#218: Sanjay Singh (Mace®) — Get Good at Hard Things

Sanjay Singh [00:00:00]:
I don't believe in having one prescriptive playbook when you buy a company because of human behavior. And I've learned that the hard way, coming from large Fortune 500 companies. You have a playbook and there's a lot of assumptions. But I told my team that there's one thing that we're not going to be doing is we're not going to be telling them the solutions without fully understanding the issues. Inquire first, then conclude. Let's take our time about understanding the issues so that we are we are able to pinpoint the right issues and.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:38]:
Not just noise welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host Jeffrey Stern and today I had the real pleasure of speaking with Sanjay Singh, a thoughtful strategist, seasoned executive and business philosopher whose journey to leading the iconic Cleveland brand of Mace Security and whose reflections on it are truly remarkable. Sanjay's story weaves together a deep appreciation for manufacturing, a career shaped by curiosity, resilience and getting good at doing very hard things, and ultimately a personal philosophy grounded in introspection and in presence. From navigating activist shareholders during a turnaround at Mace to developing frameworks on fear, on ego inquiry and deep intuition, Sanjay offers a unique lens into what it means to lead with vulnerability and intention. This conversation waxes more philosophical than most Lay of the Land episodes, a consequence of Sanjay's clarity of thought, deep presence, and his reflections on consciousness and awareness. His perspective on leadership elevate the discussion far beyond the business realm, offering thoughtful insights for both work and life alike. Sanjay also serves on the boards of Magnet, whose story was shared by Ethan karp in episode 13039 and the nature center at Shaker Lakes. He's also married to Aaron Singh, CEO of Options Naturopathic, who joined us on episode 147 of Lay of the Land to share her own journey.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:14]:
Sanjay is a real student of the world of people and of business, and it was a ton of fun for me to try and distill many conversations he and I have had about his perspective into this one here today. So please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Sanjay Singh Lave the Land is brought to you and is proudly sponsored by Roundstone Insurance, headquartered in Rocky River, Ohio. Roundstone shares Lay of the Land's same passion for bold ideas and lasting impact from our community's entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. Since 2005, Roundstone has pioneered a self funded captive health insurance model that delivers robust savings for small and medium sized businesses. They are part of the solution to rising healthcare costs, helping employers offer affordable, high quality care while driving job creation and economic growth throughout Northeast Ohio. Like many of the voices featured on Lay of the Land, including Roundstone's founder and CEO Mike Schroeder, Roundstone believes entrepreneurship, innovation and community to be the cornerstones of progress. To learn more about how Roundstone is transforming employee health benefits by empowering employers to save thousands in per employee per year healthcare costs, Please visit roundstone insurance.com Roundstone Insurance built for entrepreneurs, backed by innovation, committed to Cleveland. You had described your path to me before as unlikely and I thought that would be a great place to start.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:43]:
What do you mean by that?

Sanjay Singh [00:03:45]:
Yeah, so my mother, my parents had me when I was pretty young. I was nine months old. She was on a train heading to see my her in laws, my grandparents and she noticed I was wheezing pretty badly. And by the time she arrived, they took me to the er. The doctor said, where's the father? This kid is not going to make it. And so my mother would tell me about that and I would say that they treated me like a fragile doll when I was growing up. And I went to an all boys school run mostly by priests from Ireland. It's the same school that my dad went to.

Sanjay Singh [00:04:43]:
And my dad was an athlete. I wanted to play sports and it was one of those things where I just couldn't because I had severe asthma and I still have asthma, it's not as severe. So then I went to my parents and said, look, you know, I want to play sports just like any other kid. I want to swim, play cricket, soccer, tennis. And I remember my mother sat me down and she said, well, my dad was there too. And she said, look, you can't just ignore the fact that, you know, your lungs are weaker than the usual kid. But you got to get good at hard things in life and, and if this is the way you want to approach your life, then you better get good at doing the hard things. And that's that, that is determination and preparation and things like that.

Sanjay Singh [00:05:38]:
So I started playing sports and I mean, I'd fall sick probably three, four times a year. I'd be out for like five days. Like, you know those days you didn't have inhalers and stuff like that. You had to take a steroid shot. And I'd be out for a few days with wheezing and, you know, lack of sleep. So that, that is something that, you know, growing up, it was kind of brought up quite Quite a lot.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:08]:
Yep.

Sanjay Singh [00:06:09]:
And like, wow, this kid is here. And he almost wasn't here. So. So I've shared that with, you know, a few people, but maybe that's what you're recalling. But I was also, I was also to Australia for my graduate school. And then the last minute, you know, my, my father kind of insisted that I come to the States. And so. So that was sort of a whoop.

Sanjay Singh [00:06:41]:
Two different parts of the world and. And I, I ended up in Erie, Pennsylvania. Very different from, you know. Sunny. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:52]:
How old were you when. When you made that transition?

Sanjay Singh [00:06:56]:
I was 26.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:58]:
Wow. And at that point in time, did you have an inclination of what it is that you might want to do?

