Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations

#879 MSP GeekCon 2026: Stephen Spiegel -🚙 From Ice Cream Shops to MSP Growth Machines

• Joey Pinz • Episode 879

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What happens when an entrepreneur follows instinct, leaves corporate comfort behind, moves to Chile on a whim, and eventually helps over 1,000 MSPs improve customer experience? 🌎🚀

In this episode of Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations, Joey Pinz sits down with Stephen Spiegel, founder of CrewHu, to explore entrepreneurship, leadership, customer perception, employee recognition, and the importance of human connection in business and life.

Stephen shares how a feedback problem inside his Cold Stone Creamery franchises eventually led to building one of the MSP channel’s most recognized customer experience platforms. Along the way, the conversation dives into impulsive decision-making, Long Island roots, traveling South America, startup lessons, meditation, health, pickleball culture, and learning how to respond instead of react.

This episode is packed with insights for MSP owners, entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders trying to build stronger cultures, happier teams, and businesses that stand out beyond pricing. 💡

🔥 Top 3 Highlights:

• Why customer perception matters more than SLAs and metrics

• How recognition culture improves employee retention

• The leadership lessons Stephen learned from failure, growth, and humility

 

 

#MSP #ManagedServices #CustomerExperience #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #MSPGeekCon #BusinessGrowth #Pickleball #Mindset #JoeyPinz #MSPChannel #CrewHu #PersonalGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #Podcast

 

 

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Discipline. How does it play a role in your life? How does it drive your decisions? Do you have too much or too little? Every profession, hobby, or passion requires a level of discipline. I have used it in weight loss (+130 lbs.), family death, and found a +25 year business. Am I an expert? Absolutely not! Please join me, as I speak to interesting people and find out how discipline affects their career, life, goals, and decisions. Join me as I talk to interesting people in: #Health, #Fitness & #Wellness: #Business, #Technology & #Science: #Art & #Culture: Website: joeypinz.com All social media @TheJoeyPinz Do you wish to Sponsor? Get the prospectus here: www.joeypinz.com/sponsor

 

 

 

 

 

Episode Links:

 

stephen@crewhu.com       
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SPEAKER_00

MSP Geekan 2026. What a really great, unique event. I get to go to a lot of events, and they're run by a vendor. There's vendor hall there. This is completely run by MSPs. Mendy and the team, Kate, the team that's there are volunteers, and it's the attendees were all MSPs, not just owners, but technicians as well. It's just a great twist on what an event can be. One of the greatest things is that they had a game night. So many of the attendees are introverts. So they, you know, they didn't want to go to the bar. They didn't want to do any of that. So they had these two big rooms set up. One side, one room, on one side of the hall was this DD, Dungeons and Dragons High Game that many played. It was all set up. It was all there was people in charge of it. There was they had to create this car, and it was these tables set up as teams, and you chose a character. It was absolutely wonderful. And then across the hall, in another room, were actually the board games like uh Settlers of Time. Uh a bunch of games I'd never heard of. And some tables just played one game for the whole evening, some rotated through many of them, and it was absolutely wonderful. I got to participate in some of them. Everybody's very welcome and kind. Just a great twist. I think every event should adapt this. For those extroverts that want to go to the party and go to the bar to do that, but have this for those who don't. It's just a wonderful. And the content was great. It was again all geared, I MSEs, four MSEs, managed service providers, of course. Um, what a what a just a great event there in Orlando. Uh I was so glad that I was invited and I hope to get invited more. So I had five great conversations with podcasts. Heather Noggle was the first from Commodore 64 to cybersecurity leadership. Great conversation with Heather. I hadn't met her before. Uh great, wonderful catching up and getting to understand her passions, what she does. Steven Siegel. My goodness, I've known Steven for 10, 15 years with Kruhu uh finally, you know, were able to talk this way, uh, you know, in this one-on-one kind of long-warm uh conversation from ice cream shops to MSP growth machines. How he, you know, he was in the retail, right? He was uh he was in uh ice cream shops, he's from actually from New York, from right across Long Island Sound, where I was uh born and raised, but where he was first introduced to MSPs and then and then continued to work with them now and how what his platform does and how he's had change. Great, really open conversation with Steven. Ashley Pyle. My first time uh meeting Ashley, I saw her up on stage give a keynote, it was wonderful. Oh, she had four disciplines, and I said I need to have her on the podcast. And she came on and she was absolutely wonderful and very open and very direct and um a very unique style. I really, really appreciate my conversation with Ashley Pyle. John Harden was next, and John was another podcaster, and we were kind of texting and uh before the event. I'm glad we were able to meet. He did see twice actually at the event. Great conversation with John, building the future without losing humanity. Uh, lastly was with Monica Ozari. So uh I got to know Monomore at this event. Uh she was one of the volunteers. She's uh there in Toronto and has a consulting business, and everything is a system with Monica. Everything is a system. She helps MSPs with that. So great conversations there at MSP Geek Con. Really appreciate it. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Hi, I'm Joey Pins. And here's my 45-second introduction. After starting my business in the 90s, I started developing poor habits of eating in my diet because I was working way too much. Before you know it, I found myself 340 pounds. The doctor told me if I don't lose the weight, I'm not gonna see my daughter graduate. Took the next seven months, lost 130 pounds. People think there's some secret. Ask me, how'd you lose that weight? Like there's some secret. There is no secret. How'd I lose the weight? Just one word. Discipline. I've had other successes in life, and I attribute them all to discipline. Now I'm not the king of discipline, but I believe that it can help all of us. Friends, colleagues convinced me to start a podcast. The podcast mission, how do we better ourselves and society? I talked to interesting people in health, fitness, sport, wellness, business, technology, science, art and culture. And I eventually asked them how discipline plays a role in their life. Podcast vision, growth through learning from others. Tell me about this. I don't understand. It's like a a Jeep that's cut in half.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it's a it's a SoFlo Customs takes a Jeep. You don't even recognize a Jeep at the end of it. I'll tell you what. I'll show you.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I'll tell you, send me a picture and I'll make sure I'll put it up. So when you say the the top is cut off?

