How to Lead People Who Don’t Think Like You with George McCaughan

Steve Doyle (: 00:00

Welcome back everyone to the blue collar BS podcast. Hey Brad, how you doing today?

Brad Herda (: 00:05

I am fantastic Mr. Doyle it is weekend number one of the NCAA tournament and I have one loss so far through we're recording two o'clock central here on Friday I've got one loss so far and that was the Clemson game on

Steve Doyle (: 00:12

Steve Doyle (00:21.668)

day you lost on Clemson huh? Hmm. Well I

Brad Herda (: 00:24

I did. Otherwise I'd have perfect bracket thus far. So.

Steve Doyle (: 00:27

Wow, that's that you know what I actually have the best bracket I don't do this stuff. I have never done a bracket ever. Period. I just can't get into. I am well I mean you gotta take pride in something so let's roll. So let's roll that that's that's the sword I'm going on today so. So.

Brad Herda (: 00:32

You didn't have this.

Well, that's your fault. Now you're just taking pride in being stubborn, you pain in the ass.

Brad Herda (: 00:51

Alrighty.

All right, stick to your guns.

Steve Doyle (: 00:57

So Brad, who do we have on the show today?

Brad Herda (: 01:00

we have a dear friend that we met almost 10 years ago in San Diego, George McCaughan, who's now the CEO of Res Legal. He was with our organization for a while. He was the international paper for 11 years as a project manager, division controller, CPA. The guy is full of a wealth of knowledge and for some reason he decided to lead a company of lawyers. So welcome to the show, George.

Steve Doyle (: 01:03

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 01:24

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 01:27

Well, thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it.

Brad Herda (: 01:30

You say that now.

Steve Doyle (: 01:31

he does. They all say that now. Every time. Every time. So before we get back to reminiscing here, George, which generation do you identify or fit in with?

Brad Herda (: 01:33

I know every time it's weird.

George McCaughan (: 01:44

I in with baby boomers, but I try to go across all of

Steve Doyle (: 01:48

all right, yeah.

Brad Herda (: 01:49

So explain that, explain that.

George McCaughan (: 01:52

So part of that is I'm in Rotary and one of things that we do is I mentor rotor actors which are probably mid-20s to mid-30s and I do that every year and it's really good for me for litany of reasons so I can listen to understand what they're doing in a very freeform standpoint. Also we have younger associates or attorneys here so it gives me a better idea of some of the things that they're dealing with and just creates that and

I try to do my reading a couple times a week and it's always something from a generational thing. I know we're going to talk more detail on that a little bit.

Brad Herda (: 02:26

So do you have a beer pong table sitting in your office?

George McCaughan (: 02:30

we do not, we're in a law firm. Remember? We're not at Google. Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 02:32

Yeah, I just carry this there. That's funny. That's funny. So George, tell us tell us about your journey to where you are today.

Brad Herda (: 02:37

I was just seeing how you're trying to bridge the gap. That's all George.

George McCaughan (: 02:42

Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, going walks, that's always good.

George McCaughan (: 02:57

me my personal journey or why do you know? Okay, no, no, I, I grew up in Mississippi, obviously the Ole Miss here, I went to school there, I chopped cotton as a kid and my dad said, if you don't study in schools, what you're gonna do the rest of your life, I'm like, I think I can do something else. So my brother and I studied very hard. I still have calluses from those days. So that's a good reminder.

Steve Doyle (: 02:59

Yeah. Yeah. Personal, like, yeah.

Brad Herda (: 02:59

Or your wife's. Your choice.

Steve Doyle (: 03:07

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 03:21

As Brad mentioned earlier, I worked for International Paper for several years. The executive management program spent some time in Wisconsin. In a very blue collar union environment, which I know you guys talk about somewhat. I would go out to the paper machine out there and those guys would start bitching about their job. And I'm like, don't talk to me. I had a chop cotton in the hot summers in Mississippi. So they're like, oh, okay, you might know a little bit about manual labor. I'm like, absolutely. And the only other thing we could talk about

Steve Doyle (: 03:43

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 03:47

You earn that respect very quickly.

