Ep161 Judah Regenstreif - Defining Company Values to Ensure Success

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:19 Mike O'Neill Welcome back to Get Unstuck and on Target, I'm Mike O'Neil with Bench Builders. And whether we're working with supervisors to improve their people skills or it's me coaching a leader one on one, getting leaders and companies unstuck is at the heart of everything that we do. And that's exactly what this podcast is all about. Joining me is Judah Regan Strive.

00:00:25:21 - 00:00:48:21 Mike O'Neill Judah is the principal of Regency Supply. It's a family owned and operated company that was co-founded by Judas Father in 1983. And from the beginning they've been focused on building a company that doesn't compromise its priorities in the pursuit of growth. And it's that notion of healthy growth that I'd like to spend the bulk of our time on.

00:00:48:21 - 00:00:50:17 Mike O'Neill Welcome, Judah.

00:00:50:19 - 00:01:00:12 Judah Regenstreif Thank you, Mike. It's great to be here and and an honor as well. I appreciate the opportunity to share our story and, and be here on your podcast.

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:23:16 Mike O'Neill We've had an opportunity to speak prior and I got to know you better. I get to know your organization better. And I was impressed. But let me read to you and I'm taking this directly from your website, but it reads and I'm referring to regionally supply here. Now, our vision for our culture is to build a values driven, people centered company that gets flipped in a lot of companies.

00:01:23:22 - 00:01:48:16 Mike O'Neill Too often the focus is on revenue growth instead of growth in the quality of each team member. We are committed to helping each member of our team become the very best version of themselves. You're nodding for those who are not watching this on YouTube, you're nodding on that. Does that still kind of capture your take of Regency Supply?

00:01:48:18 - 00:02:23:00 Judah Regenstreif It sure does. It's you know, it's been a journey in that pursuit as well. I would say I've been full time at the company for a little over 23 years. And no matter what the economic conditions we've found ourselves to be in, as we've tried to to grow our company year over year, the pursuit of of finding good quality people and growing our people and maintaining a positive, encouraging environment, as has always been a challenge, but it's always been at the forefront of what we're trying to accomplish here at Regency.

00:02:23:02 - 00:02:24:12 Judah Regenstreif So.

00:02:24:14 - 00:02:38:14 Mike O'Neill You know, I know that Regency is a family owned and operated business, and I've had the opportunity to work with family owned businesses. It presents a whole new set of dynamic, does it not? It sure.

00:02:38:14 - 00:03:07:10 Judah Regenstreif Does. It sure does. And we've got four of us that are still in the business full time. I have two brothers. I have an older brother and a younger brother. So I'm in the middle. And my father, our father, who started the company technically in 1981, selling products other than lighting, brought over his best friend, Michael Goldstone, and they became partners and Regency Lighting was formed in 1983.

00:03:07:12 - 00:03:38:02 Judah Regenstreif Michael has also retired along with my dad, and his son in law is in the business. So there are four second generation sons that are now running and operating the company. And though I would describe my brothers truly as some of, if not my best friends, I think in any relationship or maybe particularly in family relationships, there's always challenges, There's always differences of opinions and perspectives and even vision for the company and what direction we should go.

00:03:38:04 - 00:03:52:22 Judah Regenstreif But we're committed to to each other. We're committed to our business and and we work it out. And and so far, you know, knock on wood, I guess, if you will. But but we're doing well in the environment that we're in.

00:03:52:24 - 00:04:18:18 Mike O'Neill Was drawn to you as a podcast guest for a variety of reasons. One, you're very articulate, you express yourself so very well. But you also struck me as someone who's willing to kind of share a little bit about kind of what what does it take to experience that Now, The name of your company currently is Regionally Supply the it was Regency lighting, which sounds as if you've expanded your offerings.

00:04:18:18 - 00:04:23:02 Mike O'Neill Can you walk us through kind of what that looks like? Sure.

00:04:23:04 - 00:04:51:20 Judah Regenstreif It actually was about four or five months ago or so when we made the name transition from Regency Lighting to Regency Supply. And the driving factor for that was about eight or nine years ago. We kind of looked across the horizon, if you will, of the lighting only side of the electrical industry and I would say we were probably top three, top five independent lighting distributor in the country.

