Forging Your Own Path To Success When That’s Your Only Choice, with André Brisson

Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here, and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan and special guest André Brisson. André, it is such a treat to have you here. I cannot wait as we kind of explore your whole entrepreneurial path. But to kick us off in doing that, over to you, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. One of my favorite activities, André, is to understand how entrepreneurs became entrepreneurs. And so I find that it's the one thing that entrepreneurs are most interested in. So I thought we would start just by giving us the genealogy of your entrepreneurial career.
 
André Brisson: Basically, in short, I started my own engineering company after my only career job I ever had as an engineer, structural engineer. It was actually to create an environment that I would feel accepted and belong to. Because the way I work is not conventional. It's not normal. It's not linear thinking. And that put a lot of people off, offset them. So therefore, I created a company where I can do it my way and succeed on my talents and have no one to answer to, basically, in short.
 
Dan Sullivan: What are we talking about by time span here? You know, when you started and how many years it is since you've been doing this?
 
André Brisson: So I graduated in 1999 and got a job. And I think that really supported my entrepreneurial pursuits or methods because they wanted to grow quickly, have a fabrication company and build their engineering firm. So they let me loose. So over a 10 year span, I just remember doing a work term there going either in 10 years, I own it or I'm a partner. I don't know where that came from. It just popped in my head. So that was my goal. So after 10 years, I became a partner. But the growth stage stopped. It what I call stagnated, but it became sustainable growth, incremental growth. And they were happy with that. And I couldn't sit still. So it became a toxic environment. And I went and created my own company, Jade Engineers at the time, which was acronym for just another damn engineer trying to make a living. And then just went through it and how to change engineering in the construction field was my goal. So after 10 years I went in, so that was 2007, and I've been doing this since then.
 
Dan Sullivan: The interesting thing that I've always stressed with entrepreneurs, because the population that's not entrepreneurial can only rationalize entrepreneurism, that it's about the money. And I've always stressed that it's about the freedom, and money is one of the tools you have to have to be free. Just a little bit in terms of GPS identification, and this was in the London area or London itself …
 
André Brisson: London, Ontario, Canada, yeah. A small community just west of Toronto.
 
Dan Sullivan: On the Thames River?
 
André Brisson: Near there, yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: So, who were the first type of clients you had? Were they people that you already had when you were a member of the company, or did you stretch out and get all new clients?
 
André Brisson: I ended up stretching out a little bit to get new clients because I provide a new service on the structural side. And it had a lot to do with working with the repair shops. We dealt with, at first with mobile cranes and the hydro trucks or the power trucks, the buckets that they use on the end of an arm, the cherry pickers. And I got along great with the mechanics and the foreman, not necessarily very well with the management. It's not that I didn't get along with it. It's just, I had more success with the guys on the floor, girls on the floor. Like what I realized with my 5 Implementor, I'm a translator between the conceptual and the real. So dealing with the mechanics, I was able to help and get practical solutions that were executable at an efficient way. And when I got more construction sites and construction fields, I was able to work well with them and come up with solutions and use their solutions, because honestly, they've been looking at it a lot longer than I have. And I just made sure it was safe that it would work. So with time, that was just referrals after that. And then trying to deal with the bureaucracy, that really drove me crazy. It caused me problems, because I would share my opinion. And politics and bureaucracies don't really like the opinions I have, because I just like to get to the point quick and get it done.
 
Dan Sullivan: So that was the case when you first started. How have you bypassed that as you've gone along?
 
André Brisson: Just concentrating more working on with general contractors and people actually doing the physical work and construction site problem solving. So like I said, I've designed a few buildings from scratch, learned it, figured it out. I don't want to do it again because it's repetitive. But when we go to a construction site, because there's a problem, it can't fit or something's occurred, the conceptual engineers, I'm not criticizing that they're inept, it's just their ability is the conceptual side to fix a real problem and kind of step out of the theoretical world and work with the practical and work in the gray. That's where I shine. And I knew how to work. I knew how all the different trades work. I knew how all the equipment's used. Having the fabrication experience was really tremendous. I wanted to learn that. I just know how everything works and how it can interact. And then I just get everyone together, figure it out, have a nice chat. Solution solved. Everyone's happy. Good. I leave. And it's a good, practical, quick solution that's economical.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. One of the things, just to define that, because we're working with a population in the 21st century, that words like fabricate, they just don't know what fabrication is. What I find is that people who actually know how to do things and know how to work with materials and alter materials to create new solutions, that's not really part of the educational system right now. So from a fabrication, can you give me an example of something that's a fairly easy thing to understand, but something that you've fabricated that solves the problem on a construction site?
 
André Brisson: Well, there's a couple of things, like one way they had to reach an extra 10 feet into a building to install a couple of things. And there's no floor, it's just the framework, the skeleton of the steel structure. Then I looked over, they had a piece of equipment that we could remove forklifts off that has a boom that can go up and in. And we fabricated a custom extension device that we can connect to that and then bring the material in so that someone can install it. But the thing is, it's just not just the structural analysis of the extension arm. We had to work on the process to do it safely, but also ensure that the equipment we're attaching this custom piece to was stable and safe. And it could be used. And then that the Department of Labors wouldn't come in and shut everything down, or Health and Safety. So to me, that was very simple, but it was a big deal for everyone on site. And we just made it work.
 
Dan Sullivan: Now, you've really entered into the realm of intellectual property here.
 
André Brisson: I have, sir.
 
Dan Sullivan: You're creating new devices that didn't exist before, but you're creating the new processes, the training processes, the implementation processes. So when did it occur to you that you were creating valuable new things besides getting paid for the solution?
 
André Brisson: Sadly, two years ago.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, it could have been 10 years from now.
 
André Brisson: It could be, but yeah, it's just it's actually with your help just understanding how that is an intellectual property and how I think the world's finally caught up to that stuff can be protected and monetized, because people are willing to pay for thinking now. But the processes part, I never really understood that until about two years ago. It's how I'm doing it is the actual IP. It's not what I was producing. And then like Shannon a long time ago, she actually sat me down and says, you need to figure out your process for problem solving. I'm like, it's like everyone else. She said, no, it's not. There's a unique process. That's your IP. And I'm like, oh, okay. So that's about two years ago, I think. And then, yeah, so the process is, and it's not standard, is what I'm discovering.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Is that a hard thing for people in engineering to grasp? To do something outside of a book?
 