Steve Doyle (: 03:48

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 03:51

Yeah, well the thing that I could bond with them all was Green Bay Packers, right? And so this was the time frame when Brett Favre was up there and so you he was starting to get really good and so they, we could talk about that. So even if the machine was running bad, we could go to that and get that squared away. I got to do a lot of neat stuff there. I went over to Europe and did mergers and acquisitions, came back. They were gonna move me to New York. I took a job in Memphis as the chief operating officer and eventually became the CEO.

Steve Doyle (: 03:51

Hey.

George McCaughan (: 04:21

got a chance to sell that business a couple years ago and then I moved here to Florida. Started out in consulting and then through a long story I became the CEO of a law firm. Not by choice but just you know things happen for one reason or another.

Steve Doyle (: 04:36

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 04:37

No, wasn't a choice. No, it wasn't by choice. It was an actual decision. You are correct. It was a decision.

Steve Doyle (: 04:42

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 04:42

That's right, that's right. And so the bar was pretty low and I'm like, I think I can make a big difference on that. And so that's worked out really well.

Steve Doyle (: 04:47

Thank

Brad Herda (: 04:47

No pun intended on that. Was there a pun intended on that? The bar was pretty low.

George McCaughan (: 04:52

No. I used that one pretty good bit.

Brad Herda (: 04:57

So how right so from that manufacturing perspective and as you came up through that ranks and maybe you weren't on you weren't on the floor, but you understood it. You grew up doing the work and out there and now helping as a legal team to be a service provider to your clients. How are you making that connection to be authentic with your clients and not above them and being able to connect with them versus

You know that hierarchy that many organizations tend to want to have like we're better. You're just the client type scenario

George McCaughan (: 05:30

Right, right.

George McCaughan (: 05:34

Yeah, no, no, no. And we try to teach that with our younger associates. mean, part of it, is quite frankly, just the respect of another person, right? It's not about me. And if you approach it like, how do I help this other person first? Not about what I can do for you, but like, how do I help you? That makes a big difference. And then, you know, do some homework on them now with LinkedIn and Google and chat GBT. You can find out a ton of stuff for people at either your client or professional service advisor or anything. And so,

Steve Doyle (: 05:58

Hmm.

George McCaughan (: 06:02

You know, excuse says I don't have time. Well, then, you know, you don't care about that person, right? And so time is the ultimate priority. So you either we all have 24 hours in a day. What do you choose to do it? Right. And the same thing that it takes a little bit is when people show up late and, you know, some people in that generation do a great job with that. And some do bad, just like in our generation, we have the same thing. So there's a lot of common things. I think the media has done a little bit of overplaying that. Obviously, there's something to that.

Steve Doyle (: 06:07

Yep.

Steve Doyle (: 06:13

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 06:31

But at end of the day, it's people and we can go back to, I don't know if you guys read Ryan Holiday, he talks about the Stoics and people are exactly the same today as they were there.

Steve Doyle (: 06:37

Yep.

Brad Herda (: 06:42

Yeah, we're all humans. It's just that the generations have the common bond of whatever those social slash economic or events or technology breakthroughs or things like that, right? Kennedy assassination before my time, right? But challenge or explosion. Yeah, I'm positive. Challenger explosion. OK, cool. That had an impact. 9-11 had an impact. Maybe 9-11 didn't have an impact on my kids as much, but the

Steve Doyle (: 06:51

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 06:59

Right.

Steve Doyle (: 06:59

Are you sure? Really?

Brad Herda (: 07:10

Like the Combine shootings probably did, right? Very different scenarios to what they're coming up with. So finding those common grounds of understanding are really, really important. And taking that time to know what's going on before you interact or say put foot in mouth or whatever that might look like is critical.

Steve Doyle (: 07:14

Hmm.

