Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

Staying Relevant in Rapid Change: The Future of Building with Anthony Amunategui

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 268

Share episode

Send us a text

Anthony Amunategui is the founder of CDO Group, a national commercial construction firm he started almost 25 years ago with a small group in his basement. Today CDO Group has worked with some of the world’s largest brands to build an estimated one million square feet of retail space per year.

Anthony has a true passion for discovering what makes people successful in business and in life. He loves having conversations about what the future holds for us personally and professionally and the adventures that shape that journey.

A Quote From This Episode

  • "The entrepreneur of the future will be tasked with finding those still spaces to do the mental exercises - to find that mental fitness that's going to drive their success."


Resources Mentioned in This Episode

 

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!


About  Scott J. Allen


My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.


♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.



Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.

Scott Allen  0:00 

Okay, everybody, welcome to the Phronesis podcast. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world, Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Today, I have Anthony Amunategui. And he is the founder of CDO Group, a national commercial construction firm he started almost 25 years ago with a small group in his basement. Today, CDO Group has worked with some of the world's largest brands to build an estimated 1 million square feet of retail space per year. Anthony has a true passion for finding out what makes people successful in business and in life. He loves diving into conversations about what the future holds for us personally and professionally, and the adventures that shape that journey. He is the host of the Future Factory podcast, I've had the honor of being on it. It is on all platforms, so you will have a bunch of links in the show notes listeners. But I am so excited for this conversation, Anthony. We had a great conversation a couple of weeks back. I asked you, “Hey, come on my podcast now, please, if you would.” And I think we're talking about the future of leadership, the future of business today. I know it's a topic that's near to your heart, sir. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  1:08 

It is, Scott. First of all, thanks for having me on your podcast. We had a blast on the podcast, Future Factory the other day. It was a lot of fun. And I thought, when you had invited me on here, we've got to go talk about where the world's going, AI. We've had a lot of conversations. I just spoke in front of the Young Presidents Association on AI and where it's going, so I thought it'd be a good one for us to talk about. 

 

Scott Allen  1:29 

That's great. Well, so two topics that are near and dear to my heart, for sure. Anything around technologies enabling disruption, where things are moving, and then also leadership. If I am in charge of, if I am helping to set strategy for my firm, for my organization, these technologies enabling disruption. Literally, IT, you remember the days when it was just kind of an office with a guy who set up the computers? And now it is seamlessly blending in with strategy and strategic conversations. As a CEO, you know this, you live this, you are seeing this. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  2:03 

When I spoke for the Young Presidents Association the other day, it was amazing to see how many people are struggling to figure out… They all look like cats choosing a laser pointer. Where are we going? Everybody knows that there's going to be a big disruption. Everybody knows that. In today's world, the amount of information that we're getting, you would think that… We get fed this line that says “More information is better.” And I'm saying it's not better, it's good information is better. The unfortunate fact is we have so much disinformation happening, which has always been the disruptor in growth. The pretty press created the same thing. We've had so much information that came at us. If it was wisdom, that information would be great. But like the printing press when it comes out, all of a sudden, you've got stories about witches, and stories about all these things that really weren't very useful. And the same thing is happening with us today, we're getting faced with so much disinformation. And I would start with too much information isn't necessarily better for where we're going.

 

Scott Allen  3:00 

So, I think, as we talk about leaders of the future, one skill set, one way to think about some of this work is that leaders are going to have to be skilled at discerning what's useful information, what's garbage, what should we be paying close attention to, and who are those thought leaders we should be following and discerning? There's nothing wrong with different perspectives, multiple perspectives. I think that's incredibly valued. But the newspaper, back in the day, for decades, had the Republican slant and the Democratic slant, and you could look at both, and you could discern and make sense for yourself where you kind of landed. That's what I'm hearing from you, that that is going to be an incredibly important skill; discerning what information is critical, what's important, and what do I need to set aside.

 

Anthony Amunategui  3:51 

Well, just you’re getting hijacked by bad information is what's happening to us today. You would think that we have so much to talk about, but as we look across the world, the impact of all of this information has us all overwhelmed. But it's not just the United States thing, it's happening in Brazil, it's happening in the UK, it's happening all throughout Europe. There's a lot of data coming out of each one of us. And social media has something to do with that, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all of these platforms. Even in Asia, the amount of data that's coming at them is making everybody just throwing them off. The days when we had these great, long conversations, the ability to talk to each other. And we're noticing that all this data is kind of making us a little bit nuts, and we're having a real difficult time to have real conversations. And you see that in the political world where people, all of a sudden, you even say something red or blue, and the amount of anger that gets put up in there. And I'm saying that's not necessarily the political stuff, it's in the frustration of our community, the amount of stuff that's coming at us. And I think that you can notice., I was just in Dubrovnik. I was in Croatia for a vacation here, let's say, three months back. And I was in Dubrovnik for a while, then we went over to Split. Then we took this great little boat around the islands. And you call that a country 1600, 1700 years old. And you can see what kind of where their development got into it. By the way, it's beautiful. It's really beautiful over there. 

