it and we could have salvaged that without me changing companies even, if we really could have gotten to a place where we had this language. And so it's another one of those,

Sarah Collins (17:42.658)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (17:45.454)
I'm looking backwards and I don't want to make the same mistakes a second time. That's one of the reasons why as soon as I got back to the office, I was like, no, I'm making copies. You guys need this. even made a copy for my wife.

Sarah Collins (17:56.514)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (17:56.685)
of course. And we work with couples all the time. So many times we start working with a group and then inevitably people in that group are like, gosh, it wouldn't it be great if I could have my other half take this? Like, how does it work in the relationship side? And we do it all the time. Absolutely do it. we even, I'll even claim a marriage for another group. had a friend of mine had his new girlfriend go through it so that they could communicate at a better level. And then at the wedding.

She actually used her strengths terms as part of her vows and looked at me in the, in the crowd to, to make that happen. So I'm just telling you, I love Mark that you've shared it. Absolutely love that you've shared it with your other half because you don't turn off at five o'clock and become someone different. You still got to take it home and you're going to be that same person.

Mark Ellison (18:32.45)
That's awesome.

Mark Ellison (18:42.643)
no, I don't shut anything off at five o'clock.

Bill Dippel (18:45.276)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (18:45.932)
Yeah. Well, and I just want to dig into your strengths here because I think there's some really fascinating things to think about. So you can hear that learner, included, right? Learner loves to learn for the sake of learning. And what I was talking about was context, not included, which is right under it. But the context you said, you see that, right? Like I want to know the information. Maybe sometimes

makes things slow and diligent for you because you're in the process of learning everything and making sure you have all the information. Is that right? Yeah. But you've got high restorative, high achiever, high responsibilities. So I imagine you are a productivity king.

Mark Ellison (19:16.824)
constantly.

Mark Ellison (19:28.138)
Absolutely. And purely for the goal of like, I just want to see it get done. I just want to see how much I can get done today.

Sarah Collins (19:35.15)
Which is such an achiever thing, right? Start every day at zero and see how much we can.

Mark Ellison (19:41.31)
god, but it really stays with the stuff that I know. That's, know, going back to that whole activator jump, like I just don't jump into things that I'm not already a part of and not really familiar with. But no, having all my other strengths in my top 10 play into, I get things done.

Bill Dippel (19:41.713)
Knocked him down, right?

Sarah Collins (20:01.048)
Yeah, yeah. Are you nervous? Has that gotten in your way in the past? And are you nervous as a business owner about this now, right? Because sometimes that achiever responsibility, because these people are so productive and they can do so much, they do do so much. And there are a lot of yeses. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

This is where we sometimes see people burn out because they have this high ability to produce and sometimes at the detriment to themselves. Now we know entrepreneurs, especially starting a new business, you're only a few months in, you need to be on and producing a lot, right? There's a lot at stake here. So what does that look like for you in terms of making sure you don't burn yourself out?

Mark Ellison (20:52.91)
What that looks like is 20 months ago. It's exactly where I was at. 20 months ago. I had, you know, was running the Nevada Division of the company and so I was doing, I was the estimator. I was doing all the job walks. I was ordering all the material. I was overseeing everybody in the field. I was the head of billing. I had to get all, I had to do all the detailing for billing and then all that somebody did was type it up for me.

Sarah Collins (21:00.558)
Mmm.

Mark Ellison (21:20.416)
I did the schedule for all of my crew. just, I mean, tick them off. And then on top of all of that, I was still doing BNI. I was doing leadership in my BNI group. And I'm a member of the local union here in Reno, the electrical workers union, and I'm an elected officer for the local union. I'm the chairman of the examining board that administers the journeyman test. And so I was hitting that point 20 months ago.

Sarah Collins (21:42.168)
Hmm?

Mark Ellison (21:46.068)
And I actually had a day where I just finally lost it on my boss. Like he happened to be in my office. He wasn't in California. He was here. And he was complaining at me that the billing wasn't caught up. And I was like, okay, you're finally here. We're going to have this conversation. And I started walking him through his own, like, this is the system you put in place that you stuck me with. This is how you wanted me to get your billing done. Okay. And.

I was losing my temper and I don't normally lose my temper and I was just escalating and escalating. was like, I've got a lunch meeting to go to. I said, no, you're not leaving. You're staying here and we're going to get to the end of this subject because I want you to see this. This is what you've done to me. This is what I've become because this is, know, I mean, I know I took this on, but you haven't given me what I need. And it was the first time I ever really just like completely acknowledged that no, I'm past that point. I can't do it.

And by the time I was done, I ranted and I showed him every step of his whole thing. I gave him examples. And that's that whole communication and learner. You're gonna take this from me and I'm gonna get it out of my head and into yours. he, by the end of it, was like, nobody can keep up with all that. And I said, that's what you've been asking me to do for six years. So that's why it's behind. That's what you're dealing with.

Sarah Collins (22:51.48)
Right.

Bill Dippel (23:04.796)
Yes.

Sarah Collins (23:06.562)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (23:07.441)
Yes.

Mark Ellison (23:08.866)
That was when I finally realized, okay, I can't do all of this stuff. You're going to have to start giving me the help. So he hired me an office assistant and she was fantastic and that helped to make it better for the last year. but it was kind of too late by then. And you know, like I said, it's, it's no, it's not a knock on him. I, he's still a great guy. He's a fantastic electrician. I don't think he's the best business person. but

he we just we had gotten too far apart to work together anymore. And so when we were getting ready to make this change and start our own company, I had to just know right from the get go, we're going to make sure that all of these duties are doled out. I'm not taking all of them anymore. And so because I had that breakdown already,

I know better than to, so I'm growing from it and I'm learning, I learned from it and I have that context now to do it better this time around.

