Welcome to the Seth Campbell Podcast. This show is to equip you with real world tactics that improve your leadership skills, build your wealth, and cause you to leave a multigenerational impact on in your world. This is episode 14 titled The Great Quit. So probably if you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, it is the end of 2021. It’s been a crazy amount of last couple of years.
And the big topic out there in a lot of ways other than the variants of the virus and all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going on is this phenomenon that is some have titled The Great Quit. And I want to take a few moments to dig into that. The broader issue around that because this is obviously a leadership podcast and many folks here have people working for them, with them, you yourself are working with other people. And it’s a really strange time where we had extreme unemployment go really fast. Some of it rather temporary because of the shutdown of 2020 with the coronavirus.
And then the resurgence where we got to this weird place of extreme labor shortages, particularly in service industries. And we have this dual thing happening now, which is actually pretty rare, this part of it. However, I do want to add some context of where these types of things have happened in history in the past and then how to best take advantage of as a leader, as a person. Excuse me, as an investor, this will be a really good topic for you to stay in line with where times are right now, because one of the worst things you can do in the world of business, is in building wealth and building generational wealth, is to put your head down, ignore what’s happening, ignore the cycles of business, ignore the cycles of economy, ignore the cycles of relationship, whatever it may be, and treat every cycle the same.
That’s actually a really bad habit and can cause you to do well where that type of action works well and in cycles, it just needs a different type of action, different type of response, different type of leadership. So right now we’re in this strange duality that’s happening where there are extreme labor shortages in some industries and we’re hearing things like major sign on bonuses, huge increases in pay, things like that. While we also have what I read last week before last, the largest amount of people quitting their job in the history of us tracking labor. Millions and millions of people inside of a two week period. So it’s very interesting what causes that? Let’s nickname it the opportunity rubber band.
That’s really what it is in my book. It’s this opportunity rubber band. And what happens is whenever all of society and societies, generations, businesses, other countries, cultures, timelines actually run pretty much on a pinch limit. In other words, if you study history, you’ll see this interesting phenomenon of humans, things run on a pendulum. In other words, when many of you know about the different generations, right, we got baby boomers, we got Gen X, then we got the millennials, then we got Gen Z.
And for fun and creativity/leadership, we tend to label these generations what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their tendencies are and why they act or behave or believe see the world in certain ways. You’d all agree with me that these generations are different. And what’s interesting is they actually flow on a pendulum. And in the further like a pendulum, the further one swings to the extreme, the faster it flips to the other. Extreme happens in politics, by the way, too, we tend to see one party swing things one way.
And if they go really far too extreme, then you can believe that the candidate from the other side, if it goes far enough to one extreme, is going to be further over that way. It’s fascinating how humans behave in that way. So like generationally, for example, you can almost watch pendulums as a fear based on generations. Tim Elmore is probably one of the best researchers I’ve read books and whatnot where he studies generations and the pendulum swing between them. In other words, where we say this group works harder than that group or this group is more risk adverse or take less risk than that group.
All it really is, they grew up watching their parents take a ton of risk and so they take less. And then those people saw their parents be too conservative and the next generation started taking more risk. It’s pretty funny how that is if you actually go back and look at that. So what happens is we have that happening because we are in the midst of millennials moving into leadership roles, baby boomers moving into retirement and Gen Z coming into the world of work like the entry level workforce. So that in of itself, by the way, changes the workforce and it changes leadership and it changes how the pendulums show up in the workplace.
And whenever that happens, you do tend to see movement. You tend to see people leaving jobs and going for other jobs and things like that. So there’s that. Now let’s throw in this other pendulum, big one that happened, which was the shutdown, the covid-19 shutdown, 2020. And so what happened is society swung to an extreme.
Stay home work, remote. We know all this work from home, school, shut down all of that stuff. And then boom, what happened, by the way, what was the first thing that took off when things reopened? It was travel, remember, all suddenly it’s like boom, travel industry. And it was because like, man, I’m dying to get out of this house.
I’m dying to go on vacation. I’m dying to get out. And then that’s an example of a rubber band snap pendulum swing. You get that. So whenever a rubber band gets pulled too far and that one kind of came at us by surprise with the virus.
