Sam Donaghey
Welcome to the Fast Slow Motion podcast where we teach you how to build a business you love while enjoying your life. I’m your host, Sam Donaghey, and today joining me is Fast Slow Motion’s Director of Growth, Michael Johnson. Michael, it’s always great to have you here.

Michael Johnson
Sam, I’m always excited to be here. This is gonna be a great one.

Sam Donaghey
Well, today our

spends his days helping companies grow through one of the hardest parts of scaling, finding leaders who multiply. So joining us today is Walter Kearns, VP of Sales at Fireseeds and host of the Culture for Breakfast podcast.

We’ve had the privilege of working alongside Fireseeds as they help companies find leaders.

who fit both role and culture. And today we get to hear that story firsthand. Walter, welcome to the show.

Walter Kearns
Thanks for having me, Sam, Michael. We just love fast slow motion so much and excited to dive in to this topic and excited to be with you guys today. Thanks for having me on.

Sam Donaghey
Okay, so Walter, Fireseeds talks about creating multiplying movements of multiplying leaders. For someone hearing that for the first time, what does it mean to multiply leaders and why is it such a powerful

Michael Johnson
No, that’s good. That’s good. I scrolled up, so.

Walter Kearns
Yeah, great question. When we talk about multiplying movements of multiplying leaders, ⁓ there’s a couple of things that can happen when we say that. Somebody might hear that and go, what in the world is that? But if that resonates with them, that’s usually who we are really excited to talk to because a multiplying movement is what we would say is in a business where, yes, you’re trying to go revenue. Yes, you’re trying to grow your business. But at the same time,

you view your business and the people in it as part of your movement. And you want to grow the impact of not just your business and your mission, but also the people inside of it. And what that takes is multiplying leaders. So what we’d like to say here at FireSeeds is we want to place multiplying leaders into businesses that view themselves as a movement to help their people and their mission. Because when you find that multiplying leader, Sam, when they get in the room,

the temperature changes. And they don’t just multiply your revenue. They don’t just multiply your multipliers for investment as you’re working towards investment grade. They multiply themselves inside the business. And that is a different type of person that takes cultural fit, that takes the qualifications to do the job. It really is the whole package. And that’s harder to find, but that’s what most business owners are.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, just real quick, I wanna lean in on that some Walter. There’s this concept of diminishers and multipliers that’s out there. I mean, what’s an easy way for you to tell what are some characteristics or some kind of behaviors that you would say, hey, this person’s a multiplier or this person’s a diminisher.

Walter Kearns
Yeah, I think it goes to the mindsets, right? If you have a growth mindset, if you have an ownership mindset, it means you’re not going to be dissenting. You’re not going to be a naysayer. I was just on a call the other day with a company who really needs a key role. And it’s not a C-suite role, but it’s a key role. And they said, hey, we need somebody who’s a go-getter. They’re just going to get it done. And that’s somebody who doesn’t complain. They don’t make excuses.

They just find ways to win. But here’s the key thing, I think, in your question, Michael, is they’re collaborative. And so somebody who’s a multiplier, they’re an enabler. If we’re using the working genius, they’re an enabler, they’re collaborative. And one of the key things I’m looking for, if I’m looking for a physical, tangible way to see that in an interview or in a setting in an office, we call them these five-minute conversations. Do you stop?

Sam Donaghey
you

Walter Kearns
You have that one extra conversation, bring people in so that we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot. But that means you have to take your ego out of it because you’re asking a kind of a next question to go, could I be wrong? It’s this concept of could I maybe not be seeing the entire picture? Take your ego out and then they’re going to be someone who’s not a diminisher, but they’re a multiplier. And so there’s a lot of little facets that can come into play for that.

Michael Johnson
That makes so much sense because when you do that, you’re adding in some space for other people to jump in.

Sam Donaghey
Well.

Walter, would you say is multiplying leadership something that can be taught or do you look for it as like sort of an innate quality in candidates?

Walter Kearns
That is a great question, Sam. I would say that there are going to be people who inherently understand this more, and I would go back to the working genius. People who are enablers, I think are more prone to be multiplying leaders. But I don’t think that that’s hard and fast because I think you can be a multiplying leader even if you don’t have the trait of enablement as a working genius. ⁓

I think it ⁓ can be taught, but I think even more so it needs to be caught. And that’s really in my career. I started off in ministry. I came into the corporate world and my mentors modeled this for me and really made it a standard of no matter what you do, whether you’re into full-time vocational ministry, for-profit, it doesn’t matter.

