Author and Small Business Coach Pete Srodoski

Intro: [00:00:05] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX Studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:15] And welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host Sharon Cline on a surprise Wednesday show, and today in the studio we have a CEO, COO, and a small business coach who’s also the author of the book Lead with Empathy. Elevate your Leadership and Management Skills, Build Strong Teams, and Inspire Lasting Change in Your Business. Welcome to the show Pete Sadowski.

Pete Srodoski : [00:00:44] Hello, hello hello hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:47] Oh my goodness. So excited to talk to you. I am really into authors these days, and I’m just so excited to see that you posted on Cherokee Connect about your book. Yes. It’s not a small book. It’s doing very, very well. I did some research on you.

Pete Srodoski : [00:01:01] Oh, really?

Sharon Cline: [00:01:02] Well, a little bit without being a stalker. You know, I worry about that kind of thing. I don’t want to be inappropriate, but I did see that you posted about book authority, which was really cute. You said that it Lead with Empathy is the eighth best management audiobook of all time, according to Book Authority.

Pete Srodoski : [00:01:18] So excited about that. And, um, you know, it couldn’t be any more grateful for that. Um, there’s seven books better than Lead With Empathy. But, you know, so far.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:29] That’s what you’re saying. Yeah, at this moment.

Pete Srodoski : [00:01:31] But, uh, just just a wonderful accomplishment. And the journey for lead with empathy. Um, it’s I was never intending it to be this, this powerful, this successful. Really. And so for me, it’s it’s very warming that that’s taking place. Well, do.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:47] You mind if I ask a little bit about your background before we get to the book? So clearly you were in the business world, CEO, CEO, um, a bunch of different letters that you throw together, I’m sure apply to you happened to mention before the show that you used to run King of Pops.

Pete Srodoski : [00:02:01] Yeah. Back before. It’s now a franchise program. But before that, um, I oversaw all of the company’s operations and sales.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:09] So how did you get into the business world? Have you always been since you were a kid?

Pete Srodoski : [00:02:12] No. So interestingly enough, I started in retail, okay. And I worked my way up. So my first real management job, I was 18 years old, and I was the store manager of a Hollywood video.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:25] Back in the day.

Pete Srodoski : [00:02:26] And if you could imagine, we had VHS.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:28] Oh, wow.

Pete Srodoski : [00:02:29] Yeah. So it’s been a minute. It has been, um, and Hollywood video goes out of business and I get a job across the street at PetSmart. Okay, uh, work my way up to a store manager role, and then I run multiple stores, and, um, I realized that, um, I just wanted more out of life than this. This retail world. Right. Um, I just I couldn’t imagine myself working those ten hour days, nights, weekends.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:54] Managing people all the time.

Pete Srodoski : [00:02:56] Just all the it. You’re really dealing with people at their very worst. Um, you know, the store manager doesn’t get called, um, when things are going great. You know, the store manager gets called because it was a problem. Yeah. So, you know, when I hear the page, like, uh, mod to the front of the store, um, I was like, oh, no. So, uh, you know, I took a chance and I took a role with, uh, King of Pop’s, and, uh, that was the game changer for me. That just changed my entire life. And, um, they were.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:28] Looking for someone to manage. Is that how that happened?

Pete Srodoski : [00:03:31] Yeah. So it was, uh, you know, when you’re a small business, the first group of people that you have work for, you are people that are in your, you know, uh, community. So, uh, people similar to you, they have the similar experiences as you, their family members, friends, etc.. And so I was the first guy that they had brought on board that was like a true and tried leader that had experience managing other people. And, uh, for them that was that was a really big deal. Wow.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:56] So it was a it was a win win. They hired you with experience and then you got to build this huge brand.

Pete Srodoski : [00:04:02] Yeah, yeah, I was I was a part of, um, you know, the tree elves, which was really cool, where we dressed up like Christmas elves and delivered Christmas trees. Oh. Did you really? Sorry.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:12] I haven’t heard of this. I’ve been kind of limited. Clearly, I’m missing out. So can you tell me about that? Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:04:16] So, uh, you know, you sell popsicles, uh, from April all the way until October, maybe November. And then guess what? People don’t do anymore. They don’t buy frozen products and eat them outside. Um, because it’s cold. So we said to ourselves, we have all these trucks, we have all these employees. We don’t want to fire everybody every November and then hire them back in February. So what can we do for those 2 or 3 months? And we had this brainstorming session and the decision to make Treehouse was came about, and that was right before I got there. But we went into overdrive, um, when I, when I joined the company and opened up Christmas tree lots across the entire East Coast. We had one in Virginia, one in North Carolina, one in South Carolina, one in Tennessee, uh, a couple in Georgia. And we had these Christmas trees. And then. We would dress up like elves, sing a song when we got to your your house, and then put the Christmas tree up. And then we’d pick it back up after the season and chip it. Oh no kidding. Yeah, we would chip it and put it at the Atlanta Beltline.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:18] Oh my gosh, how ingenious. People hate getting rid of their trees. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:05:22] We do the entire thing and dress like elves. And then we’d make holiday flavored popsicles as well. Oh how festive is that a blast.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:30] Do you love.

Pete Srodoski : [00:05:30] It? So much fun, backbreaking work, though, in case you’ve never lifted Christmas trees off of a truck. Not lately. Uh, we would get delivery of 500 Christmas trees, and you’ve got to put these things on your show. I threw out so many shoulders.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:44] Oh, my goodness, over the years. But you know, the energy behind that is so festive and fun that I bet people can feel it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:05:51] Yeah. You know, it’s something that’s just so enjoyable. Like, you never really had a bad day. Oh, except we had a couple of times that trees would fly off of our trucks on the highway, uh, which would create a bad day. Um, but for the most part, you know, like, every time I went somewhere and delivered a Christmas tree dressed as an elf, the kids are just having a blast. Everybody’s so happy. I’m getting offered drinks everywhere I went. Heck, yeah. And it was. It was a really fun, um, environment, you know?

Sharon Cline: [00:06:21] So you got to experience all of that and be part of King of Pops. And what was your next step after that?

Pete Srodoski : [00:06:27] Yeah. So, um, I was recruited, uh, good old fashioned, uh, headhunter called you, sort of. The headhunter was the CEO and the owner of the major competitor for King of Pops, Steel City pops. Dun dun dun.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:44] This is very dramatic. Oh it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:06:45] Is. There’s a fun article about why one of the King of pops, the Kingsmen, uh, defected to the. It’s a funny article, but somebody wrote it. Defected to the competitor. Um, and that’s about me. Oh my.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:59] Goodness.

Pete Srodoski : [00:06:59] Um, and so I left and went to Birmingham, Alabama to be the CEO of Steel City Pops. Um, the company had gone through a chapter 11 restructure. The previous ownership team moved out and there was a group that took over. And so I had the just pleasure of taking over, uh, recently bankrupt frozen dessert company two months before Covid.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:23] Oh, geez.

