Dr. William Attaway / CEO-Appreciation at Work. Leadership Coach. Author. Speaker

The Five Languages Most Leaders Never Learned

Dr. William Attaway didn't set out to become one of the country's most sought-after leadership coaches. 

He started as a stock guy at a drugstore, dropped out of college twice, watched a telecom giant disappear inside five years, and learned the hard way that leading people is nothing like running a process. 

In this episode, William sits down with Paul Povolni to share the moments that shaped his philosophy, the productivity system he's used for 20 years, and the surprising data behind why most workplace recognition programs fall flat. 

As CEO of Appreciation at Work, the company behind the bestselling Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, William reveals how a small shift in how leaders communicate value can drive a 22 percent productivity lift without adding a single new hire. 

If you've ever lost a key team member and wondered what really happened, this conversation will reframe everything.

GUEST BIO:

Dr. William Attaway is the CEO of Appreciation at Work and an executive coach with more than 30 years of experience leading teams and developing leaders. He is the host of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast, ranked in the top 1.5 percent of shows globally, where he sits down with high-performing entrepreneurs, agency owners, and catalytic leaders from around the world. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama and now based in northern Virginia, William holds a PhD in archaeology and biblical backgrounds, which has taken him on multiple seasons of digs in Jordan. He is the author of Catalytic Leadership: 12 Keys to Becoming an Intentional Leader Who Makes a Difference, and he leads the company behind the bestselling Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, co-authored by Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman. A leader devoted to his faith and his family, William has been married to his wife Charlotte for 28 years, and they have two exceptional young adult daughters.

Link: joinaaw.com

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (05:30.999)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. name is Paul Povolni and I have another misfit with me. I have Dr. William Attaway with me and Dr. William is the CEO of Appreciation at Work and an executive coach specializing in leadership mindset and productivity with over 30 years of experience in leading teams and coaching leaders. He hosts the Catalytic Leadership podcast, which is ranked in the top 1.5 % of shows globally.

A leader dedicated to his faith and his family, William has been married to his wife Charlotte for 28 years and they have two exceptional young adult daughters. Dr. William, how do you do a man?

Dr. William Attaway (06:14.878)
I am great Paul thanks so much for having me on.

Paul Povolni (06:17.623)
I'm looking forward to this conversation. I really enjoyed meeting you at a recent conference, hearing you speak, and then also getting a chance to have dinner with you. So it was a fun time and I knew I had to have you on the podcast because of some of the things that you've shared and some of the things that you've talked about. And so I think it's going to be a fun conversation.

Dr. William Attaway (06:38.316)
I have been looking forward to this as well,

Paul Povolni (06:40.663)
So as you can see behind me, I have superhero stuff. So I love origin stories. I love to hear about how people got started and where they got started. And so tell me a little bit about your origin story. Where did you get your start? And you can go as far back as you want. That would be relevant.

Dr. William Attaway (06:58.254)
You know, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. And if you think about my journey with leadership, it goes back to when I was 15 years old. I had a high school teacher who invited me to attend my first leadership conference. I didn't understand why exactly, but he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. I went to that conference, I listened, I learned, and man, I was hooked. I mean, to learn about the power of leadership, for good or for bad.

Paul Povolni (07:12.247)
Wow.

Dr. William Attaway (07:28.384)
to make an impact, to make a difference. And for pushing 40 years now, I've been studying what makes leaders truly catalytic, what makes them the catalyst that comes into an organization that affects change. And that's a lot of study in the last, since those days.

Paul Povolni (07:47.253)
Yeah, yeah, wow. And so you know, so that happened when you were 15, you said. And so so when when did you first step into your leadership role into a leadership role?

Dr. William Attaway (07:52.258)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (07:58.328)
You know, I led my first team when I was 19. I was, I was working at a drug store chain and they started off just as a cashier, you know, stock guy kind of a thing and kept getting bumped up, bumped up. And finally oversaw a team there of about 15 different cashiers and about a dozen stock guys.

Paul Povolni (08:09.611)
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (08:23.022)
And the, the goal there was for me to basically do everything from hiring to firing and managing them in between. Uh, and that was the first time I'd ever done that at 19 years old. Uh, man, I made more mistakes than I can possibly fit into an episode. I'll tell you what, that's where I started to cut my teeth and understand that there's not a one size fits all when it comes to leading people, because people are different. People are messy. They're wired differently and you can't just use one method.

Paul Povolni (08:31.529)
Yeah. Wow.

Paul Povolni (08:36.841)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:48.31)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (08:52.408)
to lead them.

Paul Povolni (08:53.493)
Yeah, so in that experience, I know that's going back a little while, but do you remember some of those early leadership lessons that you started applying that you found, wow, this actually works?

Dr. William Attaway (09:04.974)
You know, think one has to do with how you treat people. You know, I had grown up in a more rigid type of an environment. so leadership for me was, this is how you do it. There's one right way. That's the way you do it. That's the way you lead. And so I started managing people the same way. Started leading them the same way. And what I discovered very quickly was that I couldn't do that. And I tried.

Paul Povolni (09:21.493)
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (09:30.924)
I tried, I tried to just say, Hey, this is, this is how we do it. This is the policy. This is how we do it here. And man, I remember one individual in particular, and she just, she would not get with the program. You know, she had her own way of doing things. And I was like, I was like, that's, that's not how we do it. That's not going to work. And she was not timely, right? I mean, she was late all the time over and over and over again. And I.

Paul Povolni (09:35.999)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:47.645)
Right, right, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (10:00.608)
I gave up on her. I was like, okay, well, you're done. And I mean, in hindsight, I look back at that and I'm like, man, what if I'd come alongside of her and been more curious and said, hey, help me understand what's going on here. You're late so much more often than you're on time. What's happening? Instead, I just immediately dismissed. I just immediately was done. Cut, move, next. And that's a lesson I've carried with me.

Paul Povolni (10:16.437)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:21.737)
Right.

Wow.