Sarah Collins (24:05.518)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (24:12.012)
And I want to just point out for the listeners, this is such an important thing to hear because when we have high achiever, high responsibility people on our team, like you Mark, it is so easy to almost unknowingly take advantage of them because they're so capable and often so willing. And in reality, you probably should have said something before you got to that point, right? But like you,

you're just like taking it because you can. And we then put ourselves as business owners in a, in a bad place because we are at risk for losing some of our highest productive, highest achieving people when they can do it. And we just keep relying on them to do it. And that's like what happened with you. You were just doing it and doing it. And because there wasn't maybe the

the insight to do something like this, to have those conversations, to see the weight and pressure you were under, it then sort of is like snaps, right? You're just like heavy, heavy, heavy. And ultimately that's why you left. And so now you get to learn from that as the business owner to not only set up your business to where you can manage it better with your strengths as someone who's going to take a lot on.

Mark Ellison (25:22.926)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (25:34.594)
But you have the insight to say, want to know my people to make sure that we're not doing that to anybody else either.

Mark Ellison (25:41.496)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (25:42.247)
Yeah, so good. And Mark, in hearing you talk about it, that restorative achiever in you, give it to me, give it to me. I'll keep, I'll take it on. I'll, I will accept it. I will get it there. But at some point that's also the themes, the pair of the themes that saw the problem to fix and the check mark to check was that I'm not going to take the criticism of

You saying that, well, we're behind in this when, when the reason we're behind is because you did this. So I'm going to restore and I'm going to achieve the discussion you and I right now have to have, which is not stepping into ownership of this, but allowing you and walking you through the process. I've learned all this. You need to understand why we're doing this and where we're at and how we can do this. Right. And that's that restorative achiever in you that

that stepped in and had that snapping point. And on top of being the ones that took it, they're also the ones that solved help solve the problem, right? That, that give and take in there, does that resonate with you? Does that feel right?

Mark Ellison (26:54.23)
absolutely. No, that's exactly where I was at. I mean, I don't know, at some point or another, you fight for your own sanity. And that's where I was at. He hit my breaking point in that minute. And it was finally the right set of circumstances. And I had all the context and I had all the information and I had everything right in front of me where I could access it. And I wasn't going to let him leave. I made him 45 minutes late for that lunch. But I got my point across and it did make things better.

Bill Dippel (27:18.877)
Excellent. Excellent. I just, yeah. Yeah. And I love that, that juxtaposition of I've accepted everything with this. Now I know what the problem is. I'm going to turn this to solve an immediate problem about all the problems that I solved. Right? That's a, again, we look at that as a mature way to look at how those themes are playing out for you and how they're hitting there. I would also

Sarah Collins (27:19.054)
Mm.

Mark Ellison (27:43.596)
I don't think we should probably mature.

Bill Dippel (27:45.093)
Yeah, well, I I didn't mean mature. I'm sorry. I'll come up with other words, Mark. But I've known you for a while now. And I'd say maturity is is definitely in your wheelhouse, particularly in understanding and knowing your themes. I see directly behind you the whiteboard that you had put up that says pro arsonist or or proud arsonist. So I'm just saying again, as our number one listener, that that

Mark Ellison (28:08.664)
Proud arsonist. Yes.

Mark Ellison (28:13.144)
That way everybody can see.

Bill Dippel (28:14.705)
that ties into that woo and that communication. I'm going to own it. I'm going to talk to you about what it is. I'm really curious. How did that, because I alluded to this earlier, how did the name Celtic fish come about? And maybe how did, for me, communication and woo play into that? Because I know part of it. I know a little of the story, but I don't know all of it.

Mark Ellison (28:36.926)
It's it's fun. So I I Don't have the business acumen like the the business Experience to completely do this on my own and I knew that part still going in I can run an electrical company But I need I was gonna need help on the administrative side and and managing, you know dollars and cents is really not my strong suit

And so through the course of my time, I had met the couple that are now my partners. They already had a company that was called Celtic Fish. And, you know, it's it's kind of a goofy name. It's fun. But I had to ask the same question. Where did this come from? And so what it actually is, is my partner's name is Kenneth McCormick. Shout out to Kenny and his wife's name is Crystal.

And her maiden name was Fisher. And when they were starting a company, they wanted to do something that had both last names, you know, kind of involved in it. And their first joking thought was they were going to call it McFish. But McDonald's has that, you know, trademarked. So since they couldn't beat McFish, they decided to go a little farther. So both of them, Crystal is spelled with a K. So Celtic fish, you'll see on here and on here, is spelled with a K to represent that part.

But I mean Kenneth McCormick is about as Irish as you're gonna get and so then the fish is a nod to her being a fisher And so they did that as an initial like joking thing They weren't sure what they wanted to call it. And so it was a placeholder and then two years later Kenny they hadn't changed it and Kenny went to a Seminar thing in our trade show in Florida. So I went all the way from Nevada to Florida

And he was talking to somebody there and they asked him, what's your company's name? And he'd said it and they were like, I know you, I've heard that. That name stuck with me. And so the name recognition shocked him a little bit that, you know, somebody all the way in Florida knew, you know, his company name. But after that, he decided the name recognition was worth it. And having to tell the story two or 300 times a year didn't matter. And so he went ahead and stuck with it. And when we were going to do an electrical company, cause he does IT was what their company was previously.

Mark Ellison (30:53.914)
which is a subheading of Electrical here in Nevada. So when we were going to do the electrical company, he told me I could name it anything I wanted to and I just enjoy telling the story and so didn't care. So we're Celtic Fish Electric and I tell the story at least like five times a

Bill Dippel (31:08.221)
There's that woo.

There's that woo, right? There's that woo. I want to talk about the people that made the name. I don't mind telling that story 200 times, right? I like the woo, the communication. I'm willing to step into it and keep saying it because it's a great story. It does ingratiate and I guess perpetuate that name in a great way. Florida, fantastic. How great is that if you're penetrating that far out? So I love that.

Sarah Collins (31:11.628)
Ha!

Mark Ellison (31:37.101)
Right?

No, it's amazing. you know, so I've enjoyed it and it has already started to work for the electrical side as well. I'm a fan of the name and I'm just excited to be a part of it. And the shirts are so much more fun.

Sarah Collins (31:53.326)
That's great. Definitely. Definitely.