 

Scott Allen  5:14

Oh, it's incredible. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  5:15

Yeah. Then I come over here, I come back, and I land. I end up going to San Francisco. I was in San Francisco for a week thing with my daughter, she's got this great dance competition. And you can see what maybe 200, 300 years of development looks like. I go from there over to Philadelphia, you can really see what 300 years of US development; the Betsy Ross, and Benjamin Franklin, and the founding fathers. And all of the work that we've done from there to here, and we've built some amazing stuff. Look around us, we've got amazing stuff, but that's in 250, 300 years we have overwhelmed ourselves a little bit. And I feel like that's the part in us right now that you can see societally, we're all a little edgy, a little frustrated, a little bit overwhelmed.

 

Scott Allen  5:56 

Yes. There's a great psychologist, he has a book. He's at Harvard, his name's Robert Keegan. He has a book called ‘In Over Our Heads’. The human brain was not designed to compute, take in, and comprehend the level of society that we are at today. And, to your point, I think it is. It's throwing us off. And at least what I hear embedded in some of what you're saying, not only is it going to be incredibly important for the leader of the future to discern what information is critical or what information is important, but it's going to be incredibly important for that individual to help keep their team, help keep the organization focused, and really, really kind of eye on the ball, because we're being pulled in so many different directions. There's so many different distractions. That old quote, “The main thing is to ensure that the main thing is the main thing,” that's going to get more and more difficult, and we need to make sure that our communication is clean so that we're focusing individuals in the right direction. Don't you think that's going to be a piece of this? 

 

Anthony Amunategui  7:03 

Absolutely. Look, they're doing all kinds of studies right now, realizing the amount of impact of all of those data coming at us. There's one school out there that has taken away those cell phones from students. They're noticing how much better they're doing when they're present in the classroom. Just that alone. I look at every desk you walk into my office, and walk across all of the people that come in the office every day, every single one of them has a cell phone between them and their computer. They're getting emails all day. Bang, bang, bang. They got the Instagram, the Facebook. They got that coming at them. If you went back 100 years ago to my grandfather's days, if you would hand him the cell phone, it would blow his flipping mind. It would be literally, [Inaudible 7:48] And you're right, our brains are now trying to absorb all of this data, and the amount of data is just overwhelming us. Frankly, I believe that's why the whole implants can be so necessary. I think that, as we get to a point where we've actually met our Peter principle with our brains, and we got to a point where we're not going to be involved much further, in order for us to go faster, these implants are going to be needed. And that does worry me. 

 

Scott Allen  8:13 

Well, so you're talking a little bit about Neuralink and brain-computer interface where, yeah, there's individuals who are passionate, excited, and as I understand it, two or three human beings now have Neuralinks in their skulls. We can provide listeners with some links there. But, yeah, that's a fascinating world now where my mind… And of course, it's healthcare-oriented, really, really important healthcare-oriented devices that are going to be developed, and it's going to impact us in fascinating ways. But for the individuals really excited about… They're called transhumanists, who are very excited about the next evolution of humans. And, for them, it's humans blending with technology. So, it's no longer just a pacemaker, no, your mind is connected to the web.  (Laughs)

 

Anthony Amunategui  9:03 

Think about that just for a second, you start to think about that evolution. Maybe these two that are connected today, from a physical point of view, that's working great. But as we start to evolve… Look, I've got a pair of Meta glasses, and I'm dying… I just went out to get some new lenses for it so I'm waiting to be able to interact. I'm dying for my Meta glasses to be able to walk up to someone and go, “Hey, by the way, that's Scott Allen. You were on his podcast. Remember his birthday? Oh, he just got back from Europe.” I want that in my ear so I remember because just that little augmentation right there would make all the difference in the world. 