You have people around you that you could be thinking for, pouring into, learning from, and also helping them. And so I think it’s a mindset that can be enhanced, but certain people will have that inherently, maybe based on their background or their wiring and how God’s made them.

Michael Johnson
So Walter, you share some stories on LinkedIn about discipling young men and seeing the ripple effect in their lives. How does that same idea play out in the workplace when you’re helping companies pick the right leaders?

Walter Kearns
Yeah, the concept of discipleship is really just a multiplication effect. Right? If you are creating a disciple, you are asking someone to come alongside you, to grow with you, to learn with you. And then ultimately, if we look at Christ as an example, throughout scripture, he brought along his disciples and then sent them out.

The way that we view business, the way that we view the people inside of our four walls at Fireseeds and at Wildspark is we have a bunch of people who want to learn, they want to grow, they want to get better. They want growth tracks. They want to see what is my impact. The purpose-driven life was the bestseller for how many years on the New York Times because people want to know what is my impact, what’s my purpose.

And so when you get into a for-profit business, it’s the exact same thing. We just call it different names. And so that’s my whole ethos and Cord’s ethos of businesses. We want to bring these people along. We want to grow them. We want to be with them. And we want to grow as a by-product. I would always say discipleship and multiplication has to be a two-way street. And I just did a LinkedIn post about this and I couldn’t find a good graphic for a two-way street because it looked like

Michael Johnson
Yeah.

Walter Kearns
we’re going different ways. And I settled on this concept of a roundabout. Really, when you’re coming together in business and we’re talking about multiplication, that’s two different stories converging, Michael. And then when you get to the roundabout, you go around and then you decide to get off at the same exit. And now you’re on a path together, growing the business, growing yourself, growing your family, because you’re aligned. And so I really see it as one and the same, whether you’re in ministry.

or in a for-profit corporate work.

Michael Johnson
Walter, I don’t know if you’ve ever driven on a roundabout. have. probably, you know, based on your time in the UK have a of them. Some people don’t know how to drive in a roundabout. Do you find that to be true with good companies that have that real differentiator in culture? Do some people just not fit in or get pushed out really quickly when that flywheel gets going? What kind of effect does that have in kind of keeping the right people and keeping out the wrong people?

Walter Kearns
Hahaha

Yeah, Michael, it’s such a great analogy. I haven’t thought about it that way before. I used to live in Branson, Missouri of all places. I loved the town, worked at Kanakuk Camps there. And a couple of years in, they put in a roundabout. ⁓ There’s a lot of old people ⁓ in Branson, Missouri. And the roundabout, if you didn’t have anything to do, you could just go sit there and have a great entertainment time watching people. And you would see people go the wrong way. You would see people get up.

on the middle of the roundabout, you’d see people get off and turn back around. And once you start in a business, whether you’re trying to start and grow a culture, or if you’re trying to enhance it and multiply it, ⁓ as you go around and you go faster and faster and that flywheel gets going, yes, there’s gonna be people who don’t know how to drive on the roundabout and they need to get off at another exit. And that’s okay. That’s not for everybody. But when you define that culture,

Well, and when you have A players, when you have multiplying leaders, they want to be with other A players and multiplying leaders because that’s their heart. And I think this is the hardest thing, especially for founder led businesses. It’s that founder syndrome of, I can’t get rid of that person. But it’s like, hey, they’re in the middle of the roundabout and they’re causing a traffic jam where everybody else is slowing down and we can’t get off on the right exit and really hit top speed on the interstate.

because we’ve got a traffic jam and that’s just natural and that’s okay. And you can still love people through that well. And I think y’all do this really well at FSM, ⁓ but that’s gonna be a natural by-product of setting that culture and doing it.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, so I think we’re really onto something, Walter, with the roundabout thing. I don’t know ⁓ if you have maybe walk-up music for speaking or something, but there’s a great song called Roundabout by Yes. That’s a fantastic bass line that you should maybe think about, look at. That could be kind of your personal intro for this. I just see, I feel the keynote coming on here. Yeah, the roundabout of culture. I love it. That’s great.

