Greg McKeown:
I’m thrilled to welcome Brian Murphy to our podcast today. Brian is not just the founder and CEO of Reliaquest, a leading name in the cybersecurity industry. He’s a visionary leader who’s transformed the company from an ascent startup in 2007 to a global powerhouse. It has a valuation of over a billion dollars. Not a lot of people can say they’ve done that. He’s a Florida State University alumnus with degrees in accounting and finance. He’s had a career as a management consultant at PWC, but that foundational experience paved the way for this entrepreneurial journey, as you’ll see.
So in 2007, amidst challenging economic conditions, Brian sketched the concept of Reliaquest on a cocktail napkin at an FSU alumni event marking the beginning of this extraordinary journey. He’s got a commitment that goes way beyond business growth. He’s deeply invested in community and education. Reliacquest itself is involved in a whole series of educational programs that invest in STEM. His leadership, and his strategic force act has earned him and ReliacQuest numerous accolades for the company’s positive culture, and the focus growth that’s been recognized by Fortune Magazine and Entrepreneur, among others. Brian himself has been acknowledged as one of Florida’s most influential business leaders. In today’s conversation, we’re going to dive into Brian’s journey, and I think you’ll find him fascinating.
Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian Murphy:
Thanks very much, Greg. Really appreciate you having me on, and I’m excited about the conversation today.
Greg McKeown:
Let’s start at the very beginning. Tell me, like I mean literally, way before you’re thinking, you’re not prepared for this question. Your first memory, man.
Brian Murphy:
First memory. I’m the youngest of three boys by seven years, so I think my earliest memory is probably my hand getting slammed in the door as my brothers were running out ahead of me trying to get themselves away from me. So that’s when I started chasing things that were bigger and older than me.
Greg McKeown:
Okay, now, how old were you at that moment?
Brian Murphy:
Oh, gosh, I wouldn’t even know. Probably maybe three.
Greg McKeown:
So that is a literal thing. You remember the hand in the door. We remember pain, don’t we? I mean that’s true. I remember the first time I was stung by a bee and I remember exactly where I was, precisely what was going on around it. I have that.
Okay, so carry us forward, don’t speed through this. Tell me, like you know, like, how were you as a student in high school?
Brian Murphy:
In high school? I’ve always been a very serious thing. Being so much younger than my brothers I watched them do everything first, so I was always in a hurry, so I was very focused and almost high school didn’t matter to me. I was probably already looking ahead to college and I was just very curious. I grew up in a kind of lower middle class family and very blue collar family and so business and you know I didn’t know doctors and attorneys or entrepreneurs. You know, no high rises where I was, but I was just fascinated with briefcases and large buildings and so you know, high school to me was just something I needed to get through on the way to college.
Greg McKeown:
And did you, when you say you were younger, how much younger were you?
Brian Murphy:
Seven and eight years younger.
Greg McKeown:
Seven and eight years younger. So you really were like they were way ahead when…
Brian Murphy:
I was an accident. Best mistake my parents made, right? That’s what I’m like.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I like that. The whole thing began with a mistake, so then. So when you say that you were looking ahead to college, were you already entrepreneurial in high school?
Brian Murphy:
I don’t know that I was entrepreneurial. I knew I definitely thought differently. We had a big van that would come to the front of our housing development called the bookmobile. My mom, she would read a romance novel a week, and she could read like crazy, and I would go fill this bag full of books, and the woman that ran, the librarian that ran that bookmobile, I would ask her. You know, she asked me what I was interested in, so she started handing me business books.
Greg McKeown:
Really? So how old? How old are you at this point? The first business book that she hands you, you are what age?
Brian Murphy:
Eleven or twelve.
Greg McKeown:
That’s interesting. Do you remember what the book was?
Brian Murphy:
I remember one of the first ones that I made it through. She handed me a lot that I started and just didn’t understand. But I read Beating the Street, which was pretty fascinating. I made it through that.
Greg McKeown:
So, how old were you when you made it through Beating the Street?
Brian Murphy:
I was probably thirteen. Thirteen, yeah, because it probably came out in the what mid-eighties, so that would have been around, so it was older when I read it.
Greg McKeown:
You remember the name of the woman that ran that bookmobile?
Brian Murphy:
I don’t. I can see her. I can picture her, but I don’t remember. But you know, she definitely showed me, she showed me my section, and I would pull books, and I felt like if I was taking out a book, then I was starting in the right direction, whether I ever got around to reading it or not, but it helped to build that habit.
