Charles Lee / CEO Ideation. Culture. Creativity. Brand Building

Many entrepreneurs and business leaders struggle to turn their ideas into reality and build authentic, impactful brands. They often feel disconnected from their work or unsure how to align their business with their personal values.

Imagine being able to consistently execute your ideas, build a brand that truly reflects your values, and create a fulfilling life that balances professional success with personal meaning.

Learn from Charles Lee's experience and frameworks for idea execution, brand building, and life design. Discover practical strategies for writing down ideas, aligning company culture with brand values, and creating a personal blueprint for a "good life."

5 Key Takeaways:

• The importance of idea execution for business growth
• How to create a culture that fosters innovation and creativity
• The value of writing down ideas and creating actionable steps
• How to bridge the gap between strategic planning and execution
• Practical ways leaders can foster creativity within their teams

Link: CharlesLee

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (03:48.588)
Hey, it's Paul Povolni and you'll listen to the Headsmack Podcast. So excited to have Charles Lee with me today. A misfit, a creative thinker, an innovator. He is helping people design the best version of a good life and that creates lasting impact. He's also the CEO of Ideation. He's a speaker. He's an author of the book. Good idea. Now what? Charles Lee, how you doing, man?

Charles Lee (04:11.982)
Good to be with you, Paul. Thanks for making this possible.

Paul Povolni (04:15.02)
Hey, thanks for being on. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think there's a lot that you do that excites me and is in my area of interest and things that I've been involved with as well. So I think this is going to be a great conversation about innovation, about creativity, creative thinking, getting unstuck, moving forward in life and business as well. And so before we start, I'd like to hear people's origin stories. I think origin stories kind of share the journey that people have along the way to bring them to where they're at.

And I think sometimes even within an origin story, there's opportunities for those aha, head smack moments that transformed you and can hopefully inspire somebody that might be in that same place that you once were. And so tell me a little bit about yourself, Charles, tell me a little bit about your origin story. You can go as far back as you want.

Charles Lee (05:02.99)
Well, if you want to go way back. So I was born in South Korea, immigrated to the States with my parents. I'm an only child when I was around five years old. And so I restarted our journey in New York and there we, my parents had an opportunity to move out West where I live now in Los Angeles. And, and they, you know, had an opportunity to become a restaurant entrepreneurs.

They had kind of left their own professions back in Korea, came over here and for many years after that, they started multiple businesses in the restaurant space, Korean food. And before and after they split, they started several different franchises and became fairly iconic in kind of the Korean barbecue world.

Paul Povolni (05:51.244)
wow.

Charles Lee (05:53.678)
I believe if I'm not mistaken, my mother was the first one to have an all you can eat Korean barbecue in LA. And my father, he remarried and he started, he created a lot of dishes that now become staple. So yeah, and growing up, I just kind of grew up around restaurants and learned how to run a business when I was a kid. I think it was more caught than taught.

Paul Povolni (05:59.404)
nice, nice.

Paul Povolni (06:07.884)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (06:17.164)
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (06:17.198)
and just learn how to, you know, everything from balancing books, working with employees marketing, cause they were not speaking English too, too well at the time. And, and so just, just learn the ins and outs of business. And that's how I grew up. And ultimately that kind of led me to become an entrepreneur myself later on in life.

Paul Povolni (06:26.124)
Right.

Paul Povolni (06:37.132)
So was the franchises, were they their own franchises or other people's franchises? wow, well.

Charles Lee (06:41.942)
Their own. Yeah. So they were able to create restaurant chains and were pretty successful in building that up, which is for me was mind blowing because they didn't really speak the language. I don't even know how they got a lot of things done. But I know that they definitely worked hard and hustled as long. I rarely, you know, we rarely went on vacation. If we did, it was like an overnight or somewhere. So that was kind of like my childhood.

Paul Povolni (06:51.788)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (06:56.716)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (07:01.58)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (07:06.028)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (07:10.924)
Yeah. So what, so in Korea, what was their occupation? Were they in that area of business or was it something unrelated?

Charles Lee (07:15.63)
No, actually they did like, yeah, interior design, some architectural stuff. They're both creative and they both were pretty resourceful. So when they came over here, they gave up everything and, you know, pursued their American dream.

Paul Povolni (07:23.244)
Right.

Paul Povolni (07:26.892)
Bye.

Paul Povolni (07:31.66)
Wow, that's amazing. And so did you think you were going to go into the restaurant business yourself?

Charles Lee (07:35.726)
no, not at all. I mean, if there was an aha moment, I realized, man, this is not the life I want for myself or in the future if I ever had kids. So I went like a completely different direction and decided to study philosophy and theology and, and really thought like I would stay away from business. But from hindsight, I realized that.

Paul Povolni (07:41.74)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (07:51.276)
Bye.

Charles Lee (07:58.158)
I just couldn't get rid of, I've always had a knack for scaling things, like, you know, developing strategy and taking it to market. And I realized it from hindsight and therapy later in life that I had probably just gained a lot of those skillsets and insights from my parents, whether I liked it or not. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:02.636)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:14.412)
Wow. Right, right, right. Just by being around it and seeing it on the daily. And so, you know, were you a creative kid growing up or did the creative problem solving innovation come later?

Charles Lee (08:27.342)
Yeah, I think I was generally creative. I mean, being the only child you don't have siblings to play with. And as a latchkey kid, you know, I would just make stuff up, become superhero or I know you're a big superhero fan and, you know, just role play. And, you know, I would play with my friends, but when I'm at home by myself, you know, as they were all at work.

Paul Povolni (08:39.98)
Right.

Paul Povolni (08:50.028)
Right, you entertain yourself, yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lee (08:50.158)
My imagination ran pretty wild. Yeah. And just thinking of stories and thinking of different ways of looking things that has always been a part of who I am.

Paul Povolni (08:59.82)
Yeah. So, so after leaving the restaurant business, and go into college for philosophy, how long did you, did you complete that? Did you stay with that all throughout? Okay. And.

Charles Lee (09:04.686)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (09:09.07)
Yeah, yeah, all through grad school, and I ended up actually teaching, you know, intro to philosophy classes, some interesting courses at, you know, a couple of different universities and, and that was fun. But on the side, I just realized that.

You know, I found myself helping friends start companies or nonprofits or starting a lot of things on that ran parallel to anything I ever did. And, and I just realized that, man, maybe I am an entrepreneur. Maybe I am someone who ought to go pursue. And as social media came around, I was a super early adopter and I was testing out YouTube and different channels. And, back then it was called guerrilla marketing. If you recall. yeah, I was, yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:36.268)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:41.1)
Right.

Paul Povolni (09:47.084)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:52.812)
Right, yeah, I remember that was the thing.

Charles Lee (09:56.014)
Yeah, testing out flash mobs internationally too. And then suddenly brands started hiring me for guerrilla marketing projects. And that's when a lot of my consulting stuff started.