Dr. William Attaway (10:30.166)
You can't operate with human beings that way. One thing to work with machines that way, but you can't do that with people. Curiosity wins.

Paul Povolni (10:33.589)
Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Especially when it comes to, yeah, and yeah, building relationships and missing that important part of relationship as opposed to your policy, this, this, this, that, you're out type thing makes a big difference. And so what was your next move into the leadership realm beyond that?

Dr. William Attaway (10:53.091)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (11:00.174)
You know, from there, I started working for a telecommunications carrier back in the back in the mid nineties. And that they were, was think early days of cell phones, brick phones, bag phones, right? So I was in sales and, you know, again, continued to advance in that company and had had a lot of interest in a new division. There was only one person in the division. It was cellular data.

Paul Povolni (11:11.575)
Yes, yes, I remember those, yes.

Paul Povolni (11:27.701)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (11:30.29)
And I was like, I want to be in that. seriously, guy in that whole division. I was like, I want to join that guy. want to do this. And that carrier ended up shutting down that division because they saw no future in it. I mean, and, and that company doesn't exist anymore. within, within five years, they were, they were gone. They got swallowed up by a competitor. and so as I was, as I was advancing in my journey and, and,

Paul Povolni (11:33.398)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:37.975)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:44.256)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (11:49.26)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (11:59.394)
becoming more and more, I guess, aware of what it means to lead. know, leadership is not just a position, it's not just a title. You know, leadership is influence, like Maxwell teaches. And so think learning how to lead laterally, learning how to lead up was during that season, some of the lessons that I was picking up, because I was like, this is a much more corporate type of an environment. What does it look like to lead my peers? What does it look like to lead

Paul Povolni (12:09.131)
Right.

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (12:29.41)
my boss in some ways. Those were lessons that I was learning during that season.

Paul Povolni (12:30.805)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (12:35.829)
Wow. And so when did the doctor come into interplay?

Dr. William Attaway (12:39.95)
much later. I had actually dropped out of college twice at that point. Well, I went to school as a pharmacy major, pre-pharmacy major. I got into my second year, hit organic chemistry and decided this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. It was not fun at all. I did not enjoy that. And so I dropped out and worked for a while. That's when I was working at the drugstore chain. And then I decided to go back and

Paul Povolni (12:45.963)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (12:55.159)
Hahaha

Dr. William Attaway (13:09.312)
started focusing on some business classes, business degree, but it didn't really ring the bell. And so I dropped that again. And that's when I was working with the telecommunications carrier. And so the journey was not straight by any stretch of the imagination. It was trying to figure it out. But it was during that season when I was in that corporate job that I discovered something that changed the course of my life from that point. That's when I met Jesus and everything began to change.

Paul Povolni (13:17.515)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (13:33.227)
Wow, wow, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (13:36.118)
I had of my roommates. I was renting a house with a couple of other guys and one of them challenged me to get serious about this whole relationship. I had grown up and going to church and knew about Jesus. I just didn't know him. And it was during that season that that happened and it really changed the course of my life.

Paul Povolni (13:48.246)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:55.467)
Wow. Well, it's amazing how when you look back at your life, you see these, these little moments, these little walking through a set of doors and choosing one and how that kind of leads to one thing leads to another thing that leads to another thing that kind of you look back. And I think it was Steve Jobs had talked about, you know, we can never make sense of life joining the dots forward. We always make sense joining the dots backwards, you know, that kind of, see the path that kind of led us to where we're at now. And so

Dr. William Attaway (14:12.494)
That's it.

Dr. William Attaway (14:21.122)
That's right.

Paul Povolni (14:25.431)
you know, when did you start moving into the executive coaching realm?

Dr. William Attaway (14:25.582)
That's right.

Dr. William Attaway (14:30.37)
You know, it really started back earlier than, than even back in the drugstore days. This is when I started working with leaders even above me, you know, layers above me started working with them and talking through some of the stuff that I was dealing with. And they started talking back and they started saying, Hey, I'm so I'm actually dealing with something that, you know, and they wanted me to weigh in and give them some thoughts. Now was like, I, I mean, coaching was

Paul Povolni (14:40.075)
Well.

Dr. William Attaway (14:56.908)
was not what it is today by any stretch. And so I'm trying to learn while I'm trying to help them navigate. And that's when I began to learn the power of the right questions. And I carried that with me forward. And this is one of the ways that I would use to coach peers, coach even people above me in the chain, but certainly those who reported to me, the right questions coming from a place of curiosity take you so much farther, because you're never going to get the right answer if you don't ask the right question.

Paul Povolni (14:59.339)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:08.341)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:23.678)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (15:26.414)
most people, if they're asking questions at all, they're asking the wrong questions. What I can do is come alongside and help and ask you questions that maybe nobody else in your world is going to ask you to help you see something that you haven't seen yet. So it was during that season that I started that. So really young, but I wasn't any good at it, of course. I had to learn, right? And that's the experience. Try, fail, get up, try again.

Paul Povolni (15:26.689)
Brian.

Paul Povolni (15:36.416)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:44.457)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (15:52.94)
you know, and just repeat that. But at every point evaluate, okay, what went right? What went wrong? What would I do different next time? What do want to try next time? And that iterative process really developed the process that I use today.

Paul Povolni (15:53.098)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (16:02.102)
Right.

Paul Povolni (16:07.965)
Right. Right. Well, and I think, you know, you've touched on something there that a lot of times we don't talk about enough is that, you know, experience alone isn't the best teacher. And, you know, it's, and as you said, it's evaluated experience. And, you know, often I talk about, and we saw it even presented at the conference that we went to that, you know, it's execute, evaluate, evolve, execute, evaluate, evolve. And a lot of people miss the evaluate, you know, they don't stop and look at what they're

Dr. William Attaway (16:17.824)
yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (16:22.157)
Yes.

Dr. William Attaway (16:32.974)
That's right. That's right.

Paul Povolni (16:37.869)
gone through and why they failed and then doing adjustments and then moving forward. And so that's what you've found too, right? With, with a lot of people.