Sanjay Singh [00:07:08]:
Yeah, I did. So I've always been pretty good at maths. I thought I'd be an investment banker, so I'd go back, do investment banking in New Delhi or Mumbai, whatever. But then I got a co op opportunity at ge and that changed my life in the sense that I fell in love with manufacturing. Yeah. And then I, I changed my, my pathway there and that's how I ended up working for, you know, a few manufacturing companies.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:47]:
What was it about manufacturing?

Sanjay Singh [00:07:51]:
It's stuff, you know, it's how stuff is made. It's things that you see every day and you don't even think about, like, where was it sourced from, how is it made, how is it polished? And just that was, it was just like so new and interesting to me. I never seen it that way. I mean, I'd been to factories before my, my, my dad's employer, but I just had a different view of it. Yeah. And my co op, my co op opportunity was to analyze inventory. And also it was. I was in a procurement function.

Sanjay Singh [00:08:33]:
So that also gave me a completely different sensibility about how stuff has to be acquired in a very economic fashion. And all the stuff that goes, you know, behind all of that and deep appreciation for that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:54]:
So with the found interest in manufacturing, how would you describe the evolution of your career over time?

Sanjay Singh [00:09:04]:
Yes, I started out in accounting, working for a chartered accounting firm. And then I decided that that was not my thing doing audits all year long. And frankly, my dad was pretty worried about me because I changed course a couple of times. And, you know, I did very well in school and said, what's going on with you? I just couldn't figure out what, what I truly wanted, I guess. But after I came to the States, I worked for, you know, few large companies. Fortune 500. That's what brought me to Cleveland. Stanley Black and Decker and started out in the finance world, you know, cost accounting, did that for just a short time.

Sanjay Singh [00:09:49]:
Controllership, short time. Then became a divisional finance head for Stanley, then did the whole CFO route, then left public company, got recruited by a family office fund out of Boston to be the CFO of one of their portfolio companies in Middleburg Heights. Did that for many years and that was a turnaround situation. They were losing money and they brought me in to kind of put the Stanley discipline in. And then, then I did Riverside private equity gig in Louisiana and then another private private company in Kentucky and came back to run a family owned company in Cleveland. So Aaron and I moved back about 12, 13 years ago.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:45]:
And I know, because we've essentially done it before, that we could really talk deeply about all the things that you built through those companies, and we certainly can. But I know underlying all of that is this very intentional system of frameworks and strategic approach to decision making that get more at the why and how of those chapters. And so I'd love to just introduce at least one of those now as we kind of weave it into the conversation. But if there was one that seems to have permeated everything that you do, it is the framework of fear that we've discussed before. And so I'd love for you to just kind of introduce that concept and maybe more at a high level just how you think about frameworks generally.

Sanjay Singh [00:11:40]:
Yeah, so I like frameworks. I like to tear apart things and kind of certainly explore it, explore it with myself, with other people. So if I think of success, being a, you know, former athlete, I still play sports. It's like, okay, it's all about an event or a project or a venture that you set a goal, you prepare, and you either fail or succeed. But you don't need to have success all the time either because you, you can learn something from your failure that might even compound tremendously and, and I think, you know, a huge success for me, I feel was even landing at Stanley, Black and Decker and a giant corporation, very well run at the time. Former GE executive. I loved my stint there, got an appreciation for structure and I got promoted fairly quickly, which also I wasn't expecting that. I mean, but I worked really hard.

Sanjay Singh [00:12:52]:
So a framework that I think about is, especially around business is that, you know, it's. Every business has a few salient sort of drivers and it's about figuring that out. And some might be pretty common like culture or things like that, but certainly companies that are, you know, successful over a 50, 60, 70 year time frame things change and the markets change, the nuances of the demand sort of change how it is delivered changes. So you have to have the openness to have to be able to kind of look at your business differently. So that's one of the models that I think about. I think with regards to my kids, family. Aaron and I took us five years before our first eldest was born so we had a little bit of time to think about what our parental framework would be. So and we agreed that you know, we wouldn't have the concept of timeout or you know, we would treat our kids and empower them and kind of have, have the sense of self and, and a lot of work that Aaron, my wife does as a naturopathic doctor around disease is around sense of self.

Sanjay Singh [00:14:20]:
And so having that concept with our children and I would say they're 13 and 10 and they do have a pretty good sense of self. They're mischievous like kids but, but the sense of self really shows up. We were at a farewell dinner last night and Aaron was away and there were three college going kids and one of the kids is going away to Germany and he's sort of become like an older brother type figure to my 13 year old son and he was going about and teasing them and asking them about stats and they both these were graduates of St. Eds and HE, and he took a crack at them and he said well I'm going to camp at St. Ignatius. So there it was just fun to see that. And I was just observing him and I'm like wow, that is so cool to see him with you know, older boys being that way. And then also with regards to that whole frame framework around fear, it's, it's something, it's like a, it's, it's a 25 year plus journey of kind of learning and shaping my thinking around that.

