Return to flip book view

Outside The Walls—Customer TestimonialsEngaging with Je is to step into a world where core values shine brightly, where the essence of learning leads to a brighter tomorrow. Life’s trajectory is shaped by the individuals we align with, and in Je you nd a guiding mind that can elevate your journey. I cherish the wisdom and camaraderie we’ve shared over the years.— T B, Chief Revenue Ocer, Correct Crae products designed and built by Protomet are just one piece of the puzzle. Honestly my favorite thing about having Protomet as a partner is the people at the company. ey have an incredible team all the way through the company. I look forward to any opportunity to spend time with the Protomet crew. Whether at our dealer meetings, trade shows, industry events, or at our factory, their friendship and support is amazing. You can see the belief in their culture, pride in what they do every day, and most of all the caring by everyone in the company. — C C, VP Marketing and Sales, Skier’s Choice

Protomet stands out as an exceptional partner, driven by a comprehensive perspective that extends beyond the immediate horizon. eir unwavering commitment to fostering enduring alliances fuels a continuous quest for innovation within the marine industry. Under the adept guidance of Je Bohanan, Protomet’s leadership exudes purpose, anchoring a resolute vision for growth that propels them to the forefront of a ercely competitive market.— B T, International Sales Manager, Malibu BoatsProtomet pushes the limits of new products. ey have an improvement mindset and will move mountains to bring a project to life. World class service dressed in blue polos may be the best way to sum it up.— C H, Senior Engineer, Tige Boats

Inside The Walls—Employee TestimonialsEverywhere I have ever worked has promised growth and never delivered on it. When I came to Protomet I asked for the growth, and they delivered! I’ve been able to start from the bottom and build my skills to the top.— T W, Supervisor, ProtometProtomet has given me countless opportunities to better myself as an engineer and as a person, and I don’t think I could have grown so quickly at any other company. I think Protomet’s outstanding culture of investing in their people’s health, happiness, and skills sets us apart from the crowd of ordinary corporations.— B T, Engineer, Protomete two reasons why I enjoy coming to work are the continuous learning and the atmosphere. ere is not a single day I do not learn something new, and the peo-ple I get to work with make it beyond enjoyable.— E G, Engineer, Protomet

Protomet cares about people in a deep way, and they focus on your strengths. ey let you shape your role based on your unique giings, rather than putting you in a box. is has made all the dierence for me and has facilitated my growth from an entry-level operator to a customer facing technician.— C S. J, Quality, ProtometProtomet has given me some great opportunities that have helped me grow not only in my role, but as a per-son. Very few people will say they love their job, but I do. I work with an amazing group of people. — A G, Operations, ProtometWhat attracted me to Protomet was their focus on the character and the unique contributions of each individual. Despite having no manufacturing background, they were willing to discover what I had to oer and give me an opportunity to succeed. eir stated values were truly a part of how they treated people, and a healthy team is the result.— S B, Design, Protomet

Published by Lunch Break Books®1460 BroadwayNew York, NY 10036www.LunchBreakBooks.com No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the authors of this book.For more information on Lunch Break Books® including to find out how you can become a published author, visit www.LunchBreakBooks.com© Copyright 2024 Jeff BohananFirst EditionAll rights reserved.

To my wife, Amanda, for her patience and support through all these years—and to my three adult children, Blake, Brooke, and Baylee, who were raised alongside the business. To my parents, Larry and Patsy Bohanan, for teaching me to honor God in all things.Special thanks to these leaders who’ve inuenced my leadership learning in ways I cannot adequately articulate:John Coatney Richard (Dicky) Jenkins David Bradshaw e late Dan Kuban Lee Martin Dan SullivanSpecial thanks to Andrew Jenkins and Matt Reid for their contributions since the earliest days of Protomet. Without them, Protomet would not be where we are.anks to the Protomet leadership team and all the Protomet associates for what you do to keep us in the game, providing the opportunity for exponential growth.Editing—Kay BrownArtwork—Steve BrookshireCore Values Development—Kellen Catani

xiContentsI: All In—e Protomet Way ............... 1C 1: Our “Why”: Perennial Growth ..............9Designed for Disruption ......................... 11riving rough Change ...................... 13C 2: Mindset Shi #1: Abundance Mindset ...............................15e World Is Expanding ........................16Life Is Not Fair ........................................18Do Not Depend on Fair..........................19Technology Drives Abundance...............20C 3: Mindset Shi #2: Skills Beat Credentials ...........................23Credentials Become Stale ....................... 24Skills Grow Stronger ............................... 25

