Celebrating 500 Episodes: The Action Catalyst Host Roundtable

Action Catalyst hosts past and present unite to mark a major milestone; the 500th episode of The Action Catalyst. The trio of Adam Outland, Stephanie Maas, and Dan Moore gather and reflect on their favorite guests, lessons learned, mistakes made, and the impact, both personal and professional, that the podcast has had on them over the years.

About the hosts:

Learn more about Adam here and here.

Learn more about Stephanie here and here.

Learn more about Dan here.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Adam Outland
Oh, good. Dan Moore, his voice is just, it’s like a fireside chat. You know?

Dan Moore
Hey guys, Adam, how you doing, sir?

Adam Outland
I’m doing well.

Dan Moore
Good to see you as well. Stephanie, how you doing?

Stephanie Maas
Hey, Dan, I’m so great. How are you?

Dan Moore
Really fine. Thank you.

Stephanie Maas
Hey, Adam.

Adam Outland
Hey, Stephanie.

Dan Moore
I guess I’ll kick it off then.

Adam Outland
Yeah, I think that’d be great.

Dan Moore
When I was asked to take over the podcast, I remember thinking to myself, I’ve heard about podcasts. What the heck are they? I actually had no idea. Never listened to what, never participated when I know what they were. And so fortunately, somebody comes to her, let’s walk you through the steps here. And she came over and set me up in a little conference room microphone. Got things started. It was very scary at first. I didn’t know what to ask people. I was intimidated even get the right kind of guests on the show. Eventually, I settled into a pattern the same five basic questions for people, which made it fun week after week to hear different people react to those same five questions. I guess one of the first ones I did was with a guy named Freddie Revell, who’s used to be an Earth Wind and Fire paid the keyboards for his Earth Wind fires, a composer, great guy. We had the best conversation. I felt like I was with him making music. It was that close a connection. Went to play it back. The whole thing was not recorded.

Adam Outland
Oh no.

Dan Moore
I rescheduled with him, and it was very similar content. Neither one has felt the same vibe, though, so that’s like a major glitch, like, Oh, I’m the guy that got a chance to experience this thing, but it was still a great experience. Almost every day, I remember some of the lessons though. Ellen Petrey Leanse, who is one of my early guests, and she was one of the first employees at Apple. She was early employee at Google as well. And I made a comment about mindset. She said, let’s talk about mindset for a minute. She’s wanted to introduce me the concept, but first of all, you have brain set, mindset and skill set, I think about that frequently. Put it in my book. In fact, it’s such an important concept we can make a decision or a goal, that’s mindset. But unless we change our brain set, we’re going to lapse back, we’re going to fall back, always, into old patterns of behavior. Brain set is always designed to preserve the status quo, so what you got to do is focus on skill set, which the things that you can control and do repetitively, events you convince your brain said, Okay, I’m a different person. Now and then the mindset actually kicks in and works. It’s just a really cool concept to learn about. I guess my last one that I remember frequently, and I shared this lots of people’s Andy Andrews and Andy said a lot of really profound things, but I remember saying she talking about forgiveness. Forgiveness really is a gift, isn’t it? Andy, you feel really good when when somebody forgives you. So that’s not what I’m talking about. Dan, forgiveness is a gift to the giver, not to the receiver. When you forgive someone, you receive the gift. You lighten that burden of resentment, anger, frustration, that’s really powerful. Remember, forgiveness is a gift to the Forgiver. I think about that frequently.