Then you’ll see this whiplash effect. So here’s the challenge inside of that. If I as a human, I as a parent, I as a leader, keep acting the same way and I don’t at least recognize, man, I’m flowing with the pendulum or I jumped on the rubber band snap, or my mind is playing tricks on me, too. Or maybe I’m okay because I have an awareness around that. And I now recognize where I want to participate in this rubber band snap where I don’t, maybe my people don’t.
And it’s my job as a leader to sound the alarm bells of, hey, calm down. Let’s look at it this way. Leadership is teaching people how to think. They can get what they want when they want it. So it’s my job to teach people how to think so they can get what they want when they want it.
And these pendulum swings tend to throw that off the rubber band snap ones the quick ones, they really throw things off. And people wake up a couple of years from now saying, oh, man, I thought I was doing the right thing. And I am nowhere where I wanted to be or, oh, man, I ran out the burning building with everybody else. And it turns out that the building is where I belong. It really wasn’t burning.
So things like that happen. So let’s dig into kind of some of the things that are showing up right now. And it’s a little bit of open your eyes, it’s a little bit of watch out. And I want you, as you listen to this, as a leader, to look around you and say, hey, maybe my people might be experiencing some of these. Maybe my people might be thinking some of this, and here maybe I’m thinking some of it.
And here’s how I need to maybe put it in the right framework so that I can actually take advantage of the opportunity rubber band right now and be out in front of it. Because the cool part is every time it happens, there’s actually a big opportunity. More millionaires are made during those down times. You’ve heard that before. More property conveys.
Like, more companies started up in the last 18 months than probably the last 20 years. So there are awesome opportunities. So the answer is not a blanket. Do nothing, ignore it, stay calm. That’s also putting your head in the sand, not what you want to do.
So let’s talk about what some of the things that are happening out there this will be we’re going to continue to see a lot of mergers and acquisitions that tends to happen even more so during these times because typically fear starts to ramp up rather high. And we may have had fear at the beginning of the shutdown, then optimism. And then what will happen is either virus not going away or just an exhaustion of, like man, it’s just not fully what it used to be or I’m not as free as I used to be or not make as much money as I used to or whatever. It’s not as fun as it used to be.
I’m overworking. I have too many zooms and my weight went up. I don’t know that type of strain compounded over time will cause a level of fear, exhaustion, resignation, mentally, even if everything’s fine, financially or otherwise, on the outside, that I’m more apt for partnership. I’m more apt for acquisition. I’m more apt for throwing a talent feeling like I need help or anything like that.
Now, I’m a fan of mergers and acquisitions. I’m a fan of partnerships in general. When done, I’m a fan of that type of stuff. However, I’m a fan of doing it for the right reasons that go along with your goals, and it becomes a great win win for both people. So what happens is what we’ll see and we’re already starting to see particularly.
I work with a lot of people in the real estate industry, and we’re absolutely seeing versions of acquisitions on the next level, which I predicted a while back. The next big level or big tier inside the real estate industry is going to be real estate teams, which I also participate in and interact with quite a bit. So what we are starting to see and continue to see is teams, which are really strong real estate related businesses. They’re just an example. And you may find an equivalent for your industry if you’re in a different industry.
But signing on for lifetime commitments with their brokerage or lifetime commitments to this or accepting a check in exchange for something not long term, try forever, which, by the way, is as a business concept, should give you some concern. One of the challenges here’s what I want you to remember more than anything when it comes to business partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, those types of things, they are equivalent to a marriage and business. Marriages are presumably for life. And sometimes we forget that a business partnership is presumably for life, too. And if you legally contract yourself, sell your company, allow your company to be acquired by a larger entity, or you take a check and sign a contract saying, like, in exchange for this check or the stock option or this opportunity, this shortterm financial windfall, I will pledge my company, my entity, to yours for life.
That’s an issue, you might say. I love that leader. I trust that leader. But you’re one heartbeat away from another leader. That leader won’t be there forever.
That leader gets hit by a bus tomorrow, God forbid now. And we see this all the time in the world of business. And this is the time where weird things happen in economies where it’s ripe for that and a larger company can come by and throw a lot of cash or a shiny object at a business owner right now, scoop them up, contractually, tie them up to something where they essentially sell out their future and their freedom promised to pour into them, give them tons of resources, access cash, whatever, and actually may intend on doing that. The issue, I always say, is what happens when the next person takes over? Because that person, you see it time and time again.