Paul Povolni (09:57.772)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:06.348)
So how do you define an entrepreneur? Cause I've had several people on here that some are business owners, some are entrepreneurs. Some have very different views of what an entrepreneur is. Some don't see it. Don't see a difference between a business owner and entrepreneur, but it seems like you kept getting drawn into that. How would you define it?

Charles Lee (10:20.59)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (10:24.046)
Yeah, I think an entrepreneur, I mean, there are different ways that people have framed it. Some people would say that there's a difference between like say an entrepreneur and a freelancer. An entrepreneur is someone who actually builds a company that could be sold at some point.

Paul Povolni (10:33.676)
Right.

Charles Lee (10:39.022)
Some people kind of categorize it that way. But for me, I think the entrepreneurial spirit in a general sense is anyone who has a particular passion for a product or service they feel like will benefit the world, and they're going to pursue it and go after it. And so if it's that type of person, I would say in a general sense, they're definitely an entrepreneur. But if you're just doing, say,

Paul Povolni (11:00.332)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (11:03.566)
worked for yourself and not really interested in building a team, a business. In a classic sense, I'd probably be more of a freelancer. But I think entrepreneurs attach to some type of business that becomes sustainable beyond them, just that one person.

Paul Povolni (11:08.396)
Right.

Paul Povolni (11:13.228)
Right.

Paul Povolni (11:20.332)
Yeah. And you kept getting drawn, studying philosophy, teaching, and you kept getting drawn back to that. And that was from your parents, right? From, from what you grew up doing is, is the, the, the excitement, the uncertainty sometimes the, the fear, the, euphoria, you know, all the things that come with entrepreneurship just kept pulling you back. And so, you know, after you graduated, how did you,

Charles Lee (11:26.574)
Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lee (11:41.454)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:47.564)
Did you go into entrepreneurship immediately? Like what was the next step for you after graduation? You mentioned you taught as well.

Charles Lee (11:52.43)
No, I think it was really, yeah, I think it was really like around 2007 -ish when I saw the power of what social is doing.

I thought the timing would be a good time to start a business that helps people execute. So really the heart of our business is we're a team of both consultants and strategists that work alongside creatives to help problem solve for executives. And early on, I had the great fortune of having some phenomenal thinkers and influencers that for whatever reason took interest in my life.

And so whether it was like a Seth Godin or whether it's like Scott Belsky who started Behance, they gave me like a lot of good business advice and basically said, hey, if you're passionate about helping people execute, just generate content and convening some events that address that. And by curating, you'll not only learn more, but you will become a thought leader in that space.

Paul Povolni (12:31.98)
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (12:51.694)
And so I literally took every penny we had, my wife and I, and fortunately she had a corporate job back then. So there's some level of stability, but I threw, I organized about 15 conferences around the country in three years to build a tribe, if you will, using Seth's term, right? And then built that and I realized, okay, what is it that I'm really gonna offer in?

Paul Povolni (12:59.148)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:07.148)
Wow. Wow.

Charles Lee (13:16.622)
as I heard executives speak from multiple brands, because by year or two, we had a lot of major brands coming to our events, was the pain of really having a thought partner early on in the stage of an idea, because before they take it big to all the big firms, they needed someone to work with.

Paul Povolni (13:30.22)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (13:35.598)
And a lot of them are surrounded by people who are more operational in nature. And so that's where we showed up and said, hey, we could provide strategists in the early stage of an idea, as well as creatives who can help flesh it and help you pitch it to your board, your executive committees, whoever you need to get budget from. And we found this small, like low -end disruptive niche that's pre -big agencies that very few people at all were doing.

Paul Povolni (13:39.052)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (13:58.7)
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (14:02.958)
And that's how we kind of launched the company after like three years of doing conferences, basically.

Paul Povolni (14:08.396)
And so the focus of the conferences, what was that?

Charles Lee (14:12.27)
all around idea execution, which fits the theme of our business called ideation. And so it was really all around the pain of executing well, whether you're a for -profit company or a nonprofit. So we brought both sectors together.

Paul Povolni (14:13.964)
all around idea, okay.

Right.

Paul Povolni (14:29.996)
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (14:30.126)
and fortunately, some of the friends that I brought to the table at the time in my network ended up being significant influencers in their respective spaces. And, so it was kind of a mix of both social and timing and just investing in others for multiple years without asking for anything.

Paul Povolni (14:49.9)
Wow. Well, and I've often said is, you know, ideas are worth everything and nothing at the same time, because without execution, they're worthless, you know, and so many people would look back at their lives and say, yeah, I saw somebody doing this and I had that idea years ago. Well, that idea is worth millions, but to you, it was worthless cause he didn't execute on it. And so I think what you're doing with helping people go from idea to execution, I think is powerful. And I do also, are you helping them with.

the formulating of those ideas and then the execution. Did I understand that? Okay.

Charles Lee (15:22.862)
Yeah, yeah. So we work on the strategic clarity side of things, really trying to identify the problem they're trying to solve for and help them kind of walk through that. But a lot of ideas in order for it to gain traction needs creative work. And that's where we bring the creative team along to say, hey, let's flesh this out conceptually. And what does the plan actually look like in implementation? So yeah, that's been kind of our method.

Paul Povolni (15:49.196)
So talk to me a little bit more about the method of a company coming to you and saying, we have an idea. Do they usually come with, we have an idea, or we have a concept, or we have a problem we're trying to solve? Or is it all of those when they come to you? And what does that process look like?

Charles Lee (16:04.814)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's a mixture of some of that. Some people already have a clear sense of what they want to accomplish, at least. And they need help thinking in terms of how does a rollout of that actually look like? Or they want to get an external perspective, especially when there's divergent views within their own leadership team of what that ought to be. And so some of it may be really facilitating clarity.

So whether we take a, say, a design thinking approach around that, which is like really customer centric of, of really what, what problem are you truly solving for? But a lot of times around leadership teams, they do generally have a sense of direction, but they want to either have a sanity check or see if it's feasible, viable, desirable for who they're trying to serve.

Paul Povolni (16:55.724)
Right.

Charles Lee (17:00.974)
And other times it's literally like leadership dynamics, like team dynamics that are preventing, because it's, you know, I often say like, it's not even the idea that causes an idea not to come to fruition. Sometimes it's just the people around the idea. And there's so many other circumstances that prevent an idea, a good idea for a good idea actually getting to market.

Paul Povolni (17:05.1)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:16.332)
wow, okay.

Paul Povolni (17:24.076)
So talk to me a little bit about that because, you know, like I mentioned, people are always full of ideas. They always say, well, I thought of that years ago and I have an idea. What are some of those other issues around ideas and moving them forward that people need to consider that are listening to this and saying, well, so what do I do next? I have an idea. How do I begin fleshing that out? What are some things that, what are some tools that you use for that process?

