How Fear Shapes Leadership and What It Really Takes to Grow | Mike Konrad

Mike Konrad (00:00)

And after probably the longest half hour of my life, she looked at me and she said,

What are you afraid of?

And

I realized that ⁓ she was right. I was making fear-based decisions. I was making decisions through specific lenses.

Sadaf Beynon (00:22)

Welcome to Conversations That Grow, where we explore the moments that shape who we become as people and leaders. Each week, I sit down with leaders, founders, and change makers to talk about the stories and the shifts that shape them, because real growth doesn't just happen through strategy, it happens through conversation. I'm your host, Sadaf Beynon, and today I'm joined by Mike Konrad, an entrepreneur who turned a rejected idea into a company that's lasted more than 30 years.

He's the founder and CEO of Aqueos Technologies and also hosts two podcasts, Reliability Matters and The Reluctant Entrepreneur. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike Konrad (01:01)

Thanks, Sadaf, it's good to see you.

Sadaf Beynon (01:03)

It is good to see you too, I'd love to start with What's a conversation you've had that shifted the way you think about leadership?

Mike Konrad (01:13)

my, there are multiple conversations that I've had that have either started from, emanated from someone else toward me, usually not complimentary, or conversations I've had in my head with myself over critiquing some of my past decisions, well actually most of my past decisions. I think the most impactful conversation.

Sadaf Beynon (01:25)

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (01:42)

was with my mentor. I hired a, ⁓ I don't think she would really call herself a business coach, although that's what she is. But she probably has some more up the ladder ⁓ term for what she does. she,

The first time I hired her, I was desperate. Our company was in financially very, very bad shape. We were very close to the edge of the cliff. My fingernails were torn off trying to hold on to that last fragment of edge of the cliff. And out of sheer desperation, she was recommended to me by somebody else. And out of sheer desperation, I'm like, okay, fine. And up to that point, I had no real appreciation of consultants because to me,

At that time, the definition of a consultant was someone you hire to tell you what time it is. And the first question they ask you is, I see your watch? you know, which actually is kind of true, because the answers are usually in front of us. We just don't see them. But at any rate, she laid out all of our financials on the conference table. She didn't want to look at them on computer. She laid out all these papers.

one next to the other, next to the other, next to the other, to the point where it seemed like the papers were levitating in the air. You couldn't even see the conference table. And she walked around and stared intently at each single piece of paper, putting her hands kind of near the top. And I could see where she was reading, because I could see her fingers kind of go down. And after probably the longest half hour of my life, she looked at me and she said,

What are you afraid of? And right now I'm afraid of you. But that was Inside Voice. Outside Voice said, I don't think I'm afraid of anything. Not specifically. And she said, I see a lot of fear in your books. And I said, yeah, well, they look pretty scary. She goes, that's not what I mean. I can see a lot of fear-based decisions.

Sadaf Beynon (03:39)

Yeah.

Mike Konrad (04:03)

And it was almost like I went to a fortune teller and she read my palms or tarot cards or something. And suddenly, she got my attention and she started asking me a set of specific questions, most of which I've forgotten what they are. And each question brought truth into my consciousness. And

I realized that ⁓ she was right. I was making fear-based decisions. I was making decisions through specific lenses. For example, if I needed, at that time and now, ⁓ do payroll every Thursday. So every Wednesday was a mad scramble for cash back then. And I would be making very poor, unprofitable deals with customers to get

Sadaf Beynon (04:53)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (05:01)

new sales to get cash to cover payroll. So I was looking at improving cash through the lens of fear. And that would just cause the next problem, which would be the end of the month there's no profit or there's a loss. so the more that light bulb came on and the more I kind of became self-aware,

the more I realized that most of my decisions were made through specific lenses, most of those lenses having some element of fear in them. And that was probably the beginning of my journey into both leadership and self-awareness and ⁓ raising my business amplitude and altitude in order to run a business the way it should be.

Sadaf Beynon (05:53)

Hmm.

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate you being so candid. you were talking fear-based decisions that you were making and She was able to speak into that by asking questions that helped you understand what was really going on.

I think self-awareness is half of the battle. How did that translate into acting

to know was correct and true.