Mark Ellison (31:57.144)
So one of my employees got me one for Christmas. Like he went online and just put in Celtic fish just to see what would pop up. And he actually found a t-shirt that's got like a big green bass, like right in the center. Like it's coming out of your chest wearing like a leprechaun top hat. It's just amazing. And so he bought those for everybody. So I think the employees enjoy it too. we're all having.

Sarah Collins (32:16.246)
Nice.

Sarah Collins (32:20.174)
Ugh.

Sarah Collins (32:24.206)
That's awesome. Okay. I want to know how do you see your adaptability play into the way you do your work?

Mark Ellison (32:36.312)
We need to hit this one a little bit later during the dumpster fire segment.

Sarah Collins (32:39.739)
Bill Dippel (32:39.997)
wow. He is he is an avid listener.

Mark Ellison (32:42.734)
If we were to just pull the dumpster fire back to this point, then I can really cover this.

Bill Dippel (32:49.051)
Well, he is an avid listener. He's he's already prepping our episodes coming out. So hold on to that for the dumpster fire mark. I don't want to I don't want to pre shoot that right? Yeah, we can't spoil that.

Mark Ellison (32:53.357)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (32:59.704)
Spoil it.

Mark Ellison (33:00.968)
My adaptability, it happens a lot. But I am generally as far as the positive side of it, I'm the calmest person in any company I'm ever in. I don't care what happens, there's got to be a solution. I'm the person that tells my entire crew anytime, guys, we're solution focused. There is a solution to every problem, we'll find it and we'll get this taken care of.

Bill Dippel (33:04.369)
Yeah.

Mark Ellison (33:30.136)
You know, it doesn't matter how long it takes us. We're we'll get there. I just don't freak out because that adaptability just allows me to like, no, I think things change. Things always change. And.

Sarah Collins (33:40.212)
Mm-hmm. And you can hear your restorative and your adaptability play so well in the way you describe that. Like there is a solution, we'll figure it out, we'll pivot where we need to pivot to go after it.

Bill Dippel (33:40.733)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Ellison (33:52.609)
Absolutely.

Bill Dippel (33:52.797)
Yeah. And from a business point of view, it's number two for Sarah. It's four for me. You touched on Wu earlier. We get asked a lot from the coaching side, what is Wu? Why does that? And as Sarah mentioned, it's winning others over. It's an influencing theme that allows people to say, hey, we're going to move in this direction and then get some traction from the followers, the people that are moving in that way.

Mark Ellison (34:07.694)
You

Bill Dippel (34:18.781)
Do you see your woo playing out? Is it something you notice? I would say for both Sarah and I, we might just say it's part of our personality. We're just out here having fun. We're laughing until we became really strengths aware, but you're new to this journey. So do you think woo is something that you're starting to understand better or is it just part of who you are and what makes you up?

Mark Ellison (34:42.542)
I never really knew what to call it or what to attach it to If you talk to anybody that's ever known me for longer than a week I'm I am that person I I do want to get along with you. I want to I mean I'll find common ground I want to you know dive into this you know relationship I want you to be here. I want to be there with everybody

I love to be around people, but I never knew really what to call it and I never knew why people gravitated towards me. I would say strangely, if we had had this language, that would have been the first one of my strengths that I didn't realize was there that my former boss did see. That was one of the reasons he recruited me to do this job is he really felt I was capable of doing it.

Sarah Collins (35:29.486)
Mmm.

Mark Ellison (35:37.14)
And I had never, you I was always just, you know, one of the guys out in the field. And I love to be an electrician. I do. I love everything about being an electrician. I never really saw myself in that front office role. I was like, you know, maybe eventually when my body can't take this anymore, I could transition to just being like an estimator in the office. But the person out chasing work and networking and doing that side of it, I never really saw. And he felt I was absolutely going to be able to do it. So when he recruited me,

That was the part that I was the most scared of. And as I started into it, it really came so much more naturally than I ever really thought. And as I was going along, know, over the course of that next like three years, I really started to embrace that, my God, I actually am this person that I didn't think I was. And I do want to be around these people and I can get these people to like want to hire us. And man, I don't know why people like me so much. So.

Absent the language, knew it was there over this last few years, but I didn't know what to call it. But it was one of the first ones that when I started reading the assessment report after I finished, that was one of the first ones that really struck me that, my God, that's what that is. that was actually taking the assessment was actually what really prompted me to go ahead and I was like, you know, Bill said he's got the podcast. I need to listen to the podcast this week.

Sarah Collins (36:55.918)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (37:06.102)
Yeah.

Mark Ellison (37:06.216)
And so I started listening to it like that day. So.

Bill Dippel (37:10.183)
Well, before we upset any other regular listeners, Mark, just confirm for me, you've listened to every single episode? Am I correct?

Sarah Collins (37:10.327)
Wow.

Mark Ellison (37:20.714)
Every single episode that you've put out, I've listened to at least twice, except for this week's episode, and I've got like eight minutes left on the second listen.

Sarah Collins (37:32.035)
Wow.

Bill Dippel (37:32.047)
On the second lesson,

Mark Ellison (37:33.796)
yeah, no, I already listened to it once and then on most of the second way through. It breaks up around all my driving from job to job and stuff though, so I don't always get to the end of the episode. Last night you guys drove me.

Bill Dippel (37:37.603)
All right, all right, so.

Bill Dippel (37:44.655)
All right. Fellow arsonists. That's, that is the, there's the bar. I want to hear, I want to hear from other arsonists or hotshots. We'll take either one. are you, where are you in your listening journey? Anyone want to compare or compete with Marcus Aurelius on the, on the commitment or the, listening side of it? Mark, what? Yeah. Yeah. Bring it on. So Mark, what? That's even better.

Sarah Collins (37:44.792)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (37:49.378)
There's the gold standard.

Mark Ellison (38:07.16)
Bring it on, we'll race. It'll be great. I'll get the three listens on everything. It'll be fantastic.