SPEAKER_02

No, it's like the back is cut. So it's not like this. It goes like this. Shh, it's a slanted back with the tires on the on the back slanted. Um it has 38-inch wheels, it's got a four-inch lift. It's um it's got a 392 you know hemi that was put in instead. Wow. For like old guys like me, they could feel young again. I actually And what's the attraction? Dude, I went to look for a car for my son. I ended up getting a car for my for me.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_02

He's taken too long with his permit. I say. Yeah. And so what do you do with this vehicle? Um, I I just got it three weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00

But you you didn't do anything like this? You didn't have a similar vehicle before?

SPEAKER_02

No, no. This is your first venture into this type. I had a Tesla. I still have a Tesla, but I had the Tesla X. Um I I like I like um all the new stuff. So they came out with plaid, and I had to get the I had to get the plaid. It's like 2.2 seconds zero this time.

SPEAKER_00

Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. And what so with this Jeep, do you go off-roading with it?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, it's made to go off-roading. I haven't been off-roading yet. I've had it for two weeks, um, but we're going off-roading.

SPEAKER_00

And you've been off-roading before?

SPEAKER_02

I've been off-roading before on excursions, on vacation, never like a hobby. So so uh looking forward to it. Yeah, no, I s I do things, I I do things on impulse. You know, I started a company on impulse. You know, I I decide to I I I own Cold Stone Creameries before. I I bought I bought the rights to uh franchise in South Florida on on impulse, just on feeling.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. That's how I that's how you always you always ask your gut?

SPEAKER_02

How do you make these decisions? I do gut. I do gut. You don't bring any science in at all? I do, I do science too. You know, as we as we get more experience, we bring science into it. We have a lot of data uh from over the years, so so now we're able to make make decisions on that. But but at the end of the day, there's always gut involved.

SPEAKER_00

There certainly is. And so how do you make that transition to pickleball?

SPEAKER_02

God, I I uh I moved up to Boca Ratone. I mean, everybody plays. I was gonna start picking up tennis again. I used to play tennis when I was in in uh high school and college, and and I figured, oh, it's been years. I love tennis, I want to get back into shape, and let's do that. And then I saw pickleball, and and so I I made a left turn instead of going straight, and and now I play that. And and it's it's addictive, but you know, it's it's community, it's around community, so so you make a lot of friends there, and that becomes part of your life when you're an entrepreneur. You don't have a lot of time, you're traveling a lot, you're you're you're uh you're hiring, uh, you're meeting with customers. There's really there's not there's not a lot of downtime. And when there is, you you like to go away, right? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Great thing about pickleball, you just show up, Steven, with the with the paddle and you just put it up on the fence and you can start playing, right? Yeah, yeah. Tennis, you gotta like do it in advance and get some double partners and they gotta be around the same level. But pickleball is a nice community where it just kind of continually rotates.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Shorter games.