Mike Konrad (06:26)

I had to learn to trust a process, which was very difficult for me. Ever since I was a child, I had this insatiable curiosity as to how things worked. I needed to understand cause and effect. I needed to understand literally how things work. My parents' appliances, everything, which got me in quite a bit of trouble. And some of the things I was learning...

that worked, like ⁓ take fear off the table, know, quit making fear-based decisions, decisions through specific lenses. I didn't understand how they worked. I just knew they worked.

So I would reject, I would be given ideas and advice and I would, if I didn't understand the mechanics of it, the causation, the cause and effect, I would reject it. And then I was taught to, rather than just summarily rejecting something, consider the possibility, that's all. Just consider the possibility. And that mind shift, ⁓

change allowed me to compartmentalize wacky, what I thought at the time were wacky ideas and just put them in a little shelf in my head. And ultimately over time, suddenly it made sense. It didn't in the moment, but instead of rejecting and forgetting it, which I had been doing my whole life, I'm just like, wow, that's out there. Okay. Let me, you know.

Sadaf Beynon (07:52)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (08:14)

I won't forget it. I'll stick it in my wacky idea section of my brain. ⁓ And then inevitably, without fail, every one of those wacky ideas made sense later on, whether it's a few days, a few weeks, sometimes a few years. And I just had to get into the proper context.

Sadaf Beynon (08:18)

Okay.

Mike Konrad (08:38)

where that decision made sense. Or I had to be in such dire shape that it was like, what the hell? Let's just try it, you know? ⁓ And so I think I'm straight away from your question, but ⁓ basically I had to, my version of satisfying my desire and my requirement for causation was even though I didn't understand how

Sadaf Beynon (08:38)

Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Konrad (09:08)

specifically the mechanics of each one of the wacky ideas worked, the history has shown me that they work. That became enough causation for me. I trust the process because, not because I understand how it works, but because it's never failed me. Now the moment it fails me, I'm gonna be all screwed up. I'm gonna have to like learn a different way of handling that. Yeah, but ⁓ I mean.

Sadaf Beynon (09:30)

relearn.

Mike Konrad (09:36)

We're batting a thousand here. Every idea that I was not comfortable with ended up being successful. So that's enough for me now. Did I roam off the farm too far there or did I at least somewhat address the question?

Sadaf Beynon (09:43)

Hmm.

Yeah.

No, that was good. That was good. You

did you did address it and it sounds like from what you're saying it was a case of having to slow down and hold some of those thoughts and ideas loosely.

Mike Konrad (10:05)

Yeah, that was definitely it. And the other part of it too was making peace with the worst. know, ⁓ a lot of times I would not consider an idea because I was afraid of it not being successful. And what would that do to me and my business? And I've learned to just make peace with the worst. You know, I'm at an intersection. Do I go left? Do I go right? Well, I...

Sadaf Beynon (10:06)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (10:32)

I'm afraid to go left, I'm afraid to go right because one of them is the wrong choice and what if I make the wrong choice? It's a 50-50 chance and you all these things that go on in your head.

Sadaf Beynon (10:37)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (10:43)

If I look at it like, okay, what's the worst that can happen? A, will I die? No, that's extreme. B, will this one bad decision instantly kill the business? Or will there be time to recalibrate? Well, yeah, mean, nothing's that critical. It's hit or miss. ⁓ Okay, then what's the worst that can happen? Worst that can happen is I lose a little bit of money. I didn't have much anyway at the time. ⁓

Sadaf Beynon (11:07)

you

Mike Konrad (11:13)

we'll have to recalibrate, we might have to delay that product launch. We can handle that. So once I learned to make peace with the worst and not become decision paralyzed, it made decision making ⁓ much easier. It didn't mean every decision was right. ⁓ It just meant that I could make a decision. Because I think a lot of times, business owners, think a lot of times humans, it doesn't matter what context.

Sadaf Beynon (11:34)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Mike Konrad (11:43)

We're paralyzed.

We're kind of deer in the headlights. And probably that's a great example. A deer crosses the street, they see a car coming at night, they freeze. All they need to do is move five feet one direction or the other and they'll live to have another Bambi day. But they freeze. And I think we do the same thing in life and particularly in business. ⁓ We get frozen and paralyzed. And the worst decision sometimes is

Sadaf Beynon (11:48)

Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (12:13)

in some cases, is no decision, you know, decision paralysis.

Sadaf Beynon (12:15)

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Mike, when we were talking on our pre-call a while back, you mentioned a moment when your employer dismissed your idea. And I was wondering if you could take us back to that and tell us what that was like for you at the time, not just professionally, but personally as well.