André Brisson: Oh, yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, what I mean is to step back from what you've created and seeing that as the way you went around creating something is actually the most valuable for you and, you know, for the growth of your company, that how you did something long range is more valuable than what you created.
 
André Brisson: In engineering, no, because if it's non-standard, they always criticize the how. I got the results that they wanted, but then we move on to criticize how I did it. And that's when I start reflecting based on another conversation, it was, I always got in trouble for how I did it because I usually, I got the results that was requested, but how I did it was always criticized. So it's a very traditional profession. Since they crossed the road at that corner for the last 200 years, they'll always do it and they'll fight to the death and then I walk halfway through because it makes more sense, then they all come attack me in a way.
 
Dan Sullivan: This really takes us, Shannon, into the realm of what Kathy Kolbe discovered about the educational system. The fact that a student would get a result that there would be a standard way of going about and getting a result. Let's say it's in math. Let's say it's in language and everything else. And the teachers are insistent that the method be followed. And it's more important to them that the student follow the method then they actually get the result.
 
Shannon Waller: Yes. Yeah. Exactly. It's interesting because I pulled up your Kolbe profile because you had mentioned Implementer. So Implementer is a word that refers to the incredible Kolbe MO, modus operandi. And it tells you, yeah, how you do things. So Implementer is how you handle space intangibles. And it ranges from really, really abstract if someone has a little bit of mental energy in this area all the way down to very concrete. And you're a 5, I'm a 5, Dan, you're a 4. So we all kind of get that. You do it in a very precise way with your Fact Finder, but your Follow Yhrough, which is that, you know, following step by step, you're a 2. Actually, you're a 2, I'm a 2, Dan's a 2. So we all do it the same. And what 2 is, is like shortcuts. That's really what it means. You'll find the shortest, fastest way. If someone says, oh, we have to go through steps one all the way through 10, you're like, nah, I can do one, five, and nine.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. And shortcut, I don't really like because it's a misunderstood term. I like to use, I'm more efficient. I find more efficient ways to do things. And if I'm stuck on some, I can jump and start a new project or path. So I can jump paths. I don't need to get completion of it. And I think that's what's really thrown off engineering is I can go here, there, there, change it up. Everything's changed. Like my team, I tell them, once the project's planned, I stay out until they hit a road in the process that they need a shortcut.
 
Shannon Waller: A roadblock. Yep. Got you. Yeah. And also just to finish it off. So the order is Fact Finder, Follow Through, Quick Start, Implementer, if anyone wants to follow along. So 8255. So also a 5 Quick Start, which again, if you've got with a bunch of engineers who are Fact Finder Follow Through short Quick Start, which again has its own set of strengths. We're not maligning any other profile. We need them. We definitely need them. And they'll actually execute on things where you're bored. You'll be like, okay, go and do this. They're like, okay. And they go off and do it. But you want to be onto the next thing. You want to be compressing things, making it more.
 
André Brisson: I like to experiment. I'm okay with experimenting. And the things being the 5, I don't do anything until someone on the other side shows up.
 
Shannon Waller: Right.
 
André Brisson: So it throws people off that I'm inconsistent. Because right now, the more we talk, I might be pulling on the reins a little bit more because you guys are all Quick Starts. And then if I'm dealing with resistant Quick Starts, I might be a little more innovative.
 
Shannon Waller: Right. So I want to go back because you've spent a lot of time with Kathy and so have I, but I think you probably actually spent more time with her. So what impact has, you know, the different profiles, Kolbe, PRINT, CliftonStrengths, Working Genius. How has that helped you, you know, package how you're problem solving and really understand it and give it more weight? Because I'm going to presume that that's what's happened. What impact has it had on you?
 
André Brisson: Validation. Validation that how I always knew from a kid that the way I want to do things, I always knew this is the way I needed to do things was right, even though I was told it was wrong.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. Right for you.
 
André Brisson: Right, for me, and since I'm a stubborn Frenchman, French-Canadian, I fought it, right? But these assessments just validate it. When I saw the 2 Follow Through, I'm like, oh my Lord. school, I can think back all the challenges I've had because of my 2 Follow Through. And the other stuff, my PRINT 1-8, having things to be perfect, right, and correct, and strong, self-reliant. Right. And then with my self-assurance strength, it's all gets reinforced. So it was validation. And it's not the standard engineering way.
 
Shannon Waller: No, it's funny with your PRINT and your self-assurance. The other people I know, it's like, okay, my way is the right way.
 
André Brisson: It's not necessarily it's the right way. It's just I'm very confident the decision I made is correct. If you show alternate points that it's wrong, bring it on. But I'm not going to sit here and shoot the shit for two hours, four hours. I know I made a decision, but I did a lot of research. I looked at a lot of different things and I'm ready to go.
 
Shannon Waller: That's what I find about profiles is they give a common language.
 
Dan Sullivan: Correct.
 
Shannon Waller: And I love interpreting people's results for them quickly. I do it in conversations because they're like, oh, now I get it. Now I can see the pattern. Dan, you always have people reflect on their experience. And when you can put common language to it, it does give it, as client said last week, clarity and confidence to move ahead, that this is your right way as opposed to the right way or a right way. So I appreciate you talking about that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, I'm going to talk about negotiation here, André. One of the things that I think is useful for people who are different is to accept that the world as it exists wasn't made with them in mind. Correct.
 
André Brisson: And they never will.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, that's just a reality. Correct. And that you have to negotiate. If you want to do things differently, you have to find ways of negotiating with things that disregard you. But the other thing is people who oppose you. Okay. And it sounds to me like what you've spoken about so far, that you've learned how to negotiate with the world outside. Is there also a negotiation you have to do with the world inside?
 