Greg McKeown:
And you made it through that whole book at thirteen. That’s interesting. You must have really been interested in that subject already.
Brian Murphy:
I was fascinated by. He was a good storyteller, right? He wrote many books and he just kind of was painting the picture of what was going on at the time. So to me, it was lack of, not always about the investing. It was the story of him in that book, and that was right around the time like you can remember, like you know, Secret of My Success coming out and a lot of those just movies where it was just that hustle culture, the story line of somebody coming from nowhere and working their way up, and so that I definitely connected to that.
Greg McKeown:
When you say that she asked you what you were interested in you said business. What did that mean to you at 11, 12 and 13? What was your visual for what you were saying?
Brian Murphy:
Well, it’s funny, my dad was a diesel mechanic and retired, now still with us, brilliant guy, really good at fixing things and solving problems. But he would always tell me every weekend we have some project; paint this, build that, cut this, change tires, brakes, alternators, but whatever, and he would always tell me to put this on a list of things you want to do when you grow up. And so I started thinking, “What do I want to do when I grow up?” Right? And I remember I started the business club in elementary school.
Greg McKeown:
You started the business club in elementary school?
Brian Murphy:
I basically talked to a Teacher in the fourth grade. They used to sell school supplies out of this little room before school, and I talked her into letting me get a group of us to run that, like collect the money, sell the school, do the inventory. I was just fascinated by the whole thing, and I’ve always been really curious about how things work like I love a manufacturing company. I love how things are made, how they’re built, and that was just from the time that I was a kid, and you know that experience, and it led me to, well then, I want to learn how people are building other things. And you’re seeing movies, and these people have these jobs that I can’t quite understand, but they’re wearing suits, and they’re important, and people taking them seriously, and you know you’re a kid, so you’re just absorbing all these things around, you mean, while
Greg McKeown:
The symbols of power, these symbols of importance.
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, you know, I was the kid in fifth grade who wanted a briefcase for Christmas. So it’s just, you know.
Greg McKeown:
That’s literally true, is it?
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Greg McKeown:
Did you get the briefcase?
Brian Murphy:
I did not. My brothers were then far older and advised my parents I would probably get beat up every day if I went to my school with a briefcase.
Greg McKeown:
I didn’t catch that. So the idea was that you would have actually taken the briefcase as your backpack to school?
Brian Murphy:
That was the vision if you would let me. I mean, it was fascinating to me, but I think it was great because it was such a world that was so different than mine, right? Nothing I saw around me was like that, and that’s why I’ve kind of said by the time I got to college, it was like the playing field was level, and everything that I wanted was there. You know, there are no advantages that anyone else had, right, it was if you wanted to be involved in something, it was all right there. That’s kind of the. I think that’s what I was running toward.
Greg McKeown:
Okay, so there’s a couple of ways to think about this. So you, on the one hand, you could have just been aspirational, right, you say, is that? I like the look of that, I like the sound of that, I’d like some of that. Another way is I don’t want something, right? Yeah, was that? Which is the bigger force on you when you look back? Is it more like are we know we would tight on money, and I didn’t want to have to feel that going up, I wanted to make something different. Or was it just, hey, that looks fun, why not?
Brian Murphy:
I think, had my parents not been, especially my dad, so much of a why not you, you know, so much of a just raw supporter of mine, that it would have been about the things that I didn’t want to happen.
But I truly felt like I could do anything, and that was just how I was brought up in sports helps that having good teachers, helps that having, you know, two older brothers, so I was fortunate in a lot of ways, of course always just had this it’s hard to describe this just kind of burning drive inside of me. Since the time I could remember, I just wanted to push myself; like could I get better, could I learn more, could I do more? And that didn’t always materialize in the school because I can remember also being the person like having to take art, being like, “Why don’t, why am I being graded on art?” Right, you know? But if it was an accounting class in high school, so it wasn’t that I just wanted to be the best. It wasn’t that I was interested in something, or it was something I felt like was in my path, you know, I’d run at it with a relentless energy.
Greg McKeown:
Okay, but still staying back here for a moment. I don’t know if you know this. You know Clayton Christiansen, the late Harvard Business Professor?
Brian Murphy:
Yes.