Mike Konrad (12:38)

Well, turned out, in retrospect, it was one of the best moments in my life, certainly in my professional career. Not in the moment. And it was the very second my business was born at that conversation. Although, I think I knew it, but it was born in my head. It's not like a business physically showed up. I had...

I was working for a company that manufactures equipment in the electronics industry and there was a ⁓ governmental treaty signed by a whole bunch of countries around the world that was going to ban a certain chemical that was vital in our industry and for a specific process. And it was such a ⁓ huge environmental treaty that all the countries of the world

that ratified it agreed to allow a 10-year phase out on the offending chemical. So we had, the industry had 10 years to figure it out. And as those years wound down, as we got to the last couple of years, it became apparent that that 10-year phase out was really not a favor. It was so long from now that people said, yeah, people said,

we'll have to work on that someday soon. And they just found themselves, during the headlights, speaking of that, ⁓ as the deadline loomed closer and closer. So most of the industry was working on alternate chemicals that would do as good a job or better than the offending chemical. I looked at it a little bit differently. I looked at it as let's create a different process that doesn't require a chemical like that at all. And...

Sadaf Beynon (14:07)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (14:35)

Another company was doing something kind of similar, but they weren't doing it very well. They were very mom and pop, very crude. And I'm like, OK, they're onto something, but they're just not executing it the way I would want to execute it. Let's start with what they've got and let's see if we can run with it. And I pitched it to my boss and he said no. And I was so desperate.

I said, what if I design it with my time and my money, my risk, and I'll just bring you a completed product if I'm lucky, and then we can talk again. He goes, okay. So I did that, took about eight months, and I worked on it at home and nights and weekends, and eventually brought a working piece of equipment to him, and it worked very well, and I ended up selling him the rights to that technology.

And for my cost, actually. I was not great at business back then. Just for my cost. Because I was thinking, well, anything good for the company is good for me. So win-win. And at the moment, just before I did that, we were not doing well. The company was failing. And we needed something to happen. This equipment that I designed made it happen. So now the company was more successful. And we had a product design meeting about a year later.

where we were gonna talk about pitch ideas to the owner about the upcoming products that we wanted the company to have in its portfolio. So I quite mistakenly thought that not only would I attend the meeting, I would be carried in on a chariot and fanned with grape leaves during the meeting because King Mike, who saved the company, is in the room. And I've got...

an even better idea and it would be a machine similar in function to what the first one I designed could do, but much more environmentally responsible and I mean to a whole new level that no one had done before. So I thought well for sure I'm gonna win this, you know, this contest, this beauty contest, I'm gonna be the winner. And a few other ideas were pitched and then it was mine and ⁓

The boss looked at me and said, no, not you, not you. And then he pointed at someone else and said, yeah, we're going to do your idea. And I was flabbergasted. And I said, you know, I gave him an appeal and he goes, no. And I gave him another appeal and he said, no, and another. And he said, no. And finally, I looked at him and I said, his name and said, you're making a mistake. And here's the one word, the

defining moment in my career, in my life. When I said, think you're making a mistake, he looked back at me in a very dismissive, ⁓ just insulting, patronizing way, like, fine. Which, not only was he okay with me telling him he's making a mistake, he didn't even respect that comment. Just fine. And...

At that moment, I was just crushed and angry, resentful. ⁓ And at that very nanosecond, that started the business in my head. I'm like, you know, I did it once, I can do it again. And I instantly went into this space that I've never experienced before. And I almost had a piece about it. just, I'm like, in my head, I'm like,

Okay, okay, I get it. I don't agree with it, but maybe this is the beginning of something good. And maybe this is what I needed. And I remember thinking that. And I went home and complained to my wife about how unfair life is. And she said, well, is it a good idea? And I said, yeah, I think it's a great idea. My first one turned out good. I think this one's better. And she goes, well, I don't understand why you're giving it away.

I mean, I don't understand why you did that in the first place. And you're gonna do it again? She goes, if you really think it's good, do it. And that sealed the deal. Because I thought, okay, my next big challenge is talking my wife into me quitting my job and going into this unknown abyss of entrepreneurship.

We didn't really even calculate all the risks. We just said, is the right decision. So now I'm super grateful for that conversation because that was one of the worst moments in my professional life and one of the best moments in my entire life. And I say one of because I have to throw in my wedding 42 years ago and the birth of my daughter. And so in case my wife or daughter ever watches this,

Sadaf Beynon (19:40)

Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm.

you

Mike Konrad (19:59)

You're first, right? But

somewhere close to that was that particular defining moment.