George McCaughan (: 07:20

That's right.

George McCaughan (: 07:29

Right, right, right. Well, I think you got a good example, Brad, those kids that were in college when September 11th happened, right? That is, again, in my lifetime, never thought something like that would happen. And then, what, seven years later, the great recession of 2008, their parents got laid off. And then COVID happened in 2020. So, you know, in a span of 20 years, when they're developing their adulthood, that's, some of those kids are still really scared today, right? Well, we did not even have that thought process.

So to your point, think you got to keep that in mind when you speak to someone at that point. Again, it's caring about that person.

Steve Doyle (: 07:57

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 08:04

How do you instill those characteristics into your team today? What are some of the tricks or techniques that you use? Because whether you're in a law firm or whether you're an HVAC company, we're humans, right? So the same techniques should work.

George McCaughan (: 08:17

Right. Yeah, a couple of ways. One is like with attorneys, they're very billable hour conscious, right? And so they can use that as an excuse a lot of times. But what I found is, you know, like I'm still here in the office after five, five thirty, I'll go pop into one of the younger associates. And we we met like one of the young ones, a big UT fan. So we'll talk about Tennessee football or basketball. And then it evolves into, hey, I'm struggling with this type thing. And so I have to get to know the person first.

but I have to go to their office, they're not gonna come to mine. So that's a great example of trying to get in the leadership role from that perspective. And then with Rotoract, what we do is I meet with them once a month and we'll either go coffee or lunch or sometimes we'll just go walk on the beach to do that and just have a free flowing conversation. And sometimes it's a scripted, sometimes we're like, hey, which book do you wanna read? So I really try to figure out what is it that person wants me to do to help them.

Steve Doyle (: 08:49

Hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 09:15

you

George McCaughan (: 09:16

So it's just kind of little things like that. There's not a, you know, one big silver bullet. It's a lot of little things and again, kind of going back to, I going to invest in that person? It's my choice.

Steve Doyle (: 09:26

Right? Yeah. What are you seeing, George, as some key characteristics of the younger generation for things they're looking for?

George McCaughan (: 09:35

I say you know part of that of the pie in the sky answers everybody's counting on the same thing but the person that I mentor I met with her last week and I don't want to devolve too much about that but the boss she was with had gone to some conference and they talked about this generational thing and he came back to her and said hey I think the people because she's 27 so what is that? Z?

Brad Herda (: 09:57

Yep.

Steve Doyle (: 09:59

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 09:59

Jinzy, you guys don't really want to own a business. You just want to work really hard and not work as much. And she's like, time out. Where did you get that from? Because she's at 27. She is much further ahead than I was at 27. She's really sharp. She's got all the boxes checked. And she's like, why would he say that? I'm like, yeah, I have no idea either.

Steve Doyle (: 10:12

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 10:19

Because he got bad information and they're not listening to this show. That's why. Right? Because Gen Z is so close, much parallels your generation, George, the boomer generation in so many different ways.

Steve Doyle (: 10:22

That is why.

George McCaughan (: 10:23

There you go, right, I should send her a boss this.

Steve Doyle (: 10:33

Wait, wait, wait. Why are you singling him out? You're in there too.

Brad Herda (: 10:36

No, am not Mr. Millennial. Mr. wannabe over there on the screen Mr. Doyle. I'm close. I'm not gonna lie. I have a lot of those tendencies. not. I get it. It's all good. But there's there's that alignment there of loyalty. There's an alignment there of understanding. There's that alignment there if I want to get my job done. The difference is I think that the the Gen Z's will start with their bucket full of respect and trust.

Steve Doyle (: 10:41

You

Bye.

George McCaughan (: 10:58

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 11:06

They start out at 100 and you lose it. Whereas the boomer generation and the older X generation, was you had to earn it. You started at zero and had to work your way up. And that's a massive difference of behaviors in the workplace for sure.

Steve Doyle (: 11:09

Hmm.