André Brisson: I was just going to say, you have to negotiate two ways. I had to negotiate with me that this is the way I am and move forward. And part of my French here, but F the world. Every time I followed my own convention, I succeeded. When I followed the world's convention, that's when it went well. So getting a better understanding how I work, why I work, and what I prefer to work on, was very eye-opening and I don't need anyone's permission now. I just move. I mean, if you don't like it, either you're not an ideal friend, not an ideal client, not an ideal staff, or not ideal whatever. And I move forward and try to find the people that appreciate and value that. And those people like to pay more if you get the right ones, right? Like, so off-the-cuff thinking, the gray area in engineering is where I thrive. And just because it's been done for a hundred years doesn't mean it's applicable right now. And that's probably the biggest thing that throws other engineers off because I can prove it. I've done the math and it works and they can't disprove it. So then we get into egos and stuff. So that's why I say my biggest challenges in the construction site field are other engineers. It's not trades, it's not general contractors or owners. It's other engineers, which are the Fact Finder Follow Throughs. And the system has taught them since they did well in school that they know it all, that their way goes. And then when they get challenged or have to think differently, they have to put it on me that I'm unprofessional. I don't know what I'm talking about.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So there's two types of freedoms for entrepreneur. There's freedom from, and you've discussed who you have to be free from, but there has to be a crossover point where all your energies are going into freedom to. I would say from my experience, and I've been coaching entrepreneurs almost exactly 50 years since I started, that 99% of the entrepreneurs that I meet, not necessarily the ones I coach, but the ones I meet at conferences and everything else, never get past freedom from. And they have kind of an anger about the fact that something bad has been done to them and they want to free themselves from that experience, but they keep talking about it. And the more they talk about it, the less free they are from the experience.
 
André Brisson: Correct.
 
Dan Sullivan: So what is the freedom to in this entrepreneurial life?
 
André Brisson: So just to go, that's one thought I forgot to say about the assessment, just to go back. Understanding myself that way, I stopped becoming a victim and complaining that the world was against me. So now, knowing that I'm different, you know, I got rid of the victim attitude and started going towards my, being more of my Unique Ability. So my freedom to is, you know, honestly, it's protecting people's rights to be accepted and valued as unique individuals. So that's where trying to get to working with great people, working whenever I want on projects I want and surround myself with the right people that want to move things forward. Like I just discovered there's a lot of visionary type owners who want to do buildings and build a lot of stuff, but the contractors and engineers can't handle it because they don't know what they want yet. They want to talk, they want to see, and they just want someone there who can help them make good decisions now, not costly ones in construction. And I thrive on those guys and those people. So that's kind of where I can help people make their visions real. I guess that's a direction I want to get at. And if you don't want to, and you're worried about price, we're out.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: I love that André and I love that for you and I love that for your clients because you can bridge that gap between, it's more than your Quick Start, but you get the point. You can help people flush it out. And I love what you said, you know, help them not make costly mistakes at the beginning and like not do something that's inefficient. But I mean, you're an incredible partner with whom to work because you can make, you know, we talk about make it up, make it real. You can make it real. And that's a very powerful capability for the right, right fit individuals for you.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. And thanks for that. ‘Cause the other thing too is I slowly realized 48 years later is it's not only applicable in the engineering world. Well, you just described what I do. I'm already using it with other people that's trying to develop a new company or a new program. I help people's ideas come real. Kind of a cool thing.
 
Dan Sullivan: I find it interesting with people who are different, you know. It's a big deal to them that they're different, okay? But at the same time, they have a desire to be accepted by people who are the same. And I say, you know, it seems to me you have to make a choice. You know, I mean, there's a certain logic to being different that if you have the ability to be different and successfully different, you know, that it seems to me that time spent on trying to be okay to the people who are the same just doesn't seem to me like a really good use of time and energy.
 
André Brisson: No, the other thing I just discovered too, I've been trying to fight the engineering system for a long time. And now I'm like, how about I find other engineers that are similar that want this type of support, and then we can amass an army that can fight this system. So that's where I think I went from victim, being pissed off at the world, to let's make this practical and strategic and better use of energy, really, is what I'm after.
 
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm. Now, I find professions hard to transform.
 
André Brisson: Yes, very much so, because their basic commitment is not to change.
 
Dan Sullivan: Right.
 
André Brisson: That's the system. And there's no art in the systems either.
 
Dan Sullivan: Right. Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, Dan, you've always said innovate. Don't compete.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. So when we were faced with competition, this was early, early days. You were like, okay, I have a choice where I can you know, compete and go directly against them, or we can just innovate. And that was fuel for your fire, which I always thought was interesting. So, instead of going against or transforming the profession, you will do it just by being you, attracting the other more innovative, open-minded engineers. And it will be transformational. I was going to say disruptive, Dan, but more transformational just by you being you. You don't actually have to go up against anything. You can create incredible impact and change just through the ripple effects of you doing you.
 
André Brisson: And when you do that, like you made a comment earlier, Dan, before we started recording here, I forget exactly how you said it, but once I made that decision, I'm just going to go after the people that respect it. I'm not going to try to fit in. Those people just show up. Because I think it was an energy change, was that people won't take you seriously and take yourself seriously. But that is an energy shift. So then all of a sudden these people are showing out of nowhere. Like, really? Like, I've been trying to get you like for 15 years and now I just changed my mind? But people will show up if you get into that pure passion or Unique Ability, right? Or make that decision.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I think people will show up if your message is about them.
 
Shannon Waller: True.
 
André Brisson: I changed the message, yeah. I've been talking differently to people, yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: We have a great doctor, he's our central doctor, David Hasse, and his partner works in Nashville, and he's what's called a functional doctor. What it means is that he's been trained in the standard system, but he notices that there's all sorts of useful things that are happening over the border in other disciplines. I mean, medicine's been around since humans have been around in one form or another, but the profession of medicine has only chosen what I would say, a measurable scientific world. If you can't measure it, it's not medicine. Well, we know that there's all sorts of things that can't be measured scientifically that work. Fortunately, I'm married to someone who's very much been of this mindset over 40 years, and it's done me a world of good. My doctors who are in the official system wouldn't have even understood what the issue was or how to proceed it. So he just made a statement in our last visit, two or three weeks ago, and he says, you know, I'm the physician for your life experience. And I said, oh, what a great book. I said, that's a really great book.
 
But I talked to him last week. He was in his Free Zone workshop last week. And I said, I think you should change the title of the book to Physicians for Your Life Experience, and not talk to patients, but talk to other physicians. So what I would say, in your case, I'm looking for contractors who are looking for creative solutions, engineers who are looking for creative solutions. And you're not talking about yourself here, but you're using your experience of freeing yourself up and techniques that you're actually talking that in the profession of engineering there's a five percent who are very, very resonant with your thinking, and you have to create a message that allows them to identify themselves, and allows them to identify you as a forward thinker, as a coach, as someone who's a pathfinder, and do that, and put all your energy into that, you'll create an entirely new industry.
 