Sadaf Beynon (20:04)

Thank you for sharing that. does sound like such a devastating moment having to hear that from your boss, but then such wisdom from your wife. That's really great. You describe that as a turning point, the moment that eventually led you to start your own company.

And you've described a bit of how you felt in that moment when you spoke with him and then also internally you were like, okay, you know, this is my time to start my own business and do this on my own. What was going on for you in that season of leaving?

or hearing those words from your employer and then starting up your own business? Was it ⁓ frustration, conviction, ⁓ fear? You talked about fear-based decisions or maybe a bit of all three?

Mike Konrad (20:56)

There was another emotion that you hadn't mentioned, and I would not consider this emotion healthy, but in this case, I couldn't have done it without it. And that was...

Sadaf Beynon (20:59)

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (21:12)

I don't know if revenge is the exact right emotion, but it was revenge based. It was like, I got something to prove. I'll show you. I will show you I can do this. And I think I had so much to prove. I wanted to show him he was wrong. And this probably came, I'm sure I could spend many hours on a couch with a therapist, you know, working that out. But my father was an immigrant.

to this country and from Eastern Europe. And I'm first generation American and I always remember my father being exceptionally tough. He was very hard to please. And I spent years struggling to get his approval. And it turned out I learned in my, when I got older and more mature, that was his...

a little bit warped, but his act of love. He thought, you know, the world is a cruel place. He was a victim of World War II. He was a prisoner of war for a number of years, ⁓ escaped, and eventually made his way here. So he didn't want, he didn't have it easy, and he wanted to ensure his kids were successful. And he believed that you don't provide too many compliments.

because that makes the child kind of soft. You sparingly give compliments so that they are appreciated more. And I didn't realize that at the time. That was his strange way of tough love. So I was always seeking his approval. And then now I'm a young adult. I'm, how old would I have been? 26, 27, working at this other company, doing well. And then,

when my boss, who was also kind of a tough man, looked at me and said, I was like a kid, I was like a nine-year-old kid trying to get my dad's adoration. It was the same feeling. So I think maybe that helped the drive to, okay, I don't know how, I don't have the money.

I don't know if I have the skill. I certainly don't have the business acumen, but we're gonna do this. And I'm going to be successful at this. I have to be. And so part of it was this probably twisted notion of proving my ⁓ ex-boss wrong, maybe trying to get his respect, which he denied from me earlier. ⁓ Maybe it had something to do with making my father proud.

Sadaf Beynon (23:45)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (24:08)

Maybe it had something to do with just good old revenge. I think it was a mixture of all those negative emotions that were absolutely the perfect mixture of emotion for me to get to where I needed to be. And I have examples of a few other things that, know, traits that are generally considered negative.

Sadaf Beynon (24:11)

you

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (24:38)

that I brought into the business when I started the company, that I could not have been successful without them. I could not have been successful if I did not shed them over a quick period of time, but they were necessary elements to get the business started. And those were like ego and naivety and bravado and passion and all of these things which ignorance that were not

Sadaf Beynon (24:52)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (25:08)

that are not considered positive attributes. If I called you egotistical, arrogant, naive, you know, we wouldn't be friends. But I was all those things. And I did have this revenge thing going and, you know, make my father happy kind of thing going. And thank God, because that's what I needed. I couldn't keep that for too long, or you and I wouldn't be having this conversation about this right now. But I'm grateful for

Sadaf Beynon (25:31)

Hmm.

You

Hmm. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. I mean, I'm no, I'm no therapist and just listening to you speak, was almost ⁓ when you hear something so dismissive from someone that you hold in high regard and you trust and as you said, you know, one of the comments you made was that, know, if it's good for me, it's good for the company. ⁓

Mike Konrad (25:38)

today.

Sadaf Beynon (26:04)

you obviously had a lot of a lot invested in in that company and with your and the loyalty to your boss and I think hearing something so devastating and dismissive can well it sounds like it propelled you to ⁓ to move forward and cross that line from thinking about something to actually doing it.

Mike Konrad (26:27)

Yeah, I wouldn't have done it without that.