George McCaughan (: 11:17

Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

George McCaughan (: 11:22

But don't you think it's a different time? Because when I was going through there, Brad and see, it was hard to get a job. So I was lucky to get one where now they have people pursuing them literally every week. And so what I talk to our guys about is the people that we have are really good. They're getting offers, right? You can always go get another dollar, but can you replace the culture, the values, the things that we really hold, you know, high esteem?

Brad Herda (: 11:47

Yeah, and it was no, mean, yes, every economic situation there's jobs. Yes. Are there more jobs today than there was? You know, in 1964, probably just because there's a different level. There's there's different things going on. There's more fast food restaurants. There's more service based industry. There's more banks. There's more all those things. There's more there's influencers now. There's so right. There's all the things you can do on social to make a living.

Steve Doyle (: 12:00

huh.

Steve Doyle (: 12:07

everything.

George McCaughan (: 12:13

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 12:15

Whoever thought you could go deliver food in your car and do that or drive strangers for a living, not call it hitchhiking, right? And get paid for, right? Think of all the things that have happened over the years to how people can get paid. And that's the difference. We had a guest, a gentleman out of Minnesota, and his philosophy is that there's going to be more, more of the younger generation, Gen Z and younger, are going to be looking for multiple part-time gigs to fulfill various portions of their life.

Steve Doyle (: 12:21

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 12:45

and rank them in a hierarchy of one, two, and three, and they'll have more of it to satisfy different parts of their curiosity and learning.

Steve Doyle (: 12:52

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 12:53

And there's not as many of them quite frankly. people are having less kids now.

Brad Herda (: 12:58

that was just this week. They announced that there was actually an increase in the birth rate for the first time. And yeah, like 0.3%. But still, it might be a COVID effect. don't know. Who knows? Delay, COVID delay.

George McCaughan (: 13:03

Yes, like.

Yeah, Yeah, no, no, no. But it's expensive to have a kid, so yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 13:10

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 13:14

It's expensive for everything.

Steve Doyle (: 13:16

George, help me understand a little bit on like trends that you're seeing from a legal standpoint in the workforce. Especially as it relates to generations, the generational workforce.

George McCaughan (: 13:28

Yeah, that's a good question.

George McCaughan (: 13:33

Now there is a gap there because some of the guys that are older than I am, they would have to bill a minimum of 21, 2200 hours, which means they work 2600, 2700. Kids coming out of law school today are like, I don't mind working 16, 1700 hours, but I'm not going to work 2200 hours and die at my desk. So that is a big deal. And so what I talk to our guys about is, you know, we can sit there and

Steve Doyle (: 13:54

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 14:01

and the world's unfair about that, but that's the way it is. And if we're really good about doing what we're doing from a recruiting standpoint, then that's gonna be a competitive advantage for us. And plus those kids will want to work here as opposed to, yeah, you got a law school in some of these upper level ones and they come out with a huge loan. So they'll go to a big law firm and they had to pay off the debt. So when we go to a college or a law school to recruit,

First question we get out is, yeah, you got a big law firm, you're get paid a lot more money than we'll ever pay you, but what are you looking for? So we try to get that out of the way quick, but I don't think some of them have done the analysis to know, that's a big salary, but if I divide it by the number of hours, I'm probably making less than I would be here. I know they would be making less, yeah, so.

Steve Doyle (: 14:36

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 14:45

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 14:49

correct that marginal the marginal rates is not ever talked about.

Steve Doyle (: 14:49

That's interesting.

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 14:53

Nope, but again, they didn't do their homework where some of them have really done their homework. And another one came to me and said, look, I do not want to go to a big law firm. I'm like, why is that? And he well, it's not necessarily the money, but I don't want to be one of 200 partners. I'd rather be one of three or four or five partners where I really have a voice. And then my ears parked up like, okay, now we've got somebody that really is not just throwing me a bunch of words out.

Steve Doyle (: 15:19

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 15:19

What's the Vokey wedge doing back there for George? I see a wedge. see some hybrids maybe back there as well or something.