SPEAKER_02

And it well it is shorter, and and it's it's two on two. It's still doubles. It's mostly doubles. Yeah. And uh I I you know tennis and pickleball, it's like skiing and snowboarding. Interesting. Like skiing, you could you could pick up, you could get on, start moving, and you're you could be okay for a long time. If you want to become expert, uh it's gonna take years of practice. That's like pickleball, right? You could get on a court and play, you want to become expert, uh little by little. Uh tennis is like is like snowboarding. You try to you start playing tennis for the first day, you you you're not having a good day. Right. You know, snowboarding, you're on your you're on your butt most of the time, right? Uh but after you get going, it's um it's easier.

SPEAKER_00

Tell me about Stephen before the age of 18. What were you like? What were you what were your passions as a as in your formidable years?

SPEAKER_02

My God, I was I was not not a good student. Uh I I I probably had H ADHD, like undiagnosed, and and and uh so I just get yelled at for uh for not getting getting good good grades. So I was I was you know I was pretty rebellious because of that.

SPEAKER_00

Um So there's subjects in school you didn't care for, that's what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I I There were some that you may have liked and others you didn't.

SPEAKER_02

When it came to school, like No subjects interested. No. Not even Jim. No. No, Jim. Jim was yeah, no one no one liked Jim back then. You know, it's uh girls?

SPEAKER_00

Just girls, girls, yeah. Okay. So there was some interest. Yeah. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02

No, we and and we had a great group of friends. We cause we we caused trouble and and Where Where is this? Long Island, New York. Where in Long Island? Melville. All right, right in the middle. Right in the middle. This is in the 80s? This is uh I was a class in 1988. Yeah. Yeah. Had a lot of fun. Oh, you're 86? You you're on Long Island?

SPEAKER_00

Uh New Haven, right across the sound. Okay, very good. I have cousins in Long Island there all the time.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, yeah. Long Long Island's a good place. It's uh it has a place has a place in my heart, you know. And and and all the good kids that were troublemakers, they they ended up doing doing okay. They but they didn't take the, you know, that there wasn't a straight line, right? The the their journey just like mine was loopy, right? So I was I I was I was interested in lots of things. I I just become interested and then become uninterested, become interested and then become uninterested. You go into college and you want to do uh psychology, and then you want to move over to finance and then marketing, and then you don't know what you want to do. But you wanna you wanna you wanna know everything.

SPEAKER_00

But even as so teenage years during high school, not even sports, not there was nothing that kind of were you a Yankee fan back then?

SPEAKER_02

Oh I loved the uh love the Yankees, let love the Islanders.

SPEAKER_00

Uh the Islanders, okay. So you go to Nassau, you go to the Bronx to see the games. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so there was. We used to sneak into the U.S. Open. We used to go under the fence into the U.S. Open. Yeah, watch the tennis matches. I I I I played soccer, I played tennis.

SPEAKER_00

Um you had lots of patch.

SPEAKER_02

No, yeah, I loved I I I uh played uh played guitar a bit, but I went from one thing to the other. I was I was never really focused on on just one thing, right? And and sometimes I wish I was, right? Sometimes I wish I knew what I wanted to do from the very beginning. It probably would have made life uh a lot lot easier.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know now?

SPEAKER_02

I still don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I still don't know. Yeah. Still having fun figuring it out. So when did the when did the tech bug bite?

SPEAKER_02

Did it ever bite you? No, it the tech bug absolutely it it bit me. I I uh Yeah. I went from I worked for I worked for my dad in textiles for for um many years after after college. Um he sold it. I didn't like the new owner, they wanted to keep me on. I decided to to move away from that and I wanted to do s a new adventure. I went down to Santiago, Chile uh to start to start teaching English.

SPEAKER_00

Um How does this happen, Stephen? How'd you go to Santiago Chile? You saw a flyer?