Sanjay Singh [00:15:37]:
But the concept kind of boils down to this and, and this is not my thesis, this has been carried down by different, you know, teachers, spiritual teachers that when we are fearful and I'm talking about a mental state, an emotional state, not talking about physical fear. We are conditioned by our past. So something bad happens, we remember it, we store it and we expect the same thing to happen. And I was just networking with an individual, he's a senior executive at a local company and he was telling me that he thinks he's going to get fired. And I was saying well, but you haven't been fired yet. Why don't you go to your boss with a plan and workable plan if you think your performance is not up to par, but he was just consumed by it. That's all he was talking about, was, I'm going to get fired. What should I do? Help me network, Help me.

Sanjay Singh [00:16:41]:
Can you introduce me to people? And then if you think of the other way we get affected is when. And it's another loop is about the future, and we're thinking about the future, and we can really work ourselves up to, you know, stress, anxiety, all of that, but it hasn't happened yet. But if we are, we look in the present, then it doesn't exist. It's just our reaction is accurate. Our not taking away our reaction, that. That's totally accurate. And so the idea, when you're working with a team in a corporate setting, you're working with a colleague. It's highly unlikely, unless you have a long relationship, that you actually even know your teammates really well.

Sanjay Singh [00:17:34]:
Because most of us have our masks on. We have pride, we have our insecurities. And we're not going to reveal it unless there is an authentic connection where there is no hierarchy between two people. I think when two people communicate, there's a subconscious hierarchy that develops because, you know, you and I are speaking, but you're the one asking questions. And I'm kind of, you know, there's a little bit of a hierarchy. I'd like to ask you questions, but I'm not. It's yours. So unless there's an authentic sort of connection where you can break down that hierarchy, then you really get to know somebody, because then you're coming from a really.

Sanjay Singh [00:18:21]:
I call it an egoless place. It's like formless. It's egoless. And it goes back to the, you know, the whole concept of, you know, being present, the one consciousness, being conscious of the unconsciousness being present that does require to let go of the ego. It's not about me. It's about the truth. What is the truth in a situation?

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:47]:
Yeah, I mean, a lot to pull on there. We could. And maybe the way to do it will be to ground it in practice. So maybe here we introduce the story of Mace, because that's the story through which I think we first, at least I first learned about a lot of your frameworks as it relates to vulnerability as the leveler of hierarchy. And some of these concepts around how you become more aware of your own conditioning relative to in the present moment, as you were just alluding to. But I think the story of Mace is pretty fascinating if you were to tell, I think a lot of Clevelanders that Mace, this brand with massive name recognition in self defense, pepper spray I think is what most people know it for, is based here in Cleveland. I'm not sure most of them would know that to be the case, which is often the theme of a lot of this podcast. There's awesome stuff that's going on here that more should know about, but the story is pretty fascinating.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:02]:
You talked about your dad and overcoming hard things, a lot of hard things as part of that journey. But I think it would be awesome to just go through it in as much detail as you're comfortable getting into. Just the story of Mace.

Sanjay Singh [00:20:16]:
Yeah. So the story of Mace is interesting. It, it all started when I, you know, went to my partner at the time, we're not partners anymore but and we launched, you know, a fund and him being the capital provider and I'd be the sort of the operator if you will. So we, we did a, you know, like a passive investment in a LP in a boutique private equity firm, own company, it's in the bottling space. And then that led to, I found out through my network that that a local fund, they were looking to divest to sell their interest in Mace. I think they owned at the time 54% of the shares of Mace. And, and I brought that idea to my partner and he's a, you know, sales marketing person. So he got really excited about the brand name and being pretty significant brand in terms of name.

Sanjay Singh [00:21:19]:
But the company was small and public. And then I put together my thesis and I think there were two things that really drew my attention and certainly I wasn't super confident about it, like on my own I wouldn't have done it. And the two things were the company was under capitalized and number two, we had been told by, we had interviewed part of our diligence process, we had interviewed the board members and they brought up the idea that there was an activist out there. Well, neither of us had dealt with an activist. I mean we're private company folks, we can turn that thing around and be laser focused. So those things I certainly had in my background. I was on the board and then two years into my tenure I was asked to chair the board. I joined the management team and that was the beginning of COVID So I remember talking to the team about wow, stores are about to close and Mace was mostly retail at the time.

Sanjay Singh [00:22:29]:
They sold to retailers like Dick's, Walmart, autozone. So we launched, revamped an E Commerce sort of strategy and the company was losing money at the time. So we didn't Have a ton of capital. So we started really small on mace.com and on Amazon and I hired an expert, I interviewed several people, hired a firm, local form, Fantastic. You may, you may even know him. His name is Drew Kramer. He's a local entrepreneur, very sharp guy. And, and he, he then they were the outside agency helping us and I, and I told them that we're not dipping our toes.

Sanjay Singh [00:23:16]:
This is, this is like, you know, we're playing to win. And then so that worked out well because, because of the, unfortunately because of the George Floyd protests, our demand just went up. So we, we went from losing money to having nine quarters of fantastic earnings. Everybody was, you know, fronting the mouth and very happy. And then we started seeing a post Covid too much inventory, bloated inventory sort of playing out. And, and you know, small companies have a high break even point. You have a 20% drop and I mean you're in the red because there's. No, you're not.