André Brisson: Well, thank you for that. You just validated what I've been thinking over the last few months based on what's just occurred. Because it would have been nice to have a little community like that. I thought I would just sum up. You're actually really good, because that's what I told you in Chicago there. It's just like, how do you like the new book? You always validate what I always thought in the past. It is correct. So now I can definitely go, no, no.
 
Dan Sullivan: But the big thing is that people who are that way but are isolated don't really, really accomplish much. But if people are like that, who are unified, and it's a growing group, start creating something. First of all, ultimately, it's the check writer that determines whether they're right or not. It's the customer, it's the … I mean, the one of a billion. And basically, you've got to make a connection between people like you, who are resonant, who can create bigger solutions together than any of you can do just on your own. And then you unify and then you identify the hero target, people who write a check for creative new types of problem solvers.
 
André Brisson: So my Fact Finder is writing something down now.
 
Dan Sullivan: Shannon, what do you think about that? Because that's what we've done in Coach. We're not trying to convert non-creative entrepreneurs into creative entrepreneurs. We're just looking for creative entrepreneurs.
 
Shannon Waller: I was just thinking that was just a masterclass right there on how to talk to your audience. I mean, we chatted about just this the other day. It's like, there are people out there who are isolated, who actually really are looking for resonance. They're also thinking the same thing that you've been thinking for years, André. It's like, oh my gosh, am I the only one? And for a lot of years, the answer to that was yes. And then you're like, oh, there are a few more of me out there. And that five percent number, Dan, has been true for entrepreneurs for all time.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, at any given time, five percent of the working taxable population qualify as entrepreneurial. And then within that five percent, we figure there's one out of four hundred who's the one that we're actually looking for. Okay, so that requires first of all, really requires knowing yourself. If I want to find people who are like me, I better really know who I am to do it.
 
Shannon Waller: That was such a simple but profound statement, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: I love it. No, I mean, half my research is just who the hell am I, you know?
 
André Brisson: That was the other reason, too, I created my own company. I didn't realize after a while is I created my company so I can have freedom of money, so I can have more freedom to learn. I spent a lot of my profits going to conferences like Kolbe, you know, going deep down analysis and spending money to learn and figuring out that's what I love best is to learn new things, not relearn the same thing.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, you have learner number one on CliftonStrengths.
 
André Brisson: I do.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Shannon, that's probably, you know, the first time you came over when you were working for another company, we weren't doing the presentation for you. We were doing the presentation for prospects and you came over and I think you just felt a resonance about how we were going about it.
 
Shannon Waller: 100 percent. Yeah. I mean, I remember Susan, the one who I had said, you know, hey, well, she'd invited me over and is sitting in a dark room. Slides, the old days of slides, slides like the slide carousel. That one.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh, wow. Yeah. The good old days. Yeah. Terrific.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, this was 33 years ago, just to be clear. And it was great because Susan asked me a really profound question. She said, did you enjoy what you saw? I'm like, oh my gosh, yes. Because I knew all of the different events that you had talked about, Dan. I said, but there's no way I would have ever put them together that way. The whole shift from the industrial into the knowledge economy and the skills that entrepreneurs would need in order to be really successful in the knowledge economy. And it was like, I was blown away, and I'd also reached a ceiling, kind of like you, André, with my previous company. I knew what I wanted to do, which was to actually work with the visionaries, but I was a lowly little administrative person, which, by the way, I was terrible at administration, if you know my Kolbe. I can see that. And then Susan asked just another profound question. She says, are you happy with what you're doing? And out of my mouth pops, no, I'm bored. Before I had time to even think about it. That's what it was.
 
Five weeks later, and I just celebrated my 33rd anniversary on July 8th. So congratulations. Yeah, pretty wild. And yeah, so the 100% Dan, there was very much a resonance, did not know what I was doing. Let's be clear. It was a lean couple of years, then really found my stride. And Dan, I have been so incredibly appreciative. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, my life is having phenomenal conversations with phenomenal people. That's what I do internally, right? And it's like, how much better could it be?
 
Dan Sullivan: But out of that, you've created programs inside our company that we never would have created. I mean, just because that wouldn't be my focus and it wouldn't have been Babs’s focus and yet it was an important focus for somebody. And you created it. I mean, it wasn't like you could, you know, put out and hire somebody to do that or cast somebody, as we use it. You couldn't have done it. It had to be created. And you did it out of your educational experience, because you had actually had academic experience with these type of issues. And I'm talking about the direct support team for the entrepreneur. And you also created the Edge. Unique Edge.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, I coached the very first one.
 
Dan Sullivan: It's just that you're not the person to coach to that age group.
 
Shannon Waller: No, I coached one and only one, which is true. But to your point earlier, Dan, and I really appreciate this context around things, I did connect people who were isolated. Strategic assistants were isolated. Entrepreneurial team members were isolated. Entrepreneurial team leaders were isolated, right? And pulling them together into workshops and into programs and having them recognize that like entrepreneurs, they also have a unique skill set and a unique mindset. All of a sudden they're like, oh, the comments in the workshops are hysterical, like, we all work for the same person. Which they don't actually, but the same type of person, the same type of Kolbe person. So I had never looked through that particular lens before, Dan, but that's exactly what I did. And, you know, I got to be me. I also am a misfit in most structured organizations. I mean, the main client of the company I used to work with was General Motors of Canada. the largest bureaucracy outside the Canadian government, right? So it was a brilliant shift to find my tribe of entrepreneurs.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it was a branch company. It wasn't actually the, you know, so this General Motors of Canada wasn't creating anything new. It wasn't creating anything because that came from Detroit. To the degree there was creativity in General Motors, it wasn't coming in a branch company. The whole point was you were doing it exactly the way the head office is telling you. And your head office isn't the head office that's making the decisions, it's another head office.
 
Shannon Waller: And while they weren't paying attention, Dan, Canada did create some really cool things. And then someone did start to pay attention because it was successful and then got slapped down and slapped down hard. So when I actually left, the constraints were coming in, all the decisions were being made from Detroit, all of the things, because the upstarts had gotten a little too uppity. So all the fun went out of the system really quickly. Yeah, all the independence went out. And that so was not me. I mean, the amount of time and effort I put in to do my work just because I had so little mental energy for it, it's not good. And then I got to work with Coach and came up with an idea for team programs. Bab said, yes, let's do it. And I was like, scared, but then modeled myself after you, Dan, and eventually started, you know, designing the workshops myself and never looked back.
 