SPEAKER_02

No, I was I was uh I was taking Spanish classes in New York City. For some reason, I wanted to learn how to speak Spanish. And my my teacher was Chilean. She's like, you should check out Chile. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna move down there for a little while. Really learn Spanish. Wow. And so I went down there for six months. I ended up staying there for two years. Wow. I went down there working for uh uh a firm teaching English. I ended up starting my own business consulting uh businesses on on English presentations. I ended up getting like Citibank and and and other other companies down in Santiago. I made some money and then traveled. Made some money, traveled more. This is in your 20s. What no, no, this was yeah, it wasn't my 20s, but my late 20s. Just wanted to, because I I spent I spent a bunch of years um working working in the textiles. We had a we had an office in the Empire State Building. Uh really cool. Um and and all my friends were were really focused on their careers, and and and once once my dad sold his business, I felt like I wanted to take a reset. I felt like every everybody was all career, you know, 100% of the time. And uh I felt like you get that feeling, even in your 20s, you're like, I I don't I feel like I'm I'm missing out. I don't want to miss this before it's too late. And now I now I'm old, I know it's never too late. Um but a lot older than my late 20s. And um so I'm like, I just want to do some traveling. We we I never got to do that. I went right into college. Let's let's uh you know let's let's live a little bit. And that's that's why I moved down to Chile.

SPEAKER_00

So you went to Chile, you got some money, and then you get did some more traveling. Would you go to Europe?

SPEAKER_02

Oh no, I I stayed in South America, we went to we went to Peru, we went to Ecuador. Um the only place I didn't go that I wanted to go was Brazil.

SPEAKER_00

The largest country down there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right. And and uh turns out that when I moved back to the States and then I moved to California, we could get to that. I met my wife who's Brazilian. So now I go to Brazil quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes. Did you ever have an MSP?

SPEAKER_02

I never had an MSP. I mean when we started in this business, um, I was trying to solve a problem in my in my Colestone Creamery stores. Right? So so we built we built our software and an MSP signed up, uh uh Kevin Studley from the Network Pro. He's he's sold, he's out of the business already. Uh, but he saw the value in it, and yeah, I called him up. I asked him what's an MSP, and he was part of the True Methods group with Gary Pika. So he introduced me to Gary. Gary let me come uh to pitch you know 40 of the guys in in uh True Methods. Um this is before Troop here, this these are the OGs. Um we ended up signing up a couple of dozen. The only thing he he he said is that I'd have to take them out to drinks afterwards, and I'm like, fine. Um I didn't know how much these guys like to drink, man. That was a big bill. But that's how I got started in the MSP industry, and we we have we haven't looked back since.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Yeah. We're here at MSP Geek Con, Steven. It's uh great event. First time I've ever been to one of these. It's really, really different. It's kind of MSP driven and MSP led. It's it's really, really refreshing. It's a very different change. What are some of your goals this week here?

SPEAKER_02

The goal is always to get out in front of MSPs, talk to them about what they're what they're doing, to see if we can help them. Um at the end of the day, we end up coming out with with demos uh scheduled uh from a bunch of from a bunch of MSPs. The the these uh these channel events are the best way for us to to showcase to showcase our value. And we love these uh we love events like these because most of them, this is our first time here, uh, but for the most part, we'll go to an event and we'll have a lot of customers there. And our customers will bring other other MSPs over. Um and and that really helps us move the needle on what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00

So how does Crew Who help MSPs?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, Crew Who helps MSPs. We're we're we're a customer excellence platform and and we and we help collect lots of feedback, right? And and so you could you you know what what your customers are saying, but but more importantly, you know what the customers aren't saying. You identify the silent customers, you identify the red flags. Because for the most part, uh MSPs they'll talk about CSAT a lot, for example, and most of them will say, Oh, I have a hundred percent CSAT. Uh but when you look down deeper into it, there's a lot of their their customers that aren't there aren't giving them answers at all, right? Or they're they're not saying something that showcases exactly uh what they're not telling them and that what's happening. And and for the most part, MSPs have a PSA, they have Halo or or ConnectWise Mappage or Autotask and and they have their SLAs and they have the response time and the resolution time, and these these are numbers, but these numbers don't mean anything if their customer perception is different. Customer perception is truth, and you need to understand what your customer perception is, and and uh you know from there um you also need to to connect it with your uh your employees, your staff. And you know, so I think the biggest takeaway for MSPs is uh you know you need to recognize your employees, you need to celebrate the small wins daily, and that will create a a system that is consistent service deliverable service delivery that you could then uh talk to the market, shout out uh at the market about, become visible. The only way MSPs really stand out, it's not by their tech stack, the tech stacks are pretty much the same, it's by their service, but they may need to make it provable. And and we help them do that as well with our with our workflows to get them uh more Google reviews, with our workflows to get them responses on those reviews, uh, with workflows to get their happy customers that having given them online reviews some more reviews. So we we we help them uh multiply the number of reviews they have, increase their visibility, showcase their service, make it provable.