Sanjay Singh [00:24:00]:
You can't trim hundreds and hundreds of people. It's just not that. Yeah. So during that process when things got a little tight and, and you know, having the, I think in a small company, what, what one of the insights is, you know, we talk about allocation of capital, this allocation of focus and working on the right stuff when you have a small public company. And at one point our CEO was gone, so I had taken over his responsibilities. I'm spending a ton of time preparing for board meetings, investor meetings outside, you know, activists, shareholders, they have their, you know, requests, things like that. Yeah, and I mean, I was working seven days a week and I remember my wife came to me and she's like, is this worth it? You know. And so we finally decided to take the company to market.

Sanjay Singh [00:25:06]:
I think we should have probably done it sooner. Nobody can anticipate how tough things can get. So I'm not talking about, you know, being an astrologer and saying, oh yeah, two years from now, you know, demand, you know, interest rates have been rising. Nobody could have predicted when, when those would have stabilized. So in hindsight I think we should have. When we were at our peak, we should have found another partner that had deep pockets and kind of moved on. It would have done the, added a lot of value for the shareholders at the time. But that's in hindsight and this is purely my opinion, it's not the former board members or anyone like that.

Sanjay Singh [00:25:44]:
It's just like I was inside the company. So when I look back, that's what I, what I think about. I personally, I Also realize that I am, I, I optimize much better with sort of a deeper, you know, like team. A team that has depth. The team, pretty small. It's a small company, small team. So I was involved in a lot of little things that, you know, when I look back, I go, oh my God. Like, I've literally never done that kind of stuff before.

Sanjay Singh [00:26:25]:
But looking back, that's the other thing that I realized once I was inside the company, that there's a lot of little things. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:34]:
Well, how then did you think about allocation of focus?

Sanjay Singh [00:26:39]:
So I decided that when, when the calls came from outside shareholders and we had like, I would say the last two years of my tenure, it was, it was quite a lot. And, and there were attacks and there were insults and there was shaming and I mean, all of it. But my internal check was that I would go through sort of a self coaching during. I meditate every day and I do, I do that in the morning and I'd ask myself if I'm doing everything I can to, in my sort of capability and power to do what I can for the benefit of the company. And I'm not going to get into a mud pile with these folks. That's. I'm not going to get distracted. You know, when sales were slowing down, we launched five new ventures and it was all about, you know, okay, if organic is slowing down, find new channels, new, you know, co branding, sort of ventures.

Sanjay Singh [00:27:43]:
And that was my framework. So I was not going to get into and get defensive and just, it's a waste of energy. And it's not easy when you're being insulted and being disrespected and lots of other things going on. It's not easy. But I also did a gut check, you know, with my board. I do a gut check with them. Do we, do we, do you think we need to make a change? I'm happy to step down, things like that. And those were good conversations as well.

Sanjay Singh [00:28:16]:
But I think if I look back, in summary, you know, undercapitalized, small public company, that is, that's just way too much risk. It doesn't matter what the brand name is. Here's the thing, Jeff. The, the thing with the brand name is you got to fly the. You got to spend money to have the brand be present like ads. And, you know, shareholders would say, why, you know, why aren't you on tv? You have the money to be on tv.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:50]:
What did you see as the opportunity?

Sanjay Singh [00:28:53]:
The opportunity was the very high gross margins, relatively speaking, in the 40s. The brand presence for sure. So 50% of our people who landed on our site would type in Mace and they would show up on our site. So 50% organic search, I mean, that's like unheard of. But the thing is you still have to be. If say somebody types in pepper spray, they might go to a competitor site because they're, you know, they've got the first ranking on Google and they're spending. They were outspending us like by five times, six times even at our peak. I mean, we peaked in early 21 or mid 21, revenue wise.

Sanjay Singh [00:29:44]:
And if you look back in the last, you know, 10 years or so, and at that time we were spending a pretty decent amount of money on, on ad spend. But in the last two years it was down substantially because demand was, we just couldn't, we just couldn't afford it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:03]:
So through the acquisition, I mean, how did you go about trying to bridge this gap between, you know, where the market was valuing the company and what you felt and, or maybe knew, you know, its intrinsic value to be? What was, how. What's the dynamic of the exit of Mace?

Sanjay Singh [00:30:21]:
Yeah, so the exit of Mace was in late 20, well, December 24, and we were what, about 18 months in the process? It took forever. And I think if, if I, there's one lesson that I would take from that is it's, it's the number of people that showed up, you know, initially weren't the right buyers. I mean, not even in the right sort of segment, if you will. I mean, just because people have capital doesn't mean that, you know, they're the right buyer. And, and, and, and then as time went along, the numbers weren't that great. So then the buyer pool gets super limited. So in hindsight, we should have probably looked at selling the company to get a pretty nice valuation in probably around our peak time. That would have been ideal in hindsight.

Sanjay Singh [00:31:27]:
Now at that time it looked like it was going to go higher. So there was cynicism like, no, this can go higher. Great lesson there, great lesson there. So when we bought the company in terms of the intrinsic value, we valued it partner and I looked at it as it sold for X price. This is kind of what the valuation is. And that had been the share price for many, many months. I think the value that we paid and our exit was going to be at a profitable EBITDA and it was an OTC stock. So there's no, you can't predict the stock price of an OTC thinly traded stock.