 

Scott Allen  9:38 

Yeah, like anything. Since you were talking about the printing press, whether it's the printing press, or we could go all the way back to humans and fire or the stick as a tool, we've weaponized it all. And so, that's the really interesting thing because you have these individuals who are insane optimists about the future. Peter Diamandis, and an individual who's just very excited about the future. And then, of course, you have individuals who are a little more cautious. And then you have the dystopian kind of viewpoint. And my mindset is that it's probably a balance of both. Great good is going to come, and there's probably some things we have to have our eyes on and be aware of, and really work to contain. I think Mustafa Suleman called it the containment problem where how do we contain some of these technologies that can be weaponized on a large scale? But, yeah, it's going to be… I wish there was a word, Anthony, for the emotion of everything. Let's invent that right now for the rest of the podcast because it's kind of like parenting. It's scary, it's awesome, it's wonderful, it's beautiful, it's frustrating, it's challenging, it's all of those in one. And when it comes to these technologies enabling disruption, future of leadership, it's worrisome, it's scary, it causes anxiety, it's awesome, it's incredible. The innovation is going to allow us to do so much more. It's everything.

 

Anthony Amunategui  11:02 

Scott, it's always been the case that being uncomfortable is not something we want. From the second I was born, my mom put a boob in my mouth. I never wanted to be uncomfortable. No one trained me to be uncomfortable. But the real gift is to stay in that state of, “It's okay to be uncomfortable.” The world is changing, not to escape it. Because, look, the 80s gave us escapism. “All right, everything's going fast. Let's do cocaine.” The 90s, just the amount of drugs, and Adderall, and stuff that came out, “Let's escape from feeling uncomfortable.” Now, sobriety is the new drug of choice. Everybody's like, “All right, I want to feel this.” Look at all the actors and people are getting sober. And now the gift is learning how to be in a space it's okay to feel a little stupid, but the world's evolving. If the gift is really providing the people around us and the people that we work with a space to go, “Yeah, it's okay for you to be overwhelmed. We were all somewhat overwhelmed,” and quit hiding.  There was this old… Maybe in the early days, there was this English way of being that showed pop-up people acted like this, and it was nonsense. Today, we're all reaching over, going, “Hey, brother, I know you're hurting as much as I am. Look, let's help each other. It's okay, we're not going to go anywhere. You can feel stupid, and we still want to be around you.” I think great leaders, you're seeing empathy like never before where people can look over there people go, “Hey, we got you. It's okay for us to be messing some things up. Let's try to limit that as much as possible. Let's stay conscious and start to think about where the future is going.” What are we starting to see? What's the disruption? What's the opportunity? Not the fear of, “Hey, I see Uber, but I want to stay a taxi driver. Those Uber, they're taking my job.” That one in this that wants to get all mad and go, “They're evil,” and they shut off. How do we change and go, “Okay, Uber here,” and we make the evolution? Or even, driverless cars are here, what could we do in a driverless car? The opportunity is not to skate where the puck is, the driverless cars are coming, what can we do? Imagine being able to get in a vehicle here in Chicago and drive to New York. Sit in a car, get entertained, take a shower, wake up, get dressed, get out of the car, and you're in New York, and it was an entertainment ride. Imagine a car, you’re ordering a pizza and having a pizza at your house in eight minutes as it gets made in the vehicle. You can't wash your hands fast enough. Think about what that opportunity is and what business support agency might be. Either you're the guy that's selling the shovels or you're selling the plots like the old gold mine. There's always an opportunity in this, and that's where great leaders have got to be standing in that space that says, “What's the opportunity, and how am I going to help my group get there?” 

 