New CEO, new leader comes in, and they’re like, oh, put that one on the shelf. We’re not putting any more money into that. Shut that down, shut that Department down, or strip the resource. And if they’re playing business defense, they don’t say, oh, just give them less resources, but let them prosper. No, they like, lock them up.
That’s a standard business concept, because I don’t want that person to leave me or I don’t want that person to compete against me. So once you’ve signed away a contract or you’ve signed away your future inside of those things to another entity, then they very much can just say, we own it and we’re going to put on the shelf, and that thing can’t go on its own. They can’t leave us. They can’t start out, and it’s just over. It’s a defensive move more than anything.
So just understand that one of the things that happen inside of acquisitions and sell out, it’s not always like to blow that company up in a positive way. Sometimes it’s to stop them or shut them down or control them forever, to never be a threat again. This is why we see actually a lot of nations. The EU is probably top of the list. The United States is showing a lot of signs right now.
I saw yesterday in the news that the United States is actually blocking, like, the Nvidia acquisition of Arm, which would have been the largest semiconductor acquisition of all time. And the current administration is not super friendly when it comes to monopolies or antitrust things that go that big. And it’s because of those reasons. So what happened is one of the old tactics is for the giant elephant in the room who has a lot of cash, is to just go acquire their competitor just to stop them or just to slow them down. So just understand, we’ll see more of that.
And I say all this because maybe you’re the one that’s tired. Maybe you’re the business owner. That’s thinking, man, it would be nice to take that check, and I could use all those resources. Maybe you’re in a company where they’re having that conversation, hey, we got this big offer. We’re thinking about this.
I’m telling you, it’s happening more than you can imagine right now, particularly in the world that I interact with. And it seems really good. Understand, the rubber band snap is when your mind plays tricks on you and you need to pause and think through this. And I’ll give you a formula and how to go through that. But some of the red flags is what I’m talking about to watch out for first, watch out for short term gain, for long term sell out.
This whole idea of signing a contract saying, like, my company will work with your company forever. And I don’t know anybody that would sign that. I don’t know anybody that would sign that, because how could I possibly know the future of your company enough to put my trust in those hands? Maybe I trust you. What happens if you get hit by a bus tomorrow?
I don’t know who the next person is going to be, and I may have burned 20 years of my life building this baby, this entity that somebody puts on the shelf, and I can’t actually go build it again legally. The other thing to watch out for is name change. When we do this acquisition, we’re going to pump you full of resources, but we need you to change your name. That happens a lot in real estate. And one of the downfalls of that is typically when somebody starts real estate coming a lot of times, they have their first and last name or their name as part of the entity.
And when you see the big offer come in, it’s actually one of the first things the big gorilla will try to get rid of is your first name, last name. And they’ll have a very nice reason to make it more generic and make it more mass appeal. One of the challenges with that is some of those contracts are so lopsided, they probably won’t stand up in court. And I could probably walk into the judge and say, hey, Seth Campbell real estate or Seth Campbell. Although I signed a contract on this acquisition of this deal, I still own that.
It’s my name, right? It’s harder to strip that away. But if I’ve changed my name to generic, that company, the big one owns it, and it’s probably gone. It’s probably nothing I could do. Should I change my mind, or should things not be going?
Or should they not even keep up their end of the deal? So it’s very dangerous to do that. You’ve got to watch out for that. And your years of history and building can actually be erased overnight, and we need to watch for that. One of the other interesting phenomenons that we’re seeing, and we’ll continue to see it whenever weird times like this happen inside of economy is the reason why mergers and acquisition spark up.
Like I said, it’s actually predicated on fear. Part of that fear is that, hey, we need to start grouping together, like strength and numbers, by the way. That’s true. It’s true. And yet what you want to do is make sure that the strength of numbers is done in a very fair and equitable way, whereas it’s fascinating to me.