Dan Sullivan: André, you've been a coach over the last two or three years in the area of ADD. So, you know, with your podcasts and I've been a guest on your podcast. And I appreciate that. But I would say that your experience of coaching there is just a test run and how you're going to be a coach for a different kind of engineering industry. So it was really good, but I think it's practice.
 
André Brisson: No, everything's practice for better improvement. I've been helping ADHD entrepreneurs, especially with growth mindset. Entrepreneurs just understand themselves better and validate who they are and how their brain works. It's not standard. Like I like Tom Hartman analogy, you know, ADHD brain is a hunter in a farmer's world and the world is now set up for farmers. So our hunting skills are not really appreciated anymore because that's what's accused of being distracted, inattention, impulsive. And then with using these tools and just understanding how the ADHD brain functions, there's nothing wrong with you. It just works differently. And they take ownership of that. And I gave them a vocabulary to understand and to communicate to other people. I don't like when people say, oh, that's my ADHD. I can't do it. Or hey, it's my Quick Start. I can't do anything. No, it's not that. You're very good at brainstorming. Or for me, it's like, hey, I get distracted very easily when this occurs. So if you don't do this, therefore I can be more present or let me fidget, then I'll focus. I don't say I need to do this because of the labels and that. And then once people get the clarity that it's a brain thing and what they've been doing is how they should be doing it, it really transforms their lives to take ownership and to move. Like you said, it's learning about yourself first and then how you show up to the world after.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I just wrote down a possible quarterly book title.
 
André Brisson: What is it?
 
Dan Sullivan:Who the hell are you?
 
Shannon Waller: I love it. I'm willing to help.
 
Dan Sullivan: Actually, it doesn't fit on two lines. So who the hell are you anyway?
 
André Brisson: I'd be willing to help you on that one.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, people say, well, people don't recognize me. And I said, well, who the hell are you? Who the hell are you?
 
Shannon Waller: Well the whole thing about if you want other people to know you, you have to know you is pretty funny.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and can I count on you being the same person next year, you know?
 
André Brisson: And that's so valid to understand. If you don't know yourself first, no one else will follow suit and you're going to be drawing the wrong people.
 
Dan Sullivan: Were you on the Connector yesterday? It was really interesting because I created a new tool and it's called, What Pulls You Forward? Because a lot of the image that entrepreneurs have is that they have to be constantly pushing themselves forward. If they're not constantly vigilant and they're not on it every day, they won't move. And I said, I wonder if that's true. And part of it, I have the advantage of being 80 right now. And the pushing part of my life is over, you know, and I think it disappeared over the last 10 years between 70 and 80. And I'm not pushing, I'm being pulled forward. And it's because of my commitments, long-range commitments, like permanent commitments to people in my life, Babs, my team, you know, Free Zone, the top of the Program, the Free Zone Program, and everything else. And then I have some great habits. I write a book every quarter. I create a new workshop every quarter, you know, creating intellectual property that's being validated as patents, that has a value. And I said, you know, at this stage in my life, I cannot not do what I'm doing. It's impossible for me not to be doing what I'm doing. Now, I would say that, who the hell are you? And the answer to that question is, what is it that you cannot not do? Because that's the thing that other people can bet on.
 
Shannon Waller: Right.
 
André Brisson: And for me, what I cannot not not not—okay, there's too many nots in there, and not not do is stop learning and staying with the status quo. So as long as I'm learning new things, grinding my horizons, and then everyone else learns with me and grows with me. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. And that's one of the things I got with the podcast. The Impulsive Thinker is I'm constantly learning. But the sole reason I'm doing it is to, there wasn't a lot of research with entrepreneurial, ADHD entrepreneurs, or especially the gifted, high successful ones. So I decided, I'm just gonna talk to smart people, intellectual people, and understand me more. As long as I'm learning, everyone else is learning, I'm letting them eavesdrop in. I'm doing two a week, an interview a week, and a short thought a week, and it's been going since October 1st, three years ago. And people say that's a lot of content, but like, that's kind of cool. I'd like to do more. So that's the thing is how can I get to improve better refinement, but that's what I would not do. And I can't do this in the engineering world as well. And I thought a couple of years ago, I thought it was a useless thing, but I can do that there.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, you're finding growth where growth is possible. But my sense is that you've created the framework with your, um, ADHD podcasts. Or a new engineering industry. Okay. You know, from my standpoint, getting an overview and understanding what your life as an entrepreneur was, is that you've been working on this from day one?
 
André Brisson: Yes. Now I see that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. You've been working on day one. So this goes back to, you know, I mean, 1999 is when you graduated from college, but I think that you were working on that for eight or five years before you graduated from college at 14. So that's 40 years you've been working on this. My sense is that you cannot not go on doing this.
 
André Brisson: No, I cannot not, not.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, the other thing we were talking about resonance and what the Impulsive Thinker podcast does, you're literally and figuratively broadcasting out a signal for other people to pick up on, unless you had a way of doing that. And we know it's inspired other people to start their own podcasts because you are unabashedly yourself, you talk to great people, you have like a really interesting, I was gonna say eclectic, but that's not quite the word, just a diverse range of people, many of whom I know, which is lovely. And it's like getting a 360 degree perspective around ADHD entrepreneurs, being an impulsive thinker, how it can work, challenges, opportunities, and that kind of puts it out into the world.
 
André Brisson: And then also how it's affected my life in the past, right? I've been pretty real with that.
 
Shannon Waller: You've been very real. Yeah, so it's not all sunshine and roses.
 
André Brisson: No, it's been hard and how to get the term here, but blank slap some of the negative narratives.
 