Pete Srodoski : [00:07:25] What a blast. Uh, and the next 18 months of just pure, um, arduous stress of being a CEO turned, uh, terminated my employees twice. 400 people. Twice. Oh.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:39] Oh, no.

Pete Srodoski : [00:07:40] Beg them back to come back after. After the first wave of Covid, we got a pptp loan. Okay. Gotcha. I had to rehire them again.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:48] Oh, my goodness.

Pete Srodoski : [00:07:49] Only to fire them again.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:50] Oh my goodness. Okay, well let’s talk about that just for a minute. Because anyone in the business world can you imagine the nightmare that must have been for you. Yeah. And how daunting. And you clearly have a big heart. Look, your book is about empathy, so how could you not feel all 1000 different emotions? How did you manage it?

Pete Srodoski : [00:08:11] Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:11] I know you have to do what you have to do. I get that, but, like, how did you manage what it was like on your end to do that twice?

Pete Srodoski : [00:08:17] It’s really tough to, um, it’s just to even bolster that further. Um, my wife and I had surprise twins, uh, just a few months before. Uh, yeah. Babies four and five. And, um, so I’m having to travel to Birmingham, Alabama, where I was the CEO, and I stayed all week long, and my wife had to do it all by herself. Um, and it was unexpected. All of this was very unexpected. Covid hit. That was unexpected. Um, you know, I had a great I had a great group of people, um, we we all huddled around this, this operational methodology called EOS. Okay.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:57] I don’t know what that is.

Pete Srodoski : [00:08:58] It stands for, uh, entrepreneurial Operating System. And it’s from a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. And it’s a it’s a framework for how to run your business. But what it does is it empowers your team, and it gets this leadership team together that all share in the same dynamic and want to fight the fight together.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:18] Instead of against you or against each other. You’re you’re more of a team.

Pete Srodoski : [00:09:23] Yeah. And it’s that concept of everybody rowing in the same direction. Right. So, um, when I took over, we instantly implemented that right before Covid, and I couldn’t be any happier that we did. Um, had we had not implemented that system and that leadership team be built out, I don’t think we would have made it the year and a half that we did. Um, but everybody rallied together. They all felt empowered. They were all a part of the program. And I just kind of. You know, one foot forward every day.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:54] How wonderful to have a plan. It was almost like you had a plan before you needed the plan. So it’s so it’s so disorienting when you have to try to scramble and figure yourself out. And I mean, even as a parent, what am I going to do if if this happens with my kid or that, you know, like having a plan like lowers your stress level, but still sounds like you had a lot of stress to deal with.

Pete Srodoski : [00:10:15] Well, it was a tremendous amount of stress. But no, you’re you’re right about the plan. And as I as I think about it as a business coach, that’s pretty much my pitch for people when I work with them as a coach is just, do you want to be in the driver’s seat, or do you want to be in the passenger seat for your business? And most people say, I want to be in the driver’s seat, but right now I’m not in the driver’s seat. So I think that’s that’s kind of the the key. When I, when I had the opportunity to run Steel City was walk in the door, Institute this this new program, implement this new program collaboratively with the current leadership team, develop a structure where everyone is empowered, has a say. We’re all fighting for the same goal. And I think that carried us as far as it did. You know, we had a a very difficult time nonetheless with, you know, the first round of PPE for anybody that was dealing with that. They told us we had to spend all of our payroll in ten weeks. And, you know, so people are hiring more people than they needed to. And then on week nine, they told us that you actually had 24 weeks to spend that payroll, but we had burned it all already. So it’s just a lot of just awful management when it came to the program. But no one really knew what was going on in, you know, the unprecedented.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:33] We were out of our depth, everyone. Yeah. And you can’t plan for that. You can you can figure it out though. You did.

Pete Srodoski : [00:11:41] Well, I don’t know. I mean we tried to well.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:45] I don’t forgive me that I’m unfamiliar with Steel City, but how did they not survive? They did not.

Pete Srodoski : [00:11:50] Survive. After about 18 months as the CEO company went out of business, uh, we, you know, we absorbed a tremendous amount of debt from the previous chapter 11 restructure. So like I, we had over $100,000 a month in debt that we had to pay of debt payments. So when Covid hit and we had to close all 28 stores, no more vending, no more catering whatsoever. We just walked, you know, basically up to the firing squad. And, um, you know, we had to figure it out. So we pivoted, we we innovated, we created a popcorn line, um, which was cool. And that gave us a little bit of, um, uniqueness and allowed us to sell in stores. And, you know, we created a wholesale division and packaging. And, I mean, we did everything in our power to stay alive, but, um, just that that. Huge burden of the the previous, uh, you know, debt was just too much.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:53] So you’ve got such a daunting task as it is to come into a company and try to save it, and then even realizing that you can’t. How do you deal with the I mean, the show is fearless formula. Like, how did you deal with the natural fear that comes along with that? You’re supporting your family? I’m surprised. Twins, I mean, yeah. How did you manage?

Pete Srodoski : [00:13:15] I would honestly say, um, there was a couple of times where, um, I was in my car and I was driving, and I was talking to the owner of the company and our CFO, and we had a three way conversation going on, and we were waiting for that PPE loan, and we couldn’t make our payments to our employees payroll. I had already foregone months of payroll, you know, to try to make it my we can’t pay for groceries and my parents are helping out. It was a really difficult time. Um, and I just remember I was in Gainesville, Georgia at the time in my car driving back from 85 and, um, to Cumming, and I’m in the car and I got the phone call that we got our PCP loan and, you know, um, I pulled over on the side of the road and just cried. I just, I didn’t know what else to do. I it was I was so overcome with emotion, I just cried. I just sat on the side of the road crying because that meant I could pay my employees. That meant I could pay bills.