Greg McKeown:
So one of the things that he looked into was that anything that differentiated the disruptors that he was studying. You know, was there some reason, some explanation for why they were more innovative, why they would challenge the assumptions, and so on? And the only thing that he could actually find materially different in their life experience is that they found that they had a common story that their father, generally speaking, father, would have them work by their side while they were physically fixing things, showing them how things worked. That seemed to be the distinctive difference, which is pretty shocking when you think about how much we value innovators and how disproportionately valuable they can be in society in a business that their earlier origins are. This sacrifice in a family setting where a father’s saying, “Well, just come over here, let me show you what I’m doing, let me show you how it works.” Exactly as you just described, did you know about that research?
Brian Murphy:
I did not know. That’s amazing. It makes a ton of sense, but it’s fascinating that you could correlate around that one data point. That’s amazing.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I mean, I was about to say in my description of it, oh, just this one small thing. And then I think, well, it isn’t really such a small thing in the moment because your father had to choose to have his son by him, and that could be inconvenient, or maybe it was fun for him, or maybe, and he didn’t just do it once, it was over a long period of time. So it’s not even a small thing in the moment, but it’s still interesting to see how far-reaching that investment has been in your life.
Brian Murphy:
Oh, I mean to me, it speaks to my memories of. It’s really where I learned the concept of effort, right? And I just believe that effort is the great equalizer. You have to work next to your father, and I can remember just not wanting to let him down. You don’t want to be the one that gets tired, you want to be the one that can’t split the piece of wood, or there was no complaining, right, because this was his second job. I mean, he would wake me up. I was, gosh, seven, six, or seven. He would wake me up, turn on the light up, and at him, and he was out of the house. I had to get out of bed, eat breakfast, and make it to the bus stop because there was no one there. If I missed the bus stop, mom and dad were gone. Mom was gone far before him.
So I think- you were responsible for that Right, and I think you know it stays with you that. Look, this guy’s doing this on the weekend after he did all that work right. So you just grew up in a household where you didn’t want to let anybody down. Work was all around you. I saw hard work everywhere, and it was the standard. No one ever had to pull me aside and say you need to work hard. That’s what you saw, and so that’s what you did.
Greg McKeown:
This was the family culture?
Brian Murphy:
Absolutely yeah.
Greg McKeown:
And because you were the youngest, I’m the youngest of five myself, and as the youngest because of birth order theory, which is quite strong, some of the data about this and one of the things that happens, of course, is that the oldest members of the family are forging a trail, and so any of that culture development really has taken place by this point. By the time you’re on the scene, especially as seven or eight years younger, that’s already being done. So then you just go, oh, this is how. It doesn’t even occur to you that choices are being made here, this is just how it’s done, and so this is the gift I think that the youngest get. There are other challenges that come with it, but that seems to be the gift. Have you tended to think of being the youngest as a benefit to you, as a disadvantage to you?
Brian Murphy:
I think it was a tremendous benefit. I mean, my brother would tell you my father had calmed down by the time I came along.
Greg McKeown:
I’m sure that’s true.
Brian Murphy:
He just relaxed a little bit. They had gotten, and they were in a different place. I mean, they had just fought hard. Both of them worked tremendously hard and built good careers. And so I think, you know, I didn’t have to see as much struggle as my brothers did, but I had the benefit of having two older brothers, and I knew that. You know, when Dad said, never talk back to your mother, I learned what happened when they did it.
So I got an education of, like you know, when you see someone else make a mistake, you don’t have to make it yourself that mistake yourself to learn from it. So I learned a lot by observation, which I think keeps you out of a lot of trouble in life.
Greg McKeown:
That’s literally true as a younger child, and, of course, it’s metaphorically true for life. I mean, I’m thinking now of Charlie Munger, who just died at the time of our interview, and he said, “I cannot think of a single person I have ever met who was wise, who didn’t read constantly.”
And the connection I’m making, even before we get to the literal point of the reading that influenced you, is all reading is learning about other people’s mistakes. So you don’t have to. So it’s such a high-leverage activity I think it might be the highest-leverage activity on earth. For the price of a pretty inexpensive meal, in fact, you can have access to the best thinking from the best people who ever lived. I mean unbelievable.