Scott Allen  13:56 

Well, okay, so there's a few things in there that I want to just, for listeners, kind of unpack and just put a bold underline. So, first, in complexity, we need to model some vulnerability. We need to look at the team and say, “Look, I don't have the answer either. Together, we're going to come up with what we think is the best path forward. We're going to experiment. There's going to be some failure. We're going to try and fail fast, fail small, fail quickly, and learn. And we're going to iterate.” Because, in complexity, that's probably the best shot you've got, is a team of individuals who have the psychological safety to bring their perspective to the table. We have kind of put the problem in the center, have the knockdown, drag-out discussion. And ultimately, it may not be my way, it may not be your way, maybe it's a third way that we've identified, but this is our best guess. And you'd mentioned the 80s and the 90s, I think you and I maybe grew up with more of a ‘I have the position of authority, do what I say, I know best.’ And I think there's still some people walking around planet Earth with that as their mindset, and that's going to be very, very problematic from a leadership standpoint and problem-solving because no one has ever done problem-solving in a world where we're using drones, or where we are using brain-computer interface, or where we have now really designed the building completely on, what is it, AutoCAD? And, all of a sudden, I can walk into the space virtually, and what does that mean? And how is AI going to, to your point, influence construction, or building, or design? Well, that story is being written as we lead, and we're going to have to be on that cutting edge. And there's another thing in there that I just really loved because there's a mindset of curiosity. What's the opportunity here? And that curiosity is critically important because Diamandis, Peter Diamandis has a great quote. He said, “The world's biggest challenges are also the world's greatest opportunities.” And so, yes, there's some challenges associated with this, but are we leaning in and are we curious? And one thing I talk about when I do these sessions on this topic with organizations was do you have an organization filled with people who are tech-literate? And that doesn't mean that they're coding. Tech literacy does not mean coding, but it does mean individuals who are seeing, well, how could blockchain impact construction? How could sensor technology..? Think of all the sensors and buildings now, Anthony, that never existed. Sensors and HVAC. How could sensor technology revolutionize and actually give us a differentiator, provide us an edge? So, I love that your curiosity and what is the opportunity in this, that is the mindset that will win. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  16:44 

We were playing this game the other day, and we'll play for a minute with the podcast guests. Just take a second and imagine. Let's think about a major brand out there, whatever one you want; ABC hamburger brand. ABC hamburger brand wants to build 100 new locations. Imagine in the second that they decide that they want to build 100 new locations that the AIs will go and scour the United States, or wherever area they want to go cover. They will scour them in a second, find the perfect location for them based on a demographic model that's 10,000X what we are today. Soccer games, and movie schedules, and hospital locations, and trade area routes, and deliveries, and human employee opportunities, and where I can find people and deliveries and rain and weather and 10,000X what a demographic model is today. In that same exact moment, it'll be able to site adapt that brand's prototype to that piece of property. In the same moment, in the same second. In that same second, be able to create a design that fits that marketplace to the marketplace specifications, to really bring in the culture and the feel, and site adapt that to a level that no architect has ever been able to do, no human architects been able to do. And take the history and the availability of products. And in the same moment of that design, source the material, source the people that are going to work on it, literally, the labor. Imagine being a plumber, and your schedules are 15-minute increments that you literally will show up and get like an Uber, “Hey, you're a plumber. You'll be able to work on a job site. All your material will be at a certain spot.” Imagine being a plumber that can pick up those parts, work, and do the six or eight things that are on a schedule for that moment, and walk off the job site. He'll be able to get on the job site, or she'll be able to get on the job site, do the work faster, and make more money quicker, and be off. More work done in a faster amount of time. Because, like today, most of us in the general contracting world create these great schedules, but by day three that schedule is already upside down. And as humans, we might be able to get 10 levels deep, but there's always some variable; inspectors, and… Imagine that schedule in the same moment it did. “I want to build 100 units.” The same design got created, the same schedule got created, the same delivery patterns got created. And, to your point, now we've added in all these sensors. So, as the building gets used and operated, all the data that gets collected about that recycles back to feed an even better hamburger brand for the next 100 they built. And then the communication about maintenance, imagine predictable maintenance that says, “We'll never break down and we have store open opportunities.” Much, much better, and being able to really communicate the data that's collected on the building goes back and creates an even smarter building on the next one. And that data that gets collected on that building feeds all the data on all the buildings around it. So, look, where we're going, it's hard to say, it's kind of hard to imagine it. But as leaders, that's the gift, is really to get bold and to get brave and go and not get scared. Because, look, all of us get scared. I know I do, and to stand in that spot that goes “All right, what could happen?” 

 

Scott Allen  20:00 

Yeah. So, yes. Just the kind of Internet of Things component of this where, yes, you're getting a ping that the refrigerator’s functionality, some aspect of it is about to diminish, and so the technology orders the new part. Or when something does get disrupted with the scheduling, it's updated automatically, and that flow impacts everything. And just think about the efficiencies. And so, again, it's all of those words. Now, something I always talk about in the sessions that I'm leading on this topic, because it can feel so overwhelming. I often will just say, “Look, just start exploring the margins a little bit. Start exploring.” You just described a future for construction, a general contractor, that is just this… I'd never thought of some of those components, but you're thinking about the opportunity. You're thinking, you're curious. You're thinking about where this could go, the puck. Where it's going, not where it currently is. And then, of course, that blends in with strategy, and what are we going to do as an organization to differentiate ourselves and get ahead of this? And so, there's always this kind of component of, let's chunk it down a little bit, and let's start learning, microlearning. Maybe there's a tech-oriented newsletter in the construction industry that is going to help me, in a very, very quick way, start to learn how some of these technologies are being leveraged, or how they could be leveraged. Or maybe there's conferences or associations where we're really talking about the margins of where things are, and we're engaging with the people trying to develop the technologies to disrupt the industry. So, are you kind of engaging in those edge spaces, whether it's written podcasts, whether it's associations, or meetups? Are you just starting to learn? Because, again, I think for someone who's just starting out, it feels so big. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  21:58 