Sarah Collins (38:12.341)
You

Bill Dippel (38:14.021)
So, you've listened to all of them. What's what, what are you getting out of it? What is the, what is the part of it that you're like, man, I like that end of it. Right. Or I like that. I'm just from a listener point of view or somebody like we talk about, we can't see our own strengths really well all the time. Other people see them. Well, I'm asking somebody who listens from a new ear rather than puts it together and puts it out there.

What is it? What is the itch it scratches for you? Or what's the, what is it providing?

Mark Ellison (38:46.658)
it is very much because, you know, my learner aspect is, extremely prominent in this part, but, having taken the assessment and, you know, wanting to get the most possible out of it. you know, they can only write just so much randomly generated, you know, stuff in there, you know, for, I mean, I know it's, it's catered to me, but.

They can still only fit just so much in there that doesn't get all the way to the like deepest nuts and bolts. And so I love hearing how other, guests, you know, interpret their strengths and especially the ones that I have in common with them and how they hear them. you had a guest on the podcast that got released this week. she talked, you talked about her positivity and how she didn't see it. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (39:39.234)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (39:39.885)
yeah. Shout out to Gretchen Beats. Gretchen, they're, yeah, absolutely.

Mark Ellison (39:43.64)
She was awesome. But hearing Gretchen talk about, and Sarah asked her how her positivity presented itself and what she thought positivity was when it first came up number one and she stormed over your house and slammed it on the table. And I didn't have that same assessment of what my positivity was. So I like hearing the other, the way it plays out for other people. so it's helping me understand

all of the strengths and their different, you know, just infinite, you know, beauty. What they can be for, you know, when they mix with other things. And what I'm hoping is, you know, like I really enjoy just listening. You guys are fun to listen to anyway. And you're much better conversation than just putting music on in the background when I am out in the field and working. I like the conversational aspect. And so I'm getting that, you know, tie that out of it and it activates my brain. But

I'm hoping that when we start to apply this to our crew, understanding how those different strength interplays happen in different people is gonna help me have a better understanding so that I can better apply it. And so I think that was actually really kind of what your goal was with this podcast. I'm just, I appreciate that you guys are doing this. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (40:56.515)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (41:07.63)
Wow. First of all, I have to it's so meta, Bill, of you and ass, Mark, what do you think of our podcast on the podcast? It almost makes me cringe a little bit. I was like, God, it's so weird. Don't ask him that.

Bill Dippel (41:20.509)
I, but go on, I'm listening.

Sarah Collins (41:25.748)
What I love to hear from you, Mark, is you can hear that learner. And I think maybe that communication, it almost makes me think like, wonder, and this is not a stat, I think that exists, but how many people with high communication, high learner like podcasts? Because I feel like as someone, I don't have high learner, but I have high communication. And I feel like that's why I love listening to podcasts, part of the reason, because I love hearing other people just in communication with each other.

I just think I learn so much better that way with the dialogue. And so I can see with your communication and your learner, it's like, hey, this is how I'm going to engage. It's great to read the report, but I want the nuance of it that I'm going to hear through other people dialoguing about it.

Bill Dippel (42:11.143)
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. And Mark, I'm, I'm overjoyed to ask you that question because just hearing it, how you do it and why you're listening to it and reaccentuating why you are our number one arsonist and how, how much you're committed to that. Just listening to you turn on the learner about the other people in your office who haven't even been assessed yet. And we're going down that road to, start that with them.

Sarah Collins (42:35.522)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (42:35.928)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (42:40.067)
And for you to get the head start, I really want to build the watch. When you asked me what time it is, I want to know ahead of time when my, my number one coworker has high futuristic, but I'm context. What does that play out for? How does that happen? Where can I build that, that bridge between the two of us? What is that strategic partnership look like that dynamic partnership where we're bringing something to the table differently? I love, love hearing that.

Sarah Collins (42:56.238)
Hmm?

Bill Dippel (43:09.477)
that learner component in your in why you're doing it. That's really the gist of that to understand and hear that question because I'm I am fascinated by your brain some mark I've been I've only been working with you for a couple of months now and I've only known you through our networking group. a little longer than that not I were under five six months together. And early on, you know, my impression was marks pretty quiet.

Mark Ellison (43:30.316)
that for.

Bill Dippel (43:38.673)
Mark has a Mark. Mark is someone that will think it out and go through. And then we met and I started breaking down some of the, some of the assessment stuff you, you, we were talking about and you just, when we started talking about learner and learning what it meant and talking about your, bring, need, look, I want other people to learn this. You just exploded. mean, you, you arson your way into on fire completely.

I want to talk about this. I want to build on it. I love this part of it. So I hear that when you mention it and I'm, just want to recognize that and thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I go ahead, sir.

Mark Ellison (44:15.158)
tapped into my communication.

Mark Ellison (44:21.506)
Dangerous, switch to it.

Sarah Collins (44:21.774)
Well, I just going to go back to a thought I had before that I want to recognize. Honestly, sometimes when I re-listen to these episodes, my positivity is too much for me to handle. I'm just always gushing about people, which I've heard people like, but in a re-listen, just have to say, this is the most meta episode ever, I'm always like, geez, Sarah. However, let me just spew some more positivity onto you, Mark. I think your strengths come...

Bill Dippel (44:32.509)
Hmm.

Mark Ellison (44:47.629)
Yay.

Sarah Collins (44:50.03)
combination for being an entrepreneur and leading this company is so cool because you have that communication with positivity. So you can do the networking things and we hear from your experience. You've gotten involved and you take the leadership positions. You're out in the community. You're talking about your business. You're promoting your business, but also you can back it up because you've got restorative achiever responsibility. You're doing the things you say you're going to do. So you're also

out there producing. And I think sometimes some of us, like myself, I can be out there doing and promoting, right? I have a lot of influencing relationship building themes, but I'm not always, I have responsibilities. The only thing I have that like gets things done. But if it's me, I've been trying to put this podcast on my website since we started it this summer.

And it's still not up because the only person I'm accountable to on that is myself. And I don't give a rat's butt about what I say. And so I just think what an awesome advantage you have because you are able to produce and get things out. And you're also able to promote and go out there and tell people about it. And then that's not even all of your strengths. You've got this other stuff, right? Some strategic thinking.