SPEAKER_00

What if discipline wasn't about punishment, but about unlocking your best self? I spent two and a half years writing discipline for greatness, because discipline changed my life. And I know it can change yours too. This isn't theory. Inside, you'll find real practical steps you can use immediately to focus better, build stronger habits, reduce stress, accomplish your goals, and bring more balance to your life. Whether you're trying to get healthier, improve your career, or simply feel more control. This book gives you the framework. Start today. Grab your copy of Discipline for Greatness at joeypins.com slash book. Thank you. And you said you first started it at the at the at the ice cream place. Yeah. But that's B2C. That's a very different uh dynamic. How are you how are you adapting it then and moved it over to B2B?

SPEAKER_02

It's it's well, first of all, it's all about talking to your customers. It's all about the voice of the customer. Are you getting a good amount of feedback back from your customers? We were getting one piece of feedback per store per month. And it was always bad. Because it was really hard to give uh to give feedback, right? And and if they were gonna give feedback, they need needed to be really emotionally charged, and usually that emotion is negative. So we get one piece of negative feedback. We connected it to the loyalty program, and what we did is we triggered an email that would go out five minutes after each transaction. We went from one piece of feedback per store to a hundred, ninety-six of which were positive. Wow. So now we have ninety six opportunities to say thank you to the guys on the front line. Right? And I I there's a lot of Similarities between retail and MSP because you have your your your employees at the front line and retail, you have your help desk in the MSP space, and all they're getting is hammered all day long. They're calling not because they're happy, they're calling because they have a problem. Right? They have an inconvenience. And so you have to really like what you do. And these guys work really, really hard every day. And and we want to give them an easy way to say thank you to their team. We want to give them an easy way to celebrate the small wins daily in the MSP space.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I'm a former MSP, I talk to MSPs all the time. What keeps them up at night has been pretty consistent the last seven, eight years. Number one, cybersecurity. They're worried about their clients getting attacked. If they get attacked, you know, they've got to allocate resources, they're gonna lose money, they're probably gonna get fired, they may even get sued. Two, human capital. How are they gonna keep their people happy? How are they gonna get more? Their employees, and three is just growth. You know, PE has poured in hundreds of millions of dollars, Stephen, and their friends are selling their MSPs. How am I gonna grow this thing organically? How do you help in those areas?

SPEAKER_02

Cybersecurity, I I gotta say, we we we can't help there. Um but but keeping the keeping the the right people. We know how hard it is to uh to recruit and get get the right people into into the MSP. And and for the most part, it's so hard that MSPs keep average average employees, right? And and that's why they have average service. That's why the vast majority of MSPs uh they deliver uh average service. Um and that's why they have a lot of uh challenges with with price, with how much they want to they want to charge this much, but they're always getting price pressure to to charge less. If they could showcase their value to their uh to their prospective clients, they'll be able to compete on value in that price. And and this is this is this is how we could help them, by the way, grow, um, create visibility in in the market, help them stand out, uh, and help them prove their value so they can they don't have to compete on price. Um with on the employee side, if you're if you have a a culture of recognition, um, if you have a culture of celebrating uh the wins daily, they're gonna have a much easier time retaining people and also getting those great people, those A players, to get their friends to work there or people they know work there. A players hang out with A players.

SPEAKER_00

Let's go back like ten years, Stephen. Go back about ten years. Is there something firmly you believe then that you no longer believe now?

SPEAKER_02

That I believe that I believe then. I I uh uh I believe it's I believe that we were going to just just crush it right from the beginning and and uh and grow really, really fast right. I I uh I found humility over over the years and and understood how important it was that I needed to prove our value, right? And listen to the customer and listen to the MSPs out there. I had I had this one view, this is the way you do it, and this is the way you should do it. It worked for my ice cream stores, it helped us become uh the highest grossing franchise group in the country. Wow and I thought I could just take that and say, this is how you do it, go do it. And what I found over the years, um owning a software company is that I need to to really listen um to what they want, right? So I could help them solve their problems. We've been in the MSP space since 2016. Wow right. We have helped, you know, over a thousand MSPs um scale their scale their service and become more visible um in the market.