Don’t Touch the MarshmallowxiiC 4: Mindset Shi #3: at’s Hard . . . Good ..............................29Grit Wins ................................................ 30Embrace the Obstacle ............................. 31Bias the Results .......................................33C 5: Mindset Shi #4: e Second Mile ...................................... 37e Freedom Mile ...................................38e Shorter Mile .....................................39A Second Chance ....................................41External and Internal ............................43C 6: Mindset Shi #5: Don’t Touch the Marshmallow ..............47Focus on the Long Term .........................48Play the Innite Game ...........................50Invest in Yourself ....................................51C: Personal Leadership ............................. 53A  A ...................................................61

1IntroductionAll In—The Protomet WayHis words—“I would cancel the machine”—hit in a way that I had become accustomed to in the recent and tumultuous months, but this did not soen the impact. I remember the visceral sensation where all the blood rushes to my forehead, reaches a crescendo, and then a sick feeling settles in the stomach like I would never want to eat again. If I had a tness tracker, as I do now, I’m sure the stress scale would have been redlined, setting a new PR. Now I get stressed when my tracker tells me I did not sleep enough—too much information perhaps.e year was 1999 and I had been called into a meeting with the lead buyer for Johnson Controls, Inc. (JCI). He had just informed me that they no longer needed Protomet to provide the one-million-piece seat-belt bushing contract for the Mercedes SUV that we had been awarded a few weeks earlier. ey

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow2had another option. To be fair, it was only a verbal agreement; we had nothing in writing. At that time, we had no employees and no equipment either, but they did not know that. is was an early lesson that verbal commitments can be used when there is a proven track record of ongoing work, not as a rst contract with a new customer.A few weeks prior, we had ordered our rst-ever computer-numerical-controlled (CNC) machine; it was en route from California, and it was currently two days from landing on our dock. Maybe it is not wise to order your rst-ever piece of capital equipment costing twice your prior annual salary based solely on a verbal commitment. e “annual salary” number was the last salary I had prior to resigning from my government job, but the salary no longer existed. We had just been in business a few months and were surviving on fumes. With no contract and no work coming in, this new piece of capital equipment could certainly take us under.Dazed, I walked out of the buyer’s oce to nd a phone to page my business partner, and we agreed to meet that evening to discuss our options. At this time, I did not own a cell phone, and this was the kind of conversation we could not have in earshot of our spouses on the house landlines. ough my wife was very supportive, our children were ages one, two, and four, and my wife did not need the added stress of hearing that there was any possibility that the business could go under.

All In—e Protomet Way 3Hence, we met at our shared 150-square-foot oce in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just west of Knoxville. Along with half a dozen other startups, we operated our world headquarters from a small business incubator facility. e sparse infrastructure included one landline phone and two internet connections. e oce window faced a bank of outdoor mailboxes where we could watch other entrepreneurs go to the mailbox in hopes of nding a check. We would oen see a visible reaction to this.We began our meeting by discussing the possibility the buyer was blung to try and get a better price. However, I could not get past his recommendation that we cancel our machine. If he was blung, he was showing a great poker face.Considering the implications, our conversation was not that long. We discussed that I would try and negotiate that we could make the rst y-thousand bushings until our customer could get the other process up and running. Regardless, we would not cancel the incoming machine. We would scramble to nd other work in our quest to survive. I cannot overstate the gravity and the long-term implications of this decision. It was akin to burning our ships so that we could not retreat into the water. Had we inched and retreated, I believe Protomet would have been done.We were able to negotiate a y-thousand-piece order, and then another, and then another, etc. Over ve years, the customer continued buying our parts because the other option never materialized. We went