Charles Lee (17:50.83)
Yeah, it's not going to sound earth shattering, but in my book, I talk about like the miracle of writing things down. You know, to your example, like I've had friends and I've probably been guilty of it as well, where, hey, I have this idea. And every time we have coffee, we, we talk about the same idea until one day, like to your point, like someone else actually executed on it. And there's been some interesting studies about.

Paul Povolni (17:53.836)
Hehehehe

Paul Povolni (17:58.988)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:09.036)
Right.

Paul Povolni (18:13.1)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (18:16.43)
you know, our brains where if we are constantly talking about an idea and not recording it or doing something with it, it tricks our brains into thinking that we're doing something about the idea by talking about it. And statistically, you're less likely to implement the more you talk about it without doing something with it. So it's kind of this vicious cycle where it feels good to talk about it, but that doesn't I always say like ideas are impotent without action. Right.

Paul Povolni (18:28.459)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (18:34.86)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (18:39.404)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:44.172)
Right, right, right.

Charles Lee (18:45.518)
And so the first step is like, if you can't get up to actually write about it, it's probably not going to go anywhere. Because when you start writing it, it gives you a point of reference to then have more productive conversations. If you're going to have coffee with someone, say, I'm going to have coffee with you, Paul. I would rather write it down and send you an email before a meeting and saying, hey, here's kind of the direction I'm thinking of. Can you provide some constructive?

you know, feedback around that, and then I could build upon that for the next iteration. First is me just meeting you casually. That's the idea is going to still stay there. The other thing is like, you know, you've probably read, you know, there's a great book called the the War of Art, right, Steven Pressfield, where he talks about the lizard brain where.

Paul Povolni (19:20.268)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (19:25.804)
Right.

Paul Povolni (19:35.052)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (19:38.542)
You know, there's so many reasons when we get closer and closer to actually implementing, we have all of these like self -defense mechanisms because we don't want to fail. We don't want to, you know, feel like we don't have the goods to actually take it to market. Someone else is going to actually do better than I anyway. And all these like things that happen near launch of these irrational reasons as to why we can't do it.

Paul Povolni (19:47.468)
Right.

Paul Povolni (20:00.812)
Right. Right.

Charles Lee (20:02.446)
So like building things like that and building some sense of like input and a system of accountability, once again, it's not rocket science, but it's discipline. And I think that's the mastery is like, can you stay consistent? Just like you launched this podcast, you've done multiple episodes. You did it over and over and over and over again.

Paul Povolni (20:13.644)
Right.

Paul Povolni (20:24.012)
Right, right, right. Yeah.

Charles Lee (20:24.334)
I think that's what gets it off the ground. But talking about it is probably one of the worst things you can do unless you have a point of reference.

Paul Povolni (20:31.284)
Well, and I would imagine that also in the talking about it and in the repeating it. And there's a sense of, like you had mentioned, there's a sense of, you feel like you're, you're doing something when you're not. But I think there's also a, a sense of almost euphoria. Like you got the idea out there and the passion can, can start fading because you've verbalized it, you've shared it, you've got it out there. And the.

Charles Lee (20:53.102)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (21:00.908)
the payoff, you know, without actually doing anything on it. And then you look back and say, well, yeah, I was kind of buzzed about it and excited about it. And I felt satisfied in it. And I got the kind of the payoff that I had the idea, but I never moved forward with it. And so I would imagine that happens a lot as well. And that's where the execution comes in. And so, you know, when it comes to even with idea generation, say somebody is on the, they're the executor, they're the ones that I can get stuff done, but.

I don't know how to come up with ideas. Like, how do I come up with ideas? Do you have a toolbox or something that you use that you have for your clients that says, here's how to, you're equipped at solving problems or you're good at doing this, but here's some ways to generate ideas.

Charles Lee (21:33.166)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (21:47.822)
I mean, nowadays, a couple of more recent tools would be, you could do a lot of brainstorming with AI. I think that's like often, that's a skillset I think we all should develop, like how to prompt AI tools much better. And that's been super helpful on the brainstorming side. The other thing practically that I do is often like, innovation is often comes at the intersection of two or more seemingly unrelated ideas.

Paul Povolni (21:54.7)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:02.124)
Right.

Paul Povolni (22:14.476)
Ryan.

Charles Lee (22:14.734)
And so like, how do you foster new areas of thinking? And so one of the ways that I do it every year is try to go to a conference outside of my space. I'm not the expert in the room. I want to see how, say, doctors solve problems or engineers solve problems or like advertisers solve problems. And I found that like sitting in rooms where you're trying to understand and learn how people think about a problem, how they approach it.

Paul Povolni (22:23.084)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:39.308)
Right.

Charles Lee (22:40.238)
gives you a new perspective. And then I can go back to a situation that I'm dealing with to say, hi, I wonder what a physicist would do to solve this particular problem. How would somebody in psychology or psychologists solve this? How would they view it? And that gives you kind of new perspective. So part of it is also like having people in your life that are not in your space. I think we could be so professionally good, suddenly all our friends kind of look like us, sound like us, and do the things that we do.

Paul Povolni (22:49.036)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (22:55.82)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:01.74)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (23:06.156)
Yeah, right, right.

Charles Lee (23:08.878)
And it's that getting out and causing what I call these like, you know, intentional moments of spontaneity, unexpectedness. I think that's powerful in helping you generate new perspectives and ideas.

Paul Povolni (23:16.908)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (23:23.148)
Yeah. Well, and that's kind of my goal with even this podcast is, you know, to interview an incredible diversity of people from all kinds of backgrounds. And hopefully people would listen to a, a somebody that is unrelated to their area of interest and listen to that. And somewhere in their origin stories, somewhere in their, what they do that they would get that inspiration that you just talked about is going to conferences, talking to people that are unrelated to your area of interest.

And so, you know, somebody listening to a, an actor, you know, or a musician or, or a dancer or a, entrepreneur, and they're not even in that space. They were a chiropractor or they're a roofer or whatever. They'll listen to it. It's like, do you know what? I hadn't thought about my problem from that perspective. And now I'm suddenly ideas are popping in my head. And so I love that you said that is get around people that are different to you. Cause I think what also happens is if.

You talk to the people that are like you, you're going to get answers that you've probably already thought of, right? And so, you know, but you share your idea with somebody that's totally unrelated to the topic. They're going to ask the questions that you've been maybe even afraid to ask yourself, you know, about it, or maybe, you know, the questions that you hadn't even thought about asking about a certain topic. And so I love that you shared that as well as, you know, looking at it from a different.

Charles Lee (24:26.734)
for sure.

Charles Lee (24:35.886)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:46.636)
perspective, what would this kind of a person think about it, I think is pretty powerful. And so when it comes to, you know, generating those creative ideas, where do people mostly get stuck? Where do you find that people, when it comes to generating fresh ideas, they're getting stuck?