Sanjay Singh [00:32:17]:
But our view was if it's profitable, two times revenue for a brand name company like this would not be that hard to attain.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:27]:
So I want to reintroduce some of the frameworks. One of the stories that you had mentioned me before that I'd love for you to share is the corduroy pants over the holidays. And it was in the spirit of kind of vulnerability as an equalizer, because through all this, you know, in what is, I think, a difficult situation sounds like, really the whole way through, I just. I like all the, you know, interim bits of the frameworks that you carried with you through it.

Sanjay Singh [00:33:05]:
Yeah. So I was. I was walking the plant and I knew I had to go to a Christmas thing that. That evening, so I thought I'd just go from the office, whatever. So I was wearing a pant with some red and green. It was like a dark blue pair of corduroy pants. And my plant foreman, you know, he came up to me. He's like, wow, that's pretty cool.

Sanjay Singh [00:33:32]:
And again, it was a little atypical to work, but I was just being practical. My day was, you know, pretty. My days were pretty long at the time, so. And he says, yeah, that looks really nice on you. I said, yeah, you like it? Yeah, like, okay, what's your waist size? He tells me, and that night I was shopping for it, and Aaron was like, what are you doing? You already have a pair. And I told him, I'm getting it for him. And he was. And I gave it to him in private.

Sanjay Singh [00:34:05]:
And he really. Yeah, he had a. He was very surprised and, you know, he was touched.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:12]:
Yeah, I don't. I don't exactly, but that. That always. That stuck with me.

Sanjay Singh [00:34:18]:
Very loyal person through all of the turmoil. Just handled things very, very well. I have a, you know, I have a soft corner for people who have great intent. Then they take action. It's not just words. And he would deliver. He would do his best.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:43]:
Why do you think you find yourself drawn to turnaround situations? And what do you think is required to do the very difficult thing of turning a company around?

Sanjay Singh [00:34:58]:
I'm just. I'm. I'm drawn to hard stuff, but I'm done with that now. So I think, I think it. Because it was part of my childhood. And, you know, what did the. The Zen teachings about suffering are we suffer because we're unconscious. It's to make us conscious.

Sanjay Singh [00:35:28]:
We don't have to suffer. And I think I was attracted to suffering because I was pretty unconscious. And I had to learn my lessons, and I learned them and I was humbled by them and I learned a lot. Gosh, I learned a lot over the course of my career but. But I think that when Aaron asked me if it was worth it and I'm in a vistage group and they asked me like you're always trying. Are you trying to prove something here? No, I really looked at that pretty hard. I'm like no, I don't like the duality of I'm right, you're wrong. I don't like the duality of success and failure.

Sanjay Singh [00:36:15]:
Everything has to be a success and I like the concept of being decent, being kind, being of service, being present and that is just super fabulous for me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:32]:
So no more hard things.

Sanjay Singh [00:36:36]:
Until it happens.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:38]:
Until it happens. Well, to pull on hard things because I'm just very curious about it. I mean one angle here is capital and obviously you've dealt with outside capital, perhaps even adversarially but also I know in your journey that there have been situations where you personally are the sponsor where you've put your own capital and money on the line. And so ultimately that means that if it doesn't work out, you are subject to both the downside and the upside and how you think about balancing risk and your personal conviction.

Sanjay Singh [00:37:25]:
So that one was the personally sort of funding maze. I looked at it as the highest incentive to make sure that the sale happened. So I did take a ton of risk and I would say I am a person who takes risks but I do try and figure out how I can protect my downside. So I'm not like super cautious. I do a lot of private investing and these are with people who are very smart. I co invest, I trust them but once I get to know them and I trust them, then I'm happy to invest and the returns have been pretty decent. So in terms of risk that way in business, I think personally I used to take a lot more risks. I have a motorcycle and I've been in a motorcycle accident.

Sanjay Singh [00:38:37]:
I've been in an automobile accident where I'm lucky to be alive but I like the speed. But I think these days when I look at my kids, I don't ride my motorcycle as much as I'd be lucky if I get ride my motorcycle about 10 times a year or something because I don't take it everywhere. I just go on very specific roads where I know I'm not going to get hit by somebody to the best of my ability.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:10]:
What would you say are the main lessons for turning a company around? What are the ingredients that are required to make that Successful, Yeah.

Sanjay Singh [00:39:25]:
So when I ran this other privately held company on the east side of Cleveland for many years, we acquired our competitor. I wasn't from the industry. People in the industry, people in my company said, don't buy them. It's not a great shop. But we could not convert a very large customer of theirs located in Solon, and they would buy their tooling from this company in Chicago. And our folks, our sales team was not able to convert that. And so when the opportunity came up, we acquired them. They were losing money.

Sanjay Singh [00:40:11]:
And I remember telling my team and I used to go up to Chicago frequently and the. And, and I don't believe in having one prescriptive playbook when you buy a company because of human behavior. And I've learned that the hard way. You know, coming from large Fortune 500 companies, you. You have a playbook. And there's a lot of assumptions now there is very useful to have a structure, you know, your onboarding culture, all that. But I told my team that there's one thing that we're not going to be doing is we're not going to be telling them the solutions without fully understanding the issues. Inquire first, then conclude, and let's take our time about understanding the issues so that we are, we are able to pinpoint the right issues and not just the noise.