So, for example, I’m already witnessing a really interesting phenomenon in our world where we sometimes have a large organization like a real estate brokerage itself that does a deal to pour money into a local real estate team. And if you stop and think about that for a second, you’ve got to realize that now there’s a dual motivation inside of that, and it can be very dangerous for that original company and their first purpose. So if I’m a real estate brokerage and this is an example and you might have another similar example in your industry, then not theoretically, in reality, if my business model is to support all of my real estate agents and pour into them equally. Like they’re going to pay me a percentage of their sales and I’m going to provide them services to help them succeed.
If I then also get into the business myself of buying into one of those people, but not all those people, then theoretically, everybody else in that real estate brokerage is paying me money, royalty or whatever for me to then put against them back in the marketplace for them to lose listings or lose business or market share to the team that I decided to pour money into. And at some point, that’s very dangerous for an industry. Whenever you see that, I get nervous about everybody else that is feeding money upstream that actually now is being used back against them. We used to be warned about that with the portals and marketing companies and things like that. They’re using their own money against you in the marketplace.
And you’re right, it’s dangerous. You should not be funding your future demise. So if I’m in business with a brokerage or I’m in business or I’m affiliated with a partner in some way or another, I need to make sure that in this day and age is when you’ll start to see it, that money that I’m giving them is not actually being given to the person next to me that I might be competing with business for. Could you see how that’s a real issue and all that? Is that’s the beginning of the consolidation?
Typically, when we see pendulum swing, we came out of one extreme, we’re headed to the other extreme. Typically on that pendulum swing the other way, we have consolidation. Some people call it winner take all, winner take all. And it is a business phenomenon. It’s real.
Here’s an example. How many search engines are there? Like, just name them. Like you say Google, then you say Bing, then you say Yahoo, then you say what? How many was there five years ago?
A lot more than that. And how much market share does Google have in the search world? A lot. It was something like Bing spent, Microsoft. I don’t remember what it was.
It was like $60 billion or $6 billion. I don’t remember. And it just like knocked. They got 1% of the search market share. What happens when pendulum swings fast?
How many social media companies are there and how hard is it for anybody else to start one now? So we do see in industries where it’s highly segmented, like real estate, winner take all, the great consolidation starts to happen. And when you’re in at the beginning, you’re like, we’ll never see a day where there’s only four companies. That’s crazy.
Okay. You’ve seen it everywhere else. How many online retailers are mega retailers? You see the consolidation happening. What has Amazon done in the world of online retail?
They’re actually the retailer for a lot of other retailers. It’s not just Amazon selling their products. They’re selling everybody else’s products. And if you want to sell products, you probably should put them on Amazon. I don’t know.
Do you see what I’m saying? So the great consolidation, this is the beginning of it, by the way, biggest companies in the world are created during those times. Hence the idea that there is opportunity here. What you want to watch out for is, am I being fooled? Am I riding fear?
Am I part of an organization that has opened my eyes. Am I feeding somebody else to take my own market share? And then am I going to fall for chasing after that? So inside of this consolidation, so now you get an idea of what’s coming out and what’s happening.
And my goal for you is, first, to be aware, to not be blind. Second, the moment you realize that it might be happening with you, it might be happening in your industry, it might be happening inside the world that you’re in. Get rid of the fear. This is good, this is normal. It’s economics, it’s cyclical, it’s human nature.
It will be doing this thing long after we’re gone pendulum swinging. So instead, once fear is gone, Where’s my opportunity? How do I best take advantage of this? And it’s not necessarily chasing or following everybody else. Here’s my advice to you.
Stick to your mission, be flexible on your plan, and I know that’s a very big picture. Let me give you an example, like one of the best extreme examples out there that I think will help you put it in the context of it being very relevant. And I actually use the Church, the Christian Church, as the best example I’ve seen. The Christian Church has a 2000 year old message about Jesus Christ. 2000 years ago, how did they deliver that message?
They went into villages and they sat in the middle of the village and they taught and confessed. 30 years ago, how did they deliver that message? We went into these buildings and we sang some songs and they taught and it wasn’t 6 hours. It was maybe you got 25 minutes or you’re going to lose people. I don’t know. Now, how are the biggest churches delivering that message?
Multi site through YouTube, on the Internet, I watch Elevation Churches. It will be 600,000 people watch every single week. So now what changed? The world changed the delivery changed the message, didn’t. The mission didn’t.