Walter Kearns
I love it.

Michael Johnson
⁓ Culture is a real differentiator. ⁓ A lot of business leaders see culture as secondary. And from your perspective, how does it really play in the success or failure of a growing business?

Walter Kearns
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it’s a buzzword if I’m getting up on a soapbox for a few minutes here. I think that so many owners and leaders talk about having great culture, even desire to have great culture. But to put a great culture into place takes a lot of hard work. I’ve seen some great leaders that I’ve got to sit under in my career. And I like to say that a great leader should be able to be made fun of at the drop of a

because they say the same thing over and over until the point where you go, I get it. But it usually takes on average seven times before somebody really retains a message. And I think with a culture, you have to keep enforcing that. That’s not ⁓ something that you can talk about and then come back to a year later. That is something that has to be day in and day out. I actually saw this play out. A great example would be John Catalfamo.

with you guys. Now, John and the team helped put Fireseed Salesforce instance together. They did an incredible job. I was very impressed. I’m sure I was a huge headache to work with, but man, they loved me through it. They held my hand through it. Huge shout out to those guys. But I called John, it was a couple of months ago, and we needed to build another dashboard. We needed to build another instance on top of what we were doing. And I asked him, said, John, can you give me a scope of work?

Michael Johnson
Yeah.

Walter Kearns
Can you help me with this? Can FSM partner with us again because we love you guys? And John asked a lot of great questions, figured out what we needed. And ultimately this is what he said. He said, Walter, I don’t think you need us on this. I’m blown away. I’m in sales. I know how hard it is to say no to a job that you know you can win right then and there. And I was ready to give it to you guys. And I asked him, said, John, why do you not think that? And he said,

Hey, one of our core values, and you’re going to have to help me with this, Michael. think it’s be a blessing, be a servant, be a blessing.

Michael Johnson
Yeah,

absolutely. Be a blessing to business leaders as they grow and scale their business.

Walter Kearns
And he said, man, John Burdett says, be a blessing. And what you can do for the price is gonna be 90 % as good as what we could do. I think you need to stick with that, because that’s gonna be better for you in this period of time. We can come back and we can build it later. He was thinking for me. Well, guess what? I’m gonna come back to you guys every single time because he said no, and because I love y’all, but because he said no, and that culture, be a blessing.

That’s part of y’all’s culture and it’s playing out to create a lifelong raving fan of FSM, which is gonna directly impact your revenue, which is gonna directly impact referrals I give. That’s such a small phrase, but it means everything when you can implement a culture like that. And it’s the ethos, it’s the overflow of what you do.

Michael Johnson
Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and so many, like you said, I think so many leaders do focus on just getting more, just doing a little bit more, just stacking it together. I think that, think that’s true with hiring and with candidates. One of the things you emphasize really is fit and not just stacking candidates against each other, but finding someone who really embodies the vision and the values of the company. What’s a common mistake you see hiring teams make when they miss that and how do you coach them to avoid that mentality?

Walter Kearns
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I’m gonna say something and then I’ll unpack it, because it’s not gonna make sense. A common mistake is hiring the best candidate. Now, when you look at a search, are you going to hire the best candidate available? Or are you gonna hire the best candidate that fits your profile? So often, we’ll settle because we go, you know what? I think they can do the job. Or they’re better than,

the other two that we see. Now, this is where it takes patience. This is where it really takes someone who understands what they need. So one thing we talk about all the time is story. We lead with story. When we sit down with a company, we go over job description, compensation, benefits, package, the whole nine yards. That’s the black and white. That’s the X’s and O’s of a surge. We also sit down to say, what’s your company culture? What’s the story?

when the right person gets in this seat a year later, what’s the story? I was just on a call to launch a search recently and this company said, well, man, if we can get this right person, it could free up this person, it could free up this person, and then we could get to our goals in a major way. And I told them, I said, okay, we may have to say no to some really good candidates.

And so just hiring the best available is not always the right thing. It’s do they match the profile that we have said is gonna help us reach the story that we desire so deeply? ⁓ That just takes more time and that’s not the easy road. So you’ve got to take a little bit harder road to get there.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, Walter, think one thing you see, and I love this, I love a quote that it says that great vision without great people is irrelevant. And I think one thing that you see that maybe people you work with don’t always see is the cost of a bad hire or just a fill the gap type hire. So you’re able to see, okay, yeah, there’s a huge benefit to getting the right person and a huge cost actually to getting the wrong person.