Shannon Waller: You've I wrote that down. I know right out of your head to be a more a more positive one that's more validating. So when you have to kind of undo, let's say 40 years of conditioning to really authentically be yourself and then put that out in such a constructive way. I mean, that's pretty powerful. And I think again, it's coaching, you know, obviously then there's something next to do with that capability and skill you're developing.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And then the one thing I really learned with the ADHD research, it hit me at a life tempest, I call it. I lost my first engineering company because I wanted a bad partnership. It wasn't going well at home. I really hated myself. So there was like three thunderclouds hitting. And then I was yelling at my kids for no reason. And I remember this conversation with my brain. You're overreacting, dude. Settle down. And then my other brain goes, I don't care. I'm going all out. And I went all out and I saw their face. I was like, that was me as a kid. So I went and got help. So then I got the diagnosis and then with all this research, and I guess it's very simple actually to manage these quote unquote symptoms. I always said, your strengths can become weaknesses. So like CliftonStrengths says, overutilized, underutilized. My ADHD was key to my success, but it was actually my undiagnosed ADHD was key to my challenges and problems. So what can we do to harness this and manage it? And it's just three simple things. It's an executive functioning difference. The world doesn't see our way of doing things as the right way. We have a timeframe difference. Comprehension is now or not now. There's no yesterday, tomorrow, a little bit later. It's now or not now. That's all we do. And then our brain inhibits impulses differently. That's it. So if we manage those three things, create our systems, ADHD structures, I call it, which is environment control, habits, routines, and personal rules, then it's manageable and you can really strive and succeed well. And the only reason people think it's a disorder or it's wrong, because it doesn't fit the norm, the farmer's norm.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, that's where I want to jump in. And Tom Hartman's book has been one of my inspirations. We tried about a couple of years ago now, attention deficit disorder, different perception. And they've gone back anthropologically and figured out that hunting societies, even still in existence today, of all the ADHD characteristics. So distractibility, impulsivity, and risk-taking are fabulous hunter characteristics. You're paying attention to everything, not one thing. You see the little twitch in the bushes, okay? Gets your attention. Risk-taking, you're going to go after it, not knowing what it is or what else is after it. Well, it's something to protect the community, right? And the fourth one, which I think is vastly underappreciated, is hyper-focus. Laser beam focus, and that's actually a super strength. Again, anything taken to the screen can become a weakness, but it's that ability just to laser beam focus on and not let go.
 
Dan, you do this for decades at a time, but it's just that complete and total focus, which is, again, a brilliant hunting. So I think in certain professions, sales, entrepreneurship, a bunch of other areas, these are advantages that people without hunting instincts or capabilities actually struggle. I was talking to someone about one last night, and if you have it, you don't understand why other people don't have that. It's just appreciating this is a different set of talents and strengths than in a farmer's world. They're not fun and not particularly useful. I love your guidelines. I think those are pretty profound.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, but you have to realize that both of these are metaphors. There are ways of making a distinction between different kinds of behavior. But my feeling is that it's just as easy to be a hunter today than it was three or four thoughts. You're just hunting for something different.
 
André Brisson: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm a hunter. Oh, yeah. But I also have a really good farm supporting me.
 
Dan Sullivan: You Correct.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. Like everyone has their role. It's just the world's very comfortable with the farmer attitude. And the other thing that really got me was Dr. William Dodson actually says the world is set up for an importance-based nervous system. So if it's important to someone else, everyone else can find the motivation to get it done. But the ADHD brain has a hard time with that, especially if it's a secondary importance, if it's important to someone else, not to us. So we have an interest-based nervous system. So he's got an acronym, NECUP. So that's to be novel, interesting, challenging/competitive, urgent, or relating to a passion. Now we can get in and we don't have to focus the focus. But until we drop those, now we're back into trying to get engaged in something. So those were big eye openers for me to understand that my brain is wired differently. It's nothing wrong with it. Nothing needs to be fixed. It's just trying to fit in in today's world was my problem, trying to be accepted. But I was trying to feel accepted in the wrong world.
 
And now with joining Strategic Coach, I remember the first day I walked in, the environment was like, this is my place on workshop one. Then get into the room of other entrepreneurs, and I call it my Entrepreneurs Anonymous Group, you know, because I'm in a room of equally messed up people who decided to start their own companies. But we all get each other. We don't have to justify our ambitions or nothing. So once I started seeing that light and then even within that group, not everyone's for me and then starting to find the right people, which went around, I was trying to impress the wrong world. You got to find your world.
 
Dan Sullivan: See, you could look at it that way. But what if you looked at it a different way, that you're actually the norm and the people who aren't like you are the aberration? You know, I mean, I'm pondering. So I'm the only entrepreneur in my family. And six weeks ago I went back for a family reunion. We've got good genes. I have a sister, 89, a brother, 87, a brother, 86, I think, and a brother, 72, and a brother, 70. We were seven and there were still six of us. I've really, really gone through my memories and I can't remember any one of my siblings, at least in the last 40 years, I've been doing what I'm doing for 50 years, I can't remember any of them in the last 40 years ever asking me a question about what I do for a living or showed any interest in it whatsoever. Okay? But this thing that they don't know what I've been doing for the last 50 years, they want to know when I'm going to retire. Yeah, I hate that word. All of them in some way or another said, when are you going to retire? And I consider them aberrant. What weird people that one, they wouldn't be interested in what you're doing and two, they want to know when you're going to stop doing it. Okay. And so I consider myself the norm of proper behavior. And everybody who doesn't really relate to that, I consider them aberrant.
 
André Brisson: I think that kind of thinking is probably one of your first steps to knowing who the hell you are.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, first of all, you can't be any way except how you are for life, and it's been that way for 80 years, so I got some confidence it'll probably go on that way. And you gotta be good with it. You just gotta be good with yourself. But I'm just wondering what teaches you more, that you're the aberrant and everybody else wants you to be normal, or you're the normal and everybody else is aberrant. I just wonder, from a learning standpoint, which one teaches you the most?
 
André Brisson: I'm the normal one and everyone's the weird ones. Yeah, that's the way I've seen it. And the thing is, for me, I've always been a student of human behavior since a young child. I've always observed and asked, why are they behaving that way? And why is it different than me? So to think that there are the weird ones and I want to understand and learn that it's got me, you know, that's one of my key features. I think I can go into any intense situation, get the read of the room and the people that could change the way I deal with them, depending on what's being said or a twitch of the shoulder. So yeah, the world's weird. I'm normal. I love that.
 
Dan Sullivan: That could be another title. Let's do a Positive Focus on what we've covered so far in the podcast. Shannon, what's your Positive Focus? New discovery, new thought.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, I think what you were really coaching André on in terms of resonance and finding other people who are isolated and actually writing a book or producing something for other people who have a like-minded way of thinking, who are like-minded, I think is really, really cool. I think that's great coaching and a great, can't wait to see that from you, André. So that's one. And also, I mean, I love ADHD conversations. André, you and I have had many over the years, especially when you were starting the podcast. And I was just looking up William Dodson, because that describes it so clearly.
 
André Brisson: I got two episodes with and they're already out.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. Like stuff I'm interested in, I will go deep, including ADHD. I'm not a researcher in any way, shape ,or form.
 