George McCaughan (: 15:22

That is when I get frustrated.

That's a putter with the thing on that I've got a lob wedge and a sand wedge right just to do some chipping in the office with the ball there. So probably yeah, no. Yeah, I don't get to do that as much as you would think I do and there's actually a little putting green there, but not so much either.

Brad Herda (: 15:38

Don't take out the windows.

Steve Doyle (: 15:41

Hehehehehe

Brad Herda (: 15:50

I have one those in my office as well. that's where I that's my that's like my five minutes. Just go get away from something and cleanse my mind and come back to something when I get stuck. Okay, go, go hit 10 pots and just get frustrated with that and then come back to the thing that isn't that hard.

George McCaughan (: 15:56

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 16:01

Yep, yep, when you get stuck.

Steve Doyle (: 16:06

That's funny. That's George, I'm also curious advice for some of the younger generation as they're coming into the workforce. You've kind of mentioned it a little bit about doing their homework. But what are you seeing as?

George McCaughan (: 16:08

That's right. That's right. It's all relative then.

Steve Doyle (: 16:33

I would say gaps and things that they are not thinking about when they are getting into the workforce.

George McCaughan (: 16:39

Yeah, I would say one, you got to have a healthy degree of curiosity, right? So, you again, we could probably spend the rest of this podcast talking about chat, chibiti, and I can break along generational lines as well. you know, just like you can go to Google or kind of date myself is when I did a term paper in high school, I'd go get the encyclopedia and some of the guys that play ball with it, they just copied it word for word, right? And so it's the same thing today is and then like that gives you an answer.

What does that really mean? Because a lot of guys in the legal profession, especially the guys older, are like, this is bad, this is bad. All they're gonna do is copy and paste and tell them, look, then we hired the wrong person. So I'm looking for that person that's trying to get ahead, he's gonna be curious or she's gonna look at things differently. Because our client, the biggest thing we have to teach is they already know the law. And just like any other words, engineering, accounting or some profession. But the key point to that is how do you take that information and apply it to whether it's a blue collar guy,

professional guy, doctor, whomever, and it's not a script. Part of that is you're going to probably get beat up a couple of times, but you can't be careful. Part of that is they're used to texting or sending an email. There's a hesitancy to pick up the phone or even more to go see the client. We try to help them through that. The ones that do that, the client comes back to me said, hey, they're fantastic.

Brad Herda (: 18:03

Yeah, communication is the ultimate key, right? You have to be responsive. You have to be curious. You have to answer the question and often, right? You can't necessarily be on the clock for every second of every conversation. You have to be respectful of time, both directions. If you're calling me to get some information, I am hoping my clock's not ticking, but if I haven't told you something, but every firm is different and helping. How are you? So today society,

George McCaughan (: 18:19

That's right.

George McCaughan (: 18:23

No, that's right.

Brad Herda (: 18:33

kids aren't thinking about the next thing. They're not thinking about the third or fourth question because they go through school, regurgitate, study, learn, regurgitate and go on and life is scheduled for them. How are you supporting your younger staff members to be able to get to that third or fourth question of understanding to bring in that situational awareness and context to engage with your, not only with your clients, but internally within your own team more effectively.

George McCaughan (: 19:03

Yeah, and it kind of goes back to what we just talked about. You got to have a natural curiosity. And then it's like, why is that? Well, why is that answer pretty good? Or are you just shortcutting? It's like, well, that was the first answer. God, I didn't go any deeper. And we've had some attorneys to struggle with that, quite frankly. And they were not necessarily younger. They were older. They said, well, that's what the client is or the one I really get frustrated with. Well, I sent an email or I left a voicemail. Right. And so it's like, well, that didn't mean that that was done.

Brad Herda (: 19:32

You're on mute Doyle, just so you know.

Steve Doyle (: 19:34

I know I am. know I am. There's a dog in the background barking every now and then, I'm of playing with the mute button.