Mark Ellison (45:53.432)
That's fair.

Sarah Collins (46:13.614)
some of that adaptability and an includer. you're also, I just imagine a really impactful leader thinking about the people on your team.

Mark Ellison (46:23.854)
absolutely. It's always my goal to... I want everything to be a team. My life is just better when we're all working together and we're moving, you know, working towards the same thing. But that's one of the... like why I'm enjoying getting into these strengths so much because I want to figure out how to get everybody else to row that same direction.

Sarah Collins (46:29.71)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (46:36.664)
For sure.

Sarah Collins (46:46.2)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (46:47.239)
Well, you touch on that for a second. Just hit me for a moment about when we start assessing your teams, we start looking at the people that you're going to run through this process and then work with moving forward. What's the, what's the overall goal? What's the number one goal? Is it about the communication you're going to increase with each other? Is it engaging them in a better way? Is it knowing more about them so that you can

keep them in that, in that personal Wu component. What, what is it that you'd really love to achieve when you see this?

Mark Ellison (47:26.007)
Okay, the best example I've got for this when we get to the the whole team and my whole crew one of my foremen that's with me right now I've known him forever I I've known him since high school what makes him tick I've never been able to totally nail down he is a very good electrician I love having him work for me he gets things done

There he's got a few things that I've had to adapt to, but I figured out how to do those things over time. One of the things is he's mostly deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other ear. And he always talks really loud. And I figured out like earlier on when, when I brought him on at the, previous company, and then he followed me over to here. I was getting complaints about him from customers. They felt he was yelling at them and.

I was like, well, that doesn't really seem like he didn't say he was angry about it. Let me talk to him. And what it really came down to is that, you know, he's just talking loud because he can't hear himself, but he was trying to be very matter of fact with the customers. He wasn't trying to, you know, talk their ear off or anything. And him trying to be succinct so he could get back to work and get the job done, because he wanted to get this one done and move to the next one. But doing it loudly was making people think that he was just angry.

I figured out okay, so I started telling people before I sent him to do a service call just you know He's partially deaf. I just want to prepare you for it. He talks loud. It's not he's not angry he's talking so he can hear himself and I never got complaints anymore once they were prepared for what they were going to you know interact with They got a better experience out of it. They understood okay. He just showed up. He did his job was fantastic and Nobody thought twice about him talking loud because they knew it was coming

Sarah Collins (49:23.01)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (49:24.078)
That's a physical thing that we can't get from the strengths report, but I still don't know what makes him tick I'm very much every day just like I'm just excited to come to work and I want to do something I want to I mean, it's my achiever I at the end of the day I want to feel like I accomplished something I used to tell bosses like all the time like I don't work for you I work for me I mean I appreciate that you're gonna give me a paycheck for doing this and you know You're gonna get paid for it everybody benefits But at the end of the day I came to work today so that I could have that sense of accomplishment

the end of my day and that's what I'm going for. I'm not pleasing these customers because it's gonna make you happy. I'm doing it because I want to make them happy.

Jack doesn't have that same motivation in him. Jack really kind of most of time doesn't care if the customer is how he wants to make sure that the problem is taken care of. He's like, no, I got it done. The world's a better place because I was in it. But it's very much more an internal thing for him. It's not to please other people. I'm hoping to get to where I have a better understanding of what those motivations are so that I can get everybody rowing in the same direction.

Sarah Collins (50:24.44)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (50:32.952)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (50:33.708)
Jack's loyalty to me and him working for me is, like I said, stems because I've known him since high school. And so he very much appreciates my place in his existence. He tells people all the time that his life is better for having me in it. But that doesn't tell me how to get him to do things. And I want to get better about knowing what his motivations are so that I can make his workday easier on him, help the communication.

and make it easier for him to get through his day getting where he's trying to get. And I'd like to be able to do that with all my employees and coworkers.

Bill Dippel (51:07.687)
Nice.

Right. What such a good answer, such a really, I, I like the example in the front. Hey, I just had to set up an ideal, a precedent. And I want to know from a strengths point of view, maybe the things I can't see, what can I prepare for? What can I prepare other employees for? What can we build on each other for to understand how we do that? That perfect example too comes through and you've in you,

Sarah Collins (51:14.094)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (51:26.85)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (51:37.009)
Taking the copies of your, bring, needs and giving it to the people around, right? Know that these are the things that, that really fuel me. And if I can get fueled in these ways, this is, this is what I'm going to bring to the table. I will step in and make this.

Mark Ellison (51:49.326)
Yeah, I was excited. That was the best report you handed me. I was like, this is is literally like the left column is like everything I wanted to do. And the right column is everything I wasn't getting. And it made for a miserable time and that I just eventually couldn't do it anymore. And for somebody who has the positivity and the responsibility and I mean, my adaptability and my restorative, like just my desire to like, you know, fix everything around me, including the relationships that I'm around.

Sarah Collins (51:53.24)
Yeah, it is.

Mark Ellison (52:18.28)
It made, you know, not getting any of the stuff that I needed made it just harder and harder for me to deal with my day-to-day life. And it was starting to bleed over into my home life and everywhere else. So reading through that right-hand column and just like, this is all the stuff I wasn't getting. was like, I'm not going to go through that again. I'm doing this entire thing so that we can, I can have a better world around me and build this company the way that I wanted it built. And so.

No, all this information is going out to everybody. want to tell you exactly, this is everything I'll bring to the table. These are the things that I just need. know, whoever can give them to me is going to really appreciate that they gave them to me because I'm going to achieve everything. I will do all the jobs. I will get everything done. I will make everybody in the world happy. I will get every five star review on Google. It doesn't matter. I'm going to get all of it for you. Just as long as you give me the stuff that I need help with. So yeah, I was, I was ready to hand that out to everybody I've ever met.

Sarah Collins (52:55.287)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (53:00.899)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (53:01.181)
So good.