Pete Srodoski : [00:14:17] And I had multiple lawsuits that we were engaged in because we couldn’t pay rent and we were getting thrown out of stores and getting, you know, every week. It was another store that was getting locked up on us. And, you know, landlords needed their money too. So it was a it was a really awful time. But, you know, I really felt like at that time, you know, trust in the people that matter to you. Um, work hard, put your best foot forward, um, and do the right thing. You know, um, I have a lot of faith, and, you know, I believe in, you know, that kind of, um, that backbone. Like, I’m on the path that I’m supposed to be on. My family was so supportive. My father, who’s always just so incredibly, um. I don’t want to say unsupportive, but, um, someone who’s just, you know, a little unique in his own way. He he said to me, uh, Pete, I’ve never seen you work as hard for a company as I’ve. I’ve ever seen you work for this company.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:16] Really? Yeah. Your heart was in it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:15:19] Yeah. And it’s like, if you feel like you’re. You’re a part of something and you feel like you’re really giving it your all, um, at that point, you’re you’re just like, I can do anything I can. I can continue to fight this fight.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:33] I don’t know. I feel like the support that you have with the people around you, to me, feels like the common theme for people is that if you are surrounding yourself with people who are supporting you and caring about you, somehow, that just has the the ability to bolster your emotions and what you have to deal with when you’re stressed and scared. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:15:55] You know, you know, my wife was just she’s just an amazing woman. And she was the she’s the rock of our family and my kids and coming home and them being proud of me and how hard we’re working. And so, you know, you’re proud of that. And you, you you feel really good about yourself and you’re willing to do whatever it takes.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:18] I mean, that’s it right there. And the fact that you had such emotion knowing that you’d be able to, um, pay your employees, which because, you know, that’s so important to them, you know, you have like, your heart in it. And to me, I feel like that’s everything. Like when you really, genuinely are caring about what you’re doing, whatever does happen as a result, you’ve done the best you can and there’s like a peace that comes with it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:16:42] Yeah, that’s well, you hit the head on the nail, right? Is if you’re putting your best foot forward and you’re doing the very best that you possibly can. Um, at the end of the day, you have a peace. You know, I always say that I have to fall asleep in my own bed every night, and I have to put my head on the pillow and and do I believe that I put my best foot forward, and I’ve done the right thing by my employees and by the people in my life. And ultimately, um, I make mistakes, probably more than everybody. But no, I make tons of mistakes myself. And I would.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:14] Like to compare mistakes with you. But no, you’re right, like you can. I am the queen of mental torture and beating myself up for what I could have done and hadn’t done and should have done. But when you do have that feeling of I can look at this time and not dwell on the mistakes that I made, or I can say I didn’t know better because I, I would have done better if I knew better. There is a peace that comes with that and a surrender that, um, you know, doesn’t have to follow you every place you go and be a shadow on you. It can be learning experience.

Pete Srodoski : [00:17:47] Well, there’s you carry a lot of PTSD from that time like I, I, I know it sounds weird to even say those, those things like that’s it’s almost a shock to people that actually, you know, suffer from PTSD. But after that, it was hard to remember that time and not get mad. Oh, because of like, I felt like, you know, it’s the entire time that I was with Steel City, it was our backs are against the wall and we’re just. You know, trying our best to survive.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:15] Do you think they hired you in an attempt to save them selves?

Pete Srodoski : [00:18:19] Um, yeah. I mean, I really felt like had Covid not happened, I’d still be there and we’d be cranking. Um, that’s the saddest part about it. That is.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:27] It’s tragic.

Pete Srodoski : [00:18:28] Yeah, it really is. Um, we we just we had so many great ideas and we were trending up. And in the previous team mismanaged the company so badly, um, that taking over was kind of like, well, this actually isn’t going to be that hard. Um, you know, we have this, this great opportunity and we can do it. And then Covid hit, right? Like after we made our first tour of stores and visited all the territories, then, you know, snap Covid.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:59] So you are at Steel City. Things. The Covid hits, things fall apart. You clearly learned a tremendous amount in that whole process. Yeah, yeah. Is that what led to your next step and the book?

Pete Srodoski : [00:19:14] Um, yeah. Not yet.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:17] Okay, let’s hear your next step. This is fascinating to me.

Pete Srodoski : [00:19:19] Well, I’m glad it is, because this is probably a one of the bigger, more challenging things for me to even talk about. But, um, so my next step is, um, I’m kind of flailing at that point. Um, it was very difficult at, at Steel City to, to overcome that time at Covid. And I started looking for opportunities out in the business world, and I just had a lot that didn’t feel right.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:43] Were you looking at places like LinkedIn and were you were you having people call you as well? What what was that like to job search? Well it’s.

Pete Srodoski : [00:19:49] Weird. So, um, I’ll tell you, one of the most interesting things is for somebody who, like myself, that worked in retail, you’re always taught just to continue to fight up the ladder and move up the corporate ladder. When I eventually became CEO, I had some kind of fake I don’t know why it’s fake, but some kind of expectation of the way the world should be. When I step into my office that first day, it’s like dreams.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:14] It’s not fake, but it’s like, you know what you want to feel.

Pete Srodoski : [00:20:17] Yeah, like. So I walked in and I. I’ll never forget this. And I tell this to people all the time, is that I sit down at my desk for the first day as a CEO of this big company, and I was like, huh, nothing changed and I was expecting something to happen. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just like this immaturity or whatever, but it’s this blind immaturity. But I’m sitting at my desk and I’m like, man, nothing changed. And at that point I realized it didn’t. It doesn’t matter what you’re called or what your title is or what your position is, it’s like, am I serving? Am I giving back? Am I, do I have purpose?

Sharon Cline: [00:20:52] So the the title didn’t satisfy you in the way that you thought it would?

Pete Srodoski : [00:20:57] None of it did. No, none of it did. Being the, the none of it did. It’s just, um, it’s just like anything else. It’s like, if your dream is to go work really hard in and get a Ferrari, you get that Ferrari and you’re just kind of like, oh, what’s my next dream?

Sharon Cline: [00:21:12] Wow, isn’t that fascinating about just, I don’t know, humans in general. Yeah. Like our personalities and what drives us and what doesn’t, because a lot of people are really motivated by that dollar and that title. Um, but it says something really special about you that your character is more about helping, not just achieving the material things or the title, but actually giving and making an impact.

Pete Srodoski : [00:21:38] Well, and that definitely leads to a little bit in my in my learning about myself and who I am of of what it’s eventually turned into. Okay, next, next step.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:49] All right. Your job hunting.

Pete Srodoski : [00:21:50] Oh yeah. So job hunting, looking for jobs, interviewing. Et cetera. Et cetera. And I had this opportunity. And I’m a learner. I love going to new industries and taking on challenges and learning a completely unique job. So I had a full career in retail, then this full career in popsicles and frozen dessert. And this opportunity came across to be the CEO of an innovation and design studio in Atlanta, um, a very well respected, uh, company called Thrive and Thrive. Um, very, very cool stuff. Um, made the first ever at home HIV test, um, made all of the wolf. Um, uh, the appliances in people’s kitchens by Wolf with the red. You know, you’re kidding me. Now, they did all those, uh, they also did the first ever at, uh, the side by side Keurig that has the coffee pot.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:46] And the thing and the. Oh, like, yeah, you’ve got your little your regular drip coffee. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:22:51] So they did that come up with that? They they did. So Keurig doctor Pepper reached out to them. They they innovated. They used their industrial designers to draw it all out. Then they had their mechanical engineers build it. That’s that’s what they do. They take these incredibly cool challenges and then they turn them into reality.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:08] That’s amazing. Yeah. How fun is that? That’s like creating.