Dr. William Attaway (16:49.87)
100%. The evaluative process is the secret sauce. That's where you really process the learning so that it is available to you in the future. The next time you're in a similar situation, you don't have to, in that moment, go through and think, what did I do last time? What should I do here? What's the best thing? You don't have process the learning. You've already done that. You've done the evaluative work. Now that's available to you the next time you're in that situation so you can proceed with what you've already pre-decided.

Paul Povolni (16:53.643)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:59.872)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:17.353)
Right. Now you had mentioned also about asking questions and you know, I think the difference between a professional and amateur is the questions they ask. And so, so when you look at the questions that you do ask, I also want to ask you, what are the questions that people ask themselves that are the wrong questions?

Dr. William Attaway (17:25.976)
so true.

Dr. William Attaway (17:35.596)
Hmm. You know, I think one of the, one of the questions that I hear a lot is, why, what should I be doing? What should I be doing? And, and they use that word should in some very unhealthy ways. You can, you can think about this in a, a way that actually challenges you to move forward. That's, that's good. That's great. But when you start thinking in the land of should, what happens is I want to know where that's coming from. According to who?

You should be, I should be further along by now, according to who? Well, I should be able to do according to who? And when I dive into that and when I get curious and we begin to unpack that, what I discover is that usually it's the voices of somebody in their past. Usually it's the voice, it could be a former boss, it could be a coworker, it could be a parent, so many different ways this can be answered. But when we unpack that and we get down to the root of it,

Paul Povolni (18:10.91)
Interesting, yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:23.223)
Wow.

Dr. William Attaway (18:33.526)
and say, okay, this is something that you heard from a boss 30 years ago about you, and you're still carrying that as an expectation of yourself. Is that valid? Is that a valid expectation? Because you're looking at everything through that lens. Let's stop for a second and let's just ask the question, is that valid? And I find that that is something that really helps people to understand

Paul Povolni (18:44.469)
Wow, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (19:01.486)
Sometimes they're holding themselves to very unrealistic expectations. They're holding themselves to the standards of somebody else and they've changed. that expectation is no longer valid, but they're stuck in it. And what I love to do is to help people get unstuck. And I think the right questions do that.

Paul Povolni (19:05.879)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:11.051)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:17.771)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (19:22.399)
Yeah. So what are some right questions in that you actually started asking them as opposed to what they ask themselves.

Dr. William Attaway (19:28.302)
You know, whenever I start working with somebody, we have to define two points. And the first point is, where are you now? And I want to define reality as it is. Max Dupree said that a leader's first job is to define reality as it is, not as you wish it were. Okay. So let's define where you are, right? Let's define what is. Then I want to define where you want to be. Where do you want to go? Let's define that.

Paul Povolni (19:45.591)
Right.

Dr. William Attaway (19:55.5)
And I want to paint that picture with as many colors and brushes as we can. I find most people have great difficulty with one of those two pictures. They either are not being honest with themselves about where they are. They're thinking, well, I'm painting a picture of what should be true, but it's not really. Or they don't have clarity around exactly what they want to do, where they want to go.

Paul Povolni (20:07.382)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (20:16.735)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (20:23.742)
you're never going to get where you want to go without clarity. So we've got to get clarity on those two points first. I find, in my experience, building a bridge from here to there is the easy part. The clarity on those two points, that takes some time.

Paul Povolni (20:26.676)
Right.

Paul Povolni (20:33.066)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (20:38.591)
Right. Now if people are stuck on answering those two questions, how do you dive deeper? How do you start helping them unwrap the answers to those questions?

Dr. William Attaway (20:49.006)
I think about it like a plane circling an airstrip. I'm gonna come at this from a whole lot of different directions, right? But we're eventually gonna land the plane, right? But sometimes I've got to circle for a while because there's just no clarity. And if you can't see the airstrip, please don't try to land, right?

Paul Povolni (20:52.855)
You

Paul Povolni (20:57.695)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:04.939)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:12.001)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (21:12.814)
Keep circling until you do. Brene Brown over in Texas says that, at the University of Texas, she says that, is kindness. And I love that quote. I think that's so good. Clarity is kindness with other people, to be sure. Clarity is one of the kindest things you could do with other people. But clarity is kindness with yourself too. And so what I want to do is help people find clarity around those two points so that we can help them begin to build that bridge and then begin to execute, then begin to move.

Paul Povolni (21:23.179)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:29.387)
Right.

Paul Povolni (21:41.055)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (21:42.058)
The best laid plans are great and we can plan all day long, but if you never execute, I mean, you're never going to get there.

Paul Povolni (21:47.135)
Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I think that's the intentions is kind of the place where, you know, ideas go to die because, you have the desire and the idea and then you...

Dr. William Attaway (21:57.55)
So true.

Paul Povolni (22:03.733)
having the intention, but then you miss executing. And, you know, a lot of people look back and say, do you know what? I had that idea 10 years ago, or I had that idea once and they see somebody succeeding. Well, they executed. And that was the difference is they actually made it happen as opposed to just, intending to make it happen at one, one point one day in the future. So let's talk about, other, other areas of mindset that people can sometimes get stuck in that you talk to them about, or you kind

of unwrap for them to have helped them to have that clarity to move forward.

Dr. William Attaway (22:39.064)
You know, I think one of them, is what you were just talking about, you know, that push forward into action. I find that a lot of people are waiting for motivation to strike, as though it were lightning, right? And if I just wait for motivation, eventually that motivation is going to strike and then I'm going to move. Wow, that's amazing. I've never experienced that myself. I don't know about you, but I've never experienced the motivation lightning strike.

Paul Povolni (22:52.805)
Ha ha ha.