Charles Lee (25:04.27)
Yeah, I think generating the fresh idea, probably for people who are well read and broaden their perspective, it's not that difficult. I think where they get actually stuck is when it comes time to do something about it, because either they get overwhelmed by the work that entails, or maybe they've already done the work and they feel like they become very insecure.

You know, I'm sure you've talked with many people with good ideas and you're encouraging and you're like, Hey, that's great. You should go for it. But suddenly when it's your idea and you got to listen to your own advice, it gets really, really difficult. Right. And you start second questioning, you know, do I really have the skillset? And, you know, thinking about it at smack, there was a moment where I was in therapy.

Paul Povolni (25:37.836)
Right, right, right. Absolutely. Yeah.

Charles Lee (25:51.406)
And I was talking to my therapist and, you know, she was like, Hey, what are you best in your world at? And great question. Right. And I'm like, it doesn't have to be the whole world, but just in your world. And I said, you know, this sounds stupid, but I think I know how to achieve clarity and scale stuff. But my assumption was everybody else knows how to do that. Cause it's so innate to me.

Paul Povolni (26:00.94)
Great question.

Paul Povolni (26:17.58)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Charles Lee (26:19.95)
Right. And what I, the aha moment was like, shoot. I think we often take what we do really well naturally for granted because our assumption is other people can do that too. But in actuality, your unique makeup allows you to do that one thing so well. You know, I have a good friend, he's a bestselling author and sometimes they'll take just a couple of weeks to write a book, which is ridiculous. Right. But he's like, I'm designed to write this way.

Paul Povolni (26:30.06)
Brian. Brian.

Paul Povolni (26:38.476)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:44.492)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:49.868)
Right.

Charles Lee (26:50.35)
And my readers love the way I write. And so, but if I'm struggling for months over it, then maybe I'm not supposed to be this type of author, you know? And so I think it's understanding that, look, my assumption has to be is like the things I'm really good at, very few people can do. Where before I used to think everybody could do it. And I think it's getting over that.

Paul Povolni (26:53.196)
Right.

Paul Povolni (26:59.372)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:08.652)
Right.

Paul Povolni (27:12.108)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And I've often said is it's what's easy to you is genius to somebody else, you know, and we do kind of face those situations where we don't fully understand our area of genius because it comes so easy. You know, for me doing logos and branding and design, you know, I can sit down and sometimes if I'm in the right space, I can whip out a logo design.

you know, first concept and the client loves it. And they're like, my goodness, you must've spent weeks and weeks on this. Well, yeah, I did spend years and years of practice, but also just some things come easier to me, you know? And so I think, you know, that's, that's an amazing head smack for somebody is, is what you would shed, you know, what your therapist has shared is, is what, what are you good at in your area of expertise and leaning into that and, you know, understanding that, you have a superpower.

Charles Lee (27:48.27)
So.

Paul Povolni (28:08.62)
And you have just been living in smallville, you know, and hiding, hiding it. And there's, there's a metropolis that needs it, you know? And so I love that. So with, with what you're doing now with, the creative thinking and the innovation and the launching and execution, how much of what you studied in college have you brought into that space?

Charles Lee (28:12.558)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Charles Lee (28:28.398)
Yeah, I, you know, initially people ask, what does a philosophy degree have anything to do with what you're doing? And, for me, I feel like it does a lot because it goes back to the core of like, I focused in philosophy areas of like, how do you justify a belief?

how do you view reality? It's called epistemology and metaphysics. And I do that work with our clients all the time. Because I realize that, for example, when our client wants a particular project, I feel the need to know why they want that project.

Paul Povolni (29:03.436)
Right.

Charles Lee (29:03.822)
Why do they want to execute on that? And some of those reasons may have to do with the company, but oftentimes other reasons are like they want to advance their career. They want to add value to their business so that they can build their reputation or they may have other secondary reasons behind why they hire us to solve for something.

Paul Povolni (29:22.924)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (29:23.342)
And if I lose sight of that, like what's the real job I'm doing is like, I know that whoever works with us, their companies are going to benefit, but they personally in their careers will benefit greatly because they're going to advance because they're going to always show up with great work and it will only build their reputation. So philosophy has helped me think through. and then it's given me some discipline to consume tons of content and make it understandable for people.

through clear thinking. So that's been a huge benefit. Initially, I wasn't sure, so I kind of mixed philosophy plus my parents entrepreneurship and brought it together to create the company.

Paul Povolni (29:56.396)
Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, when it comes to, you know, those businesses that, you know, they've, they've got the idea and they've gotten past the initial execution stage and, you know, they've, they've got past the roadblocks or whatever. what slows them down after that? Is there something that slows them down after that? after they've gotten past the initial idea and the initial launch.

part of what they're doing. What kind of hiccups do they face along the way?

Charles Lee (30:33.166)
Yeah, I mean, when you look at like innovation, you may have seen like innovation charts and graphs. Like there's always gonna be this excitement to launch something new. And then you're bound to hit reality of like sustaining it and maintaining it. And you go into some people call the trough of disillusionment.

Paul Povolni (30:53.74)
Ha ha ha ha!

Charles Lee (30:54.83)
And it's in those times that with good innovative leaders is that they know how to keep their teams motivated and focused so that until you get into really the plateau of productivity uptrend, you kind of need to focus on that. But like anything else that's exciting at first, when you have to operationalize it or institutionalize a new type of work, it just takes time. There's nothing sexy about post -launch.

Paul Povolni (31:22.956)
Right, Ryan.

Charles Lee (31:23.246)
But it's those groups that can say, you know what, we're just going to continue to make it better, or they may create internal goals, like every month we're going to innovate that product or service better. Like Mailchimp did that after they launched. Every month they had a goal of innovating something for email, and they still keep that practice to today. So I think things like that can keep you motivated. If not,

Paul Povolni (31:40.3)
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (31:47.342)
everyone's gonna want the next new shiny project and everyone's gonna transition to a different team. So I think it's really important to get through that. But the reality is like people, we're all human beings. After all of the excitement and the adrenaline leaves, that's when the real work starts, I think.

Paul Povolni (31:51.116)
right.

Paul Povolni (31:59.02)
Brian.

Paul Povolni (32:03.308)
Right.

Right. Well, and I think entrepreneurs face that as well. They love the, the energy of the launch. They love the energy of the new idea. And then when it comes to running a business, they're like, this is boring. I don't want to do this. And so, you know, I've talked to some where, you know, that's where they need to hire the people that love that part of the job. Like there are some people that they're not entrepreneurs. They're not the starters. They're not the people that love chaos. They're the people that actually work the engine and.