Brian Murphy:
I completely agree with you. And in today’s world, I mean, look at what you’ve put together and an amazing podcast that brings this type of thinking to the world. So let’s make the excuse of oh, I’m just not a good reader. You can consume however you want today, right, and the information is everywhere. You just have to be willing to go connect to it.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, you’re right about that, and the birth of mass audible learning, I think, has opened up a possible avenue for a huge number of people. We are told, and I think sometimes it’s true, that attention span has reduced over time. The data does support that. Nevertheless, at the same time, you see people being willing to listen to hours of podcasting and listen to audio books. I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo, right, it’s 1170 pages. I did the whole thing in audio, 50 hours of audio. I just did it on the way to things, in between things. Like I didn’t sit down and take a week to do that. And that is a brilliantly written book, absolutely spellbinding on every page, from the beginning to the end. I thought it was absolutely superbly written, and that was just available. It’s just there. It’s just incredible to me that it’s there.
Have you thought about the role of those books you read as being disproportionately important? Was that obvious to you before this conversation?
Brian Murphy:
It wasn’t. No, it’s funny now that we’re having the conversation, I was reintroduced to reading in college. I was in a student organization, a fraternity, and one of the older kids’ dads just took an interest in me and gave me the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. When I was a sophomore in college, he would come back about every three weeks. He’d make it to as many football games as he could or events. He would give me another book, or he’d mail it to the house. That really started. From then on I just never stopped reading. That really shaped how I thought about one, what’s possible, and two, my path to get there.
Greg McKeown:
I think that’s amazing. I really think this is a little piece of gold that we are uncovering in your story that two people, completely independent of you, completely independent of what they could gain, gave you books. They didn’t even recommend books, they weren’t book pushers of which maybe nobody loves a book pusher, but they gave you books. That is a very powerful thing to me. It’s inspiring me to be a book giver, not just a book pusher.
Brian Murphy:
I’ve never connected the two before this. It’s unbelievable because of the way you put it.
Greg McKeown:
You had a curiosity for it. Of course, my son says this, 17 years old. I mean, he’s read, I don’t know, 250 books as a teenager. He’s a real reader. He just always says there’s no such thing as someone who’s like a bad reader. You just have to find a book that interests you, and then you’ll read it. You’ve got no problem if you’re reading the right book. That’s what you said. That’s what that, librarian let’s call her, asked you what’s interesting to you, and it began this journey that you’re on now, shaping your thinking materially in those formative years, absolutely so. You’re at college, you want to be an accountant. That’s what you majored in. You were enjoying being an accountant, which is always an amazing thing to me.
Brian Murphy:
I wouldn’t say enjoying being an accountant. I connected accounting with the language of business, that if you knew that you could operate and thrive in a business. It wasn’t until I took an elective class titled Professional Selling because there weren’t sales majors then. That single class probably influenced me more than any accounting class that I took.
I was a dual major in accounting and finance because to be a CPA in the state of Florida, you have to have 150 hours so you can get a second major or you can be a master of accounting, which I didn’t love accounting enough to want to master it, but taking professional selling really opened me up to the side of business that I would have been missing had I just thought accounting was it.
Greg McKeown:
At this point, you don’t even know you’re missing it.
Brian Murphy:
Right. I mean, I know I’m good with people, I think I’m a treasure of the journey. Then I go on to be president of the journey. I know I like people, I like working with people, I can listen, and I understand there are two sides of the story, and I’m learning the hard way. I’m making mistakes of not listening and having too strong an opinion. I’m taking my lumps. But there is a professor named Professor Pat Palantino. He’s passed on now, and he sold for value at a reseller of IBM for 30 years and started a professional selling class at Florida State. He would teach everybody in the semester feel, felt, found. I know how you feel when I first heard it. I felt the same way. But what I found was, and he just said, feel, felt, found. No matter where you go in the world or whatever you do in business or in life or in any relationship, feel, felt, found can get you and can turn a conversation into a two-way street pretty quickly. It’s funny, of all the classes, all the books, and all the Professor Palantino and feel, felt, found, it’s something that stood with me all along. There’s a lot of truth to those three words.
Greg McKeown:
You’re describing something really important to you. I get this, and I know this, not just because you can remember it, which, of course, is one sign of its importance, but just even the way you talked about it. It’s like this is my story for you. You can tell me where I’m wrong. It seems to me that you went and tried that, found that it worked, and have done it many, many, many, many, many times since then. Is that right? What did I get wrong?
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s three words that really kind of… remind you to be self-aware, right Like you gotta look in the mirror You’re 50s to 80% of every problem that’s in your life.