Dr. William Attaway (23:09.726)
What I find is that when I move, when I make a decision and I choose to move into action, the motivation follows. If I wait for the motivation to take a step, I'm going to be waiting from now until Jesus comes. You know, that's like waiting on lightning to strike standing outside. Like, you could be there a while. That is a serious mindset shift. And one of the things, somebody asked me this,

Paul Povolni (23:18.252)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:25.367)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (23:37.074)
Karen Height, who was at the conference, she asked me this about a month ago. She said, if you could only tell people one thing, what would that one thing be? Well, what a great question. And I had to think about that for a minute. And I told her, said, it's this, you get to choose. You get to choose. So often people are positioning and viewing themselves as victims of their circumstances, victims of their past, victims of other people. You get to choose. You get to decide.

Paul Povolni (23:45.968)
you

Paul Povolni (24:04.919)
Mm.

Dr. William Attaway (24:06.414)
And that is true when it comes to action. Don't think that you've got to wait for the motivation lightning bolt to strike. That's putting you in a victim spot. You have to wait for that to happen to you. No, no, no. You get to choose. You get to decide. The motivation follows.

Paul Povolni (24:14.185)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:23.477)
Yeah. Well, and usually if, you're waiting for that motivation to strike, usually that motivation is going to be negative. the bills are coming, you know, the, the business is failing. you know, you know, so it's usually, it's, really a positive thing. It's usually a negative thing that is happening in your life that suddenly motivates you. even if that's the right word for it to take action, because you waited so long for something beautiful to happen, but something

Dr. William Attaway (24:31.948)
Hmm. There you go. There you go. Yeah. That's a good point.

Paul Povolni (25:01.36)
And then that becomes the driver. Maybe the driver is the better word than motivation. Cause you know, it's not an exciting thing. It's usually a negative thing, right?

Dr. William Attaway (25:10.444)
Yeah, when you have those negative drivers, how do you feel? You begin to feel like a victim, right? And it just perpetuates that mindset. And I believe there's a better way, you know, by understanding the power that you have, that you and I have. This is something that I believe God has given us. It is part of what it means to be created in His image. It's the ability to choose. I get to choose, so do you. We get to decide. As entrepreneurs, we get to create the environment that we want to live in.

Paul Povolni (25:13.483)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:21.259)
Right.

Paul Povolni (25:39.445)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (25:39.906)
A whole lot of people, and I watch this, I work with entrepreneurs a lot, and I watch this, what they do is they leave a job and then they go and recreate that job in their own business. Okay? That's a choice. Okay? You are choosing to do that. I don't want to do that. I want to be very intentional about what I'm creating. I want to create the environment that I want to live in. And I'm in process of that.

Paul Povolni (25:51.125)
Wow. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:03.531)
Wow. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (26:04.928)
You know, and that's one of the things that I'm doing with appreciation at work. This company that a partner and I just acquired at the end of last year, you know, creating the environment that I want to live in a year from now. Right. It's going to take a minute. It's nothing that doesn't happen by snapping your fingers. Wouldn't it be great if it did? But it doesn't. It's so like, but it takes intentionality. And the thing that I want to communicate so loud and clear is that we get to choose.

Paul Povolni (26:16.405)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:21.525)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (26:25.984)
Right.

Paul Povolni (26:31.551)
Wow. Now with, the intentionality, you know, that, that for some people is, know, maybe a stuck point. How do you help them get past, you know, the, intention and take them that first step into action and bypassing that, that intentionality pit that all ideas go to die. You know, what, what are some, what are some ways that you help them to get past that intentionality, stuckness?

Dr. William Attaway (26:52.172)
Ha ha ha.

Dr. William Attaway (26:59.288)
You know, I'll tell you a practice that I have been doing for 20 years now. I read a book 20 years ago this year by a guy named David Allen. It was a book called Getting Things Done. It's on personal productivity. And I got to interview David for my podcast a couple of years ago. And that was an incredible honor to get to talk to him and to thank him for the incredible influence he's had on my life. Anyway, that book has a system in it.

Paul Povolni (27:18.85)
well. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (27:28.13)
for personal productivity. And I was a productivity junkie growing up. I was the kid with the day timer in school, right? Yeah, I mean, when I went to corporate, like they sent us to the Franklin Day Planner Workshop, and like learning how to do a three day deal. I was always a student of productivity because I thought if I could make it more efficient, I could get more done. And that was true to a point.

Paul Povolni (27:31.767)
you

I had one too,

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (27:52.642)
But every one of these systems that I tried, know, Blackberries and Palm Pilots and all these different systems, they were great, but something was missing. And I couldn't quite figure out what it was, but I knew this is okay. It didn't fit quite right until I found David's book. His system is called GTD, called Getting Things Done. And I have been a practitioner of GTD now for 20 years.

Paul Povolni (28:11.468)
Well.

Dr. William Attaway (28:18.752)
One of the things that I talk with clients about is the importance of implementing a system. You don't have to use mine, that's fine, right? Or in this case, David's, right? But the thing about GTD is you can adapt it and digest it for whatever industry you're in and whatever your particular flow is for your work. And I think that's phenomenal. And so one of the practices that I use is what he calls a weekly review. And so with the weekly review,

Paul Povolni (28:35.969)
Right.

Dr. William Attaway (28:45.506)
does is it gives me an opportunity to look back over the previous week and to evaluate, to look at the appointments that I had, the meetings, conversations, and go through it and say, hey, what went right this week? What can I celebrate? And I'm going to capture those wins so that I can celebrate those. We've so often run right past the wins. I want to focus on that. Then what went wrong? Where did I swing and miss this week? And what would I do differently next time? I'm going to process that learning as part of the weekly review.

Paul Povolni (28:58.71)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:04.234)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (29:14.648)
Then I'm going to look forward and I'm going to say in the coming week, here's the appointments that I have scheduled. Here's the conversations that are planned. What do I need to prepare to bring the best version of myself into those environments, those meetings, conversations? And then I block time to do that. And then I look at this and say, if I only get three things done this week, what are three things that are going to move the needle? And this is where the intentionality piece is.

Paul Povolni (29:38.488)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (29:41.42)
I'm going to be intentional, not just about learning from the past, not just about preparing for this week, but I'm going to be intentional about the long-term view. What are the three things that if I get these things done by Friday at five o'clock, these three things are going to make a difference. And I pre-decide what those three things are. Then I block time to do them. That intentionality has served me so well because it, it forces me to decide, pre-decide what those things are. I'll block the time to do them. And then there's no excuse.