Charles Lee (32:12.702)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (32:18.35)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:35.852)
keep it oiled and keep everything moving the way it needs to move. Yeah, yeah, I'm not that person. Yeah, yeah, I can come up with all kinds of ideas and I can even create systems and I can create processes. But then for me, like keeping them going, even my own systems of my own processes I wrestle with because, you know, I love the energy of innovation and creativity and new things and all of that.

Charles Lee (32:38.862)
Which is amazing, right? Probably for people like us who are like, right, those are phenomenal people, yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:01.772)
And so, you know, during that slump, during that valley of despair where, you know, the energy is gone, what are some other things that, you know, you mentioned creating a process of let's do something new, let's fix something, let's improve, let's do that continual improvement. Are there any other things that you recommend to clients that you coach and you help and you consult with that kind of helps them through that valley, that slump, you know, that ditch that they can sometimes get into?

Charles Lee (33:27.246)
Yeah.

Yeah, it really has to do with more like as a leader thinking in terms of how do you keep your team motivated? You want to probably during that time over communicate as to the value of their work.

that sometimes may seem mundane, but to remind people why we started this in the first place. I mean, those are like practical comm skills that are super helpful for that stage of a product or service. And then acknowledging and recognizing stories of success during those times, do you platform like specific team members that accomplish something for the product or service, go out of your way to recognize and to keep the morale and the momentum going.

Paul Povolni (34:01.516)
Right.

Paul Povolni (34:11.788)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (34:11.822)
And I think that's where good, innovative leaders are thinking in terms of like, it may not be the skillset need at that time. It's more of motivation, refocus, energy, those kinds of activities.

Paul Povolni (34:20.94)
Right, right, right.

Right. And kind of, I guess, keeping like the mission or the, or the, or the vision or the, you know, the core values of his, the purpose of his, why we're doing what we're doing. And I love it, you know, sharing the stories of people that have been impacted by the things that you've done, which drives you to then want to do more to impact more people and give them the same feeling of accomplishment or success or, or whatever it might be. So when, you know, when it comes to even, you know, you, you've launched, you've, you've got the idea, you've launched.

Charles Lee (34:38.382)
Absolutely.

Paul Povolni (34:54.028)
You've survived the slump, you've survived that valley of reality, whatever that might be. So when it comes to then you're in the in a phase of building a brand and all of those things. So I know you also work with brand building. What are some of the things that either you've already got in place or you start putting in place to give the brand longevity?

Charles Lee (34:55.79)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (35:18.99)
Yeah, the non -sexy part of that would be just consistency and really paying attention to feedback too. And I think that's a part that sometimes brands forget because it's exciting to launch something if you're a new business and you cease to listen to your customers, listen to your team.

assume, you know, pick it cherry pick the best parts of the narrative you think is running, right. And just, you know, lean upon that and

Paul Povolni (35:45.644)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Charles Lee (35:49.358)
I think entrepreneurs who have been successful are, you know, there was a study a few years back about like entrepreneurs who are successful aren't more risk takers, but they are more calculated risk takers. In other words, they allow the data and the feedback to inform future decisions, even if they have to diverge, at least they have a basis of information to make decisions on. And then, so I think big part of brand building is like, okay, how do you stay consistent? What type of data points should you be

Paul Povolni (36:11.212)
Right.

Charles Lee (36:19.264)
paying attention to? How do you set up for further iterations and innovation and integrate it into your ongoing culture that we're never there, we're still moving in that direction? And I think it's that commitment of creating a culture at that point to build a brand.

Paul Povolni (36:32.589)
Right. Right.

Charles Lee (36:39.886)
where the brand builds that culture, right? And so I think that's important parts of like sustaining thinking long -term is I think it becomes a cultural challenge and a data loop feedback type of challenge. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:50.508)
Right, right.

Right. Well, I think somebody once said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And so I know that, you know, culture is powerful and I've spoken on this and shared about this as well, but I'd love to hear your take on culture. You had mentioned that I know, you know, looking at what you do on your website, you had also talked about culture building and the value of that. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on culture. First of all, what is culture?

Charles Lee (37:20.534)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the really the values and the environment and the ethos behind any any business. It's kind of the foundational. It's really the glue because at the end of the day, your culture is built by people and your company is really people. And I think it's easy to.

Paul Povolni (37:38.892)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (37:41.55)
default to strategies and systems. But those strategies and systems aren't that impactful unless you know your people. And that requires a deep commitment to culture. So culture is pretty, I mean, whether you like it or not, you have culture. It's similar to a brand. Whether you like it or not, you have a brand.

Paul Povolni (37:49.868)
Right.

Paul Povolni (37:58.06)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (38:02.508)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (38:03.374)
And I think investing in culture and giving people, especially nowadays when you see all of the research and trends around what younger and younger people want in a company, culture is really high on that list, even sometimes above any type of earning potential.

Paul Povolni (38:14.252)
Right.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:21.356)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (38:21.614)
And so because of that, I think culture becomes central to every activity that you do and you build. And without culture, it's going to be hard to keep talent. It's hard to attract talent. And it's going to get really, practically speaking, it's going to get really expensive, really fast. Cause it's expensive hiring people and onboarding people. And so that's the reality we live in. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:32.972)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (38:39.98)
Right.

Paul Povolni (38:44.908)
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Now you'd mentioned culture comes from the people. What about if culture has come from the wrong people? You know, cause they're, you know, what I call lead sheep. Like there, there are people that, you know, aren't the shepherd and they're, they're actually lead sheep. They, they, they kind of, influence, from within and, you know, not from the top down, sometimes from within the ranks. and culture I think can come from both places. How do you.

Charles Lee (38:53.71)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:14.668)
when a culture is starting to go in the wrong direction, what do you start doing? What's that rotten stuff that starts getting things back under control into a place that it needs to be?

Charles Lee (39:25.774)
Yeah, I think you have to figure out a way to quickly get rid of that toxicity, which may include having, you know, some would say like fierce conversations with people that are clearly not benefiting. It may require a reset of staffing. It definitely requires from the higher up of reiteration of here's what the culture we want to build.

Paul Povolni (39:30.252)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (39:50.926)
And it's tricky, like letting go of any person is incredibly hard these days, right? But I think from up top, the senior leadership has to create direction and a commitment to culture.

Paul Povolni (39:56.076)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (40:05.198)
And then they have to start integrating a system of what that culture will be. It may impact how people are interviewed. It may impact what reviews are like and which areas do you focus in and highlight. And so once you start doing that, you have some quantifiable reasons to have hard conversations with people versus just saying, hey, I'm just going to go talk to them and cut them from the company. That's really difficult nowadays.

Paul Povolni (40:24.14)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (40:31.438)
But I think if you start doing that, you have a point of reference and a basis to have hard conversations with people. And the general rule of thumb is if someone's very toxic, I would say figure out a way that they either have to come to terms with that or they're no longer good for the company. And I think the more quickly you handle that, it'll save the lives of many other employees. And those are, yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:37.516)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:50.796)
Right.