So you know, if you can just kinda turn it around in yourself and realize, especially growing a business and a global business, and you know, being married for 19 years and having two kids, and you know you’re raising a teenager. My daughter just turned 18. I mean, you learn a lot from them. They teach you so much and I wish I could have front-loaded. In a way, it would have helped me a lot more later.
Greg McKeown:
Life seems to happen in reverse in all sorts of ways. You know we have to make all the big decisions when we know the least.
Brian Murphy:
That’s exactly right.
Greg McKeown:
Now. Tell me more about the feel, felt, found. Tell me, like do you remember the first time you used that with someone else? Like you went to role-play it, you went to practice it like, okay.
Brian Murphy:
I remember I wrote it down. He went over in a class, and he did some role-plays, and I forget what we had. I don’t know. Maybe I had the class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I would meet with people before chapter and go over their outstanding bills, right, and I tried it in a fraternity house, and probably not the best. I learned that it can’t be robotic, it can’t sound like something that you’re trying, you know. I just feel, I felt the same way. I got made fun of pretty because you’re surrounded by a bunch of friends who aren’t afraid to tell you when you sound stupid.
Greg McKeown:
But hold on. Hold on, back up. There’s more to that story, but I want to catch that. So at first, you did just use the language.
Brian Murphy:
Oh yeah. I ran it like a playbook. I hadn’t really thought enough and reflected enough of like, what are we really trying to do here? Right, like, what’s the goal of this is not to have some strategy where you can, you know, take control of a conversation. The goal of it is, like, are you really putting yourself in the other person’s position? Like, do you really know how they feel? Right, like, are you really trying to put yourself on the other side of the conversation? And I think to me that was a realization that came over time, when you just realized that, no matter where you’re from or what part of the world or what you believe in, we’re all more similar than different. And you just look at kind of human nature, and so the feel part to me is do I appreciate how they feel? Like, am I putting myself in their shoes? Which is easier said than done? That’s the self-awareness piece.
Greg McKeown:
So to double-click just again on that. For a moment, did someone make fun of you the first time? You did it?
Brian Murphy:
Oh yeah, oh, I got it really the very first time they’re sharing something.
Greg McKeown:
Well, and you’re like, oh man, yeah, it sounds like you feel you know, kind of mad about that. I felt that too. You just did it exactly as is, and they just said who are you? Why are you talking like that?
Brian Murphy:
It was like did you take a class? Or something like, is this like, where did you get this? Is this like do you have this written down on a card? And I might have had it written down, actually, because I think I probably did. I had a little notebook, and I’m just talking to people about outstanding dues, and there’s more uncomfortable conversation than money and I’m looking it over my three words over here. I know how you feel. I felt the same, and yes, and then I found, right? So I just got shredded Because I was using it like a golf club instead of like really understanding it, right.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I understand this, but I still want a little more. Then you get made fun of, you get shredded by the person you said it to. But you did it again?
Brian Murphy:
Yes, because I shared it with just some friends. Like man, that didn’t go well and I remember talking to Professor Palantino about it after class. I’m like, “Hey, you know,” because I was curious.
Greg McKeown:
And so you’re like, “I tried it. That didn’t work.”
Brian Murphy:
I think I stopped by his office hours. It became a running joke between he and I for the rest of the semester, and then I would see him throughout. But he was just that engaging of a guy, so it was pretty funny.
Greg McKeown:
No, this is great. And you went to him because you said, “Hey, listen.” I mean, you’re doing it, and there is a spirit of fun as well in it, but you are also saying, “Listen, I did it. This was the reaction. Now you have a problem because you taught me it, so explain it to me.”
Brian Murphy:
Well, it’s kind of like he said, “Hey, this thing will help you in business.” I went out. I want to tell you your thing doesn’t work, your thing is garbage.” Right? I got made fun of. You know, he gave me this. He’s like, “Are you really coming into my office to tell me my thing didn’t work?”
I’m like, “Yes, I am.”
Greg McKeown:
Yes, I am, and he jokes about it, but then he teaches you. What, well, did he not teach it?
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, well, I think he joked. He’s like, “It takes a little bit more than trying it one time, you know, and you had it written down and you. It’s just more of a conversation of if you don’t believe it, no one else will, and so if you’re saying it without believing it, then no one else is gonna believe it.”