Walter Kearns
100%.

Huge cost. And look, I want to give some grace to anybody who’s listening, who’s like, I know the cost of a bad hire. I just don’t have the time to be able to slow down and get the right person who I know is going to be a good hire. And we have a phrase we use all the time here at Fireseeds, it’s slow down to speed up. Sometimes you’ve just got to say no to some good things so you can get to great, right? Good is the enemy of great. And that does take

Slowing down. know one of the companies we were talking to recently, they’ve been implementing EOS. EOS is a phenomenal system. I love it. We’re doing it here at Fireseeds. It makes you slow down, but the rate at which you can run so much faster, that’s what’s going to get you there. so that concept of slowing down to speed up in the hiring process can be painful and it’s a reality. Sometimes you got to get stuff done, but you’ve got to just pump the brakes and go, okay.

this is important, because it’s gonna cost me, know, depending on what metrics you look at, you’re looking at three to five X of that annual salary that it could cost you for a bad hire.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, and I think it really takes someone who is tying back the decision making on something like that back to the core mission of the company. So what’s, from your perspective, what’s the difference between a leader that’s really executing tasks and one who’s really tying their work back to that bigger mission of the organization?

Walter Kearns
100%.

Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s kind of this concept of, they just filling the job description or do they get it? And I think this is again, where story comes into play. Cause when I see a leader who gets the job done and then a leader who multiplies, who’s not just looking at a task, they understand the why of what they’re doing. And that’s really important in a hiring process. I love the question.

What drives you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? And when you ask that, it’s a very open-ended question, but you get to see where their heart is. And that heart alignment, we have three principles of selection here at Fireseeds for any candidate, vet, discern, and connection. The vetting is, do they have the background? Do they have the qualifications? The discernment is, are they who they say they are? Because nobody looks better than they do on their resume on their wedding day. But the connection piece.

Michael Johnson
Mm.

Walter Kearns
the story of FSM and the story of this candidate, are they gonna come together and are they gonna fit? Because if they fit, you’re gonna have a John Catalfamo who goes, no man, I wanna be a blessing right now to you. And you don’t necessarily need that. That may not be what’s best for you right now, but you don’t know that until you hear what drives them. Do they understand what you’re trying to do?

And that’s again, where you have to slow down that interview and not just ask tactical qualifying questions, but also broader heart level and head level questions to see what do they really care about and does that align? And that’s really important.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, you’re talking about influencing culture in an organization, aligning with it. And, you know, one thing I love about Fireseeds is you really push leaders to go beyond just the job descriptions and the tasks, but to really influence culture. When you see, ⁓ what have you seen, I guess, what have you seen happen when a company brings in a leader that really thinks like an owner?

Walter Kearns
I mean, not to be cliche, Michael, but multiplication. ⁓ I think I’ll go tangible and intangible here. Tangibly, you’re going to grow. You’re going to see explosive growth ⁓ within the company, within the number of employees you have, within the revenue, within the profitability ⁓ of your company. Intangibly, it’s going to be really fun to work there.

Michael Johnson
Mm-hmm.

Walter Kearns
You’re going

to get excited. walked into an office the other day here in Birmingham of one of our partners. It was such a joy to walk in those doors and they’re crushing it. They are having a great year. They’re going to have a great 26 it looks like. that tangible growth is because they’ve got some absolute A players ⁓ who are really getting after it. But also they just really like being together.

And I think that is something that is so unique to go, I want to go into work. I want to be with the people. And you guys have this in a big way, right? mean, Cord came out to Colorado to speak to you guys and he said, man, they just really enjoy each other. That was fun to go to. And when you have that, you’re going to see another tangible outcome, which is retention. You’re going to retain people because

Michael Johnson
Yeah.

Yeah.

Walter Kearns
They fit because you bring in the leaders who understand and go that extra mile, go that extra step. ⁓ And so that all blends together. And that’s the impossible game of business, right? That’s the impossible game of getting all these factors right.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, you talked about leadership a little bit earlier with three mindsets. Growth, ownership, and success mindsets. Could you just delve into those for us and tell us why they’re critical?