Sanjay Singh [00:41:10]:
And we did that. And they went from a negative 3% EBITDA to 20s. It was just an amazing turnaround. So that did involve a lot of attention, so did require a lot of communication. I think sitting from afar is hard and especially if your competitors. And I remember when the, when we went there day one, so the deal was going to be announced on a Monday to the, to the, to the folks in the plant. They just had one plant. And the owner and I went through a script that Sunday night, and when she showed up to the plant, she had me by her side and a couple of other people from my team and, and she said, you're so and so.

Sanjay Singh [00:42:04]:
And they have acquired the company and I thank you for all your efforts. And she turns it over to me and that wasn't the script. And I just saw the look of horror on people's faces. And I had to tell him, I said, look, look, business continues as usual, no changes. And we literally, we had no personal changes, except one person, unfortunately was very sick, passed away. But I mean, we. There was the same group of people were producing amazing results. It's amazing when you have that framework where you're able to work with, you know, work with other human beings and sort of be part of the solution as a team.

Sanjay Singh [00:42:47]:
It's amazing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:49]:
How do you approach inquiry?

Sanjay Singh [00:42:53]:
That's a great question. I was just talking about it with a friend of mine from Vistage. So I've been practicing and I'm still a student, so I don't think I've mastered it. But I practice a Socrative, Socratic method of inquiry. So again, being, you know, being a student of the idea of one consciousness, of having that formless, egoless presence, and extending that to inquiry means that you are searching for the truth and not just I found the answer. You found the answer. You're right, I'm wrong. Just find the truth.

Sanjay Singh [00:43:37]:
And the truth is, you know, whatever the deeper issue is in business. And that might involve a lot of questions until you sort of get down to the core.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:52]:
How do you balance that pursuit of finding the truth with what I've heard you call deep intuition about things where you maybe don't know, but. But ultimately there is this tension between things that you know and then things that you feel maybe are correct and when to follow one of those over the other.

Sanjay Singh [00:44:19]:
So I have a framework around that. So you have intellect or ability to think. Then you have instinct, what we call our gut instinct, but it's an instinct. We may get it wrong, but intuition is, is no thought. It's sensing something. And like I, you know, I. I met my wife on a Monday and by Sunday I asked her to marry me. And I remember when I asked her, the.

Sanjay Singh [00:44:52]:
When the words were coming out, I was like, oh my God, what am I saying? That's what that, that's, that's what was happening in my mind. It was more about what is she going to think? Like, is this guy a loser? But, and you know, we've been together 20 years and that is one instance of it just. There was a sense. There was something. There was a sense. And there have been other instances where I've sent something and said, okay, let's go. Even with investments like co investments, like I partnered with this one person and it turned out to be just fine. I didn't overthink it.

Sanjay Singh [00:45:34]:
The thing is, in that framework, you have to allow to have that deep intuition. And that requires surrender of control. So it's the exactly the opposite. The control is the dark side of deep intuition. And sometimes it's a false sense of control or a momentary sense of control. So I think to balance that part of the meditation is about that is just kind of feeling, trying to be in that state and reminding Yourself throughout the day to kind of try and be in that egoless sort of state. It's not easy at all.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:27]:
No.

Sanjay Singh [00:46:30]:
No. I mean, you know, you go about your day and it's like things come up and you got to make a decision and that requires intellect and that requires you looking at data and that you're concluding something and you know, so on and so forth. But, but I think that's. It's a, it's a practice that is, that's why I said I'm a student. It's a practice that I follow through. But it's very useful when I am asked to give advice as a board advisor or in my vistage group, when I've asked for advice and things like that. That's when I feel really that that can, you know, really come in play.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:16]:
Is there advice you find yourself giving most often?

Sanjay Singh [00:47:20]:
There is. That's a great question. So I feel like I have two types of. Two groups of people that I come across. A group that is somewhat interested in the cosmos and the mystical. You know, they're a bit mystical. Maybe they've done some hard things. Maybe they've learned it.

Sanjay Singh [00:47:52]:
They have the knowledge of consciousness, they're aware of it, they've explored it. There are others who haven't. And I think for them it is so far off about surrender and acceptance. It's like, wait a minute, Sanjay, you're so competitive. What are you talking about? Well, I'm competitive on a tennis court. I don't need to compete with a drunk driver and be enraged. So I think that that's what I find myself is that when I'll ask people if they are aware of this concept and if they're aware that I kind of know that it's a far ranging, sort of very higher level, sort of strategic meaning conversation versus maybe a little bit more tactical if people are looking for advice on very something they can implement. So I try to get that out of the way if I'm put in that spot.

Sanjay Singh [00:48:57]:
But generally speaking, it sort of varies. I think the one thing that comes up a lot is that the framework around fear. So my wife said to me two years ago that she said, this is your superpower, you should do something with it. And she's my wife, she's biased. And I was like, I don't know what to do with it. She's like, well, you should share it with other people so they can maybe look at it differently. So after I got done with the mace thing. So that does come up when I might be Talking to someone and sense something and I'll ask them like, you know, what's your inner attention? And then they'll go, oh, I'm struggling with this.

