1,500 Sessions Later, JBS Says EOS Isn't About the Tools - Jonathan B. Smith (EP. 013)

1,500 Sessions Later, JBS Says EOS Isn't About the Tools - Jonathan B. Smith (EP. 013)

Jonathan B. Smith, known as JBS, was one of Gino Wickman's first clients. He met Gino at an EO event before EOS® even had a name, and that early bet turned into an Inc. 500 business and a career as an EOS® implementer with more than 1,500 sessions. JBS also spent a decade training with Chris Voss, the former lead FBI hostage negotiator behind Never Split the Difference, and co-wrote Fight Less, Win More to bring tactical empathy into the leadership room. In this conversation with Christine Watts and Kris Snyder, JBS makes the case that team health, not the tools, is 70% of what makes EOS® work. He shares how he reads a room, when he goes off-script with what he calls EOS® freestyle, and the stories behind it: the bird-catching business he helped scale from two states to fifty, the family screaming match he defused by pretending the neighbors complained, and his 93/7 rule for knowing when a session can be saved and when it can't. Key topics: * Why team health is 70% of making EOS® work, and the tools are the rest * EOS® freestyle: structured flexibility, 15% out of the box and 85% facilitation * Bringing Chris Voss's tactical empathy and hostage-negotiation skills into the session room * The bird-catching business that scaled from two states to fifty * Defusing a family screaming match, and the 93/7 rule for when EOS® works About Jonathan B. Smith: JBS is an EOS® implementer with more than 1,500 sessions and the co-author of Fight Less, Win More, a negotiation handbook built on the tactical empathy made famous by Chris Voss's Black Swan Group. He was one of Gino Wickman's earliest clients and trains leaders to handle high-stakes conversations in and out of the session room. Connect with JBS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staycuriousjbs/ Mentioned in this episode: * Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805 * Fight Less, Win More by Jonathan B. Smith and Derek Gaunt: https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Less-Win-More-Negotiators/dp/1684016525 Impact Moments is produced by ninety. Learn more at https://ninety.io 🔗 Check out our episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS [https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS] 🔗 Learn more about Ninety: https://www.ninety.io [https://www.ninety.io]

Why Self-Implementing EOS Nearly Broke His Business - Jay Tankersley (EP. 012)

Jay Tankersley spent 18 months trying to self-implement EOS before admitting it wasn't working. Six months with a professional implementer outpaced everything he had done on his own, and the experience launched a decade as an EOS implementer and the founder of Meritage, a private investment fund built specifically for companies running on EOS. In this conversation with Christine Watts and Kris Snyder, Jay recounts the moment early in his implementer career when he asked a leadership team whether anyone trusted a specific colleague sitting in the room. The 30-second silence that followed changed that company's trajectory and, years later, set up the largest acquisition of their career. Jay also walks through the recognition moment that led him to build one of the first EOS-focused investment funds, and reflects on the mistakes that come from trying to lead as a democracy instead of making the call. Key topics: * Why self-implementing EOS stalls most CEOs, and what finally made it work * Entering the danger: the session-room silence that answered a trust question nobody wanted to ask * Spotting an opportunity hiding in plain sight: the EOS investment fund thesis * Why running on EOS is a risk-mitigation advantage in private investing * Leading as a visionary vs. facilitating as an implementer About Jay Tankersley: Jay is an EOS implementer with over a decade of experience and the founder of Meritage, a private investment fund that invests in companies running on EOS. Before becoming an implementer, he acquired and ran a business through entrepreneurship through acquisition in Denver. Mentioned in this episode: * Visionary by Mark C. Winters: https://www.amazon.com/Visionary-Driven-Entrepreneurs-Without-Themselves/dp/1636805779 * The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756 * The Mel Robbins Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mel-robbins-podcast/id1646101002 * Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association (Prime Video): https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Power-American-Basketball-Association/dp/B0GGRCTZKN Connect: * Jay Tankersley: https://meritage.vc | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaytankersley * Impact Moments is produced by ninety. Learn more at https://ninety.io 🔗 Check out our episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS [https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS] 🔗 Learn more about Ninety: https://www.ninety.io [https://www.ninety.io]

Coaching the Person, Not the Problem - Jamie Munoz (EP. 11)