Walter Kearns
Yeah, it really is a great question. It’s a workshop we do quite a lot. It’s a Wildspark lesson, one of their modules. And this is derived from Craig Groeschel’s podcast on Mindsets. You’ve got growth mindset, you’ve got ownership mindset, and then you have successional mindset. Growth mindset is the base. Think of it as the foundation of a leader. This is, do you view things as static and unchangeable, or do you view things as

I can improve at anything, any day. I’m always going to ask that question, going back to what we talked about earlier. Could there be something else better? This is kind of on the working genius. This is the wonder, right? Of I know that I’m not perfect. Could I be wrong? Maybe I’m not. You can ask that question and still have confidence. But the growth mindset is this. I’m going to be a lifelong learner. I’m always going to be improving myself. I’m always going to push others to grow as well.

And when you have a growth mindset, it’s gonna bleed into an ownership mindset. Do I view everything around me as I’m gonna treat it like I own it, like this business is mine? I wanna think for Cord Sachs. That’s part of my job. I want my people thinking for me and for Cord, right? And Cord’s gonna be thinking for us. Cord owns the business. When he goes and lays his head down at night, everything is in his mind. Everything’s on his shoulders.

but do I think that too? And that ownership mindset is gonna vault you into a successional mindset, which is who’s coming in behind me? How can I work myself out of a job? Which is a very scary concept because what if I do work myself out of a job? What if somebody’s better than me? But if you can get there, then the business is gonna be revolutionized because then you can go, well, who’s

best. How can we put people in the seat that they’re going to thrive, which is also going to lead to greater efficiency, greater effectiveness, and explosive growth? We got to go to a workshop up in St. Louis last year at First Form, incredible facility. They have ⁓ hundreds of employees there, not a single janitorial staff. I was blown away. One of the cleanest offices I’ve ever been to in my life.

And CEO came in, he was talking about this concept of no janitorial staff. He said, look, if you go in the bathroom and I’m walking in after you and something is not clean, I’m going to fire you. And I thought, nah, I don’t believe that. I walked in the next day and there is an employee cleaning the urinal. I kid you not. And it was this mindset that he had instilled in everyone of

This is our building. We own this. You own this as an employee. There was not a speck of dust. Every single thing was put in its place and they thought like owners and therefore it allowed them to think successionally. they are, I mean, everybody knows first form and all the protein and the great stuff they’re doing. And so I think that that growth mindset is the foundation to lead you to the ownership, to lead you to successional. And when you can do that, you’re going to see your business go places that you could never take it.

And that’s where that humility piece comes in is even as a leader, you’ve got to understand your people are your greatest source of better ideas than you could ever think of. And if anybody’s listening as a leader right now, I just want to hopefully alleviate you a little bit. You don’t have to have all the ideas. That’s going to come from your people as well, but it takes those mindsets to be able to really engage with that concept.

Michael Johnson
Let’s talk a little bit more about humility too and how important that is. Within this formula of growth and then ownership and the success mindset, for a leader, where does humility fit in? How important is it?

Walter Kearns
It’s absolutely vital. And again, maybe to get up on a soapbox here, our society says that you shouldn’t be humble. You have to have all the ideas. You have to have all the answers. This is something I struggle with, if I’m being honest. I want to have all the answers. I hate being wrong. ⁓ But when you can enter into a conversation with your employees and say, here’s the concept, here’s what I’m thinking, what do you think? You’re gonna go places that you…

never could have imagined. But if you’re sitting in a place as a leader and you’re trying to prove yourself or you’re afraid to fail or you think that your people are going to leave if you fail, you’re never going to get there. You’re going to hit a ceiling much faster. You’re also going to lose a lot of good people. Great leaders want to work for someone who listens to them, who include them.

who have a growth track for them. And that takes you being humble to go, yeah, I’m not gonna do it all. I’m gonna put people in the right seat on the bus. Yes, you’re leading the charge. Some of the greatest leaders that I’ve talked to are ones who go, look, my favorite thing is to go get a milkshake for the warehouse workers, because I just wanna encourage them. But that takes that leader stepping out of their seat for a little while. And so I see humility as one of these great key components.