00:04:52:01 - 00:05:15:13 Judah Regenstreif And so kind of felt like we were the big fish in a relatively small pond. And so we had acquired an electrical wholesale company called Also Electric that enabled us to get into another segment of the broader lighting and electrical category, if you will. And so that really opened up our eyes and doors to be selling additional products to some very similar customers.

00:05:15:15 - 00:06:01:23 Judah Regenstreif And so over the years, as we saw that part of our business grow and expand, we realized that there was a tremendous opportunity for us if we moved a little bit more toward that electrical supply side of the lighting and electrical industry. And so in that we we started kind of forecasting and looking to the future and seeing, you know, what what opportunities will we have as the economy changes, as our country changes, as the political environment changes, and moving our business name from Regency lighting, which implies lighting only products that we sell to Regency Supply, we believe that helps to open the door to strategically go after not just lighting and electrical products, but

00:06:01:23 - 00:06:23:20 Judah Regenstreif at some point to include other products that we would say you would find behind the walls, so to speak. So plumbing, AC, things like that. And so Regency Supply is a little bit of a strategic prophetic move for us for the future to allow our company to continue to grow.

00:06:23:22 - 00:06:49:03 Mike O'Neill Due to I shared with you if I have a choice. I love working with growing companies for a variety of reasons, but I also know that with growth sometimes comes growing pains and when people think of growth, it can come in a variety of ways. There could be organic growth, which I suspect that you I have experience. It could also include growth through acquisitions.

00:06:49:05 - 00:06:54:24 Mike O'Neill Was this the first major acquisition for the company? It was. It was the.

00:06:55:01 - 00:07:24:07 Judah Regenstreif First and hopefully one of many. There's another potential that we're working through now, maybe two thirds of the way through our due diligence process. But we do believe that in order to grow at the rate that we both want to grow and can only need to grow to kind of offset inflation and rising cost of living and still be able to attract quality employees, we need to make acquisitions a strategic part of our focus moving forward.

00:07:24:07 - 00:07:25:15 Judah Regenstreif So.

00:07:25:17 - 00:07:58:04 Mike O'Neill You know, I know that sometimes one of the challenges of growth through acquisitions is that if you're not acquiring a company that complements this culture that we talked about earlier, it can prove problematic. You mentioned that you're in due diligence, and I'm not asking for very specifics, but I would assume, given your strong culture as a company, is that your due diligence is putting particular emphasis not just on the numbers side, but it also includes culture?

00:07:58:05 - 00:07:59:14 Mike O'Neill Is that a fair assumption?

00:07:59:16 - 00:08:22:02 Judah Regenstreif Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that we we learned a lot in our first acquisition, which I believe was around eight years ago, to where we acquired a company that had a very different culture then than ours. And so it took a lot of work, a lot of hard work. And we we tried to implement a Stephen Covey principle of seek first to understand, then be understood.

00:08:22:04 - 00:08:52:03 Judah Regenstreif And so even in an environment or situation where we're coming in to acquire an organization, we we tried to be as an and as intentional as possible to seek first to understand their operating procedures, their personnel, their culture. What worked didn't work for them before. We then tried to implement or start to implement our own processes and procedures and try to instill in them our own values and beliefs as to what we want our culture to be as the new owners of that company.

00:08:52:05 - 00:09:16:08 Judah Regenstreif But it definitely came with a lot of tears and sweat and hard work. I don't believe that there are many of the original employees that are still within that company. We had to make some personnel changes, significant personnel changes. we brought over a number of employees from Regency Lighting to the the acquired company to help with that transition of cultural change.

00:09:16:10 - 00:09:21:14 Judah Regenstreif But it was, it was an undertaking, to say the least. Yeah.

00:09:21:16 - 00:09:48:05 Mike O'Neill You know, you mentioned Stephen Curry. I had the opportunity some time back to meet him and just that interaction made a profound impact on me. You're recording one of the Seven Habits Seek First to understand. I know that there's application in your due diligence. In what way have you applied that habit in your professional role?