I would have just been too fearful or ⁓ wouldn't have enough confidence in my ability. At that point, I didn't care. I didn't care if I couldn't do it. I'm just gonna give it my best shot. If for no other reason, just to piss him off. If for no other reason, right? I mean, that's where my head was at. It was all terrible stuff. ⁓ But yeah, it was...

Sadaf Beynon (26:31)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (26:57)

It gave me the motivation, even though it came from a dark place, it gave me the motivation to do something I probably would not have done. The book I wrote last year, I called it The Reluctant Entrepreneur because I call myself, I refer to myself as a reluctant entrepreneur. No part of me wanted to start a business. I had a passion for a product. That's the reason I started the business, because no one else would do it.

Sadaf Beynon (27:07)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mike Konrad (27:28)

The wanting to prove something just made it a little bit easier. That was an extra bonus, a cherry on top. But ⁓ the business acumen came. Took a long time. I made a lot of mistakes. ⁓ But that came. I was very fortunate that I had the technical acumen when I started my business. That

Sadaf Beynon (27:31)

Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm.

Mike Konrad (27:53)

Earlier I described my insatiable appetite to understand how things work and that helped me a lot in my young adult life because I had a basic understanding of how many things worked, particularly from an electronic and mechanical standpoint. So, and when I was in high school, I took a computer programming class, which was on a teletype machine, you know, ⁓ not even a screen, way back in the primitive days of early computers, but I learned to write code.

And that even became helpful when I started my business from a technical side. So the only thing really I needed to ⁓ learn that I didn't have in my toolbox at all was the business side of business. And that's where working with a business coach, consultant, mentor has helped. And just maturity and shedding the...

Sadaf Beynon (28:47)

Mm.

Mike Konrad (28:50)

early traits that I brought to the business and exchanging them for more positive, helpful traits that were suitable for the scale of the business in that moment. That's really what allowed the business to succeed, me to succeed, and each one to scale.

Sadaf Beynon (28:57)

Mm-hmm.

you've said that your approach was very no guts, no glory, so to speak. And that...

mindset served you in those early years, when did you start to sense that those very traits that had helped you build the business were now holding you back?

Mike Konrad (29:26)

That's a question.

When we were ⁓ new in the business, when the business was the first few years, we were cash strapped all the time. There was never a moment we had an abundance of cash. We just jumped from one cashflow crisis to another. And I believed, incorrectly, that the solution to every problem was to grow. And when you talk at that...

Also, I joined a CEO peer group where a whole bunch of CEOs get together every month and pretty much lie to each other about how well they're doing. And we all give each other advice. And the advice that was most commonly given to me was, what are you doing to grow? What are you doing to grow? Grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. So I had it in my head that the solution to every problem was just growth. We grow ourselves out of the problem. And what I didn't realize is when we grow,

The tide raises all ships, right? And it actually raises the problems exponentially compared to the growth. But I didn't know that. So I was in this growth mindset. And I thought that any sale was a win-win. And we sold expensive equipment. So if we got an order for a machine, it was a win for us because we got the order. And it was also a win for us because our competitor lost the order. I celebrated their loss.

But that's the mindset I was in. was just a machine just trying to grow the company. And I was successful. The company was successful. My team was successful at growing the company. But as our revenue increased, and that's how I define growth, revenue increase, our profits declined rapidly. And we were losing money. And that's kind of when I...

realized that my so-called attributes, so-called skills that I brought to the table that allowed me to bring in some cash and at least get the cash flow wheel turning, although not efficiently, were going to kill the company if I didn't recalibrate. I used to work on cars when I was young.

I still have a classic 1968 Mustang that I drive on weekends, and if I don't drive it for a few weeks It doesn't like to start you know it just cranks over so when that happens I have to open the hood take off the air cleaner and take an aerosol can of starter fluid which is super super high octane fuel and Spray it down the carburetor

and then run back into the car and start it. And it will start up like that. Because it's super high octane. You cannot run a car on starter fluid. It's so hot that you'll burn the engine up. But you could start it just to get the engine turned over. The traits I brought to the table of ego, naivety, arrogance, ⁓ passion.

poor assessment of risk, those were my starter fluid. It allowed the business to just boom, ignite, but it would burn itself up if I tried to run on it. So I realized that those traits and those actions were helpful, thank you, and I almost had this, okay, part of my brain was like, okay, Mike, we'll take it from here. Thanks for getting the car started.