Pete Srodoski : [00:23:12] Oh, it’s so cool. Uh, and learning that industry was a completely unique industry. I had no experience whatsoever. I mean, I popsicles and and and retail. So that was my third career change. Um, and it was, it was very it was very much marred with a lot of, uh, challenges. You know, I saw a lot of red flags. Okay. When I joined the company, the owners weren’t talking to each other, the two owners. And it was it was a doozy. So I was the guy that played middleman. Um, so we had the CEO and the C Co chief creative officer, and then I was the COO, and I was the guy who knew about expenses and knew how to manage people. And it was just so I was the middle guy. Oh, man. And cut to a couple of months, maybe six, seven months later. And, uh, the CEO has a breakdown. Um, kind of a mental breakdown he goes off on one of our female managers, says some really inappropriate stuff to her in front of clients. She quits almost the next day.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:23] This is like a TV show or something like, could you even believe it?

Pete Srodoski : [00:24:26] It’s going to get worse. Oh, no, it’s going to.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:27] I’m just trying to picture this because you can’t predict someone doing that either. No. Okay. So holy cow.

Pete Srodoski : [00:24:34] Yeah I know it’s going to get fun. I’m getting nervous. Are you. Yeah. Um, it just because, like, I this I very rarely talk about this. Okay. Um, so but this is the journey. And this is why I’m bringing this up. Because it is the precipice. It is the catalyst for this book. Got it. Um, so the CEO of the company sends me and the other owner a message says, I’m going to go away for a month. I got to work on my mental health. No problem. His first day back, he comes back. My wife and I, we make muffins, the kids make muffins, and we’re walking them back in the office. We go out to lunch. Everything is fine. He and I have had a great relationship. His right. After lunch, he bursts into my office door, grabs the laptop off my desk, and starts swinging it as hard as he can at my head. Uh, luckily, I blocked his two shots with this MacBook Pro with my arm. Um, blood spraying everywhere. And then he punches me as hard as he can in the face and knocks out one of my teeth.

Pete Srodoski : [00:25:41] No reason. We have no idea why it happened. Then he walks out and he goes and he makes himself a cup of tea. And I’m just sitting there bleeding everywhere, floored out of my mind. What just happened? I have no clue what just took place. And, um, I get up, I, I leave, I’m scared. This guy’s got a gun. You know, I have no idea. This is the owner of the company in my office. Just assaulted you. Just. I mean, bad to my. I can’t feel my arm. I think he broke it. Um, my face is swollen and bloody. Um. And so I get to my car, and I call my father in law, who was a police officer for 30 years and a Swat team member, and he tells me, call 911 right now because if he has a gun, somebody needs to get there and then go drive yourself to the emergency room. So while I’m waiting and I call 911, I see him leave and he leaves for good. And I’m sitting there and I’m just spitting out blood and my arm, I can’t I can’t even feel it. Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:53] I’m so speechless.

Pete Srodoski : [00:26:54] This is a true story. And I told you there was more.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:58] There is more.

Pete Srodoski : [00:26:59] Um, and so, uh, eventually we talked to the police, and everybody saw it. It was it was right in the middle of the the the headquarters. There was no justification, no understanding. So I drive to, um, uh, Forsyth County, um, Northside Hospital. I go to the emergency room, I’m getting x rays, and I’m doing all that kind of stuff, and I get a text message or an email. That I got fired. So then he fired me.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:31] The same man that.

Pete Srodoski : [00:27:32] Had just assaulted me, fired.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:34] Me and left. Fired you over email.

Pete Srodoski : [00:27:36] With no explanation, just said we want to thank him for his time with the company. I still to this day that’s two years ago, have no idea why he did it. No idea.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:47] How badly were you injured?

Pete Srodoski : [00:27:49] It took me about a week to start feeling my arm again. Um, yeah. Reconstructive. I need to do reconstructive surgery to my mouth for the tooth. And, uh. Yeah. So the arm. I started to feel it again. What happened to this gentleman? Well, he went to jail. Fulton County. Um, and we’re currently engaged in a lawsuit right now. Um, he’s. He got served with two counts of criminal, uh, aggravated assault with a weapon and then one count of simple battery.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:21] So it’s still haunting you?

Pete Srodoski : [00:28:22] Yeah, I still deal with it all the time. And he denies everything. He’s claiming the fifth on everything. My goodness, I know. Yeah. So, uh, this is where the book comes from, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:28:36] It’s interesting that you’ve been assaulted and had such a, um, you know, harrowing experience that would give anyone PTSD and you’re still dealing with. And then you write a book about empathy.

Pete Srodoski : [00:28:46] Well, I have to. Let’s hear. It’s, uh, as a Christian, what I believe is I’ve got to find a way to to to forgive this man. And that’s hard. Like hee hee.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:00] It was without provocation.

Pete Srodoski : [00:29:02] With with no provocation, which is the hardest thing for people to understand, right? But after that, trying to find a job. How do you tell a new employer that how do you tell somebody new that the reason I was let go was because I was assaulted? Um, with no explanation to. So it’s it’s very challenging, um, to deal with that. And, um, I just had to say to myself, how do you forgive yourself? How do you forgive him? And my wife was so nervous. How are we going to get, um, money? How are we going to continue to get paid? You know, I’m the only breadwinner in the house. Five kids. And you.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:47] Were happy in this position too.

Pete Srodoski : [00:29:48] Right? I loved it, loved it. Such a great company, everybody. You know, like I said, it’s just this mental health issue where I think he. He really was volatile, very physically volatile. I mean, just a couple of weeks before he went off on that female manager in front of clients and she quit. So like the catalyst was already there. And I said to myself, how do I marry? This strong desire to find a way to forgive this man, which is nearly impossible. To? How can I be helpful and guide others? And so the naturally this through this forgiveness journey I came up with this concept for a book lead with empathy, which was how do you find a way to treat your employees and treat your team like human beings respectfully? And not just like their employees.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:51] What I love about the book is that you say, what sets this book apart. I think that’s really important. You’ve got some bullet points here, and I think that’s really important, because when someone is looking for a book, you want to know what? What’s so special about this book that I should buy it? And I love that you’ve got some things written down. Practical, actionable strategies, insights from a seasoned leader, essential skills for modern times, which is so important. Um, I just feel like it’s so great to be able to have, you know, it’s it’s 140 pages or something like that. Yeah, it’s a short read. Yeah. It’s perfect because I’m.

Pete Srodoski : [00:31:22] Not an author.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:23] Listen, you are now, I don’t have a lot of time either. So it’s like, okay, give me what I need in a in a concise way that is not going to make it seem like I need a dissertation to be explained to me. So I appreciate that you have here’s here’s what I can offer you. And it all comes from your own real life experience. So you started to kind of organize your thoughts and get together. How would I how would I want to have a perfect kind of team, and how would I lead a team that would make me proud? And that’s how you came up with the concept?

Pete Srodoski : [00:31:55] Yeah, yeah, and it’s based on the two principles. I said to myself, what’s the hardest thing I’ve ever learned in management? The first thing that came to me when I was a younger manager is, the hardest thing I ever learned in management is how to manage other managers. Which is a it’s a it’s people don’t understand is that like there’s different motivations from an hourly employee who’s just working there through college or what have you, versus an individual that this is their career.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:21] Yes, yes.