00:09:48:07 - 00:10:16:12 Judah Regenstreif Well, so my, my current role within our organization is I oversee our national sales. And so from a sales perspective, I know I personally don't enjoy being sold to. And so I try to learn lessons from my own experiences of someone trying to sell me something. And for me, I personally appreciate someone that wants to get to know me first before they try to sell me something or push something down my throat, if you will.

00:10:16:14 - 00:10:35:08 Judah Regenstreif And so the principle of seek first to understand and be understood as I'm out with our sales organization trying to meet new clients and tell them the Regency story and and why we believe that we would be a good fit for them as their lighting provider. I want to first understand well, what are your pain points? What are your challenges?

00:10:35:10 - 00:10:53:23 Judah Regenstreif What what are the problems that you're having within your organization from a lighting perspective? So they don't come in with a little bit of arrogance and assume that their current lighting provider is no good or assume that they're having problems or assume that they don't like their lighting, which to me is a little bit of a of an offset if I'm them.

00:10:54:00 - 00:11:17:10 Judah Regenstreif And I think I would prefer to be sold by somebody who first tries to understand what my my situation is. And so I try to apply that principle. You know, you mentioned into my professional life, but truly, and I know that you and I have spoke about this, I believe we did earlier. It really applies to all of life in every relationship, marriage, parenting, you know, friendships.

00:11:17:12 - 00:11:24:23 Judah Regenstreif And so I think it's it's one of my favorite Stephen Covey principles in his seven Habits of highly Effective People.

00:11:25:00 - 00:11:50:18 Mike O'Neill You you know, I like to go back to this notion of growth and maybe focus on what have you found are key to healthy growth. We know that there's a business case to grow, to stay ahead, if you would, but what have you all learned along the way that is just really key to assure healthy growth?

00:11:50:20 - 00:12:19:13 Judah Regenstreif That's good there. We could probably be on here for a lot longer than the allotted time for this podcast on that topic. You know, one of the things that we learned through COVID was and this is a little embarrassing to admit for a 43 year old company, but I think that prior to COVID, we were caught up in the excitement of revenue growth and didn't keep our eyes on profit growth as we should.

00:12:19:15 - 00:13:00:21 Judah Regenstreif And so I think that's one of the biggest takeaways for us as we kind of revamp and or have revamped our organization and are strategically setting ourselves to be in a position to grow again is to make sure that we don't take our eyes off what the end goal is or what should be in any for business profit for business company, which is profit and so I think it's important as companies are growing that they make sure and it sounds silly and it sounds like this is kind of one on one, but to really make sure that they're evaluating their profit levels, that they're in healthy positions and that they're not overextending themselves and chasing

00:13:00:21 - 00:13:15:24 Judah Regenstreif after revenue. And from there we could dovetail into so many so many topics. But but that was a big one for us, somewhat embarrassingly so, to have taken, you know, this long to really learn that lesson. But as a.

00:13:16:00 - 00:13:45:13 Mike O'Neill Baby, I appreciate the humility in the comment and that it's embarrassing to admit. The reality is that's what we do learn our lessons. Yes, it's a 40 plus year old company, but COVID affected companies. And individuals and in very, very profound ways. Now we're talking about top line growth and bottom line growth and the criticality of not losing sight of bottom line growth.

00:13:45:15 - 00:14:04:20 Mike O'Neill Let me ask the question a little bit differently, and that is, let's say that those two are in balance. Have you found that there is also a temptation to grow at a pace that is outstripping the organization's capacity to grow?

00:14:04:22 - 00:14:35:13 Judah Regenstreif Yeah. Great. Great question, Mike. And a number of years ago, maybe 15 plus, my dad was in the car and got a phone call from an industry publication, and they asked him to define success at Regency Lighting, and he defined it as taking advantage of the opportunities before you without sacrificing your priorities. And I'll say it again, because I think it's so profound, but it's taking advantage of the opportunities before you.

00:14:35:15 - 00:15:05:20 Judah Regenstreif And there's opportunities everywhere all the time. Right. We could run after and chase after a myriad of opportunities. But the the kicker or the the defining moment, if you will, in in determining your success is going after those right priorities so that you're not sacrificing your priorities. And everyone has to evaluate and define their priorities for themselves. Some people, it really is just at the end of the day, they want to make as much money as they can and they don't care what the cost is.