Yeah, so I think if you can engage in this concept of humility, it’s gonna lead you to greater growth. It’s gonna lead you to retention of your people ⁓ in a lot bigger way because great leaders want that. Great leaders want growth tracks. They want input. And it’s just a fallacy that a leader would have to do everything and know everything and have all the answers.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, for me, Walter, in my journey, that’s something that was really hard for me to learn early on because ⁓ building stuff and being kind of a technical guy, I was used to plugging away and getting my hands dirty and building. as the team was growing, I found myself as a bottleneck and I had to learn how to pass that on. And wouldn’t you know it, that the people around me were just way smarter than me.

and ended up building things way better than I could have ever imagined. And so I think that’s transition that everybody’s got to make.

Walter Kearns
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the most powerful questions you can ask as a leader is, what do you think? So instead of coming with the answer as a leader, and you may have a great answer, but also including your people to go, what do you think? And they’re going to light up. I promise you they will light up because they have an idea too. And man, if you have humility, their idea may be way better than yours. And that’s a great feeling.

Michael Johnson
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. know, Fireseeds, you guys have been on a journey, growth journey. We’ve seen it as we’ve partnered with you guys, and we’ve been working together for about a year and a half now. What’s that growth journey really looked like for Fireseeds as an organization?

Walter Kearns
Yeah, I think it’s interesting sitting here talking about leadership, talking about multiplying movements and multiplying leaders. We’re on the same journey that we’re talking about right now. That roundabout of we’re on a roundabout, we’re trying to get everybody on the same page, we’re trying to run the same direction. We’re doing that right now. We’re going through the same struggles that we’re talking about. I think every business does, but we’ve seen explosive growth this year. And I really think that the key component of that is

Sam and I talked about this the other day is we’re more concerned with people than we are with revenue. We want to make sure that our people are taken care of so that they can invest and pour into our partners. We like to say around here, we’re more concerned with the impact of a hire than we are closing out a search. I think that’s been really important because you guys get this, y’all are seeing some great growth.

There’s so often that you can get caught in this trap of performance and growth and people get left behind. And that’s really what we’ve been focusing in here at Fireseeds On is how do we develop authentic relationships where we serve and love our people and as an extension, our partners well.

Michael Johnson
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a healthy tension for sure to focus on the growth of the organization and profitability and also really lean in on the importance and the values around your people inside your organization. Keeping those things true at the same time. It’s a really healthy tension, but I think the best companies figure out how to do it.

Walter Kearns
Absolutely.

Michael Johnson
So you’ve spent years walking alongside great companies and great leaders, and you’ve learned a lot about Leadership Walter. And I really love your podcast, Culture for Breakfast. And if you’re listening to this, you need to check it out. It’s fantastic. Looking back, what’s one of the lessons that you’ve learned about leadership that maybe you didn’t expect at the start of your career?

Walter Kearns
That’s a really good question, Michael. Fred Rogers has a great quote that I love. He says, there’s no one you can’t love once you’ve heard their story. I really think that the greatest leaders that I’ve either experienced, been mentored by, got to walk alongside, been in their homes, they really care about me as a person and my story.

And I think this is something, especially in this world of AI and efficiency and how can we optimize everything? Even when we have conflict, negotiation, tempers flare, I just did a podcast with Slade McClendon down at Sunbelt in Fairhope, Alabama to talk about this concept of healthy conflict and resolution. When you can hear someone’s story and know who they are,

it’s really hard not to love them. I’m not saying you don’t have conflict. I have conflict with people I love every single day. And my wife would, she would ratify that. But I really think this idea of knowing someone and something we talk about all the time is, do you know someone’s greatest pain point? And do you know their favorite restaurant? And that’s not perfect. But if you know somebody’s greatest pain point and where they love to eat,

you can get past a lot of things and you can go really far with that person or have great impact with their business, depending on whether you’re a partner, a vendor, ⁓ or just a friend. And I think that’s something that we can lose very quickly in this day and age of optimization and AI. I’m not saying AI is bad. I use it every day. But I think that you got to use those systems and processes to enhance relationships.

which is what you guys do so well at FSM, helping people put those systems in place. But it’s got to be out of a heart of what’s your story and how are we seeking to understand one another. think that’s been one of the greatest impacts that I’ve got from some of those leaders that I’ve walked alongside.