Bill Dippel (53:17.597)
Pass it out. it. Keep keep passing it. Keep throwing it around, right? Our BNI networking group. I'm sure we're all going to get a copy of that too. If we want to make sure the president of the group is doing what he needs, this is how to get there. So well, we we talked about. Yeah, that was crazy, you know, but I love having you in that role. I think it's great. Plus now he's got a killer vice president helping him too. He always had a good one, but now.

Mark Ellison (53:18.03)
Just here, let's do it. I don't care what it does.

Mark Ellison (53:33.343)
figured out how make me president that was enough

Bill Dippel (53:44.943)
Another one that's a mutual friend of ours. it's a, it's a really good group. you touched on this or talked about it a little bit ago. Sarah asked the question about adaptability. Talk about the dumpster fire. When do your strengths get in your way? What does that look like for

Mark Ellison (54:02.626)
my desire to fix things for people and especially in the immediate, I, if, if you put it in front of me right now, I want to try to fix it right now. That's the combination like my restorative. I will change my entire schedule. Like, because you popped up and said, I need something today. And I will figure out how to like completely reorder the universe to try and figure out how to give you that today. And.

from a business standpoint, what that turns into is I spend so much time eventually like reorganizing my schedule and pushing things out and you know, I don't want to upset anybody else. So I know, okay, this job they weren't pressed about. They were, you know, anytime in the next two weeks, I'm going to call them and tell them, sorry, I had an emergency come up. I just need to push you out two days. And I start to reorder the entire universe and eventually it backs up on me because I'm

Sarah Collins (54:59.96)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (55:01.55)
totally willing to adapt my schedule to suit whoever called me five minutes ago. Whoever the last phone call was, that's the person that I'm gonna reorder my universe for. And I had to figure out that that just doesn't work. What it eventually does is I eventually get so backed up and push everything out so much, I push it to its limits. And then it inevitably results in.

Sarah Collins (55:07.628)
Right.

Sarah Collins (55:18.391)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (55:29.952)
a weekend or a five day period where I put in 22 hour days to get everything caught back up because I'm too overloaded, I'm too burnt out and I'm just like, okay, I'll just suck this up, I'm gonna have one really, really miserable week but that's gonna get me reset to zero. And I did that so many times and cycled through that so many times that now I have to actively stop myself.

And just tell me, no, I'm sorry, like, I understand it's an emergency for you, like, sort of, but if it's not actually gonna burn your house down, I can't get there today. I would really love to try, but I just can't promise that. But my dumpster fire happens when I don't check myself. And it bleeds over into everything. It bleeds over into my personal life. My wife will, you know, at some point say, I haven't seen you in four days, where are you?

Sarah Collins (56:10.648)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (56:19.736)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (56:27.406)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (56:27.85)
And I'd be like, I was just working. I swear, it's just, I'm trying to get this other thing done over here. And yeah, so. Adaptability is absolutely my dumpster fire. In every way.

Bill Dippel (56:34.493)
Wow.

Sarah Collins (56:35.5)
Yes, that adaptability. Absolutely. Just you can see it just saying, yes, let's do it. Cause it's exciting to just be like, I like it can help you. And probably your woo plays into that too. Someone calls like, need you adaptability and woo say like, yeah, let's go. I can help you not then everybody gets backed up. yes.

Mark Ellison (56:55.49)
Yep. Well, and then the responsibility, I think, is the part that actually really pulls it all down. Because the second that I tell you, I'm, yes, I can do that. I am going to do it. I'm, yeah, I can't come back and say, sorry, I couldn't do it. I just, I can't get to that point. So the second it came out of my mouth, yes, it's a yes. And I'm going to figure out a way, no matter how much it inconveniences me and anybody else in my...

Sarah Collins (57:08.47)
locked into it.

Sarah Collins (57:20.578)
You're right, yeah.

Mark Ellison (57:24.834)
world like yeah I'm gonna figure out how to get it there and

Bill Dippel (57:27.323)
Yeah, you joked a minute ago about how did I become president at BNI? Well, I just I think we just got a master class and how that happened. Right. So I'll tell you again. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (57:36.47)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (57:38.318)
I was actually much more cautious about that one. It's one of the like, you know, I'm actually prouder of that because I was cautious about it. I stopped my immediate jump in. It got brought up to me by five different people in the group over like a four over four days. And I still never said yes to a single one of them. And I was just like, hold on. I mean, it's great that you think that. But hold on. And I went through and I talked to other people and I

I assessed what it was gonna take and I was like, no, I need to understand exactly what's the time commitment here. Because I can't promise that I can do this. And I went through all of the steps and I talked to people that had been president before, I got the context for it. I mean, I forcibly activated my learner and my context and got everything rounded up and then said, okay.

Bill Dippel (58:32.775)
Nice. Nice.

Mark Ellison (58:32.864)
I can do this. I can make this work in my life without being irresponsible. And I spoke to everybody. Like I talked to my wife about it ahead of time. I talked to everybody at work, my partner and everybody and told them, you know, this is what I'm thinking about. And so just so you know, the time commitment is going to be a little bit, but I think we can work it. And I asked other people like, you're going to have to help me with this. And I told my wife, I was like, yeah, I have to do a leadership meeting every month. That's going to be one night that I'm not going to be home.

I covered all the bases on that one and then I did that one. So, no, I'm actually really proud of my self-containment before I became president.

Sarah Collins (59:10.958)
Well, yeah, you can hear you activated learner context to slow down adaptability and responsibility, right? Like, hey, we have to put these out front. And then you can, we haven't talked about your Includer much, but you have Includer at 10 and Includer is really others focused. And you can hear you included all of these parties that would be affected by this decision into your conversations as you were considering it of how does this look for you? How does this impact you? What does this look like if we do it?

So it's really fun to hear, Includer, Context, Learner, get in the driver's seat, Adaptability, Responsibility, get in the backseat, so we can make these decisions with a little bit more strategy, as opposed to just being like, yes, and now, crap, we're committed to this thing, do we wanna be?

Mark Ellison (01:00:03.35)
I took it as a great sign of personal growth.