Pete Srodoski : [00:32:22] And so that was the first big challenge for me. And I said to myself, I think a lot of people, even if they’re CEOs, in fact, especially if they’re CEOs, um, have struggled with this basic concept of not everybody is just there for an hourly job. You’ve got plenty of people that this is their career. They care tremendously. They don’t need to be talked down to. They want to work hard. They come to work every day with a desire to do better. So helping them, elevating them is, is going to be a better way for you to get more out of them, rather, and better for the company naturally, rather than you, um, just talking down to them, telling them what to do all the time.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:05] Treating every manager as the same.

Pete Srodoski : [00:33:08] Exactly.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:09] Yeah, I love that notion, because I’ve heard that the, um, like, even people in the company I’ve been working for, the hardest part of the job is not actually the job. It’s dealing with the people that they have to manage under them, which is fascinating to me. It’s dealing with the personalities. That’s kind of what you’re saying.

Pete Srodoski : [00:33:25] Yeah. Personality management becomes, you know, just an astronomical part. Um, I was fortunate enough when I was in retail to take a couple of courses called Situational Leadership. And, uh, thank you, PetSmart, if you’re listening for paying for that.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:41] But shout out.

Pete Srodoski : [00:33:42] Shout out PetSmart who? Um, but, you know, they paid for me to take this course by Harvard Business College. And it was a blast. Right. And you learn so much about how people’s personalities are different and you can’t manage everybody at the same, the same way, depending on their experience level and their personality structure. Be fair and consistent with all, but manage a little bit differently depending on where they are. You know, if you treat somebody who’s a brand new employee the same way you treat somebody who’s been with the company for ten years.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:12] There’ll be resentment.

Pete Srodoski : [00:34:13] Yeah, you’re gonna have a lot of different results.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:15] Interesting.

Pete Srodoski : [00:34:16] So that was the first concept is, is how do I manage managers. And then the second concept is how do I manage remotely. And that’s something that’s becoming even more important now is this remote leadership.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:27] Well when you were saying, um, imagining managing a new employee as opposed to a ten year employee, you have to know all of your employees. It’s not just a so, so and now, pandemic wise, it’s so many people are remote. How do you get to know people when you can’t physically be with them?

Pete Srodoski : [00:34:46] Often you have to be intentional. It’s the number one thing that people miss is you can’t expect it to happen without your involvement. So being fully intentional in learning and growing with your team and then verifying, validating, making sure that what you say you’re holding that team accountable, you’re providing that feedback to them. You’re being honest and transparent. There’s so many things that you can do, and some people will say, well, no, empathy means that you’re just being easy on everybody. Absolutely not. That couldn’t be any further from the truth. Um, you can be as terse and as difficult and as as as demanding as you want, as a boss and as a manager and a leader. But you have to make sure that you are being consistent and transparent and holding people accountable and verifying and giving them the reasons why. Right? Because people do come to work every day with a desire to do great things.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:40] So to get up in the morning, yeah, face traffic or do whatever. Exactly.

Pete Srodoski : [00:35:44] And and they’re, they’re willing to do it. I mean, 95% of people I’ve met in my life are great employees. And if, if um, and even I frequently hear about, like, this generation. Right. And you’re smiling. You know exactly what I’m about to say.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:00] Well, no, I don’t. But it’s funny because, well, I’ve heard that that phrase of this generation doesn’t want to work and blah, blah, blah. So you’re finding something different, completely different.

Pete Srodoski : [00:36:10] And it’s they just don’t know how to in many cases. So I have an expression I say all the time is what does good look like? And you have to find a way to share that and, and and really provide that. What does good look like as a mentor to the younger generations? And it’s it’s almost your responsibility to say that an entire culture is missing the point. It just couldn’t be any further from the truth. In my my observation.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:40] When you say, what does good look like? Can you give me an example of how you would define that in a corporate sense? Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:36:46] I mean, if you’re going to give somebody instruction about how to take care of a task, you need to explain to them, how do they know what what would look good in your eyes. So if you’re going to give somebody a task, it doesn’t matter if it’s a basic to do or a lengthy to do. Talk with them, say, hey, here’s my expectation of what this should look like and by what time. Now a couple of days in follow up with them. Hey, you know, I gave you a task a couple days ago, and I’d love to know how you’re doing. Can you show me what you’ve got so far? Right. So basic check in and then at the end, provide feedback, help give them the barometer, help give them the guidelines to what good looks like.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:28] What do you find is, uh, do you have a list of motivating factors for people? Employees are, um, because I’ve heard that there are some people are very motivated by money. If you compensate them well, they will perform well. Um, some people are motivated by public, um, praise. You know, in the in the team meeting, you said, you know what, Pete? You did an amazing job on that. Really? Thank you. And that’s so motivating. Um, are you finding that there are some common themes this way?

Pete Srodoski : [00:37:59] Um, you know, it’s interesting. I would love to say yes, but I would actually say it’s it’s really, um. It completely depends on the business and the industry that you’re in. Um, you know, traditionally, you know, I’ve had sales departments and I’ve been a sales director, and I’ve had companies that had sales departments, and those folks traditionally gravitate towards that money. Right? Yeah. Um, that’s just kind of like if you’re on a full commission or you’re on a 50% commission and you’re probably more interested in money, I’m not saying that’s always the case, but that’s that’s generally.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:38] That’s why I work, you know, and do what I do. It’s nice. I’m providing a service. I get paid for it. I can support my dog. Yep. You know. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:38:44] And it’s just so I guess it’s different. And as I’ve been in now, like five different, very unique career fields, um, and widely different, um, industries, I would say there’s, there the only commonality between all five of those is that every person or most every person who have worked for me or who has worked for me, has wanted to do a good job. And that’s a very optimistic outlook. And it’s I always, always have to ask myself as a CEO, as a CEO, it doesn’t matter. Whatever position I’ve held, if someone is failing, I always start with me. How have I failed them? Because more than likely, it’s my fault.

Sharon Cline: [00:39:35] Because you haven’t plugged into them and figured out what it is that they may be lacking.

Pete Srodoski : [00:39:41] Yeah. We’re, um. I haven’t managed their direct manager. Right. You know, you start to move levels up and you start to have bigger gaps. And if somebody on your team is failing, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been able to turn around an individual on a team after someone’s told me that they have no hope. Really? Oh, it happens all the time. And and the reality is it’s because people give up on employees. It’s easier to give up on somebody to be done with them, to not give them a chance. I mean, as I’m saying this, I’m thinking of five, six, seven people just right off the rip immediately that I know of recently that I’ve been told that this person is not going to work and I’m, I’m, I’m, I say, you know, hey, let’s just give them some time. Let’s, let’s, let’s tease this out a little bit more. And, um, you realize that when you invest your time into people, they get better. It’s really incredible. And it’s like, if you’ve committed that you don’t want this person to get better, they’re not going to get better. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy as a leader. Might just be easier that way.