George McCaughan (: 19:35

Yeah

George McCaughan (: 19:39

Yeah, yeah. But no, part of that, and then it's like that, what are you know, are you really trying to help the client or you're just trying to take the answer and then just move on?

Steve Doyle (: 19:52

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 19:53

So how are you? Do you have a gauge? You have a tool? Do you have a BS meter? Do have some sort of technique that you are using to facilitate or teach that that that curiosity? Weird that we're coming back to curiosity here, George. Well done, well done buddy.

Steve Doyle (: 20:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

George McCaughan (: 20:16

Yeah. Yeah, part of that is just in some of even when you're having, know, one of the things I know that people miss from working remote is the quote water cooler talk. You learn a lot in that situation. So even if we're talking about athletics, which in theory has nothing to do with the legal profession, but it's like, hey, if Tennessee got beat by two Dutch, well, why was that? Oh, they just had an off game. Well, why did they have an off game? Right.

So you can kind of pick up some clues on that, which kind of helps me the next time I go talk to that person of like, well, how do you do that? One of the things I try to coach our guys on is if they go to a senior member of the team and the younger person ask a question, the tendency for that older attorney is to instantly give them the answer because they want to feel valued. I'm like, you have to stop doing that. Yeah, but George, they really didn't know the answer. like, okay, you're not going to help them by giving the answer because they'll just keep coming back.

Steve Doyle (: 20:59

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 21:07

You gotta let them think. That's right. Right. Right. And then the coaching opportunity is like, well, tell me more about how did you come up with that solution or what are the other options that were a challenge for you? But make them feel the pain of going through that because that's the only way to learn. We could, again, I could spend 20 minutes on that alone. So again, to me, that's basic common sense. But

Brad Herda (: 21:07

They can get the answer on this device if they wanted. They wanted the answer. They could just look it up if they wanted the answer.

Steve Doyle (: 21:11

Even though it's one of them.

Steve Doyle (: 21:26

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 21:35

think everybody got that at the moment, and they don't get it in law school.

Brad Herda (: 21:38

Well, it's different, right? Everybody's common sense is relative. I mean the common right? It's common sense today to put your seatbelt on when we started driving. There were no seatbelts. They weren't. They were just they were there. They were seatbelts. They were there, but they weren't right. OK, cool, right? So so it just it's relative to your era of opportunity.

George McCaughan (: 21:42

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 21:44

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 21:57

Right? Yeah. Right. Right? Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 21:59

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 22:06

Or maybe there wasn't a very good explanation for us to wear the seatbelt.

Brad Herda (: 22:11

Correct. And you know, when I look at football, I think that's part of the reason why there are the respect of the human, their opponents, right? Back in the day when you didn't have all the padding, all the protective things to keep you from being injured, you still had idiots out there going out there and trying to kill each other. But at the end of the day, they weren't doing the stupid, stupid things because they were there. was respect within the players association for each other. And there was that.

Steve Doyle (: 22:12

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 22:37

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 22:37

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 22:41

As we get more more protective and things are getting safer, it's just some of that danger, that risk goes away and we don't think about that.

George McCaughan (: 22:50

But we didn't have the ESPN highlight either where that made where the guy was coming with his head to be the first league story either. So.

Steve Doyle (: 22:56

Hey.

Brad Herda (: 22:56

Right. my kids, right? mean, every car they had had an airbag in it. You know, luckily they've never had to use it, but everyone's had seatbelt warnings, airbags, all the things. Shit. Backup cameras now it's like, yeah, no. If you don't remember backing up into a light pole because you couldn't see how far the car came out through your mirrors because you weren't paying attention, then you just didn't understand the awareness around, right? You just didn't have that experience.

George McCaughan (: 23:13

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 23:16

Right. Yep. Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 23:17

Yeah

George McCaughan (: 23:23

Right. Have you noticed how more people back into a parking space now because they have that option?