You're exactly right. That's exactly right. With those young presidents in that conversation, it's frustrating because, look, every one of them knows that there's a change that's happening, a disruption is about to happen. Now, how do we start getting ready for it? I'll give you some examples of where we're at. When we started, the CDO groups had over 13 different silos of software that we used. The development team had a group of software, the estimating team had a group of software, our operations team had it, our accounting team had it. Across the board, we had these different silos of data. One of the things we've been working on -- and let me tell you, it’s not an easy change -- we're moving everything over to one data platform. We're trying to move everything to Smartsheet. One of our big clients is using Smartsheet. We did it for a 6000-store rollout program, and really was a great platform to really take all the data out of silos and put them on there. Now, I'm going to tell you, it's like herding cats because my business development guys are like, “That's not a CRM system. It doesn't work the way HubSpot does. I love HubSpot, I want to use HubSpot.” And I'm stuck in those meetings with those people for the last several weeks, and they went back. They're like, “We can't do it.” I'm like, “Guys, you have got to do it. We're going to bring it back over there.” “No, but we can't. You're going to mess up our whole thing. We're not going to get the flow. We're not going to promise you we can make sales if we can't use this software because, without that, I don't have the workability and you're going to make me do this stuff manually.” And I'm like, “Look, making that chain for each and every entrepreneur out there is not going to be easy.” The gift is just starting to turn the ship over, starting to turn the ship towards the one in us that goes, “Look, we realize, in order for a large language model to work for your company, all the data has to be in one silo. It has to be digitally available.” Let's give an example. If you're a manufacturer, let's just say that you're a drywall manufacturer in the construction world. Now, imagine the AI is going to do the design, AI is going to do the scheduling, and AI will do the ordering. Now, if your product availability isn't there digitally, if you're not able to find it, if all the specifications on your sheet of drywall isn't available, AI won’t be able to grab it. It won't be able to use it. Won't understand it. Then it’d really go back to source material, literally. The schedules that they'll create in the future will be so dynamic that it will need to understand every complexity of your delivery. So, really, working with your suppliers from source materials; where does that material come from? How does it get made? What's the pattern of it?  I did an interview on the podcast for the Canadian Lumber Association, and they're talking about, in 2025, every piece of wood that comes out of the forest will have a chip on it. Imagine that. So, from the second the tree comes down, there's a chip on it that follows the tree into the processing plant. So, it understands the timing, the scheduling. As each board gets cut, a chip gets included in there. So, it understands its path of travel, how dry it is, all the material specifications. Now, as AI goes to pick a product in a schedule that's that tight, they're getting ready for that. Won't be usable yet, but they're skating to where the puck's going. They'll understand that piece of wood way better than ever before. And that's where each and every one of us, if it's a restaurant, if it's a school, if it's a mechanic shop, understanding each and every component of your material digitally, and starting to understand the scheduling and the people and the timing, all of that will feed your language model which will then be your differentiating factor as we start to enter in the AI world. 

 

Scott Allen  25:39 

Yeah. Anything else as we begin to kind of wind down our time? Anything else that stands out for you is just, “Look, leaders are going to have to…” Fill in the blank as you think about the future. Is there anything that we haven't touched on? We talked a little bit about curiosity and modeling that, we talked about accepting risk and being a little bit vulnerable. You don't have all the answers, but we as a team are going to come up with our best guess. We talked about tech literacy as just being really important, and do people understand what's happening on the margins, and are they curious about that and learning? And anything else stand out for you as you think about even leading your organization, who you're going to have to be?

 

Anthony Amunategui  26:19 

I think that who I have to be is really the next conversation about the entrepreneur. Finding the one in us that can stay still in a world that doesn't want us to be still. Finding those still silent places where you can get centered and really stay centered in a world that's going to want to tug at every one of your emotions, it's trying you. The entrepreneur of the future really will be tasked with finding those still spaces to do the mental exercises, to find that mental fitness that's going to drive their success. The one in that needs to stay conscious, aware, heads up. Don't get ruled by fear, or resentment, or anxiety. Those are all checkouts. Those are the drugs of the past. Going forward, how do I stay as centered and conscious about what's happening and just embrace it? How could this all be happening for me rather than to me? 