André Brisson: Don't start me on that. Yes, you are. We'll talk about that off stage.
 
Shannon Waller: All right, I'm a short Fact Finder. But when I'm interested, I go deep and I know a lot and I care deeply about it. So it just like check, check, check, check, check. So I love that. Can you repeat the three things, environment, habits, and what was the other? Because I think that's great coaching that I want people to walk away with today.
 
André Brisson: So the ADHD simplified model to manage the quote unquote symptoms is executive functioning difference, timeframe difference, which includes time blindness and temporal discounting, and then your brain inhibition difference. So that's what you focus to manage the symptoms. But to do that, you have to create the ADHD structure, which is your first one is environment control. And that's what Dan's done very well with Strategic Coach, is he's controlled the environment so he can thrive. So that's one, and I may be a circle, but right now it's a triangle, but then to have the environment control, you need habits and routines and also personal rules. And I put in personal rules because you need to make up those rules in order for you to have the habits and routines, therefore to control the environment. And environment control means if you're easily distractible, I work in a brown room with very little that can distract me. And the only things I work on are on my desk. Everything else is gone. So that's like an environment control or environment control is succeeding with a Strategic Coach workshop or whatnot. So that's where the three things, and that's what I work around with people and keep it simple. Like everyone's chasing dopamine, serotonin and all this blah, blah, blah. And I just simplify. So those are the two systems that I use.
 
Shannon Waller: Thank you. That's just helpful to have that. Again, I feel incredibly blessed with how I get to live my life, but it's like, I'm always doing things I'm interested in. So, Dan, we talk about Unique Ability at Coach, always doing things I'm interested in with people who meet my standards, which is another part of this. So I feel very focused. I'm incredibly productive, get a long ton of work done, but it feels easy because I'm completely in my vein and in my zone. Take me out of it. Dan, you saw the picture of me attempting to pack up my house last year when we were renovating. Oh, my gosh. And I went from being like a super productive human to completely incapable and just sitting on the floor, not crying, but I could have because I was so outside of anything that I'm good at doing. It was a good reminder of what not to do.
 
André Brisson: That's what I say. People are down. Now you were working like an out of tune diesel engine, puking black smoke, not like a high-performance Ferrari engine.
 
Shannon Waller: Right. Laying by the side of the road. Yep. I just love it because this gives additional context to my experience, which helps me frame it. So that's my Positive Focus, Dan. What about you?
 
Dan Sullivan: But I'll go to André.
 
André Brisson: Okay. The resonance part is, you know, as much as that's been in my face for a long time is getting that connector that, yeah, I know you guys keep talking about your five percent of the five percent of the entrepreneurs. And I never really thought of it that way, that even in the engineering world, there's that five percent of the five percent and there's people out there. And what I've been canoodling about that the last few months is doable. And then you just helped me, you made it real for me. So that was my Positive Focus.
 
Dan Sullivan: The big thing for me is, well, in Strategic Coach, we've set up a circumstance where people who are looking for opposition to their creativity are very frustrated because we don't give them any opposition for their frustration. So they have to do it on their own time, you know, fight battles. So, you know, if somebody has a good idea, I said, well, first of all, let's see a Fast Filter on it. Okay, which does them good. Okay. And I say, is there any way you can solve this without doing anything? Namely, can other people do things for you? But I think that victimhood is cowardice. Basically being a victim, is profound cowardice. Because anytime you're called upon to actually be courageous, you blame it on somebody else rather than being courageous. That way you never have to take action, you never have to get results, because your situation is always somebody else's fault.
 
André Brisson: It's also not taking responsibility of it as well.
 
Dan Sullivan: So I'm not interested in the logic that motivates them. It's just bad thinking. There's no way for you to get out of your situation unless you start doing a different kind of thinking. There are people who are ten times worse than you who, having taken responsibility for their situation, are doing a hundred times better. So my sense is that we're kind of born alone and we're kind of born isolated and we got to kind of figure out how does this whole thing actually work? You know, the rules and everything else. And I learned really quick that to be happy in my family, all I had to do was be useful to Mom. Oh, Mom wants something. I'll go get it. I'll go get it. And then about 40 years later, I was having a trip with my mother and she said, can I tell you something? Your sister and your brothers thought you always got special treatment. And I said, that makes sense. I was the only one that always did useful things for Mom. I should get special treatment. It worked.
 
Shannon Waller: You made her life a lot easier. She made your life easier.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. You know, she went out of her way to support my projects and everything like that. It's sort of an entrepreneurial attitude, I think, you know, create value before you expect any kind of opportunity. Anyway, everybody's born in a different situation. You have a different nervous system, you have a different environment, but you got to work out the rules where you're not spending your energy on negative protest.
 
André Brisson: And it's very difficult to do that. It takes courage to make those decisions. Like, you know, some have to say no to their families and distance themselves. So it's not easy work. So, you know, just because I've done it and I'm here and I could talk about it wasn't easy.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, it's not easy, but it is simple.
 
André Brisson: Exactly. I find the simplest things are never the easiest.
 
Shannon Waller: Dan, that could be another bug test. Simple, not easy.
 
André Brisson: And I want to thank you on that, because I just got another Positive Focus is a question that I never realized I formulated, but this is what I do for people is, how can I make your life easier for you?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Faster, easier, cheaper, bigger. Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: And you said something else, too, which is you have people do a Fast Filter, which is good for them. I like it that part of your process is not just to make you happy. It's actually it's good for their thinking and their clarity. And I think that there's a coolness about that. I appreciate that.
 
Dan Sullivan: I have an aversion to dealing with people's confused thinking.
 
Shannon Waller: I have an aversion to dealing with people's confused thinking. I love that.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, no, I just, I said, this isn't going anywhere. You know, I mean, if I give you and I sit there, I understand everything else. It's just a waste of my time. I said, how are you thinking about this?
 
Shannon Waller: You know, you're so clear on what you want. You want people to show up being clear on what they want.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I want people to think about their thinking.
 