SPEAKER_00

And over that time I've learned a lot from them I see it over and over again, Steve, especially telco. I see these companies come over from telco and try to come to MSP and try to use that same blueprint, and it yeah, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and print too, right? They manage print, they come to it.

SPEAKER_00

Is there a question you wish more people asked you?

SPEAKER_02

That's interesting. I like I like uh I like human conversations. I don't I don't love small talk. I like people asking about you know your passions. I liked how we started this conversation, right? I'm not a big small talk guy, but this isn't small talk. This is you you're you're saying, hey, what what you know what were you passionate about when you were you were a kid? Painting picture. What drove you? And um those kind of conversations. I miss that a lot. Not a lot of people do that.

SPEAKER_00

So a common question you wish more would ask you is about your passions.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or or and and have that conversation back and forth, of course, right? Right? Have have stronger connections. Yeah. I think I think um life is is about connections.

SPEAKER_00

It really is, it really is. I guess I'm two years older than you, so you're born in 70?

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm 68, yeah. So I I think at our age we really really are more curious and like the deeper connection, I think.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we we um we need that. Yeah, we do. We we realize how important that is. It's it's it's it's not about survival anymore, it's about finding that that joy um in life.

SPEAKER_00

So I started the MSP in 93. We were both in our 20s, right across the sound from you. Actually, were you in Santiago at this point? No, you're probably still in school. You were in college, right?

SPEAKER_02

I just got out, I was in New York City. You're in New York City. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Working way too hard, 14, 16 hour days. You know this, dude. You're no stranger to this, and putting my extra, I'm not playing tennis anymore, I'm not playing soccer. You know, I'm just working, working, working. Next thing I know, I'm in front of the doctor. She tells me I'm at 340 pounds. So I gained all this weight. I knew I was getting big, but I didn't think I was that big.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

She says to me, if you don't lose this weight, you're not gonna see your daughter graduate. My daughter was just born. Scared the life out of me. Driving home, punching the steering, you know, it's my pie hole, right? I did this to myself. I can abuse myself all I want, but it's much, much bigger than me, right? This is I have to make decisions that reflect more than myself at this point. Spent the next six, seven months, lost about 120 pounds, and I kept it off, right? You can't you look at these things as a finishing line, right? These are lifelong changes. Yeah. So when I tell people this story, they always say, What's your secret? What you do? I say, There's no secret. Discipline, right? Routine, focus, motivation. How does discipline play a role in your life, Steven Speaker?

SPEAKER_02

Discipline is so important. I I'm looking at your book there. And and uh so I know when when I have discipline, um, it works. And uh I learned something that uh Jim Lippy actually said this at the beginning of the year. Um, you know, do the right things every day. You know, uh uh pick pick those three to five things that you're gonna work on uh the day before and then do it, right? Um, you know, and focus just on that, right? You know, those are your guardrails. And and that that that works for me. I've I've um I think meditation is really really important. I do, and I I mean to do it every day, and and my discipline has fallen off on that. But I think it's when I'm doing it on a daily basis, I feel, I feel so much lighter. Yeah, me too. I feel I the overwhelm melts off you. Yeah, everybody gets overwhelmed, but it's it's it's in our mind. It's not it's not it's it's less out there, it could be out there, but it's less out there than in your head, right? And and so I find that that that helps a lot. I'm I'm actually right now doing um doing a cleanse. I do this once once a year. It's a 21-day cleanse.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02