00:15:05:22 - 00:15:46:17 Judah Regenstreif They don't care, you know, relationally. They don't care physically. Their health. They're just at the end of the day, they want to make as much money as they can. And candidly, that's never been at the forefront of our focus at Regency. And so I think I think that's critical is really defining what your priorities are, so that when those opportunities present themselves to each of us in our various organizations, we can evaluate whether or not they're the right opportunities to go after, because we're we're protecting whatever our priorities are, which which would be, you know, as some examples are marriages, you know, our ability to to be present with our kids and be a good

00:15:46:17 - 00:16:08:14 Judah Regenstreif father or good mother, it might be your involvement in your local community. You know, your your involvement investment in some some nonprofit charitable organizations, whatever those priorities are, those should be at the forefront as you're making a decision to go after or chase in various opportunities so.

00:16:08:16 - 00:16:38:17 Mike O'Neill That what they answered it really well. But just to kind of punctuate that point. My understanding is the way you kind of articulate your values is you use the the word rise to represent relationship integrity, service and expertise. What I love about that is, one, it's only four things. So if you're trying to commit these things, remembering memory, you can do that a little bit easier.

00:16:38:19 - 00:17:04:03 Mike O'Neill But with Rise, the assumption is, you know, we want to grow this company both top line, bottom line. We don't want to do it at the expense of our employees or our trusted stakeholders and the like. But inevitably you get stuck. Yeah. Can you share an example? Or perhaps either you or the organization got stuck? And when that happened, what did it take to get unstuck?

00:17:04:05 - 00:17:28:05 Judah Regenstreif Yeah. It's also another great question, Mike. You should do this more often, these podcasts. I love the question because we'll all face it. We all face it. I think in every area of our life. And I forgive me for continuing to bring back to a holistic perspective on these questions, but we get stuck in our professional life. We get stuck in our personal life, we get stuck in our marriages, we get stuck parenting, you know, what have you.

00:17:28:07 - 00:17:55:09 Judah Regenstreif Our health, we can get stuck. So I would say for for us at Regency, certainly COVID presented an opportunity for us to be stuck in, and a lot of that had to do with just the effects of COVID and and the shift in our economy and a shift in the way that people are working. The fact that that maybe even that we're doing a Zoom call, a video podcast and not meeting in person.

00:17:55:11 - 00:18:21:14 Judah Regenstreif Right. And so so for Regency, we had to shift our marketing efforts. We had to shift our cold calling efforts to reflect that of an an economy or an industry that isn't necessarily working at the office anymore. And so in the olden days, our sales reps would get in their car and they would drive down to the downtown area of Los Angeles or Atlanta or New York or wherever we had a distribution center.

00:18:21:16 - 00:18:51:19 Judah Regenstreif They park their car and they'd walk into 20 or 30 high rise buildings, you know, looking for the building engineer. 911 actually happened to predate COVID, but 911 happened. And that actually shifted a little bit to where now there's high security at these buildings and our reps can't just walk in anymore. So so we we had to figure out how to get unstuck in our sales efforts with new parameters, new guidelines, new security protocols set in place.

00:18:51:21 - 00:19:18:14 Judah Regenstreif And or again, bring it back up to COVID, a shift in the market where people are no longer working at their corporate office like they used to, you know, five days a week. And so so we had to try to get a little bit more innovative with our emailing efforts, with our phone call efforts. We're spending a lot more of our investment dollars into tradeshows networking events to take advantage of when people are leaving the house or when they are leaving the office.

00:19:18:14 - 00:19:37:01 Judah Regenstreif So that had to had to be had to be a little bit more strategic in that regard, where I think again, before it was it was kind of a no brainer, just kind of get in your car and go and walk into an office and meet an end user. Now we have to be a little bit more intentional with how we do that.

00:19:37:03 - 00:20:12:03 Mike O'Neill You know, you mentioned COVID. This podcast is an outgrowth of COVID. The world was stuck. And I was just wrestling with how could I be helpful to clients and or others? And that was kind of the impetus behind starting the podcast. We're all stuck. How can we help each other get unstuck? Yeah, that notion, however it's carried forward, post-COVID, I'd like to think we're in a post-COVID time, but what I'm finding is I love when you use the word a more holistic mindset.