And I think that there’s so much that can be said for that. In life, you know, when you get caught saying something you don’t believe or you’re trying to convince yourself out loud in front of others, it never goes well, right? So you gotta believe what you say.
Greg McKeown:
The skill was just the tip of the iceberg. The understanding of it, the motive, the actually having empathy for the person, really feeling it, connecting with them, that was the unseen element of the skill.
Brian Murphy:
The words are just the top, but all the rest of it’s underneath and being curious enough and willing to put the work into it to go back instead of just saying it didn’t work and never talking about it again. To go back and like, “Hey, this made so much sense when you brought it up in class.”
Which, it’s funny saying it out loud. It’s why that class is so meaningful to me, because you know, in accounting, you’re kind of learning a trade, you’re learning at the pass a test, and then you start your career in accounting, and they tell you to pretty much forget everything you learned in the classroom because the practical application of but this was something I could apply like I felt like I could go use that now. So let me go figure out if was I the problem, you know, and what did I not do right there? So it’s one of the few classes I could take where I could apply it in my everyday life, and I couldn’t do that in most of my classes.
Greg McKeown:
Okay. So the reason that I’m double-clicking so much on this and why I think it’s so useful for the people listening to this and watching this is because it is a non-trivial, hugely important thing that you immediately practiced it. Immediately tried it, got it wrong, and went to the professor to go, “Okay; how did I get it wrong?” This thing doesn’t work, we’ve got to get more understanding. Then went and practiced it again, and probably got a little made fun of again. Then tried it again, then tried it again until you understood how the skill works, the words work and how it has to be connected with what’s really going on with you underneath.
And so this is the process of turning a book idea into a competence that has been useful to you literally for all of your life since then.
Brian Murphy:
Absolutely,
Greg McKeown:
Is that right? Did I get it right?
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, absolutely right.
Greg McKeown:
I want to emphasize it because I don’t think people do this. I think people read books and they’re not willing to have the courage to be rubbish and immediately try the thing and then, when it doesn’t work, try it again, and then try it again because of course it doesn’t work, of course, you can’t go from having a few new words to being able to implement that in a meaningful way in a conversation. Of course you need to read it, then role play it in the class, then go practice it, then practice it again and again and again.
We know that in so many skills in life. We know that’s true in learning how to walk. We know that’s true if you want to gain any kind of proficiency in sports, we understand that you are going to have to role-play it and run it. We don’t call it role play. It’s just practice for hours and hours and hours, and then you’re still going to get it wrong on game day. But you’ll develop over time new competence.
Can you just wrap this first half of our interview by helping to show how this particular skill we’ve been talking about has been manifest in the success that you’ve had at building this company?
Brian Murphy:
I think if I had to package it. I’ve just learned throughout really my early life and experiences that the simple things matter, Like doing the simple things well matter. Every time People want to jump forward to a master’s class and the complex equation and in entrepreneurship, we can overcomplicate business pretty easily, but it really is doing the simple things savagely well, and I’ve learned that whether if I’m going to take the time to do something, what did I learn. If I’m going to use something and it didn’t work, well, look in the mirror. Why didn’t it work? What could I have done better? And that is because success is not a straight line, especially not in entrepreneurship, and so that reflection, get a little bit better, reflection, get a little bit better.
And there’s something you said that I love that it’s just practice and practice and practice. They say that in sports, you don’t practice it until you get it right, practice it until you can’t get it wrong. When you think of just having certain things, that by doing the simple things well, I’ve learned that when things get really complicated because I have the basics well and I can do them with my eyes closed, I can handle the variables I wasn’t expecting. But if you show up not ready to do the basics when a variable comes, you’re just beat, and I think you have to put yourself, I’ve always put myself under duress and new experiences running for new offices, giving speeches, taking classes that were out of my comfort zone, and I’ve just gotten used to being uncomfortable and knowing like, “Okay, I can do this.” There’s going to be a variable, but I can handle it, and I just think it’s a learned thing over time that I have the basics down. If I’m going to go speak at a podium, nobody knows the topic better than I do because I’m generally telling a story. So just go forward and handle the things that you, you know the unknowns. So I think for me it’s just simplicity, doing the simple things well.
Greg McKeown:
That phrase that you used, do the simple things savagely well, is a great one liner. I feel confident that you’ve used that many times. That’s a mantra that’s useful for all of us and is a great place to end the first part of our conversation. Thank you so much for being with us.
Brian Murphy:
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