Sanjay Singh [00:49:44]:
And more often there are words like anxiety, stress, but they're all versions of fear. They're all variations of intensity of fear. So I'll end up sharing that framework around fear and maybe asking them to explore it and look at it maybe a different way. It's not easy. Of course, it's not easy at all.

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:09]:
What do you wish more people understood about fear?

Sanjay Singh [00:50:15]:
That it doesn't exist in the present moment? Yeah. And I think another comment on that would be being aware of our unconscious state. So things that just kind of happen and we're not conscious. So that's what I call we are reacting to things and maybe just taking that moment between. What did Viktor Frankl say? The space between, you know, thought and reaction is being in that space. I think it's very easy to be reactive, but just, I think with practice you just get better, you become more aware.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:07]:
So you're in this place now, maybe to borrow your words, maybe on the other side of suffering or you know, an avoidance of hard things and taking the time to reflect and explore opportunities and driven more by your curiosity than by schedules. That was another thing that I wanted to talk about, was just the schedulous concept. But what do you find yourself curious about right now? Like how is this intentional openness about exploring ideas just influence what you think you're going to do next, professionally and personally?

Sanjay Singh [00:51:45]:
So whatever I do next will show up, It'll find me. Yeah, I truly believe that. And it's probably going to look more like board advisory work. You know what I did when I was running Mace, I was also on the board of another company out of Syracuse and I worked with the team and that was very fulfilling. So I would love to do that again. And I used a lot of my mental models here to do that. What I'm really enjoying is just observing. So I, you know, my daughter, my 10 year old daughter might be drawing and I just watch her doing her thing or my son writing or reading.

Sanjay Singh [00:52:39]:
Just being around the kids a lot more, just observing. It's, there's just, it's just such a gift to be able to do that. And children are teachers, they teach you. And so, so that's, that's very interesting to me. I, I've been spending a lot of time with current and former Vistage members who've, who've been in transition, kind of like me and we're exploring each other sort of, you know, what the plans are like. I met with a vistage member yesterday and he was, he was saying to me, well, you know, I'm going to take the next six months before I jump into anything. And I'm like, why six? Why does it have to be six? Is there is like the seventh month like a problem, but just things like that. Like you know, then, then, then when I want other people to call that out when I'm exploring things as well.

Sanjay Singh [00:53:37]:
But what I am very curious about is, you know, the whole neuroscience of other mind works how thought, how the brain is organized. That, that hack I told you about where I removed everything from my calendar, like my tasks, that is meditation, blah blah, blah. And then I, I saw my energy change because I think, I think when you have something on your calendar and you'll, your brain is using up energy way before that because you're thinking about it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:17]:
Yeah, it's an anticipation.

Sanjay Singh [00:54:19]:
It's an anticipation and it may not, it may be something that is a bit uncomfortable, you don't want to do it, but you got to do it sort of thing. And so when I removed it, except for meetings, it's amazing. It just feels a lot lighter. My brain seems to be a lot clearer. So I'm very curious about, I'm reading different books. Steven Pinker folks like that around the brain.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:50]:
What does success mean to you? How do you think about what kind of impact you hope to have looking back?

Sanjay Singh [00:55:00]:
So success to me is sort of venture driven. So if I, I'm running a company, it's, you know, it's profitable, it's meeting its numbers, things like that. I think for me in life it's about feeling, you know, blissful. So it's neither like super happy because if you're happy, you're going to be sad as well, but sort of, you know, just being sort of neutral and blissful. I don't feel like that the idea of success has to do with, you know, a few indicators anymore. Kind of been there, done that, enjoyed it, crashed a couple of times, learned some pretty significant lessons, which I look at those lessons as those learnings as immense successes because that, that has made me conscious of my unconsciousness and all that suffering and being attacked by that activist and all of that taught me a lot.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:15]:
How do you think about entrepreneurship in Cleveland?

Sanjay Singh [00:56:21]:
You look around in my Vistage group or even my wife's EO groups. I mean it's amazing that Cleveland has amazing talent. There's an infrastructure of Risk capital. So that's amazing. The Ohio fund that you're involved in. You know, watching the opening of that Eagle Electronics. Oh, my word, that's just absolutely amazing. I think there is a, there's.

Sanjay Singh [00:56:50]:
I find Cleveland, you know, the people in Cleveland, that they're down to earth. Their sports crazy, you know, they're down to earth, but they're resilient. My goodness, this is my second stint in Cleveland. We were gone for a few years. Just the restaurant scene, the music scene, the cultural scene. It's just lovely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:22]:
There. There certainly is a resilience. It's undeniable. Is there something, I mean, I'm sure there is, but is there something particularly important that we haven't really touched on that you were hoping I would ask you about or that you want to talk about?