Paul Povolni (40:56.78)
Right, right, right. I agree with that. Yeah. Well, and John Maxwell talks, you know, when it comes to leadership, he said leadership is influence, but I add to that, that influence is viral. you know, because, you know, and that influence can come from any direction. And so, you know, even with that lead sheep that is toxic, you know, if you're not dealing with that quickly, that virus will spread and you're going to have a bigger problem.

Charles Lee (41:07.598)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Povolni (41:22.06)
And I think, you know, adjusting either saying, okay, here's, here's what we believe. Here's is what we're about. Here's what's important to us. either you be a part of that, cause that's our culture. You live in this culture, you live in this country, you live in this, you know, what, this is the culture that we have. This is how people behave in this situation. And if you're not want to be a part of that, well, you're, you need to leave. Like you, you are, you are a wrong fit. And so I agree with that is, is dealing with it quickly is pretty important.

And I think culture, you know, I've often said culture is cultivated. You know, you get what you're allowed to grow. and either you get it by, you know, intention or ignorance, you know, you either intentionally say, I'm going to cultivate this, I'm going to let this grow. I'm going to let this thrive. I'm going to feed this. And then you chop off the things that are not aligning with what the results are that you're trying to get. Right. And so, you know, when it comes to culture, I think people do need to think about it just like you've shared is.

it does make an impact in, you know, you can have a great idea and you could execute it well, but then if you've allowed that culture to get to a place that it doesn't need to be, it could ruin everything.

Charles Lee (42:34.286)
Absolutely. Yeah, you're spot on. I mean, culture is incredibly attractive and sustaining for any business. And I think sometimes it's one of the last things you pay attention to. And especially like even for entrepreneurs, I say, hey, it may feel like something you could work on later in the business, maybe after your five, 10 or whatever.

Paul Povolni (42:42.956)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:56.716)
Right, right, right.

Charles Lee (43:00.11)
And I was telling them, no, it's going to be valuable for you to invest time and money into it.

Paul Povolni (43:05.516)
Ryan. Well, and I'm familiar with one company that had an amazing culture. I mean, it was, it was creative. It was thriving. People were just dying to be a part of it. I mean, they were driving Segways in the hallways, they had ping pong tables, they had a mini golf course, they had like all these really, really cool things and the culture was just fun and it was creative and it was innovative. And then suddenly the, the business had to have layoffs and it, and it didn't do the layoffs really well. And it just like,

Charles Lee (43:17.806)
I'm going to go to bed.

Paul Povolni (43:33.932)
It was brutal. It was a massacre. Like it was really, really bad. And then the culture started changing because they then said, you know, Hey, that's all we're not doing anymore layoffs. And then like two weeks later layoffs again. And so, and then people started not trusting the leadership. They started not trusting each other because they started taking notes on each other. Anytime somebody does something bad, like if ever there comes time for another cut, I am going to make sure that I protect myself and.

I can throw this person under the bus and the entire culture radically changed within the business because leadership didn't do things the way they should have. They created a culture of mistrust. They create a culture of I'm self preservation. I'm in self preservation mode and it killed what was once a thriving culture. And people started leaving. People were starting to prepare their resumes and the culture radically changed.

because of trust and because of, you know, the, the, the organization not valuing the people as much as they once did, you know, it's something that became, you know, you're out and we're going to make it brutal. And so I think culture can, can destroy a company if you're not careful with managing it and being careful about it. And, you know, culture is also formed by what you reward and what you punish. And, you know, faithfulness wasn't rewarded in that.

And when they started slashing jobs, like people that had legacy and had been there for a long time, suddenly were out of a job. And it's like, wow, you know, you didn't reward faithfulness, you know, and that affected culture. And so I think it's a powerful topic. And I love that. You know, that is a part of what you do with businesses is you don't just help them with coming up with ideas. You don't just help them with execution, but you also spend time in let's talk about culture.

Cause if you don't, and let's talk about it early as well, right? You mentioned that some people wait years down the road before they even have that conversation. And, so what are some other things that you've found in, those companies that have, that you've kind of come in on maybe that part of it that we want to scale, we want to grow or where we're kind of stuck in a place where we're not moving. What are some other cultural things that you've found that, have, have locked them down, have stopped them from moving forward?

Charles Lee (45:55.726)
Yeah, I think once you start seeing things like echo chambers created or assumptions or everything from biases that have not been called out or really do you create a pathway for people in the company to provide productive input, even if they're not part of the leadership? I think people sense when they're valued.

Paul Povolni (46:10.092)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (46:24.492)
Ryan.

Charles Lee (46:24.75)
and they deeply sense when they're undervalued or undermined. Or if leadership feels like they're the best ones in their own to be able to solve for it, you know, everything. And to some extent, they're maybe more qualified in a lot of different areas of leadership, right? So, you know, I think the dynamics of like leadership to those that are reporting to them.

Paul Povolni (46:28.524)
Right.

Paul Povolni (46:34.412)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (46:47.982)
have played significant parts. And then, you know, I think still today, people know when there isn't integrity in the room, there isn't compassion in the room or empathy. It's hard to fake body language. And, you know, even if you're performative in the role of a leader, people know. And I think that's all like culture and relational dynamics, all the kind of the quote unquote soft skills.

Paul Povolni (46:57.196)
Brian.

Paul Povolni (47:02.956)
Right.

Paul Povolni (47:09.74)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (47:17.26)
Ryan, Ryan.

Charles Lee (47:17.934)
that come to the forefront when things start turning sour and to your illustration, I could only imagine how the culture spiraled out. Yeah, because when you say we're not going to have Laos, but two weeks later you do, I mean, then people are going to start rolling their eyes and can I really trust anything you say and the trust deteriorates and those are.

Paul Povolni (47:25.836)
It didn't. It didn't. It never recovered.

Paul Povolni (47:33.868)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (47:42.862)
big, big deal. So really paying attention and who you're listening to and bringing in to, you know, provide wisdom or advice in those situations become super key.

Paul Povolni (47:54.988)
Right. And I think that's part of what we have been talking about, even with brand building is people don't realize that your culture is also part of your brand.

Charles Lee (48:03.79)
epsilon.

Paul Povolni (48:03.916)
And it's, it's what people think and feel about what you say and do. And so, you know, a lot of people that, you know, when you talk about branding or if you talk about brand is they think, well, you have logo and, you know, design and website and you have a brand, you know, and they don't consider all the other factors that go into brand building. And part of that is culture. I think culture is a part of your brand. People get a sense, like you said, they, they can sense what's going on. You walk into a business. I've walked into businesses.