Steve Doyle (: 23:25

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 23:31

And it's an ultimately it's a safer thing to do when you're when you're leaving the parking lot, right? Most construction sites that's required or is required to back in because at end of the day, you're tired and you're not paying attention and you want to get out and it eliminates the opportunity for air. so George, this is the bite your tongue segment of the show that Mr. Doyle started out. he's got some great ideas once in a while.

George McCaughan (: 23:34

absolutely.

Steve Doyle (: 23:35

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 24:00

Every now and then.

Brad Herda (: 24:01

Yeah. So this is the question. So somewhere in your either professional career, personal life, is there a moment in time where you probably should have bit your tongue before you went on to say some things and what, what came of it? What was the result of that? What was the opportunity or learning from it?

George McCaughan (: 24:26

Well, there are probably several to be fair. Yeah, yeah. No, we don't want to go down that path because he actually wants to watch this podcast. So I'm not going to go down that one. So I want to stay married, Brad. That's good. But part of that is my tendency is that I want to go ahead and get that answer quick. I can solve that problem as opposed to waiting and listening. And there's, you again,

Brad Herda (: 24:29

And we could call your wife if you want to, that's fine. We could bring her on if you'd like.

Steve Doyle (: 24:32

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 24:38

No way.

Steve Doyle (: 24:38

Hehehehehe

Brad Herda (: 24:41

Okay.

George McCaughan (: 24:55

you guys might know this better than I do that there's a lot of you showing the person you're listening even if I don't agree with what they're going in that direction I've got to switch the gears and ask a more thought-provoking question I'm trying I don't really recall a message off the top of my head that is worth sharing but probably in a meeting sometimes especially with international paper and in a corporate environment the bureaucracy was just

just frustrating. And so I was with the senior VP and it was 11 o'clock at night. We were working on the budget and we were I was in Wisconsin actually. And he was trying to get us to commit to some numbers. I just finally said, I'm not gonna mention his name. It's like, what do want the number to be? And that was probably not a smart move from a corporate said boy. But I just got so frustrated. And then my the guys around me said, we're so glad you said that.

Steve Doyle (: 25:25

Ha ha ha ha ha

Steve Doyle (: 25:44

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 25:52

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 25:52

I took the heat for that,

I learned from that though, Brad.

Brad Herda (: 25:56

Yeah, not to be so direct sometimes when you're not in the title power position.

George McCaughan (: 26:03

Well, you got to read the room, right? You got to read the room. And again, it was 11 o'clock at night. We started at 2 30 in the afternoon. So we didn't even bring him dinner. He didn't not bring dinner. Yeah. And then 11 30 at night in Appleton, Wisconsin, there are not too many places to go eat in the mid nineties.

Steve Doyle (: 26:05

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 26:12

Right, and you, and you, are you serious?

Steve Doyle (: 26:17

Wow.

Steve Doyle (: 26:23

No, they're not.

Brad Herda (: 26:23

No, no, there's no no, there's there were no quick trips there were no no it was

Steve Doyle (: 26:27

Might have had Perkins at that time.

Brad Herda (: 26:30

George McCaughan (26:31.052)

Yeah, but after that, Steve, I did not want to go to a Parkinson's.

Steve Doyle (: 26:34

Hahaha!

Brad Herda (: 26:34

No, no, they didn't have the right beverages. Right? You probably could have went to one of the bars and got a frozen pizza, maybe.

George McCaughan (: 26:38

That's, yeah, right, right.

Steve Doyle (: 26:38

They did not.

Steve Doyle (: 26:44

Yeah.

George McCaughan (: 26:44

Yeah, that's good. What is it? Cheese fries is the big deal up there. Cheese curds, yeah, that's what it was.

Steve Doyle (: 26:49

you

Brad Herda (: 26:49

Cheese curds, yep. Right, you probably could have got a Tombstone frozen pizza from one of the corner bars in a good old can, old style or something.

Steve Doyle (: 26:51

Mm-hmm.