Jamie Munoz spent four years as a full-time integrator at a large format printing company in Phoenix, helping grow the team from 60 to 100 people on EOS. When her visionary decided to become an EOS implementer, Jamie found herself at a crossroads and started doing fractional integrator work before the term even existed. That led her to founding Catalyst Integrators, a firm that matches experienced integrators with visionaries who need them. In this conversation with Christine Watts and Kris Snyder, Jamie talks about the moment she realized she had become a visionary sitting in both seats, the tension between structure and emotion in EOS meetings, and the termination story she still carries with her: the day she walked into a meeting trusting that the coaching had been done, only to discover it hadn't. Key topics: * How fractional integrator work was born before anyone had a name for it * The tension between EOS implementers and fractional integrators, and why there is room for both * Transitioning from integrator to visionary and learning a completely different skill set * Why things happen for you, not to you: bringing the human element back into structured meetings * The termination that went wrong and what it taught her about due diligence About Jamie Munoz: Jamie is the founder of Catalyst Integrators, a fractional integrator firm that matches experienced integrators with visionaries running on EOS. Before founding Catalyst, she spent four years as a full-time integrator at AZPro in Phoenix, where she helped grow the company from 60 to 100 team members. She is also part of the Visionary Forum community. Connect with Jamie: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-munoz/] Learn more about Catalyst Integrators: catalystintegrators.com [https://www.catalystintegrators.com] Mentioned in this episode: * Stutz (Netflix documentary on Phil Stutz) * Positive Intelligence (mental toughness training) * Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters Connect & Subscribe: Subscribe to the 90xEOS newsletter: ninety.io/impact-moments [https://www.ninety.io/impact-moments] Read the 90xEOS blog: ninety.io/eos/blog [https://www.ninety.io/eos/blog] Connect with Kris: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/] Connect with Christine: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wattschristine/] Try Ninety free: bit.ly/3Q99NXr [http://bit.ly/3Q99NXr] Impact Moments is produced by ninety. Learn more at ninety.io. 🔗 Check out our episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS [https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS] 🔗 Learn more about Ninety: https://www.ninety.io [https://www.ninety.io]

Why 75% of Owners Regret Selling Their Business — Amy Morin (EP. 10)

Amy Morin grew a construction company from $0 to $40 million and exited it after 22 years. Then she bought and turned around a fly fishing resort in Montana, exited that one too, went to graduate school, and became an EOS implementer. By every outside measure she had done it right. And yet, she will tell you she got the most important part wrong. In this conversation with Christine Watts and Kris Snyder, Amy walks through the exit-planning concept she ran headlong past the first time around: the three legs of the stool. She had business readiness in spades. She had no plan for financial readiness or personal readiness, and that gap reshaped what came next for her family. Amy now combines EOS implementation with work as a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, helping owners build companies that are valuable to sell and lives that are ready for what comes after. Key topics: * The three legs of the exit-planning stool, and why business readiness alone is not enough * Why 75% of owners regret selling their business one year later * How identity loss shows up after an exit, especially for the founder who built the thing * Going to market through connectors with a real reason to connect, not just an intro * The cost of ego, and what Amy would tell her younger self About Amy Morin: Amy is an EOS implementer and Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA). She previously built and exited a $40M construction company and ran a fly fishing resort in Montana. She also hosts the Exit Velocity podcast (formerly the Mastery Partners Podcast). Connect with Amy: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amymorin/] Mentioned in this episode: * Multipliers by Liz Wiseman * Start With Why by Simon Sinek * Exit Velocity podcast (hosted by Amy) * Value Acceleration Methodology (Walking to Destiny by Christopher Snyder) * Exit Planning Institute (EPI) and the CEPA designation Connect & Subscribe: Subscribe to the 90xEOS newsletter: ninety.io/impact-moments [https://www.ninety.io/impact-moments] Read the 90xEOS blog: ninety.io/eos/blog [https://www.ninety.io/eos/blog] Connect with Kris: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/] Connect with Christine: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wattschristine/] Try Ninety free: bit.ly/3Q99NXr [http://bit.ly/3Q99NXr] Impact Moments is produced by ninety. Learn more at ninety.io. 🔗 Check out our episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS [https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS] 🔗 Learn more about Ninety: https://www.ninety.io [https://www.ninety.io]

Give Me the 20% That's Real | Jim Wardlaw | Ep. 9

After 13 years as an EOS implementer and nearly 950 sessions, Jim Wardlaw picked up David Hawkins' book on the map of consciousness and found a framework that reframed everything he thought he knew about leadership teams. Hawkins places courage at the midpoint of human emotional states, calling it the line between negative and positive. Jim started seeing that line everywhere in his work: the teams that muster the courage to face hard truths consistently come out stronger, while the teams that stay below the line stay stuck in anxiety, politics, and avoidance. In this episode, Jim shares how that insight changed his approach to facilitation, tells the story of a single moment of vulnerability that transformed an entire leadership team, and explains why he believes AI is a bridge to better human thinking, not a replacement for it. Key topics: * How Jim met Gino Wickman before EOS existed * David Hawkins' map of consciousness and the courage line at 200 * The three questions exercise that broke a senior executive and transformed a team overnight * "Give me the 20% that's real": a conflict resolution technique from Hank O'Donnell * Why AI might be a stepping stone to higher human cognition, not a threat About Jim Wardlaw: Jim is an EOS Expert Implementer based in Western New York with about 125 implementations and 950 sessions under his belt. He started as an ad agency owner in East Lansing, Michigan, where Gino Wickman was his first implementer. After selling the agency, he earned a master's in Creativity and Organizational Change Management from the Center for Applied Imagination at Buffalo State, the oldest organization in the world focused on creative problem-solving. He is currently writing a book called Entropy exploring the relationship between AI and human imagination. He can be reached at jim.wardlaw@eosworldwide.com or jimw@stitch.solutions. 🔗 Check out our episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS [https://www.youtube.com/@90xEOS] 🔗 Learn more about Ninety: https://www.ninety.io [https://www.ninety.io]