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow4on to make a total of one million Mercedes seat belt bushings. I do not have an explanation for this, in part, because I was afraid to ask. I do believe it was divine provision.Now, twenty-six years later, why do I share this story? e story is but one example of the hurdles an entrepreneur must work through to survive during the startup phase—and it embodies the ve growth mindsets to be shared in this book.roughout the rst few years of Protomet, there were many existential crises. It never got less painful, though I started to realize the blood rush to the forehead and the subsequent sick feeling were part of the process. One of my entrepreneur friends shared that he just learned to expect a gut punch every three to six months. ough still painful, this turned out to be a good way to keep things in perspective and not panic.While I hope entrepreneurs will enjoy reading this book, it is not written primarily for them. I’m writing this book because I see many, who did not sign up for the uncertainty of running an entrepreneurial business, struggling to cope with a new world of accelerating change. ough the accelerating change is stressful, I believe it provides an unprecedented opportunity for growth. Unfortunately, capturing this opportunity requires a set of mindsets we were not taught in school. Regardless, most of what we need in life is best learned

All In—e Protomet Way 5on the job, where the principles can be applied and then adapted. Sharing this framework of growth mindsets is the purpose of this book.One way to understand these mindsets is to look through the lens of entrepreneurship. Most have heard the term “entrepreneur” but may not know what this means. e best denition that I’ve heard came from my business coach, Dan Sullivan, who stated, “An entrepreneur is someone who takes resources to a higher level of utilization.” ese resources can be equipment, facilities, people, etc. In recent years, I’ve learned that focusing on the growth of our people, i.e., our employees or associates, provides the greatest potential for the growth of our company—and that teaching the entrepreneurial mindset is the best way to foster this growth. Entrepreneurs believe that we have agency over our future. I’ve also heard this described as being a player, not a victim. Regardless of our role in work and in life, I believe we all have agency, which is the ability to act and produce a desired result. I believe we can create our future. Our values, beliefs, and mindsets are how we set ourselves up for a bigger future. It begins with taking ownership of our work and our responsibility to keep learning and growing.When we refer to growth, we use the term “perennial growth” to articulate that we are focused on long-term sustainable development and not short-term gains. Perennial plants are well-suited for harsh

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow6conditions. Likewise, great individuals and great businesses must be able to survive and grow through the toughest of times.

All In—e Protomet Way 7

9Chapter OneOur Why: Perennial Growth

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow10Perennial growth is what we call Protomet’s “Why”: our purpose and guiding principle. Perennial growth is organic growth that is not always up and to the right. Prior to winning the Mercedes contract, we experienced numerous crises that nearly bankrupted our company… e promise of a monthly retainer gave my partner and me the condence to quit our jobs in the same week in August 1998 and pursue full-time the building of our engineering consulting rm. e retainer was with a small company in upper East Tennessee that would manufacture aeronautics parts. e agreement was that they would pay our company $5,000 per month to design processes and program their computerized numerical control (CNC) machines. However, the expected contract work did not materialize, and they decided not to pay us the $5,000. ey gave me a monogrammed jacket with their logo on it. I still have it, and my wife, with some humor now (not then), calls it “the $5,000 jacket.” Having consumed the accumulated paid time o from my previous job at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, we were up against the wall.Our second customer was Y-12. My business partner performed contract work for the attack submarine program where we had formerly worked as salaried employees while I scouted for engineering opportunities and completed a few short-term gigs. One of these was to program a coordinate-measuring