Adam Outland
In my my style, I get really involved in the conversation and and I might even say that I hope my selfishness about the interview benefits everybody. My selfishness is that I want to learn as much as I can from someone in the 45 minutes, or 30 minutes, or whatever that I have with them. And so to be fair, I think I look a little bit coming into the interview and think, what are the challenges that I’m having in my current role, or what are the challenges in growing a business that I’m seeing or that my clients are seeing? And I go, I wonder if this person’s got perspective on some of these problems with their background and their experience, and I in particular, very recent interview, which might be why it’s top of mind. But we had interviewed Chuck Runyon from Anytime Fitness years ago, Anytime Fitness, and then recently this year, they acquired orange theory. They have, I think bar, they’ve been what I think now. They have 8 million members across all their different platforms and franchises they own. And when I talked to chuck, he recommended that, instead of doing a part two with him, that I interview is his co founder, Dave Mortensen. And Dave was just a real gem to interview. And a few things that I just loved in that conversation is how Chuck and Dave worked the business from ground zero to 8 million members together, and they’ve stayed co founders. I mean, it’s not so common to get along so well strategically with someone that’s your equal and grow a business. And we talked about how that was managed. And one of the valuable things is you said, no matter how much one of us might have miscalculated, we get to a point of agreeing that we would go that direction. And if it was missing, it was a miscalculation. If we made a mistake, then there was no looking back and pointing fingers and saying told you so it was always we got rid of our egos with each other, and we just moved forward in the business. And I really liked that anecdote. And the other was, I think, really pertinent right now, you know, in business, but also even in our political climate. He wasn’t referencing that, but he said living in the gray, he said, is both personally and professionally. It’s seldom Is it black and white. And he said that usually no good answer is completely black or white. And so being able to live in in a little bit of the unknown and the gray and that scientific method usually suggests that if you’re too confident that something’s right, it probably is. Is wrong. So that would be my interview of choice at the moment.

Stephanie Maas
Okay, so may I say a couple things in addition to that too? Please. First of all, after hearing Dan and Adam, I totally understand why I am now on this podcast, and that is to completely dumb it down for the readers who may not be quite as sophisticated in thought or action. So I appreciate that. I’m glad I could be here for the more common folks. So thank you. My style, I think, is a little bit different. Candidly, before every interview, I’m usually scrambling like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know anything about this, but what gets me. I every single time I hang up, I’m just fascinated. There’s been some that have been tough, especially if someone’s not used to talking about themselves. You know, it’s so interesting to me. I was thinking about this. I just think there are just such extraordinary people in the world, and yet, if you really sit down and talk to anyone, you will find that everyone is extraordinary, and that’s probably a little bit of my approach, because I can get super intimidated by accomplishments and achievements. I mean, honestly, most days of the week I’m just trying to get through the day, have dinner on the table, and the kids need to eat and function at a basic level. And when I get on with these folks that have just done incredible things, and they’re so willing to share, when you just keep pulling at their strings, they are ordinary in a very extraordinary way. And I think it gives me a tremendous amount of hope. So I would say my style shocking is not super structured or organized, but rather, people fascinate me. They just do so I want to get past all the accomplishments and achievements and just try to reveal the human because selfishly, for me, that’s the really inspiring and motivating part that gives me a smidge of hope.

Adam Outland
That’s great.

Dan Moore
You’re too humble. Stephanie, you know that. You probably don’t know that, you’re just too humble.

Stephanie Maas
Sure that’s never been something I’ve been accused of. So Nope. Um, thank you, though. But the other thing too to me, this is funny, literally, I think I black out during the recording sessions because I can’t remember anyone I’ve talked to. Not at all. I know I’m fully engaged, obviously I’m there. I don’t drink beforehand, so I shouldn’t be blacked out. However, what I do think is really neat is in my day to day, whether it’s leading the team or doing my own day to day job or with my kids or whatever the case may be, I do find myself quoting folks, and it’s in those moments that I remember the interviews, and I remember the folks, and I remember the council and the advice. So this has been probably one of the absolute best gifts in my career the last five years, for sure, because again, obviously I black out during the recording. I could never go and listen to my own voice ever again. I do read the transcripts, but I skim what I’m saying and get to what they say, but the influx of wisdom that I’ve had. Thank you very much for letting me be a part of this.

Adam Outland
I think what Stephanie said, I use it all the time with my wife, where I say, you know, the founder of Wikipedia said I need to rest more, so I’m gonna go to bed at eight o’clock tonight, honey. It’s just, you know, and then the credibility it gives you to just, you know, I think in all serious that’s something that Stephanie said, that it’s true of all three of us and probably the vast majority of our guests that we’ve had on the podcast, is that insatiable curiosity. It’s the superpower of so many people who’ve built extraordinary things, because to do it, you have to be insatiably curious. And you know, I think what Stephanie said about just loving being in the moment with folks, it’s because you are curious about how people work and how they operate, and it’s why we have front facing people oriented jobs outside of the action call is probably too but I think it’s been such a rewarding thing to see this through line across all these successful people, that curiosity is very much that you know, they love asking questions and understanding what makes things work, what makes people work, And whenever there’s a problem, they just ask more questions.