George McCaughan (: 26:58

Yeah, right. Lonnie Kugels was a big deal then. Is that still around?

Steve Doyle (: 26:59

Maybe a little rhinelander at that.

Brad Herda (: 27:01

mining cool. Yep. Yes, it is there. They just so the Miller Coors, they just announced that they were shutting down the Chippewa Falls area, which was a big tourist attraction for mining. Cougars was being brewed. So that came out of nowhere. So the lining Cougars family is trying to recover.

Steve Doyle (: 27:04

Lying cuckoos? yeah.

George McCaughan (: 27:15

really?

Brad Herda (: 27:26

and or bring that back, that name back, even though it was sold to the Miller Coors or Miller and then Miller Coors. And so yeah, it's a, it's a mess right now. It's Hey, you know, it's the brewing industry. There's consolidation, right? And there's also expansion in the micro brew area. So, so George, if folks are down or in Florida or they want some opportunity or they want to get ahold of you, I'm going to assume you guys practice across.

George McCaughan (: 27:31

I didn't realize it had been sold. Wow.

George McCaughan (: 27:37

Sorry to hear that.

Steve Doyle (: 27:41

Mm-hmm. Yep.

George McCaughan (: 27:42

Yeah, true.

George McCaughan (: 27:46

All right.

Brad Herda (: 27:56

across the US or if they just there's a young person listening go hey I really liked what he had to say and would just like to have a conversation about mentorship or things like that how do people find you

George McCaughan (: 28:07

Yeah, so they can go to a variety of ways. I'm on LinkedIn, George McCombs. You can go to reslegal.com, R-E-Z-L-E-G-A-L.com, or you can send me an email, george at reslegal.com. You can call my office number 904-638-3065. So, and again, it's, as you're pointing out, a young person wants to do that. I'll be more than glad to help them. I think one thing today that's different than when we were younger is people today seem much more willing to help.

as from a mentor standpoint. And I know corporations have that, but if you go to someone inside your corporation, they're still going to be judging you where if somebody's really trying to do it for the right reasons, what a great opportunity. You can ask that really dumb question that you'd be hesitant in the corporate world or learn not to ask the question. I've seen it sometimes, right? Yeah. I didn't want to, you know, pick favorites or try to cast eyes either one of you.

Steve Doyle (: 28:38

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 28:54

Steve does it all the time. Have you listened to the show, George? Steve does this all the time.

Steve Doyle (: 28:58

Thank

Brad Herda (: 29:03

I know I'm your favorite, George. I got it. It's okay.

Steve Doyle (: 29:05

It's all good. It's all good. We know our roles.

George McCaughan (: 29:06

no.

Brad Herda (: 29:09

So what's the handicap at right now?

George McCaughan (: 29:12

Right now it's like about 14. So I want to get into single digit. I was a single digit in Memphis when I ran that company and got a chance to play, you know, once twice a week. That's it's hard to do that right now. So what about yourself?

Brad Herda (: 29:15

Okay, and what's target?

Brad Herda (: 29:27

sitting at a five, four right now.

George McCaughan (: 29:29

and you, Steve?

Steve Doyle (: 29:32

what's a handicap? No, I don't have a wheelchair. Yeah. I can drive a golf cart. I yes, I can drink a beverage. It's been a while but yes, I can. So thanks, George.

George McCaughan (: 29:34

okay.

Brad Herda (: 29:35

his handicap, technically.

George McCaughan (: 29:41

there you go. Well.

Brad Herda (: 29:42

And you can drink a beverage.

George McCaughan (: 29:47

that.

Brad Herda (: 29:52

All right, George, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. appreciate it.

George McCaughan (: 29:54

Yeah, I appreciate it guys. Yeah, if I can do anything to help you guys as well, please don't hesitate to reach out. Alright guys, have a good weekend.

Brad Herda (: 30:01

Cool, thanks.

Steve Doyle (: 30:01

Alright, yeah, thanks George. Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 30:03

You too.