Sharon Cline: [00:40:48] Do you find that people are more likely to just fire someone than to really figure out what it will take for them to 100%?

Pete Srodoski : [00:40:55] And on top of that, they won’t even just fire them. They’ll just complain about them until they quit.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:02] Oh, the worst. So toxic. So toxic.

Pete Srodoski : [00:41:05] I mean, if if, uh, if managers in so many cases spend 80% of their time on the bottom 20% of the employee pool, and if instead they focused on their top employees and focused on leveraging their top employees, instead of focusing on what’s wrong with my worst employees and just gave them an opportunity and helped give them a buddy and a peer mentor. And there’s so many different things that you can do to get that bottom 20% up. But all we want to do is gripe and complain about the people that don’t work well at our company.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:36] Until they quit.

Pete Srodoski : [00:41:37] Until they quit.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:38] And then the hard work is done. Now we’re just going to hire somebody else.

Pete Srodoski : [00:41:42] We repeat the cycle, and it’d be so much better if we treated them empathetically, you know? Um, I love.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:49] That you have that statistic. And from your own personal experience, that 95, what did you say? 90. Some more than 90% of people want to do a good job and want to feel satisfied and happy.

Pete Srodoski : [00:41:59] Yeah. I mean, I can count on one hand how many people in the last five years of my life I would look at and say. This person didn’t want to do a good job. Now you might need to. You might need to bring it out of them.

Sharon Cline: [00:42:12] Yeah, but they just kind of showed up, phoned it in, so to speak.

Pete Srodoski : [00:42:15] Precisely. Very few, and I’ve worked in retail. I’ve worked. I worked in every industry. I worked in food service. I worked in a very few people I can really count on and remember that I would look at and say, this person wasn’t worth our time.

Sharon Cline: [00:42:34] So you’re able to go through and, um, really collect all of these experiences into a book where you like, okay, now I’ve got to really go into publishing this book. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:42:45] Well, it’s funny because my next company running publishing.com really helped out that.

Sharon Cline: [00:42:49] Oh my gosh. So that this publishing.com that’s like pizza.com or something. You know what I mean? It’s like publishing.com.

Pete Srodoski : [00:42:58] It’s like providence right. Like it’s just like this is providential. I didn’t have any expectation that this would happen this way. Um, but, you know, for me, I’m in this forgiveness journey. I’ve got to move on from the gentleman who attacked me.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:11] Can I ask you briefly? Yeah. Was it a challenge to really access the forgiveness part, like is something that you really had to work on? I’m wondering what parts of your personality made that accessible for you? Because I can think of many people who would not ever get to the point of empathy and could play the victim really hard and hate the world. Pretty hard for it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:43:33] Well, um, yeah, I like to see the the optimistic side. I like to, to to move along with things. I like to handle adversity and move on. And, uh, part of that’s, you know, my upbringing, you know, my, my parents and, and the way they’ve, they’ve taught me and, and growing up in New York and moving at a young age to Texas and having to deal with cultural changes. And so I’m like, I’m used to this experiential thing about rolling with the punches, which. Is the name of my company. Is it? Yeah, I named it roll with the Punches. And I did it, uh, as an homage to the man who punched me.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:12] Oh, my goodness.

Pete Srodoski : [00:44:13] So, um, in kind of a two way street, right? What? Roll with the punches is both a nod, you know, figuratively to, like, I can roll with the punches, I can deal with adversity. And then it’s also I got punched in the face. So wouldn’t it be funny if I named my company after getting punched in the face?

Sharon Cline: [00:44:30] You took something that could have been something, you know, obviously haunting you forever in a negative way, but you actually made it a positive for yourself.

Pete Srodoski : [00:44:38] I think you have to reframed it. Yeah, I think I had to. I think if I didn’t, um, there was a tremendous amount of pain coming from the physical assault and the depression afterwards. Um, the feelings of inadequacy as a man, as a father, as a husband, um, not knowing what’s coming next, I had to find a way to transfer that energy into a positive. And so creating this book became an outlet. And then creating roll with the punches, which this is my business coaching, um, roll now. And that’s what I do now. That’s the catalyst. That was the reason I said to myself, how can I help people like this man before they do what they did, before they do what he did?

Sharon Cline: [00:45:31] You still don’t even know why he did what he did.

Pete Srodoski : [00:45:34] No, no. He refuses to give any explanation to the police, to prosecutors, to investigators, to the HR department.

Sharon Cline: [00:45:41] When you look at what you’ve been through in so many different, um, I don’t know if you’re looking at a business slice of pie like you’ve kind of had many different slices out there. Do you know what I mean?

Pete Srodoski : [00:45:52] Like, not intentionally.

Sharon Cline: [00:45:54] No, but you have rolled with it and you’ve you’ve, um, learned something, obviously, through all of it. You know, there’s there’s there’s so much wisdom that you have that, um, not like most people. Lots of people stay in the same industry and don’t explore and expand. So I can see why this would be so valuable because you have, um, you know, retail experience, you have food service experience, you’ve got creating machinery experience, I mean, that touches so many different industries. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:46:25] Yeah. And, and that’s and.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:27] Dogs and.

Pete Srodoski : [00:46:28] Dogs I have tons of in movies.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:30] And oh.

Pete Srodoski : [00:46:31] If anybody’s looking to open up a movie store, um, let me know. And, you know, I think I think part of that, though, is, um, for me, um, what’s what’s kind of filled my cup, so to speak. Is this helping others? Right? How do I marry? Service and serving serving my community alongside all of this wisdom, all of this stuff in my head. And I found this way to be a business coach, really does that. So I get so much energy and and conviction.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:05] You feel like, you know you’re in the right place. Oh yeah. You know. Oh yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:47:08] In fact, I had a friend of mine who recently sent me a note that somebody’s looking for a new CEO, and he said, you want me to put my name out and put your name out? And I said, no, I’m where I need to be.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:20] Oh, how interesting was that moment?

Pete Srodoski : [00:47:22] Um, honestly, it it took me 39 years to know where I’m supposed to be in this world. Um, and I don’t want to do a day where I’m not.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:34] That’s amazing. Isn’t that just the goal? You know, for a lot of people, yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:47:39] I wish this was how I felt when I became a CEO that day, but it wasn’t.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:43] How fascinating your journey is, though. It’s, I mean, physical, uh, um, fear, you know, as well, it’s not just the emotional mental you actually are, you know, attacked, which is fascinating and horrible and I can’t imagine. But at the same time, you learn something through that as well. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:48:02] Yeah. I mean, and actually, if you think about it, the way things work in this world, the path and the reasons why. Things happen the way they do. My next role I really wanted to find a remote company because I was scared of going back into the office. The assault was so fresh. I can’t imagine, um, my last time stepping into an office, I was bludgeoned, so, um, and I had I had not blocked those those MacBook Pro shots, and they had hit me in the head instead. I might not even be here. I mean, the the violence behind those swings were it’s like baseball, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:48:41] Do you relive those moments? Yeah, I would, I would relive it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:48:45] Yeah. It’s weird. Like I can’t remember anything that happened last week. Um, but I can tell you every second of that day it’s trauma. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:48:55] I love that you’re taking something that is traumatizing in many ways, and you’re reframing it to be experience. And let me save somebody else from ever having to experience what I experienced.