And um where you're where you're you know, you're eating clean, you know, totally clean. And and there's some supplements involved, but but I gotta tell you, I'm feeling the weight come on. I'm I'm heavier than I've ever been uh in my life. Um, and I'm usually pretty active. So so I'm I'm trying to discipline myself with health. Um I discipline myself with exercise, try to play pickleball, try to get to the gym. Um, but it's all about consistency, right? And there's there's times where I'm really consistent, and there's times when I'm like us all, yeah. But it's always it's not about killing yourself about not being consistent, it's about just just observing it and saying, okay, forgive yourself, okay, and then then go do it. That's right. Right. Is there something in the last month or so you changed your mind on I've gone back and forth on on leadership in um uh in my company, you know, do I do I bring on somebody that's done it before, is you know, knows how to do it, and then I you know I go to you know, let's let's let someone grow into it. And I've been on both sides of that, and right now I'm all about let's let's partner with someone that and I've done this before, but let's partner with someone that knows what they're doing, they've gotten to a a place before, and it really helps the company uh grow. Build versus buy. Build, yeah. Build when you can.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Build when you can, but but if it's if that's not working, if you know buying is is is always I think uh the best option if you if you're looking at if you're looking at speed, if you want speed, if you want fast growth, if you want to learn it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You mentioned how you shouldn't beat yourself up, try to stay consistent. Yeah. What do you what do you do with the haters? What do you do when when when you get some something negative falls upon you by, I don't know, a client, post-client, employee. What do you what do you how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Um uh that that you you read lessons from and then you write in. And and that that always that always helps ultimately. You know, at the time at the time I've always learned, not always, so I I I did this process called the Hoffman Process. And really, really great organization, the Hoffman Process.org. And it helps you understand your triggers. And then it helps you understand how to reprocess the triggers. So so when I I'm I'm a really uh outgoing, emotional guy. I I wear my my my heart on my sleeves. That bothers me, right? But I know that that bothers me.

SPEAKER_00

It bothers you about yourself.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, no. It bothers me if if there's haters out there. I see, right? And and and so my first reaction is is ow, that that that really hurt. And it turns into disappointment, it could turn into anger, but then you have to reprocess that. You have to be like, you know, that you have to think about that. How can you show up differently in that moment? Everybody has a story, right? You know, the the the person the people that you call haters, they have a they have a story. Everybody might have, you know, they maybe they have a wrong story of me, for example. And and or maybe they're having a bad day or or something, but but the only thing I could really control is how I react. That's right. And so I'd rather they they say it's better to respond than react. And and the only difference is, you know, versus react. Then reaction and resp and response is that you you put some thought into how you're going to interact in this situation before you actually do it.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So when I think of haters, I think of the eagle and I think of the crow. Just kind of continue to rise and ignore it and it'll fall off.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's a I I heard that story. I've heard I've heard that story. I didn't make it up. I don't know where I got it from. Yeah, that's that's good. I like that. That's good advice.

SPEAKER_00

What motivates you?

SPEAKER_02

Creation. Um getting people together. Um when I see that I have this team that's super engaged, I'm really happy. When I see that my customers love what we do, um, I'm really happy. When I'm showing something new that we're working on, and they're like, oh, this is great, that that makes me that makes me happy. I you know, at the end of the day, um, and I think this is true for many people, you know, if you could help people, if you could if if you could bring value that that into the world, uh it gives you purpose. And if you have purpose, you're gonna be happier. Um if you could look back and say, I did that, uh, I brought these people together, I created this company, right? We sold this many people this uh this month, right? We helped this many people uh this month, right? We have a new case study that proves how well uh our our product is helping MSPs. Um that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't hear the word impact, but I felt that was that's really what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So how given given that your motivation is impact, Steven, how do you measure success?

SPEAKER_02

I I measure success by by by how happy my my team is. I'm in the market. I I have I have uh a team that that that handles the shows, but I'm really in the market to to talk to my customers, to see how we're we're impacting impacting them. I'm also competitive, so I know that when I'm on the pickleball court, I I I was just in my uh EO uh retreat. EO is an entrepreneurial uh group, and uh we we get out there, we hit we we hired a coach, uh we we got this big house, and and uh uh you know we're we're talking about purpose, passion. And at the end of it, he tells me, Steven, you just have to live your life like you're on the pickable court. Because when you're on the pickable court, you're confident, you know what you're doing, you you got the eye of the tiger, you want to win. And and so, yeah, I mean, uh uh I took that to heart. And and so I want to that's my theme for this year. Live my life like I'm on the pickable court.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time today. Anybody watching, listening, how can they get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02

Uh you can go to Kruhu uh.com to check out what we what we do. Um you could you could uh reach out to me on LinkedIn, uh Steven Spiegel, Steven with the PH, S-P-I-E-G-E-L. Uh link up with me. Um, and we can get together, we could talk. Um those are probably the two best ways uh to get with me. Um I get back on LinkedIn pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00

Very good. Thank you so much for your time, Stephen. I've known you for a long time, and I'm glad we finally uh I don't know, it's been years, and uh, I'm glad we finally got to be able to talk like this.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I really appreciate it. Hey, thank you.

SPEAKER_00

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