Paul Povolni (30:10.56)
Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think for a lot of people, they also get into a...

Dr. William Attaway (30:11.262)
I don't feel like it today. Doesn't matter. It's blocked on my calendar. I'm doing it. I'm not waiting for that lightning bolt of motivation to strike.

Paul Povolni (30:24.866)
Productivity solution cycle of stuckness because they're trying to find the perfect system and they're constantly in this state of changing systems and, trying new things and, trying different things or merging things. But like you said, you found a system that you're stuck to for 20 years. And, know, I've, I've told people, you know, whatever, whatever systems actually helps you get stuff done is a good system, whether it's posted notes on the bottom of your computer screen.

Dr. William Attaway (30:35.619)
Yes.

Yes.

Dr. William Attaway (30:51.138)
That's right. That's right.

Paul Povolni (30:55.03)
you know, whether it's whatever it is, you know, if it's working, it works, you know, but you've got to work, work the system until it doesn't work. And then you find a new system. And so I think, I think, you know, finding something like the getting things done system has served you well because you've stuck to it.

Dr. William Attaway (30:58.03)
That's right.

Dr. William Attaway (31:04.974)
That's right.

Paul Povolni (31:11.392)
and it's become a part of your process. But I encourage people not to get stuck in this loop of trying to find the perfect system, having 50 different to-do apps on your phone and reading book after book and then trying to work several of them at the same time. You actually end up getting stuck and not very productive. And so you've talked about it.

Dr. William Attaway (31:31.704)
That's right. 100%.

Paul Povolni (31:35.0)
You've talked about it already and I do want to take some time to talk about it pretty deeply is the appreciation at work. And you you said you recently acquired that. Tell me about that. What is that?

Dr. William Attaway (31:47.054)
So it's a training and development company. It's best known for the flagship book that came out of the company from Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman. It's called The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. That book was published about 15 years ago now, and it has sold, now pushing 900,000 copies. Today, it still sells about 3,000 copies a month. There it is, right there. Still sells about 3,000 copies a month.

Paul Povolni (32:07.606)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (32:16.343)
Wow.

Dr. William Attaway (32:16.45)
Right? 15 years after publication. What makes a book resonate like that? And the answer is that what's in that book makes a difference. know, 79 % of people who quit their job do not quit because of pay. They do not quit because of benefits or PTO. 79 % of people, according to the research that we have, say they quit because they did not feel appreciated.

Paul Povolni (32:43.672)
Wow.

Dr. William Attaway (32:44.558)
That is a solvable problem, We can fix that. As business owners, as leaders, we can fix that. And so often people want to throw money at the problem and they think money is going to be in 89 % of managers and leaders and business owners say they think people are leaving their team, their company for more money. You know what the actual number is? 12%. 12 % are leaving for more money. That's a huge gap.

Paul Povolni (32:47.234)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:04.598)
Right.

Paul Povolni (33:08.396)
Wow.

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (33:13.642)
What are we doing? What we're doing is ignoring the real problem. And the real problem is that people don't feel appreciated. Everybody speaks a language of appreciation. And this is what the book talks about. And this is what we teach. We try to help companies and businesses understand the power of what so many see as a soft skill, but it is a soft skill that when you apply this framework in your team, in your organization,

Paul Povolni (33:15.383)
Bye.

Dr. William Attaway (33:40.46)
What we see on average is a 22 % increase in productivity. No additional head count, just a 22 % increase in productivity. I don't know a business owner or leader who would not be interested in that. You know, we have worked with companies all around the world, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, Meta, Tesla, know, the Savannah bananas, you know, the list is long. And what we're trying to do is take what we have learned over 15 years of research.

Paul Povolni (33:45.25)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (33:52.406)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (34:08.61)
and help people understand that this works no matter the size of your team or your company. It works with teams of three. It works with teams of 3000. But we have to apply it. If we don't make this part of our culture, part of our DNA, then we're gonna continue to see what we have been seeing, which is high turnover. And that is the single greatest non-productive cost for any company.

Paul Povolni (34:13.25)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (34:33.59)
Wow.

Well, I think a lot of people, when they exit a company, they might say it's the money. But if you had a chance to really deep down interview them, it is that appreciation. They feel like their existence doesn't matter in the company and therefore they're going to try and find another company where they actually matter at. And so it's a great topic. so when people talk about appreciation, what does that actually look like and where do companies get it wrong? What do companies think?

appreciation means and what are people actually looking for?

Dr. William Attaway (35:08.044)
There is a conflation of two ideas. 94 % of companies in the US have recognition and rewards programs where you're gonna get a gift card, you're gonna get a certificate, a trophy, a plaque, an award of some kind. Maybe it's for larger company, it's a trip. These are the recognition and rewards programs that companies are so accustomed to and they are based on performance.

you know, when you hit your sales goals and you exceed them by this much, you know, you are recognized for that. That's wonderful. And we are not at all saying we should not measure, track and reward performance because I think that's important. As a business owner, I think we have to do that, but that is incomplete. Recognition and rewards are about performance. Appreciation is about the person. And when people don't feel seen and heard and known,

Paul Povolni (35:58.648)
you

Dr. William Attaway (36:03.288)
They do not feel valued and they do not feel appreciated. And this is why people begin to disconnect from a team or from eventually from a company. What we want to do is help you understand how to marry these things, to put, continue to measure your metrics. That's important. KPIs, KRIs, those are important, but understand the value of appreciation. And when you couple those things together, that's when you see the productivity leap. That's when you see the results and you're building

Paul Povolni (36:28.928)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (36:31.658)
In essence, what you're doing is you're building a healthy and sustainable culture over time. The old traditional adage, you know, that people don't leave a company, they leave a boss. I understand the mindset there. I would tweak it just a little bit. I don't think they leave a boss as much as they leave a culture that that boss creates. And most cultures are so focused on performance that they treat the people like cogs in a machine. Nobody wants to be a cog in a machine.