 

Scott Allen  27:18 

Yeah. Oh, that's beautifully said. Absolutely beautifully said because, again, I think I shared this quote on your podcast, my friend Jonathan Reams, he says, “Look, leaders create the weather.” And if you are tornadic, if you are not centered, if you are not helping, back to a previous element we discussed, kind of focus energy and focus the communication, discerning what needs to be the priority, and your leadership team isn't skilled at doing that work, oof, that's, yes, we will be pulled in a thousand directions and it's going to be chaotic. It's going to be incredibly challenging. And so, I love what you just said there. I absolutely love it. So, I always close out the podcast just by asking you what you've been consuming. What you've been listening to, reading, streaming. Something that's caught your attention in recent times. It could have to do with what we just discussed, it could have nothing to do with what we've just discussed, but what might listeners be interested in that's caught your attention in recent times?

 

Anthony Amunategui  28:19 

I can notice that the one of me that gets hijacked, for sure, this election, for sure the hurricanes that happened. There was a hurricane down in Florida a little while back, and, I'm telling you, they have amped up their ability to hijack people in [Inaudible 28:37] thoughts. And I just noticed that, for example, one of my nightly practices is to read. I consume a lot of books. And if I get to at least 10 pages a night, if I can get to 20 pages or more, I feel really accomplished. But in that reading, what it does is it kind of gives me a way to have one thought at a time. It slows my brain down and gets off the blue light. It gives me a second before I go to bed to really concentrate. Now, what I noticed is I've been hijacked a few times over this last year. More than ever, they're getting really good at the hijack. It happens just like when with meditation. When you're sitting in meditation you notice an asteroid coming through your brain, “All right, I got out of it.” Just don't get mad about it, just go back to where you were. And that's the same gift I've been trying to practice for myself, it's just, “All right, great. I'm not mad that I got hijacked a few times with these things. Let's just get back to reading and doing what works from taking my brain down a little bit throughout the day. From my end of my day to really get ready for bed.”

 

Scott Allen  29:37 

Yeah. Well, I love the fact that you are… I think, at times, I used to say I can't read because I fall asleep, so I had to switch to audiobooks. So, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I recently have had a couple of books that I kind of have to read, there isn't an audiobook version. And so, it's been literally on my to-do list every day. It's two pages. I can get through two pages. It usually ends up being three or four, which is great, but all I'm holding myself accountable is those two pages. So, I love the fact that you even just frame it up as, “Okay, I'm going to get through 10 pages. It's going to help my brain kind of wind down a little bit. Hopefully, nourish my brain with some positivity. Just kind of move into the night.”

 

Anthony Amunategui  30:19 

Yeah. Look, the two pages is how I started. Look, for me, the first book I ever read… I was 48 years before I ever read an entire book. I got the Cliff Notes. 48 years old before I… It was the AA big book. I'd gotten sober, and as my sponsor said, “Hey, I want you to read two pages a night, and those two pages a night got me to the end of the book. And that accomplishment felt so… I had never read a whole book before, I'm like, “Oh, my God, I read a whole book.” And then it became kind of this thing that happened. And then, all of a sudden, it's like the workout. Just get my sneakers on and get to the gym. Now you start getting there, and you're like, “Oh, I kind of like this.” And then it becomes a little bit addictive and maybe a good addiction. I noticed that when I read before bed, I sleep better. If I read before bed, the next day I'm a much more conscious leader. So, those are all practices, I think, that as we work on our leadership and mental fitness, that's going to be more important for us as we go forward. Finding like-minded people that are working on that and getting their ideas. 

 

Scott Allen  31:18 

Yep. Well, I think I may have used this phrase, Amy Elizabeth Fox, I had her on my podcast and she said “We're helping leaders become performance-ready because you're going to have to be and on a number of different dimensions.” So, sir, we'll do it again. I love the fact that you are looking ahead, looking forward, and kind of checking out where the puck is headed. Everyone, Future Factory, check it out. Very, very cool. Very, very cool, curious host named Anthony. You'll love listening. Everyone, take care. Thank you so much for being with us. Anthony, thank you, sir. 

 

Anthony Amunategui  31:53 

Thank you, Scott. Love it. 

 

Scott Allen  31:55

Be well.

 

 

[End Of Recording]