Sanjay Singh [00:57:42]:
When I went from public company to private, I sought that out. And I think when I look back, my peers at the time now have done very, very, very well. I have no regrets. But I sometimes wonder like, did, did I do the right things? But, but the thing that I keep on going back to is that when you're in a large company, you get the advantage of infrastructure structure. You have your, you know, well done playbooks and models, financial models, and, you know, I was in the finance area and, and those are amazing tools. But when it comes to having a, having a, you know, more significant role to make an impact, I don't think that exists in every large company unless you, you know, unless these companies have a way of kind of spotting talent. Like I'm, I'm an introvert by nature and I'm apolitical by nature. So I'm going to say what I mean sort of thing.

Sanjay Singh [00:59:05]:
And I was fortunate that I just started doing some of the hard stuff at the division that I worked for and I got promoted. But I wonder, I wonder if how some of these companies are organized. Are they able to kind of vet that out and give people some chances? Not every Fortune 500 company is entrepreneurial. It just, companies are too big to be, be like that. So I, I found the experience in private companies. I really loved it. Where, hey, you see something, go fix it. You have an idea, let's go, let's go explore it.

Sanjay Singh [00:59:44]:
Just don't bank, just don't bankrupt the company. But, you know, so I, I love that, the mind expansion and at the speed of decision making, I love that a lot.

Jeffrey Stern [00:59:59]:
Do you think it's possible for big companies to cultivate that at all? Or is it just a consequence of that size that it just becomes difficult.

Sanjay Singh [01:00:10]:
So the CEO of Nvidia said something really interesting. I was just reading about this the other day. He said that the large companies are like a racing car, and the CEO should know how to drive the racing car and, you know, attention to details and knowing things at a certain level. And now he's been with Nvidia for a long time. Right. So he has that advantage as you build it up. And now it's, you know, valued and whatever, over a trillion dollars. But I wonder how an incoming CEO of a very large company, you know, with 10,000 plus employees, how would they go about, you know, even figuring that out while also managing the demands of shareholders on the board.

Sanjay Singh [01:01:01]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:03]:
They don't know how to drive that car.

Sanjay Singh [01:01:05]:
Right, right.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:07]:
Yeah. Very interesting. Well, Sanjay, I just want to thank you for coming on, sharing some of your thoughts and reflections. I always love hearing them, so I appreciate it very much.

Sanjay Singh [01:01:20]:
Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:24]:
I will ask our traditional closing question, which is for a hidden gem in Cleveland.

Sanjay Singh [01:01:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. So there a few come to my mind. One is the nature center at Shaker Lakes. It's just a paradise, and we live right by it. We walk around it, we bike around it, we see all these beautiful birds, and it's just amazing. And the nature center itself is. And I'm a bit biased.

Sanjay Singh [01:01:52]:
I'm on their board. And next year, we should get you out to their fundraiser. They have an annual fundraiser. It's absolutely stunning. Great food, music. It's. It's quite amazing. Then.

Sanjay Singh [01:02:06]:
So that comes to my mind. You know, a particular restaurant that I've been taking my kids to since they were little. It's in Ohio City, and I particularly like the owner's energy. It's a restaurant called Johnny Mango, and owner is jt. When I see him, he approaches us, he talks to my kids, and. And he always has a smile on his face. It's like, you. I want to eat there every week.

Sanjay Singh [01:02:36]:
We typically eat there every weekend because somebody that joyful, you know, is providing you food. That's. That's just amazing. The. The other one. I've been spending a lot of time in my wife's business. I'm providing some strategic advice. And I've been going to her office, which is.

Sanjay Singh [01:02:59]:
She. She's about to hire a new employee. And. And this woman said, your op. Your office space is like a spa. And I'm like, yeah. So I asked Aaron, I'm like, how did you go about designing this space? And she just has A. Such a nice flow to that space.

Sanjay Singh [01:03:16]:
So that's. I would say that's a hidden gem. Again, I'm biased. It's her clinic option, I think. But. But yeah, I, I got real nice appreciation when the. When this prospective new employee, you know, made that comment. Another one that comes to my mind.

Sanjay Singh [01:03:33]:
I mean, I didn't know this, but Cleveland has the second oldest Montessori school in the U.S. oh, wow. Yeah. Called Roughing Montessori. And, and boy, they have. It's one heck of a school. My kids go to school there now. My.

Sanjay Singh [01:03:50]:
One of my. My sons last year. But the teachers. It's very, very good school from a. Like, my kids love going to school there.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:02]:
Yeah. Yeah, I. I did not know about that one. That's awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you for. For sharing those.

Sanjay Singh [01:04:09]:
Yeah, of course.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:12]:
If folks had anything they wanted to follow up about, where would you point them online? What's the best place for folks to learn more or inquire?

Sanjay Singh [01:04:25]:
LinkedIn. My first and last name. Do a search.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:32]:
Easy. Perfect.

Sanjay Singh [01:04:34]:
Cool.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:34]:
Well, thank you, Sanjay.

Sanjay Singh [01:04:36]:
Well, thank you for having me, Jeff. Great to be here.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:39]:
Absolutely.

Sanjay Singh [01:04:40]:
All right.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:43]:
That'S all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffreyofthelandfm or find us on Twitter oddleayoftheland or Sternhefe. J E F E. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on itunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show.

Jeffrey Stern [01:05:16]:
We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with the UpCompany LLC. At the time of this recording, unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on the show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.