Pete Srodoski : [00:49:09] Yeah, and there was a bit of a release too, because for about a year I refused to talk about it. I couldn’t tell people what happened except, you know, close family members and friends. I couldn’t I was embarrassed, I was so embarrassed. Um, and and.

Sharon Cline: [00:49:24] You took it on as a personal attack that you deserved it in some way.

Pete Srodoski : [00:49:27] I deserved it, and that that really helped me understand victim mentality a little bit because, wow, it. I don’t consider myself somebody that would be a victim of anything. You know, I’m a six foot tall, 270 pound man like, you know, sleeve tattoos. I, I’m not somebody that is a victim too often. And for me, um. Wow. I was so embarrassed. Uh, publicly, I couldn’t talk about it during interviews. Um, I had to find other ways to kind of say that, you know, the owner attacked somebody, and I lost my job as a result, and I just couldn’t say it was me.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:04] Well, and it’s interesting, if there were so many different employees, why were you singled out? Doesn’t that just, like, haunt you? It would haunt me, too.

Pete Srodoski : [00:50:10] Um, I think.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:11] You I.

Pete Srodoski : [00:50:12] Think if you think about the and I, I don’t know, I can only guess. Right. But I think that if if I’m thinking about the, um. The psychology behind it. He probably was most comfortable with me. The other owner wasn’t in the office. I was the only other executive in the building. And if he was thrashing out because he couldn’t take it anymore and he was crippling under the stress of running a business.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:42] You were the you were the target. You were the partner.

Pete Srodoski : [00:50:45] The easiest person that he would feel the most comfortable attacking. He’s you know, he didn’t want to attack a fresh out of college kid and, um, somebody who, you know. But here I am, this, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:58] Trying to help and welcome back. Yeah. Go to lunch.

Pete Srodoski : [00:51:02] It was it was it was wild. Um, you know, so I’m looking for a a remote job for my next role, and I, I, um, applied at a bunch of places, but I’m being very particular here, um, because of my last experience. And I stumbled onto publishing.com, which is a. Very just unique business. Um, the owners were 26. The two brothers were 26. So young. And their previous jobs were Chinese food delivery driver. And, uh, worked at the front desk of a gym.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:38] Wow. Huh. Well, their journey is interesting, too, I’m sure. But you stumbled upon them.

Pete Srodoski : [00:51:44] Well, they became YouTube famous and created a business as a result of it. And, um, they’re very tenacious guys and super nice and.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:54] Smart, obviously.

Pete Srodoski : [00:51:55] Um. Smart and lucky. You know, sometimes you got to be in the right place at the right time, and you’ve got to be in an industry that’s about to hit. And they were in that industry that was about to hit, um, and very smart. They, they very tenacious, you know, guys that were no problem, you know, working 18 hours fearless, 100% fearless. Um, and and they made up for their lack of knowledge and experience with that tenacity.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:25] How fascinating.

Pete Srodoski : [00:52:26] It’s really cool. And I joined that company to run their operations. Um, this is a large company, $100 million, fully remote, global. Um, we had people in every country on the planet, basically, and, um, tons of clients and customers, and we taught people how to self publish books for passive income.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:46] That’s amazing.

Pete Srodoski : [00:52:47] Yeah. So we had an online e-learning education, um, service and um, yeah, it was it was a blast. And it was there for a year. And, um, the company decided that they wanted to try to create an AI software tool like most companies now. And, um, I bowed out. I have no experience in that whatsoever. And I can’t lead a company at this size with no experience. Um, so. I decided that, like, that’s a perfect opportunity for me to start this business coaching.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:26] Interesting that you kind of listen to your intuition so strongly.

Pete Srodoski : [00:53:29] Yeah. And it was we, we we had really great relationship the owners and I. So we were having these conversations. It didn’t come as like a, an abrupt departure. It was something that we talked about it for a while. We both we all agreed that I’m not the guy that’s going to be able to take this business to the next level. They wanted somebody who’s proven to scale a software business to $1 billion. Wow. And, you know, that’s just that’s just not me.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:59] You were in a good spot for a while, but then you felt like you had another place to be. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:54:04] And that entire time, you know, I call it providence. I would never have learned how to publish books. You know, and so I was able to marry my experience at thrive with my experience at publishing, to make this brainchild, this lead with empathy, which was that that was the finale of my forgiveness journey. So I don’t think that I would have been able to officially finish that journey had I had not worked at publishing and learned how to self publish books.

Sharon Cline: [00:54:37] I saw you also have an audiobook.

Pete Srodoski : [00:54:39] I do, I, you know, um. You didn’t snoop well enough for audiobooks.

Sharon Cline: [00:54:46] Oh, really?

Pete Srodoski : [00:54:47] So this is the only book I’ve wrote?

Sharon Cline: [00:54:49] Oh, okay. Because I only saw you. That’s the only book that lists you on Amazon as an author. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:54:54] I have a publishing company, and I’ve published, um, uh uh, five other books.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:00] Wow. Congratulations.

Pete Srodoski : [00:55:02] Thank you, thank you. But, yeah, this this audiobook. Uh, Dan? Dan, I think his name is Dan Wilson.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:07] I saw it on on Amazon because I’m an audiobook narrator as well. So it’s I always look to see. I wonder if he needs another, you know, and if I know someone, that would be a good fit for you. But I was like, well, dang, he’s already on top of that, too.

Pete Srodoski : [00:55:19] Yeah. So, um.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:21] Yeah, something I use ace as well. Yeah.

Pete Srodoski : [00:55:23] It’s something that they teach you at publishing. They teach you how to publish, how to publish everywhere, how to get it in front of literary agents, how to, you.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:31] Know, it’s amazing so many people have such great stories and just have have never had a way to. And here we are at home, you know, able to do so many things at home. Yeah, well, how exciting that was to be able to learn something that you could actually use yourself. You know, it’s not like you’re not a consumer of it. You know, you actually became a consumer of what you were teaching.

Pete Srodoski : [00:55:51] Oh, and it was great. Um, what a great way to get invested into a company is to use the product and to get excited about it. Yeah. I tell you, 25 years old, I’m running a PetSmart store. I never would have said 15 years later I was a published author. I had a book that was a best seller on Amazon. Yeah, eighth best management audiobook of all time. Yes. And all time.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:14] Anything of all time. And you have a 4.9 review score of 110 reviews. That is a very nice statistic. Thank you. I would be very proud of that statistic.

Pete Srodoski : [00:56:23] But you know, I appreciate it. The, the I never would have thought in a million years that I would have run a dessert company, a frozen dessert company, that I would have worked for the I, I didn’t even tell you this, but I worked for the Atlanta Braves for a year.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:36] Holy cow. Just sprinkle that in.