00:20:12:05 - 00:20:40:21 Mike O'Neill Dude. I find that my coaching work, we do spend quite a bit of time on leadership effectiveness and we're looking for metrics to help that executive really hit the numbers that he or she's trying to hit. But it can't be done in a vacuum. These are spouses. These are parents, these may be grandparents, these may be community leaders, is that you have to step back and look at things a little bit more holistically.

00:20:40:21 - 00:21:08:00 Mike O'Neill So I kind of lit up when you said it because it really does kind of speak to the challenge of leadership. Now you're expected to be able to do anything and everything. That's right. And there's so much coming at you. Judy, you brought up some things I'd have thought about, just real practical things, and that is you're way of selling had to change because the world changed around.

00:21:08:02 - 00:21:11:13 Mike O'Neill Do you believe your company is stronger as a result of these changes?

00:21:11:15 - 00:21:39:15 Judah Regenstreif I do. I do, absolutely. I think that the changes forced us for the first time to really look internally at ourselves and at our processes and procedures that really caused us to take a harder look, even at our personnel. Though, as we mentioned earlier, building culture has always been a priority for us. I think in the midst of regular consistent growth year over year over year.

00:21:39:17 - 00:22:03:17 Judah Regenstreif Candidly, sometimes you get a little loose in various ways. And so we had to evaluate our our staff and and though that we we would still say that we had wonderful people. There were people that maybe didn't quite measure up to what our expectations were. And so we had to make some hard decisions and let go. Some people that we love very dearly and and respect and certainly wish nothing but the best for.

00:22:03:17 - 00:22:19:24 Judah Regenstreif But we had to kind of raise the bar as far as our expectations. And some people couldn't couldn't raise their level of performance to where we needed them to be. So yeah, it's it's a tough one. It's a tough one.

00:22:20:01 - 00:22:43:21 Mike O'Neill You know, I know that your primary focus is on national sales. And what I understand national sales to mean might be very different than in reality, but you're dealing with accounts that are spread geographically. And I presume in those particular accounts, they're looking to you because they like the fact that you have a nationwide footprint.

00:22:43:23 - 00:23:11:10 Judah Regenstreif That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We focus pretty heavily in the retail segment. And so any retailer where there's a central decision maker, we're there and we've we've defined a national account with the central decision maker and more than ten locations across at least to state lines, if you will. And so I think that our multiple distribution centers is of value to retailers.

00:23:11:12 - 00:23:36:16 Judah Regenstreif Restaurant groups would be another category within the national account segment that we go after. Multifamily developments, hotels, hospitals. But really, again, any any entity where there's a central decision maker that would determine what kind of lighting products are going into the multiple locations. So central decision maker, at least ten locations and cross state lines.

00:23:36:18 - 00:23:56:15 Mike O'Neill That is one of the cleanest definition of national sales I've heard in quite some time because, I mean, I get it, I hear it and understand it and it's easy to put them. Is that a potential national sales account or not? It's it's a filter to kind of look at things. Judy, from your perspective, you've been doing this for quite some time.

00:23:56:17 - 00:24:11:14 Mike O'Neill You've agreed to come on the podcast and kind of share a little bit about your story, your organization story, what might be some things you would like us to know about Judah or about your organization that maybe we hadn't talked about?

00:24:11:16 - 00:24:37:16 Judah Regenstreif That's a good question. You know, it's interesting. I do I do spend a lot of time with younger, younger people. I enjoy investing in the next generation. I had people that invested in me when I was in my my earlier career, in my early twenties and even into my thirties. I'm now at the tail end of my forties, so I feel like I've got a few gray hairs here as well on my face.

00:24:37:16 - 00:25:08:07 Judah Regenstreif So I, I think I've got a little bit of wisdom, you know, from my experience of life. Been married 23 years almost. And I had two children. Thank you. Two children, two daughters that are both in college now. So I'm also dealing as an empty nester. But but I do enjoy pouring into that next generation and you know, one thing, even in my own personal journey, we didn't talk about this, but my academic background is in cultural anthropology.