Sarah Collins (01:00:05.388)
I think it is. I think it is. think you're doing an excellent job. I love the road that you're on for growth and development, Mark.

Mark Ellison (01:00:08.823)
Thank

Mark Ellison (01:00:12.696)
Thank you.

Bill Dippel (01:00:12.765)
Yes. And I would agree with you. That is personal growth right there. Stepping into it, knowing it, and then being able to build on it. And that's exactly what we're starting to do with this, with this program, with you personally, and then with more of your employees. How can you make sure you're asking them to do the right things and step in in the right way that isn't overloading them, that's asking them to do things that engage them and get them more fulfillment at home and at work. And how are you as a boss?

providing that for the people in your your ecosphere. So good for that.

Mark Ellison (01:00:46.848)
I want this to be the last job I ever have and I would love it if everybody that works for me wants this to be the last job that they ever have. So, kind of make this a better place.

Sarah Collins (01:00:56.046)
Beautiful.

Bill Dippel (01:00:56.835)
Excellent. What a great way. All right. Well, let's ask a fun question. You ready? You want a fun one? So, you woke up one morning to find you've switched bodies with your favorite superhero. How do your strengths help you save the day?

Mark Ellison (01:01:01.282)
Yep, fire.

Mark Ellison (01:01:14.24)
Okay. wow. Let's look at this top 10. Okay. I'd say that right out of the gate, the first thing that's important is my adaptability allows me to deal with the idea that I just changed bodies. And so I can accept the situation. I'll just, you know, we're going to get into it. I think then my responsibility is going to be the next one that I have to have there.

just to say, okay, well, you now I am this, you know, I'm in this person's body and this body promised to do this thing. So since I'm here now, I better take ownership of what they promised to do. So I'm gonna dive into their world saving responsibilities. I don't do anything on the fly. I mean, we talked about my low activator. So I'm gonna get the context of exactly what's about to destroy the world. And I'll just do it at an accelerated pace, but.

Sarah Collins (01:01:57.656)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (01:02:10.722)
then I'm gonna reach out to every other superhero that I can get a hold of. I'm gonna absolutely be the core person that's going to build the Justice League or the Avengers and I'm gonna woo everybody over. I am going to get everybody wanna be involved. I'm gonna get the information through them. This is what we need. Who can contribute this part? Who can contribute that part? Let's go, we're gonna get this and my positivity is gonna make it so everybody wants to help.

Bill Dippel (01:02:38.269)
Mark just brought up the Justice League, Sarah. Do you know what the Justice League was? Okay. I'm just checking.

Sarah Collins (01:02:43.734)
Yes, I know it is the opposite of Marvel.

Mark Ellison (01:02:47.426)
It's just the DC version of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:02:48.942)
DC, DC universe. we, have, I have a husband, okay. I'm aware of the, the DC and the Marvel, the Avengers and the justice league. I know.

Bill Dippel (01:02:58.557)
I was just checking. Part of the reason we do this is we're very different. Growing up, Justice League was very big in the cartoons I would watch as a young kid. So I heard Justice League and it made me laugh.

Mark Ellison (01:03:12.558)
Well, because they were the more popular individual comics at the time, you know? I mean, that was Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman. They draw very separate audiences, but I mean, put them all together on a team and, you know, it kind of pulls all those audiences together.

Bill Dippel (01:03:22.833)
Very much, yeah.

Bill Dippel (01:03:27.431)
Yeah, smart.

Sarah Collins (01:03:28.334)
But I have to say I'm more of an Avengers gal these days.

Mark Ellison (01:03:32.078)
Well that's why I had to say both. think if I was, you know, I mean if we're talking about who my favorite, you know, because said my favorite superhero, I guess like, mean on both of them, like, you know, I always kind of really liked the Iron Man character and I always really liked the Batman.

Sarah Collins (01:03:47.308)
I knew you were gonna say that. I just literally mind read you, sorry. I just had a feeling you were gonna be an Iron Man guy.

Bill Dippel (01:03:54.225)
I'm going with Batman, I think on the other side.

Mark Ellison (01:03:54.486)
I'm just, I don't know, well no, that's what I said. I'm the Iron Man or the Batman, because I think as a superhero, mean, regardless of what universe, they're the one that's like, okay, I was born a normal person, I just had a lot of money, and I am smart and I'm driven to do something. And so they're the ones that didn't have superpowers. I've just never seen myself as a person with superpowers before. So I identify more with that.

person who just took what they did have and just tried to make the most out of every bit of what they got and build it into something special and that's what both of them did. They didn't have, you they weren't aliens and you know brought here from another world or anything. They just, they figured out how to, you know, they inherited a lot of money and they decided to do something with it.

Sarah Collins (01:04:42.892)
Yeah, that's a great point. Look at you.

Mark Ellison (01:04:44.782)
I identify with those characters. They're kind of the similar characters just from different universes.

Bill Dippel (01:04:49.661)
Nice. Wow. Mark bring it, bring in the depth on his superhero question.

Sarah Collins (01:04:49.699)
Right?

Mark Ellison (01:04:53.87)
But you notice that when they when they get portrayed in them in the movies that they're also the ones that bring everything together You know They're the ones that go out and drag people in and you know, Civil War Iron Man had to go out and get everybody goes and recruits, you know spider-man

Sarah Collins (01:04:55.64)
I know.

Bill Dippel (01:05:02.525)
Totally fair. Totally fair.

Sarah Collins (01:05:07.374)
the leaders.

Bill Dippel (01:05:07.931)
and they are.

Bill Dippel (01:05:12.241)
And they are such different personalities with Robert Downey Jr. such a big egotistical fun Iron Man and then pick your Batman playing the dark moody, I need to be behind the scenes. And yet you're right, they're bringing people together from a very different, from a very different point of view. So.

Sarah Collins (01:05:12.526)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (01:05:15.766)
got ya.

Sarah Collins (01:05:32.578)
which just shows that it doesn't matter what strengths you have, if you want to be a good whatever, in this case, you want to be a good superhero, right? They're the same sort of archetype in the story, and yet they come to it with a totally different set of talents, and they both are able to achieve greatness in that. Look at us.