Paul Povolni (36:41.525)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (36:50.422)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:58.892)
Wow, yeah.

Right, right. Well, yeah, because you feel replaceable, you feel not that valuable because somebody else can be plugged in and you don't feel appreciated for your skills and talents that you might be bringing to the job. So what are some ways, and you kind of mentioned a couple there, what are some positive ways to show appreciation that isn't, you know, just a slap on the back, you know, a boy type thing? What are some positive ways to show appreciation at work?

Dr. William Attaway (37:15.31)
That's right.

Dr. William Attaway (37:30.382)
You know, the five languages that we talk about in the book are the five ways that people receive, they're wired to receive appreciation. If you look at our stats, we've had about 480,000 people now take our assessment. And from that data set, which is a significant research data set, 44 % of those say that their language of appreciation is words of affirmation. But understanding how that actually looks,

Paul Povolni (37:46.68)
That's amazing. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (38:00.278)
matters. For instance, a whole lot of people think, you know, just, hey, Paul, good job, man. Great job. Okay. Good job is what you say to your dog. Okay. Hey, good job. Come on back inside. You did good. Well done. You went outside. That's not helpful. For something to be truly words of affirmation means that they are specific, they're personal, and they are focused on communicating the impact of the outcome. Right? So

Paul Povolni (38:15.821)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:26.348)
Hmm, well.

Dr. William Attaway (38:28.024)
This would look like something like, Hey Paul, man, you, can tell you put so much time and energy into that presentation with that client. And I just want to let you know, the feedback that we have gotten is so positive. They know that we are the right company to work with them. And that's because of what you did. And we're going to get this account because of you, man. Way to go. What have I done? I've made it personal. I've communicated exactly what I saw. You feel seen, you feel known. And because I communicated the outcome, you feel valuable.

Paul Povolni (38:46.999)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:54.538)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (38:58.498)
those are, that's words of affirmation, right? When you teach people to communicate like that, the words of people who have words of affirmation, man, they're like, I'm fired up, ready to go. You get that kind of feedback. If that's your language, man, your tank is full. But 44 % of people have that as their language, which means 56 % of people don't. And I think this is where you can't just use one tool in the bag. You know, one size does not fit all.

Paul Povolni (39:00.78)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:08.916)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:14.06)
Right.

Dr. William Attaway (39:27.486)
If that's the only thing you're doing, you're going to miss more than half your team statistically on average. And that's why it's important to know all five languages, to understand that there are different ways that people receive and appreciate or feel appreciation. Another one is quality time, right? And this is interesting because this one has dialects that seem fairly clearly based on generation. So I'm a GenXer.

Paul Povolni (39:36.672)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (39:53.868)
Right? So for my generation and the one before me, the Boomers, quality time for us usually meant quality time with our boss, our supervisor, our leader. This was the mentoring relationships, right? This is when we would really feel invested in. That was quality time for us. But if you look at generations after Xers, Millennials, Z, and even the early signs of A, what we're seeing is that quality time

Paul Povolni (39:54.349)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:07.319)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (40:22.69)
does not mean quality time with you as the boss. Quality time for them means quality time with their peers. And that's an interesting distinction. I was speaking with a company in North Dakota yesterday and talking with them about this. And when I got to this point, they all laughed because they knew exactly what I was talking about. yesterday was May the 5th, Cinco de Mayo. And so they were having a Mexican themed lunch right after that session.

Paul Povolni (40:25.388)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (40:30.646)
Wow.

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (40:53.166)
And I said, you know, what you're doing at that, you know, you're going to gather, you're going to eat, you're going to laugh and talk, and you're probably not going to talk about work the whole time. I said, that's the quality time I'm talking about. That's what that is. It's a time for you to get together and to know and to be known, to see and be seen by other people. That's when you're building those relational bonds that help you make it through the stressful seasons that all of us have in the

Paul Povolni (41:07.18)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:19.488)
Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (41:21.292)
So that, when people feel like you're pouring into them, it could be a one-on-one. That could be that. But when I say quality time, that's where people's minds originally, you know, really go most of the time, one-on-ones. Who's got time for all that? Okay. It's not just that. That's one way to do it, but you need to focus on what the individual wants. Every one of the languages is based on what the recipient wants, not the giver.

Paul Povolni (41:34.231)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:41.803)
Right.

Paul Povolni (41:46.646)
Wow.

Well, and I think a lot of businesses and it's, and it's valuable, you know, they do disc assessments on and different kinds of assessments like that, but I don't think about an appreciation assessment, you know, a one that deals with the culture and you know, the culture is so, so important. As you mentioned, you know, people don't leave a business for the reasons they sometimes tell you they leave a business. They usually leave it because of the culture. And so I think this is so valuable in talking about these. And I do want to hear the.

the other three as well. know, disc assessments are great and those personality assessments are great, but understanding how people feel cared for and loved and appreciated, I think is the missing link for a lot of businesses. They don't think that that's important, but I think as you're saying, the generation that is coming up into the workforce, this is going to be pretty critical. You know, this kind of thing is going to be incredibly valuable for them. And if you miss it,

You're going to have a tough time building a business that works because your culture is broken.

Dr. William Attaway (42:55.296)
exactly it. You have a culture today. Your business, your team, your organization has a culture. You either have one that you designed on purpose intentionally that you guard and protect, or you have one that you inherited or didn't mean to have. But you have a culture. I want to help you be intentional about what you're building. I want you to build something healthy that is sustainable over time that is going to create high retention and low churn.

Paul Povolni (43:12.49)
Right. Right.

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (43:25.24)
that's going to create a sense of camaraderie that people lean into. When people feel seen, and known, they lean in and they feel valued. They lean in and they stick around because that's unusual. That's what we want to help companies do.

