From Scratch is Always More Work, But Worth It

My oldest is 18 and she will graduate from high school in just a few months. As her father, each day is new and uncharted territory.

Each venture for my wife and me as parents has been learning on the fly. It's just the way it is.

Even with the help of books such as What to Expect When Expecting, parents don't know until they experience it.

I have found the same with each business I have started, from my dairy nutrition consulting business to our gym, Training Ground, and now the Impact Driven Leader.

No matter how much we think we know, the trials and tribulations of ‘doing’ reveal what we do and don’t know.

What makes parenting and starting a business challenging is the people involved.  Not that it is the people at all.  The reality is we do it for the people.

But it's because of others that it is difficult.

When I was single and lived on my own, I could roll with whatever I wanted. The decisions I made or needed to make had no repercussions beyond me. Honestly, I didn't like it.

I'm a collaborator and enjoy being a part of something with others.  Something bigger than me.

When leading a new business, sailing into an adventure and a dream with everyone you care about, new people who matter to you, and a vision to achieve, the people part is hard.

Fill the Bus

It's hard to know what you will need if you've never done it before. We can rely on best guesses and examples from others, but we don't have guardrails; it's a wide-open landscape to blaze our own trail.

This often leads to filling the bus with whoever is crazy enough to hop on—those who are excited about the vision, those you convince to go along for the ride, or those who just happened to see that the bus was headed to “Fresno” and thought, “I've never been to Fresno. I wonder what it's like? Let's go to Fresno. I'm so excited to go to Fresno!” (PS: Those who know, know Fresno is not a destination city for a reason!)

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins made “getting the right people in the right seats on the bus” part of the business lexicon. 

In his chapter, First Who, Then What, Collins emphasizes the importance of people over strategy. Yet he doesn't quite face the painful reality that this is a process, not a once-and-done.

No executive hiring firm has ever been able to select 100% of the right people into the right seats from the start.

It can be more easily done in long-standing, established organizations, where there is a pattern of who (personality and temperament) and what (skills, experience, and expertise) works.  

It’s tough with a new organization because there is no "this is what has worked in the past." You are just figuring out what doesn't work.

Figuring out what doesn't work is hard on people.

It's hard on leaders, contributors, and the people just along for the ride.

“It's Not You, It's Me”

Right about now, I know you are in one of two camps. I’ve been there, or eww, I've done that.  You've been “You” or “Me.”

I've been the guy who figured out “this was not what I signed up for.”  

I was 16.  It was my first “job.” I was working for a local dairy farmer who had had some health complications, and I had the opportunity to jump right into the thick of doing significant roles.  Feeding, Milking, making decisions, and really helping run the operation.

I enjoyed the work and knew I was making a difference, and I was essential to the daily operations.

Until I wasn’t.

What went from meaningful tasks over the winter moved to “busy work” in the late spring and summer. I went from caring for the cows directly to doing what I considered to be not so meaningful.

On my last day working at the farm, I spent the entire day using a pressure washer to clean tractors—not what I signed up for.

Looking back, I can rationalize that at 16, this would likely be a job I would get on a farm. Yet I did not sign up for it. So I said, “This isn't what I came for. When you have more important work for me, let me know.”

Yep, I did. At 16, I quit because I felt the work I was doing was a waste of my time.

Now, as a caveat, I did have another job…so?! Maybe it's justifiable… But, nah, it's still a head-scratcher. I jumped off the bus going 60 mph down the road rather than stick it out. I imagine you have seen others do the same if you have worked in enough different businesses.

It was not them, it was me.

That leads to the challenge: How many people feel capable or empowered enough to say, “The work I’m doing is not what I signed up for. ”I thought I wanted to go to Fresno, but nah, I’m going to hop off at the next stop.

Or how about you, as a leader, tell someone, "You're a great person, and we like you, but you're in the wrong seat, and I think this is the wrong bus for you?"

Both are really tough, especially when you have bought into the vision, the leader, or both.

Yet it happens.  It's part of the process.

Made with Love

Katie Harnetiaux, my podcast guest this week and featured speaker at IDL Summit 2025, has experienced and is experiencing: the process of getting people on the bus, putting them in seats, and helping them contribute to the journey.

She is the President of USL Spokane, an organization that fields two professional soccer teams: the Spokane Zephyr of the USL Super League and the Spokane Velocity of the USL League One.

Zephyr is in the back half of its first season, and Velocity is just a couple of games into its second season. Velocity made the championship game in their inaugural season as an expansion team.

This is a feat that every single person who hopped on the bus over the past three years, from start to today, can and should take pride in. No matter how they served the organization, they contributed to its current and future success.

The great challenge of starting anything from scratch is getting everything in the right place and order.

I imagine you have baked cookies from scratch. Following a recipe that says to put the dough in the refrigerator for an hour for best results is based on someone else's experience baking flat cookies. Yet when we are in a hurry, that step gets skipped.

Or maybe you've never baked cookies before and wonder, ‘Does that really matter?’ Oh, it does!

Katie has a great background working in some of the greatest business “bakeries”: Amazon and Starbucks.  Experience that helps her know that culture matters, and focusing on the customer experience trumps everything else.

But working in a bakery is totally different from cooking in your kitchen. We don’t always have the same tools or resources in our kitchens as bakeries.

This is where culture comes in.  Culture has as much to do with how you handle transitions and challenges as it does with platitudes on a whiteboard or handbook.

In your kitchen, you have to ebb and flow.  Dodge the dogs, appease the kids, open the front door for the delivery person, substitute and bake cinnamon chip oatmeal raisin cookies (my personal favorite) instead of chocolate chip because you ran out of ingredients.

Is the cookie different from what you might have intended at the start? Sure, but as I did, you might learn to like the alternative more than the original.

And yeah, you have to tell everyone on the bus who wanted chocolate chip cookies, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to make Amarillo by Morning.”  But someday, we’ll make it to Fresno!! ;) 

It's a process.

It's a process worth embracing. Baking from scratch will mean flour on the floor, broken eggs in the trash, and a sink full of dirty dishes, but the best cookies are always made from scratch in a kitchen full of love.

Summit

There is so much more I could share from my conversation with Katie, including things we recorded for the podcast, topics we discussed off-air, and a litany of follow-up questions.

With that, I encourage you to get a ticket to the Summit so you can be in the room as Katie and I cover those subjects.

And the summit, on May 7th and 8th, I will host the 2nd annual Impact Driven Leader Summit.

This year, we have an unofficial theme, and it’s culture.  Culture Matters, Winning Culture, Connecting Culture, and Creating Culture.

Be a part of the event and learn from some of the best culture-focused leaders in the country.

I can't wait to see you in May. Register Here

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.