Pete Srodoski : [00:56:38] Sprinkle that? Yeah. Uh, and I was the manager of, uh, business development. And so anyways, like, I.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:45] The journey.

Pete Srodoski : [00:56:46] The journey has been a blast. But when I was there running PetSmart stores until I had that spark that like, I need something more from this life than what I’m doing right now. I don’t want to be 50 working at a retail store.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:03] Well, you had drive. You had to. You had.

Pete Srodoski : [00:57:08] To. Gumption. I don’t know, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know, uh, something their drive is such a good word. Um, there’s just some spark in your chest, and you’re just not going to be satisfied unless you get more out of this life.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:23] It’s so many people concede, and you can. I know, but there are people who do. And that’s what the show is about. Is that fearlessness that you have?

Pete Srodoski : [00:57:32] Please don’t listeners, please do not concede. Keep fighting. Please keep fighting.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:40] How has the reception been of your book? Like what are you finding? People are loving about it.

Pete Srodoski : [00:57:45] Um, you know, I’m I, I have a large personality, but I don’t ever feel like I do anything great. So, um, I have a natural humility. Yeah, I have the all of these people reaching out to me on LinkedIn and Facebook that said, um, hey, this this book was great. And I’ll tell you, this is the moment where I just like, kind of got and I went in or is, um. And if you’re listening. Thank you. Um, I there was a gentleman that was on Facebook and he had posted, um, the best books I read last year, and he had a picture of two books, and one of them was lead with empathy, and I didn’t, I was floored. And then on top of that, the mayor of canton said, that was my favorite book last year.

Sharon Cline: [00:58:35] Oh my gosh, I have like tears in my eyes. And I was so emotional for me because what a satisfying, what a validating experience. That must have been magical.

Pete Srodoski : [00:58:45] Yeah. And I had no idea it was like, that just blew me away. That all happened. And I remember taking a snapshot and sending it to my mom and dad.

Sharon Cline: [00:58:53] And I’m like, look what happened.

Pete Srodoski : [00:58:55] This is crazy. And, um, so it started, you know, naturally, I’m working on my second book, but it started as one of those things where I just became really proud, um, and that the journey, it was worth it. Getting assaulted, forgiving that man.

Sharon Cline: [00:59:14] Having a fire. 400 employees. Twice.

Pete Srodoski : [00:59:17] All of it. All of it. The stress my wife had to go through when I was gone and she had the kids, and she’s getting all the kids up for school and bottle feeding two twins. And just the stress and the gumption that my wife went through. And I could never, ever repay her for what she did so I could do that.

Sharon Cline: [00:59:37] It’s so sweet, you know?

Pete Srodoski : [00:59:38] And it’s it’s it’s incredible. So the journey has been worth it. And that’s why I say don’t give up. I mean, I’ve just consistently in my career hit wall after wall after wall after wall. And I just can’t let that stop me.

Sharon Cline: [00:59:54] One of the best quotes I ever read, and I think about it a lot, is that, um, at the end of the day, I’ve never been proud of giving in to fear. I’ve always been proud of doing something in spite of it, you know? And that’s something I think about a lot is, um, telling my story because I’m making my story every day. Right? Yeah. Being able to tell my story, to say I was afraid, of course, but I still did it because the times where I can torture myself at night, putting my head down, is when I’ve given in to fear and just allowed it to make decisions for me. Yeah. Um, and it’s a natural instinct, of course, that we have, but. And it’s there for a purpose. But when I allow it to control me, I’ve never been proud of it, you know, but to but to but to do what you’ve done and taken justifiable PTSD and still been able to find a place in your heart to say, here’s how I can help people with what I’ve learned. And not turned bitter. By. It is. It’s impressive. Thank you.

Pete Srodoski : [01:01:02] I want to be bitter. Right. It’s easier.

Sharon Cline: [01:01:05] Well, I mean, I can throw the best pity party you’ve ever heard. I can be the bitter, the bitterest person and enjoy it fully. But it’s, you know, it feels so much better.

Pete Srodoski : [01:01:16] In.

Sharon Cline: [01:01:16] To do the opposite.

Pete Srodoski : [01:01:17] Yeah. In the moment it might feel great to be bitter short time, but it kind of goes back to I lay in my bed every night and, you know, I’ve forgiven the man that did this to me. And it took a long time. And, um, he wronged me in so many ways. And, and and my wife and my family and my kids and and I can’t but take that incredibly personal. But I’ve. I’ve passed the point where I need to forgive him like I’ve done it. I’ve forgiven him, and I, I understand, um, that he was going through some horrible moments and and I don’t want that to happen to other people.

Sharon Cline: [01:01:58] Well, who who is your perfect client for your book?

Pete Srodoski : [01:02:02] Um, you know, I would say anybody that, um, manages, um, other people. Um, especially if you haven’t been doing it for a long time. Of course, I would always tell people, if you’re the kind of person that says that you don’t need help, then you’re probably the person who needs it the most. Um, because everybody needs help.

Sharon Cline: [01:02:24] Yeah. So if someone wanted to reach out to you directly to talk to you about your book or any of your experiences, how could they do that?

Pete Srodoski : [01:02:31] Uh, Facebook, you know, my how I found you. Yeah. Facebook. Linkedin. Um, I’m just I’m just a regular guy, you know, like, I, I go to varsity and get hot dogs, so I’m just like anybody else.

Sharon Cline: [01:02:45] Uh, you don’t lead walk around with, like, published author. No, no, I or your book in hand, just in case. No.

Pete Srodoski : [01:02:51] If people who know me are like, yeah, that’s just a normal dude. Oh. Um, uh, so you can just reach out to me just like any other person. I just happen to write a book because I got assaulted. And other than that, I’m. You know, I watch scary movies like everybody else.

Sharon Cline: [01:03:07] Well, Pete, I want to thank you so much for coming in and being so candid with your experiences and and being willing to share what some of the, the scariest moments that people face. Um, you have obviously handled with grace and given a nice blueprint for people to potentially understand that if they don’t turn to empathy and turn to forgiveness, it can become something horrible and debilitating. But you’ve you’ve done the opposite, and hopefully you’ve inspired some people to look at some of the darker things in life and maybe reframe them to something that can help other people.

Pete Srodoski : [01:03:41] Well, thank you so much for having me. On if if there’s only one person that from this conversation today was inspired to do better, be better, continue fighting. Um, forgive then I would look at this as a success. So thank you so much for having me on and I really appreciate your time.

Sharon Cline: [01:04:00] My pleasure. Pete. Thank you. Um, I think the same about the show. I hope one person, the the one fan I have is listening. Well, I’m enjoying it. Oh, great. You’re right. So you should feel great. And thank you so much, Pete. And thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula here on Business RadioX. And again, I’m Sharon Klein, reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.