Sadaf Beynon (33:20)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (33:24)

I had to learn to, staying with the car analogy, to shift gears. Starter fluid, the ego, the bravado, the arrogance and naivety, were all first gear. And if you ⁓ drive a car with a manual transmission, you know you can't go very far or very fast in first gear. Highly leveraged. If you try and stay in first gear,

and go down the freeway, you'll blow your engine up, right? It just over revs it. At some point, one has to switch into a lower gear, a second gear, and then a third gear, and a fourth gear, et cetera. I had one gear. I was a one gear car. I was a starter fluid car. And I realized that the company's not going to survive for very long at all if I don't shift gears. I had some of the second gear.

abilities, but not all of them. So I hired those that I didn't have. I learned those that I could and I hired the rest and then eventually we had to switch into third gear, which was a little bit more learning, a lot more hiring and then fourth and fifth. And now, you know, I don't think I could run the company myself today because there are certain skill sets behind the curtain in my company that are not skills

I have at all and I don't know if I could or even want to learn those skills at my age. But I'm grateful that I have a team that can do what I can't do. I do what I do and it turns out my personality is such that if I love something I do it well and if I don't love something I don't even want to do it and if I have to do it it's not very good.

Sadaf Beynon (34:52)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (35:20)

I just don't have either the discipline or the mindset or whatever to do things I hate well. So I spent a lot of years having to do 100 things, 10 I loved and 90 I hated. But I had to do it. And I didn't do it well, but it was good enough in the moment. At some point, good enough doesn't work anymore. And you need excellence in every part of a company operation. And if you can't provide it yourself,

either because you don't have enough bandwidth or aptitude, then you remedy that with really smart, sage, wise hires. And when I first started the company and we had a few people, the qualifications to work with me was a pulse and a willingness to accept what I offered to pay. Okay, yeah, you're hired. And I could honestly say, and this is not ego talking, I was probably the smartest person in the room.

at that moment, not because I'm that smart, but just because no one around me was that smart. And my goal today, which I've successfully accomplished, is to be the stupidest person in the room. And I consider myself pretty bright, so if I can be the stupidest person in the room, and those others in the room are working in the business, I feel

confident that life is good. I'm okay. The business is okay. The family's okay. Our team members are okay. Their families are okay. Our customers are okay. The industry's okay. It's just such a good feeling to know that ⁓ it's not all on me as it used to be. And it's okay. I no longer have the drive to prove anyone wrong or prove myself right.

Sadaf Beynon (37:11)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (37:19)

I'm very comfortable in my own skin. I'm very comfortable with how the company's doing. We're not a Fortune 100 company. We're not a Fortune 500 company. We're small. We're healthy. We're successful. our customers love us. And we make a difference in our industry. And to a certain extent, we make a difference in the world, positively. And that, to me, is the definition of success.

Sadaf Beynon (37:26)

Hmm.

Mm.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that journey and it absolutely sounds like success to me too. Mike, you've led this company for more than 30 years through changes in technology, people, the market. What's helped you keep growing as a person through all those transitions?

Mike Konrad (38:09)

I had to survive. The business is an extension of my family. Now, I'll be clear. The business is not my family. But my family would be different were it not for the business. I provide for my family through the business. So the business is an important extension of my family.

In order to protect that extension of my family, I need to grow and I need to adapt or I need to get out of the way. And I've done all that. So today, I'm kind of semi-retired. I still own the company outright, but they pay me to stay away now, which turns out to be a very wise investment. There's a great ROI attached to

Sadaf Beynon (38:57)

Yeah.

You

Mike Konrad (39:06)

because my role there has changed from the doer, from execution, to strategy and conceptual stuff. And at the end of the day, I'm a creator, whether I'm creating software or writing video games and software as a kid, or designing equipment or producing a podcast or hosting webinars or speaking at...

at conferences around the world, that's where my passion lives. And the details behind the curtain stuff, which I'm not good at and I don't have lot of interest in, those are absolute required elements to allow me to be creative and to create things. So, oiling the machine, keeping the patient healthy, learning new skills when I need to.

and probably most importantly, knowing when to step out of the way and to be in a supportive role of my team, which would have messed with young Mike's ego. But today, I see a bigger picture. I do all this, I step out of the way, I know my limitations. I'm happy to live with limitations.

Sadaf Beynon (40:13)

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (40:35)

To me, that's greater than a fake sense of bravado and a perception of success without a root in reality. I would rather have what I have now, I'm not Warren Buffett.