Paul Povolni (43:25.324)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:33.302)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (43:40.376)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and when we had dinner last, I guess, a couple of weeks ago, you know, I shared some of my thoughts about culture as well. And I'm actually speaking on it in a couple of weeks at a large event. so, you know, for me, culture is cultivated and it kind of aligns with what you said there. A culture is cultivated. The culture that you have is either because you've nurtured it or you've neglected it. And, you know, what you're talking about is nurturing the culture. And sadly, for a lot of people, they don't consider culture that important.

Dr. William Attaway (43:51.714)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (43:57.421)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (44:11.898)
And they get the culture they have because of neglect. It's what what defaults, you know, if if I if I neglected my garden, I'll get weeds, I'll get pests, I'd get things growing that I don't want to grow, I'd get things growing that are choking the things that I do want to grow. And that's from neglect. And so when you nurture it, as this does, and this is so valuable, and I encourage everybody to, you know, get the book, do the assessment check and I'll have links at the end of the episode at the in the show notes is

Dr. William Attaway (44:21.454)
That's right.

Paul Povolni (44:41.858)
Check this out because this is so valuable for any business to understand that in 2026 and beyond, this is going to be the key differentiator between success and failure is understanding appreciation.

Dr. William Attaway (44:56.61)
That's exactly what we believe, Paul. You know, we believe that you have the culture that you have allowed. You have a culture that you've tolerated. What if you were intentional and designed the one you want?

Paul Povolni (44:58.509)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:05.805)
Right.

Paul Povolni (45:10.048)
Right. And so let's talk about the third thing. What is the third area of appreciation that people respond to?

Dr. William Attaway (45:17.752)
Yeah, so the third language is acts of service, right? And about one in five people have acts of service. They're gonna respond this way. What does this look like in the workplace? Well, if I see you struggling with a project and you were in the deep weeds, man, you were swamped. I'm gonna come over to you. If your language is acts of service, I'm gonna come over to you and I'm gonna say, hey, Paul, and it looks like you are just swamped. Is there a way I can help?

Like, how can I, how can I step in here? Would it be helpful if I did this, if I took this off your plate and handled this for you? Would that be helpful to you? I'm asking permission because you always ask permission because you want it to be something that the person wants. It has to be the effectiveness of the language is determined by the recipient. Always ask permission. But you say, I want to demonstrate my appreciation in a tangible way with you. I want to demonstrate this in a way that's going to help you with your current problem.

Paul Povolni (46:00.13)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (46:09.783)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (46:15.042)
for somebody with access service and they're going to light up like a Christmas tree. that would be so helpful. my goodness. That would be so great. You really sure you don't mind? thank you so much. Like they're going to feel again seen, heard and known.

Paul Povolni (46:18.956)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (46:30.626)
Well, then think with that is what you shared is that you've also got to be very specific. as we talked about, even the other two is, is being very specific because, you know, I've seen people say that, Hey, if there's anything I could ever do, just let me know. And then it's like crickets, like you don't, they've said that, but it, you know, it was just the thing to say. But what you shared there is actually being very specific was, I take this thing off of you? can I, you know, be

Dr. William Attaway (46:48.172)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (47:00.73)
very specific about what you're willing to help them out with makes a big difference, right?

Dr. William Attaway (47:04.216)
That's right. That's exactly it. The more specific and the more personal, the more effective.

Paul Povolni (47:10.744)
Yeah, yeah. And so as we go into the next one, what is that?

Dr. William Attaway (47:16.014)
So the fourth language is tangible gifts. This is what you typically see in a recognition and rewards program. This is the gift cards. This is a certificate, the plaque, the trophy, the trip, whatever it is. And that's great. But 9 % of people say that tangible gifts are their language of appreciation. 9%. Which means for 91%, that is not hitting the mark.

Paul Povolni (47:36.792)
9%, yeah.

Paul Povolni (47:44.022)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (47:45.196)
This is the problem. 94 % of companies have this as their primary methodology for engaging their employees. And it's only the language of 9 % of the people in the room. That's why we have to think about this strategically and intentionally. For your people who are tangible gifts, that's their language. Great, do that. Make it happen. But again, be personal and specific.

Paul Povolni (47:57.208)
Wow, wow.

Dr. William Attaway (48:11.146)
a generic broadcast email telling them, it's wonderful that they can print out and put up in their cubicle. Probably not going to be the thing. Right. But, know, man, I just want to communicate. know you've been putting in some long hours and I want to give you a gift certificate so you and your spouse can go out and have dinner. Like that's a tangible gift. It communicates that I have seen what you've been doing. I know what you've been struggling with, and I want to step in and show appreciation. That's a tangible gift.

Paul Povolni (48:16.248)
you

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:32.62)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (48:40.546)
you know, especially if you know their favorite restaurant, you know, and you can dial it in even a little tighter there. There's ways to do all of these that are personal and that are specific. And that's where you're going to get the most bang for your buck.

Paul Povolni (48:40.567)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:54.07)
Right, right. One thing that's kind of stood out to me in this is, you while you talk about appreciation at work, but I think...

the work of appreciation needs to be considered. It's gonna take some work to do this. And so while you talk about the appreciation at work, the work of appreciation is gonna take some work from leadership, from managers. They're gonna have to be very intentional about what they're doing. They're gonna have to up their skill set.

Dr. William Attaway (49:09.336)
It is.

Paul Povolni (49:25.144)
because the work of appreciation is not just a default for most of us. For most of us, is that attaboy slap on the back. It's the, hey, if I can help in any other way, let me know and I'm out of here type thing. The work of appreciation, I think is something that somebody needs to be thinking about as well as changing the way you train your leaders, you train your managers to actually work at this appreciation because it's going to take some very intentional effort.

Dr. William Attaway (49:37.912)
Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway (49:48.963)
Yes.

Dr. William Attaway (49:55.706)
It is. You have to be intentional about this. And that's probably the biggest pushback I get from people who are like, look, I'm busy enough. I don't need one more thing to do. Okay. So if you're on the road, if you stay on the road you're currently on, you're going to continue to get the results you're currently getting. You happy with that? Change is going to get different results. You know, one of the things we do is we come alongside teams and leaders.