Shannon Waller: Yes. And that's what's so powerful. And I just want to give a shout out to all the thinking tools that you've created, because they are so incredible. And there was a recent meeting where sort of some of the tool concepts were in this particular document, but not all of them, not enough. And it was interesting, it was like, oh my gosh, if we had done this in this tool, it would have been so much of a better conversation. It was so illustrative because there was confusion, different agendas, did not go well. But the clarity of thinking, and I've always said this, you've heard me say it before, it's like, I love our thinking tools because I always am and feel smarter at the end. Right? It's like my thinking gets clearer. So I'm like, oh, now I'm really clear about what I want. ‘Cause I've thought about it in a couple of different dimensions, intellectual, emotional, all the things. If I think about the Impact Filter, they're just so useful to quickly, since my attention span is short, quickly get to the heart of the matter so that I can be not isolated with my issue anymore and I can connect with others. So, you know, the impact filter is available to the world if you're not in Strategic Coach, but once you get into Strategic Coach, there's a whole world that opens up
 
Dan Sullivan: A universe.
 
Shannon Waller: A whole universe, thank you, that opens up.
 
Dan Sullivan: And they're all connected to each other and they all are, there's no friction between any of the tools, you know.
 
André Brisson: No, and that's what I like about the Impact Filter. That's such a great ADHD tool because the ADHD brain has a problem processing internal information. It just ruminates and spins. When it comes out on paper or we talk it out, now it goes back in our brain from a different avenue. Now we actually see it and hear it for the first time. And then actually once it's written, it's more concrete and we get the process and it takes it out of our head, which is what I think society has taught us. No, you got to figure everything out in your head and remember everything. No, but we need it written. That's what I like about the Impact Filter. It takes it out of the head.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. Dan, one time we were going down to do a recording and one of our marketing people at the time, Corey, asked you a question, which is, Dan, why do you have people write things down? Which I thought was axiomatic. Anyway, you said something which is profound to me, so that people can get emotional distance from their thoughts.
 
André Brisson: Yeah, that's huge.
 
Shannon Waller: Right? And like, oh my gosh, you're so right, because it's when it's up here, the ruminating, right? When you're down, you're like, oh, now I can see it, and now I can make a clearer decision about it. I just thought that was a very impactful insight.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, one of the things, emotion doesn't mean anything to me.
 
Shannon Waller: I think it's the weather. That's how I think of it.
 
Dan Sullivan: It's information that has to be processed. In other words, emotion is, you just got a burst of some sort of information, but it's pretty worthless until you figure out. Yeah, it's new data. Yeah, I mean, it's data. It's not information. It's certainly not knowledge, and it's absolutely not wisdom. So my sense is, I mean, we had this discussion in the discussion group, is that when I see people really emotional, I don't try to figure them out on that basis, okay? I want to see them do some thinking about their emotions, and that's what I strive to. Can I help them think through what's actually happening? I'm not buying into what they say is happening to them, because first of all, I don't know. No use committing yourself to something you don't know. But the big thing is, can you learn something from the experience? And everything like that. We live in a world where there's more and more emphasis on the importance of emotion. But it's got absolutely no value.
 
André Brisson: It's a manipulation tool for marketing.
 
Dan Sullivan: Until thinking is done with emotion, it doesn't have any value to the person who's having the emotions. It does no value to the people around them. They've got to do some thinking.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. To me, Dan, I take it as a prompt. I take it as a cue that some thinking needs to happen. I do think it's useful, like, oh, there's something unresolved or something that's coming up poking you for whatever reason. So it's a very important cue. You know, passion is one of the drivers of, I was going to say entrepreneurship, which is also true, but I have ADHD. It's like I need to be in tune with that. It's an emotion, it's a feeling, but then I have to do something with it. I like the whole data versus information, knowledge, wisdom. Dan, it is data that needs attention is how I look at it. So it's not useless, but in its raw form, it's not gonna help me go anywhere until I do some thinking about it. So I appreciate the cue, but I've realized with my own emotions, I think about my thinking and I, like when I was a kid, how I would respond to things. And now I'm like, you know what? It's just kind of like the weather. There's a storm, there's a tempest, it will pass. We have wicked storms in Toronto recently. So it's like, okay, just take it as information. Don't take it as the direction for my life from now on.
 
André Brisson: That was amazing. You guys both said exactly the same thing in two different ways that supported your PRINT profiles. That was spectacular.
 
Shannon Waller: There you go. That's how we roll.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, we have something in common in our PRINT. Enjoy life and have a good time.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Mine is success and achievement and hers is independence and self-reliance.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. And that's what was the difference was the 8t and the 3. I just love watching this stuff, the nuances of these assessments, because it's just, I can hear it. People talk. It is really cool.
 
Dan Sullivan: All right. Well, thank you, André. It was a real pleasure. And it was a whopping good discussion, which is important for a podcast. But I think you have a new industry in the future that you're creating and the new industry is a neat project. Because it requires maximum creativity and cooperation.
 
André Brisson: Maximum creativity and cooperation, another gem.
 
Dan Sullivan: Or collaboration. Yeah. I've always found cooperation a bit of a limp concept. Collaboration. Yep.
 
Shannon Waller: Maximum creativity and collaboration. Yeah. It's interesting, Dan, that almost becomes a filter for me in terms of a new opportunity. Does it require maximum creativity and collaboration? Because if it does, it's likely to be fun, be successful. And if not, why are you doing it?
 
Dan Sullivan: And does it encourage those two things?
 
Shannon Waller: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Very valid.
 
Dan Sullivan: All righty, well, I got a lot out of this.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, so did I.
 
Dan Sullivan: I'm all warmed up for our book record this afternoon.
 
Shannon Waller: I'm looking forward to it. André, just before we leave, if people have questions, if they want to know more about Impulsive Thinker, where can people find you and where can they listen to your awesome conversations on ADHD entrepreneurs?
 
André Brisson: So the podcast can be found on any platform, Apple, Spotify, called The Impulsive Thinker. You can connect with me at the impulsivethinker.com as well, or on LinkedIn. And I'm willing to talk to anyone about anything intellectual for it has to do with personal growth, actualization, ADHD, and improvement of business relationships.
 
Shannon Waller: Awesome.
 
Dan Sullivan: Good target market, because anyone who's listening who's attracted to this, they should impulsively go to your podcast website.
 
André Brisson: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
 
Shannon Waller: Pay attention to that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's kind of like fat bastard burrito. They said, boy, do they know their target market? There's no mistaking who they're after.
 
André Brisson: Awesome. Thank you, everyone.
 
Shannon Waller: Thank you so much for your generous contribution today. Dan, always a pleasure. I never know where the conversations are going to go, and they're always incredibly enjoyable. And everyone, thanks so much for listening.
 
Dan Sullivan: Thank you. Thank you.