Sadaf Beynon (40:42)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Konrad (40:56)

but I'm happy and I define success as ⁓ freedom. And with that definition, I'm very successful. I feel like I have the freedom to create, I have the freedom to ⁓ feed my family, I have the freedom to impact our industry in a positive way, I have the freedom to...

Sadaf Beynon (41:01)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (41:24)

do things differently and not in some predefined status quo that others might view. And I have the freedom not to care what other people think. from that definition, I embrace success.

Sadaf Beynon (41:36)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, it sounds like you are very anchored in the values that you hold and the mindset that you have attained over time.

Mike Konrad (41:53)

Yeah, it works for me. And the moment it doesn't, that's okay. I'll adapt. I'll learn, hopefully. ⁓ Or I'll just go off and sulk and live on an island somewhere, you know, fish for a living. But I've had to adopt and adapt and change and upskill, you know, my ⁓ expertise.

Sadaf Beynon (41:55)

Hmm.

Yeah.

you

Mike Konrad (42:23)

over the years and it'd be nice if I could just coast the rest of my life but if I have to adapt and grow again, I will and so will the business and we serve the electronics industry. That's changed since we started this conversation. It will change again before the end of your next conversation. So I work in an industry that is constantly evolving, evolutionizing, revolutionizing itself and

So does business. If you're in that industry, or probably any industry, there's change. And there's change in the way humans behave. There's changes in technology. There's changes in all these things. And I think as long as the business founder, the owner, the manager, if you're not in business on your own, ⁓ can learn that change is not.

It's not good. It's kind of not moral or immoral. It's amoral. It's just it is what it is and if we can learn if we can come to peace with the fact that change is inevitable and take fear off the table and Consider the possibilities and make peace with the worse let it roll. Yeah, that's that's

where I've gotten to anyway.

Sadaf Beynon (43:48)

listening to you speak, sounds like you're holding up a mirror of your personal growth it's leading less from the need to prove and more from the desire to serve.

Mike Konrad (44:00)

Yeah, I don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. I feel very comfortable with all the mistakes I've made. I wrote a book about all the mistakes I've made. I tell my friends when they ask me about the book, they say, oh, it's a business book. I'm like, well, kind of, but it's not a how-to book. It's a how-not-to book. It's don't be me, and you'll have success faster.

Sadaf Beynon (44:24)

Yeah.

Mike Konrad (44:29)

today celebrate all the stupid mistakes I made. And they were absolutely perfect in their time. And that's another thing I've learned. And I don't know if I've learned that just through business or just life experience, that when we reinterpret events that seem tragic or seem unfair, they have a purpose. And it's not to say tragedy's good. No, tragedy's never good.

Sadaf Beynon (44:37)

Hmm.

Mike Konrad (44:59)

But some good can come out of it, and it can be a change agent. In my case, it was a change agent. It caused me to look at myself in a different way and put priorities in the right place. I think that ⁓ anyone, whether they're working in a cubicle or, as I like to say, whether they're signing the front of the check or the back of the check, these ⁓ experiences that I've had that a lot of people have.

probably everyone eventually has, some sooner than later, will help not only in business, but in relationships, in life, in everything, ⁓ if we can just get out of our own way.

Sadaf Beynon (45:40)

Yeah.

Yeah,

so Mike if someone listening is at their that earlier stage where they're leading through sheer drive and willpower, what would you encourage them to reflect on about what leadership really is?

Mike Konrad (45:57)

I would never criticize someone for doing desperate things in desperate times. We do what we need to do. There's a survival instinct that, you know, fight or flight kind of response. ⁓ They're not healthy. They may buy time, but they're not sustainable. But it's okay. Do what you gotta do. I'm not Pollyannaish enough to say or to even think that

I could have started the business doing what I'm doing right now. I probably couldn't have. I needed the fear. I needed the revenge. I needed the need to prove. That's okay. I needed to make deals that were unprofitable just to get enough cash in to stay in business another day. That's fine. That's what separates entrepreneurs from everyone else. We're willing to do that. Where a lot of people...

Sadaf Beynon (46:32)

Yeah.

Mike Konrad (46:55)

I don't want to say guts. I'll say guts. Don't have the guts, but I don't mean that in a positive way. But they wouldn't do it because they have more common sense than that. ⁓

I would say, and I think I've gone off track, bring me back on track with the question. I think I was headed that direction and I've...