Charles Lee (48:14.862)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:34.06)
And I'm like, man, people are kind of like, it feels almost tense in here or people don't seem like they like each other. And it's the culture that somebody has allowed to form in that place that is tangible. And so I think brands do need to consider that is what people are feeling even when they go into a space because of culture and it's making an impact. What are some other areas around brand building that people often don't think about?

We talked about culture. What are some other things that people don't think about when it comes to brand building?

Charles Lee (49:07.79)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think you kind of hit the nail on the head of like branding is so much more than visual identity, right? Like it's more than the logo. It has to really reflect the soul of the business and it has to be fleshed out. So, you know, some of the things that...

Paul Povolni (49:26.892)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (49:31.214)
I often walk our clients through is, if you want to be, I don't know, a friendly business, say that's, I don't know, maybe that's an attribute a brand wants to have, or just think in terms of then, well, then what does a friendly email look like? What does a friendly workspace look like? Because it has implications, right? Like I remember being hired by one organization.

Paul Povolni (49:51.052)
Right, that's so good. Yeah.

Charles Lee (49:57.55)
that had incredibly broad reach and they wanted to build this very complex web platform that allows a lot of their customers so that they can collaborate with each other and such. And they had already spent a lot of money on it and they wanted to spend more to build out this robust element of collaboration platform for a lot of their customers.

And I was excited. So they flew me out and I went into their offices with our team. And I looked and I realized everyone was behind closed doors. There was no real shared space. There was nothing in the office that communicated to me that it was a collaborative organization. What ultimately I found was that

Paul Povolni (50:31.884)
Well, yeah.

Paul Povolni (50:37.676)
Right, right, right.

Charles Lee (50:42.67)
What they meant by collaboration is they create products and services, and all their clients and their network come and consume it. And so I told them, don't spend your money on building a platform that's not you. It's not your brand. And people probably know that. And I said, the first step might be to spend some time redesigning your office space, if that's aspirationally where you want to go, before you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on building this new platform.

Paul Povolni (50:50.252)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (50:56.556)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (51:05.9)
Right.

Paul Povolni (51:10.412)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (51:11.182)
So I think that's where like brand, when it hits the road has to be integrated into everything, your physical space, your culture, how you do like, if you want to be a collaborative brand, then how do you make decisions in a business? Who has a voice? What types of platforms are you used to allow for collaboration? When you hire people, what type of collaboration questions do you ask?

Paul Povolni (51:19.244)
Right.

Paul Povolni (51:25.516)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:38.06)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (51:38.254)
Because you want to hire people that naturally carry some of your attributes, if possible. So I think that's where people miss is isolating branding to some type of visual activity where it becomes like, I like that color, or I like that font. And you're missing out on really the biggest part of it is actually executing and rolling it out to every touch point of your business.

Paul Povolni (51:42.7)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:51.468)
Right. Man, that's so good.

Paul Povolni (51:58.796)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:03.308)
right

And I think a lot of brands even spend time with coming up with these three words, you know, trust and integrity and friendliness, like the example that you shared, but then they don't live it out, you know, and, you know, branding, you know, is everything you say and do. It's not just everything you do and it's not just everything you say, it's both of them. And so, you know, this company, you know, said, you know, we're all about collaboration. We're all, you know, collaboration. And then, like you said, everybody's behind closed doors and it's like, well, it doesn't feel very collaborative.

Charles Lee (52:09.166)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (52:22.574)
Sorry.

Charles Lee (52:31.246)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:33.726)
If you know, or if a company says you weren't all about friendliness and like it's not the experience people have, you know, and it's not what they think and feel about your business, then you're not a friendly company. And so you've got to be super intentional that that is your brand is what people think and feel about what you say and do. And you've got to make sure that if you're saying something, if you're all about trust, that you are like passionate about.

trust, like trust at all costs. Like we have, we want to build trust. And so what are the things that we can do to build trust with our customers? And if that's what you're saying, you know, really wrestle with that really, you know, if you're saying you're friendly, you know, if you're saying you're collaborative, tear down this wall, you know, like you said, you went in there and you told him you got to tear down the wall, man. If you're saying you're collaborative, these walls are not reflecting that. Man, so good. I love that.

Charles Lee (53:13.006)
Absolutely.

Paul Povolni (53:28.076)
I love that. And so, you know, moving on to, you know, talking about the good life, I know you've, you've shared about this, you've talked about this. And honestly, I could talk about all the stuff we've been talking about for, for hours. I have this, I love this. but you've also talked about the good life and living the good life and designing a good life. So talk a little bit about that. What does that mean to design a good life?

Charles Lee (53:49.71)
Yeah, so this is a new kind of series of content I've been creating and, and it's really around the theme that if you really wanted to design whatever you deem to be a good life, you know, I think for everyone, and maybe it's slightly different, everyone has different purposes and criteria of, you know, some may be financial security, others may be relationship with their kids or whatever, whatever that good life is. I've created some systems and, you know, frameworks where people can.

go from their intent and desire to build something like that all the way to leaving legacy and impact. Because I think part of being a person who lived a good life, if you will, at the end of the day, people will often point to their character.

Paul Povolni (54:33.036)
Right.

Charles Lee (54:33.038)
their impact they made in the lives of others, how they were able to still take care of their family as much as their business or whatever pursuit, their philanthropic and really stewarded their resources well. So it's kind of a system of thinking that practically I'm bringing in like a lot of my ideation skills of how to build something and tactically leverage the tools and resources to get to a place where you can actually live the type of life you want.

Paul Povolni (54:50.603)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (55:02.944)
It's not a formula. I think that's why I want to keep it as a framework because everyone's life is different. But the high goal for me, purpose is that as I love seeing people actually live out their desire, live out what they think is a meaningful life.

Paul Povolni (55:05.644)
Yeah.

Ryan.

Charles Lee (55:19.79)
And if I could help them along the way, whether they're at the early stage or maybe they've already six quote unquote succeeded professionally and now are thinking in terms of like, how do I make best use of my resources and network and influence?

and doing that. So I'm just kind of in the process of building this out. It'll be another 12 to 18 months of building this out and hopefully another book coming out and things of that nature. But I think it doesn't mean that you have to be a billionaire. I think it means that you live a life where you, at the end of the day, each day, you can go to bed with a clear conscience.

Paul Povolni (55:50.636)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:57.804)
Right.

Charles Lee (55:58.318)
because you feel like you are stewarding whatever you believe has been given to you in life and doing it in a way that benefits not only yourself, but others. So that's ultimately the kind of the heart behind it because there's funny books that don't like how to.

execute on ideas, which I wrote one and many others have. But I think it's that last phase of like, okay, if you execute well, you're going to have some influence, you're going to have some resources, you're going to have some really great relationships. How do you take those ideas and resources and everything to ultimately live out the rest of your life where you benefit a ton of other people while you're still living the life you want?