Michael Johnson
That’s really good. And you speak a little bit about, think what happens is the almost like a compartmentalization as we work of people, know, we, maybe we know their pain points, but we haven’t gone far enough into the personal side to know their favorite restaurant. And I mean, I think that’s a really good standard is if you know somebody, you know, where they like to eat, you know, what they like to get at urban cookhouse or whatever restaurant we go to. And you also know kind of what they’re struggling with, what the hurdles are. That’s a well-rounded view of somebody. think that that’s a fantastic standard.

Walter Kearns
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s really fun because then you get to, when someone comes to Fireseeds and says, need this CFO or I need this VP. Great. We would love to help you. But why, why do you need them? And when you understand that next level, it helps you have empathy. also helps you find the right person, not just a qualified person. ⁓ but the relationship aspect.

Michael Johnson
Mm-hmm.

Walter Kearns
to us is everything.

Michael Johnson
Yeah, for you Walter, just to zoom in on you, what do you hope your impact’s gonna be? Whether through Fireseeds or through the leaders you’re investing in or your podcast, what’s Walter’s impact gonna be?

Walter Kearns
Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, ⁓ I hope my impact is greatest with my wife and my three kids. I want them, when I grow old or on my tombstone, I want it to say, I know that he cared about me and he made me better. And to me, that is, I knew Christ more because I got to interact with him. ⁓ That’s my ultimate goal.

and to extend that into business. Because I see them as a complete integration. One, I want our people to see that I prioritized what was most important, which is my family. I want them to prioritize their family. And I want that impact to ultimately be that they were able to go out and have more impact. And I think that’s that successional mindset piece.

Michael Johnson
Yeah.

Walter Kearns
I’m not going to care how much money I have on my deathbed. I’m not going to care about how many people we placed when I retire. What I am going to care about is the people that we placed and the recruiters that placed them, what kind of impact can we look back and see that they made on the world, on the kingdom of heaven? And what kind of impact did they have on my family? We do a great job over here at Fireseeds of integrating

family and work. have late days. Kids are in the office all the time. And to me, that really is what I desire. I could sit here and spout off metrics of where I want to be in a couple of years with Fireseeds and what I would love for personal revenue growth. But it’s really that impact. ⁓ One of our guys, we were working with a consultant ⁓ earlier this year and he made the comment, he goes, man, that guy is a plus. I said, what do you mean a plus? He goes, he just

adds to everything that he touches. And I said, man, I hope that that’s on my tombstone. He was a plus in every area of my life.

Michael Johnson
Hmm.

So Walter, thanks so much for this conversation. It’s been awesome. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been inspiring. It’s challenged me to listen a little bit better as a leader, to lean in and make sure that I’m multiplying others around me. Before we close, we always ask our guests to leave us with a quote or piece of advice that’s been meaningful to them. And so what comes to mind for you?

Walter Kearns
It’s a great question. I would say as leaders, if you’re thinking about humility, growth mindset, successional leadership, I’ve really tried to build my leadership principles on this concept of just ask more questions than you make statements. As a leader, you’re gonna have to pull the trigger. gonna have to make the hard decision often. But if you ask more questions than you make statements,

People are gonna follow you. They’re gonna be excited to follow you and you’re gonna learn a lot more. And when you look back at the end of your career, you’re gonna see a lot of people behind you instead of a wake of dead bodies. And you’re gonna attract more talent and retain more talent that way. And so I strive to do that. I fail at it every day, but to ask more questions than you make statements.

Michael Johnson
That’s a great standard and a challenge. think a challenge. I’m gonna be thinking about that at least the rest of today. So that’s good. ⁓ I really appreciate that Walter.

Walter Kearns
Yeah

Sam Donaghey
Well, that’s a wrap on today’s episode of the Fast Slow Motion Podcast. A big thank you to Walter Kearns for joining us and sharing his insights on multiplying leaders, building culture, and scaling with the right people. To learn more about Walter and Fireseeds, you can head over to fireseeds.com. And don’t miss his podcast, Culture for Breakfast. We’re going to link both of those in the show notes.

As always, you can catch past episodes at fastslowmotion.com slash podcast, or you can subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you’ve got a question, as always, or a topic that you’d like us to cover, you can drop us a note at fastslowmotion.com slash podcastfeedback.