00:25:08:09 - 00:25:43:12 Judah Regenstreif And so which is where I also get some of the language of of kind of looking at life and business from a holistic perspective. I would I would describe the discipline of cultural anthropology in that in that it's a holistic view of people's behavior. And so I like to pour into a younger generation and let them know as they're trying to figure out their purpose in life, their meaning in life, to make sure that they don't get caught up and and too focused on maybe one particular thing or one idea or one dream.

00:25:43:14 - 00:26:04:11 Judah Regenstreif I didn't I didn't grow up dreaming of selling light bulbs. it's obviously it's it's a family business. And, you know, my dad started it with his best friend, and I didn't even necessarily grow up thinking I would one day work at the business, let alone own it with my brothers. But I don't I don't dream of of selling light bulbs.

00:26:04:15 - 00:26:27:16 Judah Regenstreif But what I do love is being with people. And I think sometimes the next generation or all of us in that season of life are thinking that we have to find that one thing to do for the rest of our life and that we have to even love it per se. And I think there are some that get to do and or sell something that they absolutely love.

00:26:27:18 - 00:26:46:08 Judah Regenstreif But for me, it's about the people. For me, it's about the relationships, it's about the networking, it's about the industry as a whole. And so I, I think, yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't know if that answers the question about me or not, but, but yeah, that would be what I would answer.

00:26:46:10 - 00:27:17:17 Mike O'Neill I think it, it is a wonderful answer because it kind of is a reflection of, you know, you're just trying to to justify our son went to college. He got a degree in what. Yeah. So you very nicely showed how that is even relevant today. Let me follow up on the offer of you are mentoring and you're kind of poured into those in a way similar to way people poured into you.

00:27:17:19 - 00:27:39:16 Mike O'Neill I don't like necessarily characterizing generations as all of them fit into a certain box. Yeah, but what do you feel that leaders get wrong about the generation that's coming into workplace now? Great question.

00:27:39:18 - 00:28:06:01 Judah Regenstreif I would probably jump right back into a Stephen Covey principle and in our favor, one of seek first to understand, I think it's very easy for one generation to look down on an another generation and quickly judge and critique without first understanding that generation and what makes them tick. I would say, you know, I believe I fit into the night.

00:28:06:01 - 00:28:30:17 Judah Regenstreif I believe I'm a Gen X guy and I think baby boomers and Gen Xers sometimes see the millennials and the Whys and the Z's and and the next in a in a negative light. They don't these are some maybe generalizations, but they don't want to work hard or they don't want to come into an office or they want the fast route or, you know, various assumptions and judgments that we've made.

00:28:30:19 - 00:28:54:15 Judah Regenstreif And and I think there's a lot more to that in that than maybe the next generations are are more willing to take on risk than maybe my generation was or baby boomers were, or they're willing to try things new or try new things faster than maybe my generation or the previous generation was. So I think that's, again, a principle of all of life in in all of relationships.

00:28:54:15 - 00:29:18:08 Judah Regenstreif But as as leaders, I think that we need to be careful in in pre-judging or judging too quickly the next generation coming up. And rather than looking at them for what they're not trying to see in them for what they are and who they are. So I would I would say that's that's a miss that sometimes leaders make.

00:29:18:10 - 00:29:49:23 Mike O'Neill You know, we sometimes also think of generations. I only think of a handful. There are potentially up to five generations in the workforce right now, which is kind of staggering. You know, we opened this segment by which I kind of shared a little bit about your culture and your core values. And I, I did so in part because as you're trying to recruit, attract, recruit and retain, at least what I'm finding this is particularly true for those folks coming into the workforce now.

00:29:50:00 - 00:30:21:24 Mike O'Neill Those core values lived out is of paramount importance to them, and it's not enough to put it on your website, right? It's not enough to put it on some pretty picture in a boardroom. You have to live it out. And I think you, in our conversation have given us a number of excellent examples where for the second generation, we all strive to live out those core values and really walk the talk.

00:30:21:24 - 00:30:42:02 Mike O'Neill And I would think that that will serve you well long term as you continue to build a thriving and growing organization. You know, Judy, we've covered a number of things, but as you reflect on this conversation, what do you want to be the takeaways, skill?