So that’s my point is you have a mission on your heart, your business has a mission on your heart, your people. You have a mission that you set out to do. Hopefully, if not, stop right there and go clarify that the channels that you deliver them on may be different. Be ready for that. So Congratulations to those churches out there who said, hey, it’s the same message.
I’m going to use the internet. There are plenty of churches that waters it down, that ruins it’s different. And they missed the rubber band snap, they missed the pendulum swing to, hey, I’m going to get my content by my phone like where the world went, they missed it and they got 15 people and they’re going to run out of money and they’re going to fall apart. Your message didn’t have to change. Your delivery needed to change.
So channel that what is my mission, what are we all about? And maybe there’s a new way to deliver it. Maybe I need to take advantage of some of the technology. Maybe I communicate differently. Maybe my end user really wants to interact with me this way or with this device or in this thing.
Maybe the Metaverse is real and people are going to want their own space in the Metaverse. So I better be ready to somehow sell Metaverse property. However, what I still do is my mission is to provide housing or provide home or provide comfort or provide a place or provide generational wealth. How I do that, now is the time to maybe look at the delivery of it changing. And what I don’t need to do is be so scared of things changing that I feel like I need so much help doing it the old way that I sell out my future and the future of everybody else.
Unless that company, that partner, that acquisition, truly is in alignment with my mission. And that is a way to tap into some of these new mechanisms. So I know this is a weird one and I wanted to save it until we had more specificity, until I said, look, be ready to adjust exactly this way and do exactly this. The problem is by the time that reveals itself, it’s already too late. Most of the consolidation happened, most of the sellout or the quit happened.
And inside of this great quit, that’s what we’re seeing people do, even in their jobs. And the first thing is, hey, where’s my head out? Where’s my thinking at? Where’s my people thinking at? Is there fear truly driving this?
Let’s be real. And if it’s fear of unknown, then let’s try to figure out some knowns. Let’s try to figure out what people really want, where they’re going, how they want it delivered. And do we have an opportunity there? And I got to be willing to let go if I’m in one of these industries where how people want it done now is totally opposite how I do it.
If I’m the Church with the building and I don’t have any online streaming, then I better be ready to make that and not look at that as I’ll never do that or puts me out of business or anything like that. I really am a fan of the belief put yourself out of business before your competitor does. So the real thing is get to reality. Get to truth. Try to see some of the patterns.
Don’t make decisions out of fear. Make them out of opportunity. Don’t consolidate in because you’re tired. Look for the new opportunity inside of a way to carry the same mission that’s on your heart. Don’t change your mission.
Change how you deliver it if need be, if it’s time. And what will happen is things become more known quickly as the pendulum starts to continue to move. And there’s a whole bunch of very wise people who wake up one day saying, good thing I didn’t sell out. Good thing I didn’t fall for that. Good thing I didn’t freak out.
Good thing I started the YouTube channel at this Church. Good thing I took a chance on that. Good thing I didn’t change my mission and I was flexible on the delivery and didn’t freak out. So that’s the best advice I have for you today is first, check the fear. Check the mindset.
Recognize where in your industry things are absolutely changing. And before you say, why not me? Why didn’t I get that offer? What should I do? Let me chase after all that.
Realize that doesn’t make them smart. It doesn’t mean they’re doing the right thing. Refocus on your mission, reengage with your people. Find their fears. Find their hesitation.
Speak truth about what’s happening. I spoke some truth today and I’m going to really bother some of my friends, I’m sure, who are doing some of this crazy stuff and getting into it. And yet I do that because I care and because we’ve got to find a way to make it through these rubber band snaps without freaking out. My goal is for you to come out on the other side in victory ahead, not in fear and defeat, and maybe sold out. Giving up your future, God forbid giving up your mission.
That would be the worst of all. So with that, I will end today’s episode. I really want you to think. I want you to recognize where there’s fear. I want you to recognize the reality of what’s happening around you, what’s happening in your own head and what’s happening in your people’s head and start to move fear into opportunity.
Start to move this need to change everything into a need to not change the mission yet. Maybe adjust some new ways to deliver it, new ways to impact people with it. Let that be your change. With that, God bless. Thank you all, and I will look forward to you speaking with you all on the next episode.
Thanks everybody.