Mark Ellison (01:05:49.08)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (01:05:53.373)
Look at that.

Mark Ellison (01:05:53.804)
Luckily both with family money though.

Bill Dippel (01:05:56.032)
fair. Yeah, that's totally true. Everything gets easy.

Sarah Collins (01:05:56.332)
Yes, yeah, mean, obviously, if you're rich, literally everything's easier. Also, as we were saying this, I was like, at what point is Elon Musk going to make himself the next Batman slash Iron Man? Because I feel like he has the quirky personality and the wealth now.

Bill Dippel (01:06:11.975)
Yeah.

Mark Ellison (01:06:13.75)
It's possible, but maybe he spent too much of his life already building the wealth and maybe it's his son that's going to be the superhero.

Bill Dippel (01:06:14.619)
He does.

Sarah Collins (01:06:19.886)
Which one? He has like 20 children.

Mark Ellison (01:06:23.214)
We don't know which one yet.

Bill Dippel (01:06:25.517)
One will rise, Sarah, one will rise, so.

Sarah Collins (01:06:27.072)
One will rise. Superheroes are in our future.

Bill Dippel (01:06:31.613)
Well, Mark, thank you so much for entertaining our silly questions. I, well, and also I, I just want to thank you for your continued podcast listenership. I am super happy to be able to say number one, arsonist, joining us today. I know it's up.

Mark Ellison (01:06:37.804)
Well, and I hope I understand everybody.

Mark Ellison (01:06:52.76)
So am I, I'm gonna add it to my board. No, was official, was stated on the podcast.

Sarah Collins (01:06:54.702)
There you go.

Bill Dippel (01:06:57.787)
Yeah, Sarah, if we're, if we're going to, Sarah, if we're printing up t-shirts or hoodies, think Mark has to get one of the, one of the first ones, right? We have to, I think that's in. So Mark be ready, be ready for a hoodie, be dropped off.

Sarah Collins (01:06:58.082)
That's right. It is true.

Sarah Collins (01:07:05.644)
I think so.

Mark Ellison (01:07:09.725)
I'm ready.

Sarah Collins (01:07:10.774)
Wait until we have a paid advertiser so you might be waiting a while because I'm not sure.

Mark Ellison (01:07:18.104)
You just called out Elon Musk. You've called out Taylor Swift plenty of times. mean, somebody's

Bill Dippel (01:07:20.935)
Totally. We're waiting. I've promised her that I'm going to get Taylor Swift to do our promo bumper in and out at some point.

Mark Ellison (01:07:27.842)
Well, I think she was right. You might have a little bit better chance of getting Travis, but.

Bill Dippel (01:07:30.333)
Maybe, right? Yeah, that's probably fair. So, but I'm doing all I can. We, I keep bringing her up. well, yeah, Mark, thank you so much for coming, putting up with the craziness and also being really, really in depth and strengths aware for being so early in the process. That's, that's really impressive, Mark.

Sarah Collins (01:07:31.818)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (01:07:48.973)
Yeah.

It is.

Mark Ellison (01:07:53.024)
I hope it comes across well.

Bill Dippel (01:07:54.947)
It, it really is.

Sarah Collins (01:07:56.194)
You can tell you've put in the work. really is impressive. I've got people that I've been working with for a lot longer than you've been even knowing your results and they don't have quite the awareness that you do. It just shows that. I mean, you can tell you have that learner, right? You're so interested in it and learning about it and that is evident and you've put the time and energy into knowing it and that is part of the battle.

Mark Ellison (01:08:20.472)
That's why it's number one.

Sarah Collins (01:08:22.104)
That's right.

Bill Dippel (01:08:22.509)
And, and it makes my job so much easier when you're, when you're in depth and loving it and understanding it. It just from a coach's point of view makes me swell with pride, right? Developer big is a big one for me. So I get to watch somebody develop and get better, but also knowing how it's going to work and step in and drawing those dots and closing that in together for you is so much easier when you're all invested. So thanks for that. And I, I appreciate.

Sarah Collins (01:08:35.352)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (01:08:48.024)
no, absolutely.

Bill Dippel (01:08:49.425)
the trust and the value in knowing what we do and what we're bringing to Celtic fish for you.

Mark Ellison (01:08:55.124)
Absolutely, I can't wait for after New Year's I want to get you know going with the rest of the admin people here and I can't wait to do those coaching sessions and I'll look forward to coming back on here and talking about how we've advanced After we get through that part

Bill Dippel (01:09:08.943)
I think we'll talk about that. Let's pause for a little bit and then Mark, we'll have you back on. Of course, by then we'll have three or four people that'll be like, no, I'm your number one. So we'll have an arson off. We'll figure out how that... Yeah, absolutely. But Mark, right now you're number one. There's just no mysteries about it. And having you back on and talking about the progress we've made, that's something I think we'd be really interested in. So thanks for the idea.

Mark Ellison (01:09:13.735)
yeah, you don't need any faculty.

Sarah Collins (01:09:21.899)
an arson competition.

Sarah Collins (01:09:35.288)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Ellison (01:09:37.056)
I appreciate everything you guys are doing. And like I said, you guys get me through work days when I can throw you on and just listen.

Bill Dippel (01:09:38.813)
Awesome.

Bill Dippel (01:09:44.391)
Perfect. All right. I love it too.

Sarah Collins (01:09:44.856)
I love that. Well, not to bring it full circle, but you can bring a hundred duck-sized horses to water, but you can't make them drink. And that's why we love you, Mark, because you're drinking the water yourself.

Bill Dippel (01:09:55.997)
He's a horse-sized duck drinking the water. He's one. wow. We got right through that. How did we do that one? All right. Thank you all for listening today. Thank you, Mark, for coming on and being with our show. We love talking to our arsonists. We'll do so on the next episode. So thanks to all of our listeners and we'll talk soon.

Mark Ellison (01:09:59.534)
I'm not horse-sized. That's just rude.

Sarah Collins (01:10:02.606)
you

Sarah Collins (01:10:18.414)
Bye!