00:30:42:02 - 00:31:16:15 Judah Regenstreif I mean, I appreciate what you just said about us. And I would say, you know, we certainly are not perfect by any means. And though it's at the core of who we are and it's at the core of what we have printed and marketed, the rise values of relationship integrity, service and expertise. And and and we certainly try to do our best to treat everybody with respect and kindness and professionalism and create an environment where people can grow and make more money and grow professionally, etc..

00:31:16:17 - 00:31:41:05 Judah Regenstreif We're not perfect in that. And I think I think a good, healthy leader also understands and knows when to admit that, knows when they when they miss the mark, because we all will, you know, for various reasons, external stress that may cause us to make poor judgments or internal stress that that causes us to maybe make some poor decisions.

00:31:41:07 - 00:32:20:15 Judah Regenstreif Of course, yet you hope that you have some good accountability around you to help offset some of those opportunities to make poor decisions. But we're all in various situations and scenarios where we just we have to make a decision in the moment. And and so I think that's important. Is that a good, healthy, strong leader that is going to try to lead an organization successfully not only needs to be someone who can make the decision to chase after the right opportunities without sacrificing priorities, like we mentioned and defined, but also to needs to know and understand when they do make a mistake and they need to to admit it, you know, and to show themselves

00:32:20:19 - 00:32:40:08 Judah Regenstreif humble before those that they lead. Because I think that also is is the type of person that people want to be led by. You know, I think sometimes as leaders, we mistakenly think that we're supposed to have it all together, that we're supposed to never make the wrong decisions, that we're supposed to have an answer for every problem.

00:32:40:10 - 00:33:07:23 Judah Regenstreif And I don't think that's true. And I don't think it's realistic. I think that people are yearning for authentic, humble servant leadership, leadership. And so so and I think that's that's what I'd love to maybe conclude my segment on or have people remember when they think of Judith Regan Strife or the Regan Strife Family and Regency Supply, is that obviously for your lighting needs?

00:33:07:23 - 00:33:25:10 Judah Regenstreif I hope people would consider, you know, Regency Supply who may be looking. But also to that we're a group of individuals that are passionate about what we do and who we are and who we work with and are committed to, to some pretty core values that drive and affect our our day to day living.

00:33:25:10 - 00:33:38:03 Mike O'Neill So I anticipated what would be a rich conversation. That's exactly what I experience. Judy, if folks want to reach out to you and connect, what's the best way for them to do so?

00:33:38:05 - 00:33:45:08 Judah Regenstreif I either email or cell phone and I'm okay to give my cell phone here on the podcast. If you're okay with it.

00:33:45:10 - 00:33:49:22 Mike O'Neill I'm okay. Why don't you give it and we can try to put it in the show notes or write it down as we talk.

00:33:49:24 - 00:34:06:15 Judah Regenstreif Fantastic. My cell phone numbers Area code 805121543. And and my email is just my first name Judah Judy H at Regency Supply dot com.

00:34:06:17 - 00:34:21:01 Mike O'Neill Excellent will make an attempt to include that in the show notes as well as other contact information to reach out to Judah. Thank you so much for spending time today. This has been a real treat.

00:34:21:03 - 00:34:26:08 Judah Regenstreif You bet Mike. This has been an honor and a pleasure for me and thank you for having me.

00:34:26:10 - 00:34:50:01 Mike O'Neill As our wrap up, I have a question for our listeners. Are people following you because they have to or because they want to? As a leadership coach, I work with executives who have a track record of success behind them, but they're now they're now feeling stuck. They're frustrated because they're finding that with each level of success that follows the bar is set even higher.

00:34:50:06 - 00:35:23:02 Mike O'Neill They're discouraged because what worked in the past is no longer working. My clients, despite all the successes in the past, are lacking the clarity and confidence to make the decisions needed to get to that next level. Through coaching, we work together to unravel hidden blind spots, challenge limiting beliefs and establish a strong sense of accountability. So if Feeling Stuck describes you or someone you know, let's talk go to bench dash builders dot com to schedule a call.

00:35:23:03 - 00:35:37:18 Mike O'Neill So I want to thank you again for joining us and I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from Judah. They'll help you get unstuck and on target.