Paul Povolni (56:15.34)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (56:39.276)
So where did the desire or the idea or the, what was the genesis of the good life and talking about that and dealing with that and wrestling, was it through your own wrestling or was it something that triggered you pursuing writing about that, thinking about that, developing that? What, where did that come from?

Charles Lee (56:56.526)
Yeah. I think it was a combination of seeing so many leaders over the decades I've worked with them on like, you know, both people who are successful and incredibly happy personally, and others who are incredibly successful for very unhappy. And I realized like, you know, ultimately those who fell closer to their sense of purpose and fulfillment led a better life.

And then, you know, normally when people, young entrepreneurs or other people come into my life and they see what I do and how I live and, you know, I'm still proud that, you know, I'm pretty sure if you went to my kids behind my back and asked them if I were a good father or whatever, there's a higher probability. I mean, on most days that they would say, no, he actually cares, he cares for us and he loves us and he's done those kinds of things.

Paul Povolni (57:22.604)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (57:48.396)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (57:50.606)
people ask like, how do you do all those kinds of things where they see me online and like, you do self care. You do, you know, time with your family. You're still running a business. You're traveling all over the world, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want you to live my life for sure. That's not, that's not what I'm saying is, but there's certain things that I've backed into, like how we built our philanthropy as a family and.

Paul Povolni (58:06.092)
Right.

Paul Povolni (58:13.228)
Yeah.

Charles Lee (58:13.614)
coming from an immigrant all the way to having family foundation. They're like these principles I've learned, because I work in so many different industries and work with so many different people. I thought, if I can take some of the best little nuggets of wisdom and practices that may help a specific type of person, that would kind of be the goal. And it's satisfying to know that I've met so many great people at the tail end of their golden years saying, man, I love my life.

Paul Povolni (58:22.316)
Right.

Paul Povolni (58:37.42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Charles Lee (58:43.47)
And I'm like, talk to me. I want to learn. I love my life. I love my family. I've done good in the world. And I'm going to leave a legacy even when I'm gone. I mean, those are phenomenal individuals that I think all of us can learn from.

Paul Povolni (58:45.74)
Hehehehe.

Paul Povolni (58:59.66)
Yeah. And do you see a thread in their responses when they talk about that?

Charles Lee (59:03.886)
Yeah, I think it's this deep sense of like, they have come to terms that ultimately they want to live a life that they believe they were designed to live without external, like distraction or critique or, you know, making sure they come up with a good image or they realize over time that, Hey, I know what matters. And that's different for each person, but you know, they know what matters. And I think,

it usually comes down to people. I mean, Harvard did a, I think almost like a 90 year longitudinal study around these families from the Great Depression area and followed them for multiple generations till they're passing a lot of them. And they asked them like, what's the number one thing that makes you happy? And pretty much to a T, it's relationships, right? And so, you know, that relationship is definitely a deep part of it, but other people also like,

Paul Povolni (59:54.444)
Well, well.

Charles Lee (01:00:01.454)
Hey, I really my purpose was to build, allow my future generations to have some level of stability because we never had anything. I want them to at least have a choice to do certain things. So for some people, it may be that other people will be like, you know, I want to help as many people as possible in this given area of cause or, you know, issues that I'm passionate about. And so it's just kind of beautiful to see everyone so different.

Paul Povolni (01:00:08.812)
Right.

Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:28.588)
Right, right.

Charles Lee (01:00:29.902)
And I think we can glean from them. I know all of us are inspired by stories like that, but creating mindset frameworks, practice frameworks, what kind of frameworks or skillsets you need to keep that drive going, those are the things that I'm focusing on to help people get to what they're passionate about.

Paul Povolni (01:00:34.54)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:43.692)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:48.332)
Wow, that sounds amazing. And so, you know, as we, as we get closer to wrapping this up, you know, what would you say to a young Charles, if you had an opportunity to, to pop in a time machine and go back and share something with the young Charles, what would you tell him?

Charles Lee (01:01:04.238)
I would say embrace every, I'm not gonna tell you what the future is, gonna be like, embrace the moment. Don't forget, don't lose sight of the moment you're in and it's incredibly hard when you're in the middle of history. And then continue to learn from as many people, stay humble and open -minded.

and know that your views will change over time and it's okay. You don't have to be right all the time. Your goal ought to be, how do you become a better version of yourself over time? And I feel like it'd be more process thinking and framework thinking than telling them, hey, this is what's gonna happen. Yeah, I invest in Apple and Netflix, all those stocks. But yeah, I enjoy life. I mean, life's meant to be enjoyed and I think,

Paul Povolni (01:01:38.476)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:41.868)
Right, invest in Apple. Yeah. Right.

Charles Lee (01:01:54.382)
I got to remind myself of that every day is if there's something today in this that I can enjoy a moment today at the end of the night before I go to bed, can I look back and say there was a moment I really enjoyed? It may have been food. It may have been a quick conversation and maybe it have been a tick tock video, whatever the case maybe is like. I really enjoy that. And that kind of fueled me today or filled me today. I think that's that's a powerful idea.

Paul Povolni (01:01:57.516)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:01.964)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:07.66)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:14.412)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:02:19.148)
Wow. Wow.

Absolutely love that. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. Absolutely love this. And so if people want to learn more about the good life, obviously go check out his book, The Good Idea Now What, on executing ideas. Definitely look up Charles, look up his business ideation. But if people also want to learn more about the good life and what you're working on there, how do they get a hold of you?

Charles Lee (01:02:45.902)
Yeah, they could just go to my personal website. It's just Charles, the letter T as in Tom, Lee .com. So CharlesTLee .com or just CharlesTLee on any social channel. You should be able to find me. So yeah, connect that way. And hopefully there's little nuggets that can help people along the way.

Paul Povolni (01:03:06.796)
And also you just launched a podcast, right?

Charles Lee (01:03:09.646)
Yeah, I'm launching a couple of different podcasts right now. It's kind of a little short one, just around like, you know, I think it's called In My Head or something like that. For a short five, 10 minute podcast, they can find when they Google it or eventually we're recording right now for like, you know, the Good Life, Design Your Good Life podcast.

Paul Povolni (01:03:12.428)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:03:18.86)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:03:29.676)
That's awesome. That's awesome. So in your head, is it about the philosophy side of you? Are you bringing some of that back?

Charles Lee (01:03:34.606)
Yeah, just like random things like, hey, here's how people construct their views. And that's probably why it's hard to have a conversation on Facebook about politics.

Paul Povolni (01:03:39.518)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:03:43.084)
Right, right. Love that. Well, definitely check Charles out. I love your wisdom. I love your experience. I love your creative thinking. I love your process thinking. And so folks, definitely check him out and don't forget to reach out to him. If you're a business and you need help in those areas, definitely reach out to him and his team. Thank you, Charles. This has been awesome.

Charles Lee (01:04:07.726)
Thanks for having me.