Sadaf Beynon (47:17)

No, I was asking if there's someone else who is in that earlier stage, how would you encourage them to reflect on what leadership is?

Mike Konrad (47:18)

I've derailed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't beat yourself up. You're at the exact moment, at the exact place that you're supposed to be in this moment. There is a process out there that works.

learn that process, trust that process. ⁓

Don't give up. I think a lot of businesses fail because the founders hit a wall, and as I did. I'm just a little bit of a rule breaker. I'll just take my sledgehammer to the wall or take my shovel and dig under it or climb over it or argue with it for a while, which does no good. Know that you don't know what you don't know.

and bring in talent, work with a business coach that you trust, get referrals, have someone show you, hire someone to tell you what time it is and have them borrow your watch. Because the answers that were given to me as spectacular as they were, as life-changing as they were, were right in front of me. I just couldn't see them. My mentor,

my business coach didn't bring something to the table from Mars. Every change she had us make was available to make with or without her. I just didn't see it. So she helped, you know, change my perspective. She helped me consider all possibilities. And she helped me take fear off the table, which are all just basic

little tweaks and suddenly the decisions, the selection of decisions started multiplying. All of a sudden I could see possibilities and it was easy to see which were the right decisions and if they were wrong, no big deal. We recalibrated and switched gears. So I think that

Getting some outside perspective is exceptionally helpful. And that involves working with someone that you trust, someone that has a track record. And whatever that process is for you, I've just described mine, whatever process works for you, embrace it. Don't try and control it. Embrace it. And ⁓ if it needs to be tweaked, that's OK.

Put your ego aside, be the stupidest person in the room, strive to be the stupidest person in the room, surround yourself by people who have been successful, interview them like you're interviewing me, ⁓ do a little Vulcan Star Trek mind meld if you can and get as much out of them as you can. ⁓ One of the books that was impactful to me was a book by Jim Collins called Good to Great and

You know, for time's sake, I won't give a review on that, but it was impactful for me. Not all of it, but I took some key nuggets that I use today. Just open yourself up to the possibility that the way you're doing it just needs to be modified. And it's usually two inches to the left or two inches to the right. It's usually not major, but at the speed of business, two degrees after a short time,

takes you on a whole different track. And it doesn't take much. It's not radical. It's subtle. And it may not make sense. It may sound wacky. And probably the wackier it sounds, at least my experience, the more likely it is to succeed, because it stretches you to consider possibilities you would have rejected or not even had in your head as a possibility prior to that.

Sadaf Beynon (51:18)

Hmm.

Mike, thank you for that wise advice and thank you for this conversation. It's been a reminder that leadership isn't something we arrive at once. It's something we keep growing into. And your story captures that tension between ambition and awareness so well.

Mike Konrad (52:01)

Thank you. And thanks for asking great questions. I do love talking with you. We've done it before and on another one of your podcast empires. And I enjoy talking to you. You're a great host and the questions are quite insightful. So thanks for asking them.

Sadaf Beynon (52:05)

we have.

You're very welcome, Mike. Thank you. Before you go though, if someone listening wants to connect with you or learn more about your work, where should they go to do that?

Mike Konrad (52:27)

Well, there's a few choices, probably too many choices. ⁓ My personal website is mikeconrad.com. That's just Konrad with a K. ⁓ My entrepreneurial podcast, the Reluctant Entrepreneur Podcast website is reluctantentrepreneurpodcast.com. And my company, not that, I'm not hawking the company, we make.

Sadaf Beynon (52:28)

you

Mike Konrad (52:52)

very, very down the rabbit hole, very niche electronic manufacturing products. But just if someone wants to see what the company's about, that's Aqueous Tech, A-Q-U-E-O-U-S, tech, T-E-C-H, .com. And that'll introduce you to a world that many of your listeners or viewers just assume, know, storks drop iPhones, you know, they're made somewhere else. But that's...

part of the work of our industry. Anything that plugs into the wall or has a battery in it is likely made by the industry that we get to serve.

Sadaf Beynon (53:28)

Awesome. And to those listening in, thank you for joining us on Conversations That Grow. The links that Mike has just mentioned are in the show notes for you. So please do reach out and connect and listen to his podcasts. I hope this episode has reminded you that leadership isn't a destination. It's a journey shaped by the conversations that challenge us, stretch us, and help us see ourselves more clearly. Thanks again for listening and bye for now.