Paul Povolni (50:13.974)
Right.

Paul Povolni (50:19.564)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (50:23.508)
We continue, we pour into them with continued training and resources as you walk this journey so that you are not alone and you're not having to figure it out. We're going to give you the best practices based on the hundreds of companies that we've worked with. We're going to say, Hey, we've seen this work over here. I try this. You know, we do weekly training with the companies that we work with because we want to see them win. We want to see them make this part of their culture, part of their DNA.

Paul Povolni (50:38.144)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (50:42.668)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (50:52.022)
Right. Right. Right. Well, and you're not making this stuff up because you've got half a million, you know, respondents, you know, that, that have said, these are the things that are important. So let's take this in for a landing. What's the fifth one?

Dr. William Attaway (50:53.038)
And that takes time.

Dr. William Attaway (51:05.758)
So the fifth one is the one that usually causes a chuckle at best or some discomfort at worst. That's physical touch, you know, and these are all based on Gary Chapman's Five Love Language book, right? Physical touch in the workplace obviously looks very different than physical touch in a marriage. What is this? HR. That's right. That's right. So physical touch in the workplace is a fist bump. It's a high five at the end of a project.

Paul Povolni (51:09.569)
you

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:21.944)
HR is perking up their ears. They're perking up their ears. Okay, where is he going to go with this right now?

Dr. William Attaway (51:34.87)
It's a slap on the back. That's the type of physical touch. And some people like this is their language. This is what they do. But statistically, it's less than 1 % of people. It's a very small percentage, but it does exist. And this is why we talk about it. Now, you know, when somebody, this is their language, because they're the first one to give the fist bump in the high five, you know, you know, this is what they, this is what speaks their language. Okay. As a leader, you need to be mindful of that. But

Paul Povolni (51:46.572)
Wow, yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:56.844)
Right, right.

Dr. William Attaway (52:04.386)
you have to make sure that it is appropriate and that it is welcomed. You know, we've all seen and heard of instances where a physical touch in the workplace was done in a harmful way. And people have experienced all manner of pain and hurt and trauma from this. And that is not at all what we're after. This is why the recipient determines how they want to be appreciated. And the leader, the manager, the supervisor, the peer,

responds to what their desire is. If this is, you you can tell when somebody's not interested in this, when you go in for the fist bump, they're like, you do a side hug and they're like, you know, you, you, know that. And that's why this needs to be a conversation. We need to be open about this so that we can speak the appropriate language in the appropriate way.

Paul Povolni (52:40.793)
Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Paul Povolni (52:50.508)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:56.332)
Yeah. Well, and you kind of mentioned something there very briefly that I think is very key as well is that usually somebody's language of appreciation is the way that they show appreciation. And it's a good clue into what their language is, what their

Dr. William Attaway (53:09.336)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (53:14.558)
mode or what they're how they receive appreciation is how are they showing it to others and so if you see somebody that's always ready for the fist bump that's always ready for the handshake the the pat on the back the side hug then maybe that is the way they want to be appreciated and if you see somebody constantly bringing cookies and gifts and whatever for the workplace you know maybe that's their their language but there is an evaluation that you also offer businesses that they can get as well that can really dial that in and help people get

better understanding. So tell us a little bit about that as we I can't believe how quickly time has gone as we as we wrap this up. What's the best way for them to get a hold of you and to start this process of getting the right systems in place the right things in place?

Dr. William Attaway (53:59.766)
So you can find us at appreciationatwork.com. This is where it's kind of the home hub of everything that we do. You know, we have the books, we five different books. We have the assessment for the five languages. And we have companies taking this every day, you know, who are saying we want to know how our people want to be appreciated.

And this is small law offices and this is large hospital systems. This is small businesses that are a handful of employees and this is manufacturing plants. What our goal here is for you to have the information first. First to know yourself, then to know your team.

in your organization. And we do a group summary report. offer that so you can see everybody on your team and your unit, your division, whatever your department. So you can see what their languages are, as well as what their desired actions are based on their language and the actions that they don't desire based on their least valued language. That's helpful information if you're leading somebody. We provide all those resources. We do training for people who are internal to an organization.

So HR often will train them to be a trainer for their team. And then they will take that and they will begin to implement that. also speak and write and talk to people all over the place really about this because we want to help people understand the information first, then understand the importance of applying it and what it looks like.

for them to execute on this information. Information never leads to transformation. Information plus execution leads to transformation. That's what we want to see.

Paul Povolni (55:38.592)
Right, right, right. So what's a question that you wish I'd asked you or a head smack that you wanna share as we wrap this up?

Dr. William Attaway (55:47.246)
What a great question. think a question that I wish you had asked me. You know, we never finished earlier. I did go back to school. Dropped out twice. I did go back eventually and followed that path and did a bachelor's and a master's and a PhD. And people often assume what that PhD is in. And I think it's interesting to talk about that for a second.

Paul Povolni (55:58.082)
hahahaha

Dr. William Attaway (56:16.492)
What's my PhD in? It's in archaeology and biblical backgrounds. And so I spent a couple of seasons on a dig in Jordan in the Middle East. And so that's always kind of an interesting thing.

Paul Povolni (56:21.688)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (56:25.508)
how cool.

Paul Povolni (56:30.604)
Well, thank you so much for this. This has been amazing. such a great conversation. I believe it's, it's had a lot of head smacks for a lot of people, a lot of business owners, a lot of, and, like you mentioned, whatever the size is, mean, if you've got just a couple of people, why not get something like this implemented early on in your business? Because it's going to be set on the right footing. and if you're a larger business, 20, 30, 50, a hundred, a thousand, you definitely need to do something like this to make sure.

or that you're not losing people for reasons that could be avoided. And so I appreciate you coming on Dr. William, and this has been an amazing conversation. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. I appreciate your friendship and getting to know you more and then look forward to just watching this adventure as you guys take this company to heights that you never imagined. So thank you very much. Have a great day.

Dr. William Attaway (57:26.04)
Paul, thanks for having me on.