Dan Moore
I think it’s probably typical of all three of us. We’re probably better listeners than we are pontificators. We can all pontificate if we want to, but some podcast hosts will interview somebody and then they’ll take an excuse to express their own opinion for the next 45 minutes, and I felt like it was more important to hear from our guests. So it just some I guess three of us all have in common is learning from them was, was a key thing for me.

Stephanie Maas
Difference maker.

Adam Outland
Yeah, I mean, both on a personal level, and then I think potentially, as well, for Southwestern consulting and the family of companies, the opportunity to have deeper relationships with some of our guests. You know, after speaking with Chuck and Dave. And being so, you know, really blown away with how well Dave interviewed. I chatted with him afterwards and say, I’d love to, I’d love to spend some time and get together, and, you know, see if there’s anything there for partnership. Because I I just want to be around folks like this. And we’re basically getting dinner together. So I think there’s the opportunity to develop deeper relationships with some of the guests that we have an opportunity to interview is really a big part of it for me.

Dan Moore
It’s pretty special, Adam. See if you can get me a discount on my orange theory membership, would you?

Adam Outland
I’ll throw it out.

Dan Moore
Thinking about the the impact it has on the family of companies. 500 episode blew my mind when I saw that. Just amazing and the Reach that’s hit all these countries, the downloads every month blow me away. For our company, I think it’s vastly important for credibility. It speaks to our mission. Every guest we have, the hosts we have, all speak to our mission. And that’s really important. I think we always are striving for credibility in any way, shape or form. Find it. And I think for the whole company, it just establishes us as a real player.

Adam Outland
That’s great.

Stephanie Maas
There’s been three significant times in my life where my faith in humanity has really been I’m not going to say restored, because I never really lost it, but I think my faith in humanity has really been accentuated. The first time was selling books and really meeting people where they were at and really understanding and recognizing that people really are good, and they really do want to look out and care for others if given the opportunity. Second time was during my divorce and really tough time, but just the support I got from friends, family, co workers, just just completely blown away, completely blown away. And then I would say this podcast, because the guests are so anxious and willing to share what they’ve learned, there’s a mentality of abundance. I haven’t interviewed with one single person that had any reticence to sharing what they learned, who they were, how they got there, what they wish they had done different pitfalls. I mean, they’re just and to me, that mentality it just, while we may be competitive, no one has to lose or someone else to win. And I’ve really seen that in our guests, and it just brought back just how wonderful humans really are, regardless of success or failures or whatever the case may be. So personally, for me, that has been huge. And it brings me back to the first one, which was a big attraction to being with Southwestern family of companies all these years is what Dan alluded to. Part of our mission statement is we build people, and people build companies. And there is no better reflection this day and age than getting folks on board with our podcast to talk about how they become better people, to build better companies. And again, it’s just a huge exclamation mark to people really are incredible, if you’ll let them be. So I know some of that’s a little bit cheesy and a little bit personal, but I think when you get like minded folks together, it is incredible what we can build.

Adam Outland
Speaking of like minded folks, we we had elite retreat last year for Southwestern consulting, and we had two action catalyst guests that came in different capacities. Well, I guess technically three. So just being able to even include some of these relationships and guests and some of our events has been really great.

Dan Moore
Let me end with one more quote. The president of Harvard one time was asked years ago, how did Harvard get the reputation for being such a storehouse of knowledge? He thought for a moment, said, maybe because the freshman bring so much in and the seniors take so little out. Well, we might have brought a little bit in, but we sure got a lot out of this podcast.

Stephanie Maas
Absolutely.

Dan Moore
Stephanie, Adam, thank you both. Great to be here. Thank you guys.

Stephanie Maas
Yep.

Adam Outland
Likewise.