Our Why: Perennial Growth 11machine for a local automotive supplier. I had no prior experience, but I knew the basic concepts of inspection and learned how to program the machine by reading the manuals when I arrived at the job site. I don’t recommend this approach. In my defense, they only asked if I could do the job and not if I knew how to do the job. Note that the 1998 internet did not have YouTube videos that I could watch before I got to the job site.is initial phase of Protomet lasted about nine months. e submarine contract work was keeping our company alive on fumes as I worked some short-term jobs, but then someone realized that the Department of Engineering (DOE) had a policy that anyone leaving the plants had to wait twelve months before they could perform contract work for the agency. In May of 1999, we received a notication about the policy and found ourselves on the ropes again. is became a recurring theme.Designed for DisruptionAs a startup, we routinely faced situations that were existential. Successful businesses never lose their connection to the reality that all actions need to support the long-term sustainability of the business. If we can “ey only asked if I could do the job and not if I knew how to do the job.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow12design our business to withstand the disruptions, we will experience perennial growth. e early days of Protomet solidied this truth.Perennial growth is reective and resilient. Perennial growth is sustained over the long term and, like perennial plants, is well suited for the tough times. For the rst nine months, every action was critical to our survival. We did not have startup funds, so we had to absorb the gut punches and keep moving. As companies grow, it is easy to forget that everything needs a reason behind it; every action must have a why. For a startup, it is natural to connect the dots, because everything is existential. Our daily actions keep the company aoat, or they quickly sink it. is is called a tight feedback loop. As we grow and have more stability, we may forget what keeps us in business. We may start serving the organization to the neglect of our customers.Repeatedly responding to existential crises tends to give one an appreciation for surviving to live another day. Founder-led businesses tend to be more adept at navigating the most existential situations, because these reps provide a DNA-level appreciation for the value of staying in business. Our gut punches included threatened lawsuits, investigations, bad receivables, lost contracts, multiple downturns, the Great Recession, COVID, and most recently, the industry downturn hangover from producing too many boats during COVID.

Our Why: Perennial Growth 13As painful as it is to admit, our company has gained more altitude by how we’ve responded to these challenges than by adhering to any ve-year strategic plan. Our strate-gic plans tend to become obsolete within the rst year; our growth, suf-fering, and camaraderie built in the trenches has forged us into who we are today. Hence, perennial growth as a core purpose is the acknowledg-ment that our growing stronger is a response to the resistance, which is not always up and to the right—as well as the under-standing that grit and perseverance are the only way to ensure sustained growth over time.Thriving Through Changee one thing that stays constant through good times and bad is that there will always be change. e ques-tion for each of us is: How well are we learning from potentially disruptive change? If we have learned the lessons from our failures, they were not failures but the conditions of our growth. Learning through our trials develops us to the point where our perennial growth makes us strong and resilient.“Our company has gained more altitude by how we’ve responded to these challenges than by adhering to any ve-year strategic plan.”“e one thing that stays constant… change.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow14We know that perennial plants go dormant for a season to come back bigger and stronger and possibly with more blossoms in the next season. While perennials grow more slowly than annual plants, they tend to be well-suited for harsh climates. In this context, a core principle that distinguishes great businesses is the ability to survive the harsh times and stay in business. While it is benecial to have competent leadership and execution to grow a company, the simple act of staying in business positions a company to take advantage of the “black swan” events that cannot be predicted but are certain to occur when a business transitions through multiple decades. Always stay alive. Always stay in the game. In full disclosure, I did not know this when we started Protomet, but looking back I am able to see how our struggles, met with grit and perseverance, positioned us to take advantage of opportunities when they came along under the guise of crisis and calamity. We have learned that these tough times provide focus and alignment. Our culture is the operating system that keeps us aligned, articulating that it’s okay to take a chance, it’s okay to risk, and it’s okay to fail if we learn from our failures. What we do need, however, are the values and mindsets that promote perennial growth. is is critical. In our next ve chapters, we will look at the core mindsets we use to keep us, individually and as a company, in the zone of perennial growth. We will start with the Abundance Mindset.

15Chapter TwoAbundance MindsetBe careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.— P : (GNT)

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow16The World Is ExpandingCultivating an abundance mindset is our foundational core value, the one we need to address rst. It’s like “passing go” in Monopoly before we can advance to another core value. is is because an abundance mindset is a prerequisite for growth. Said another way, the only way to change our outcome is to change the way we think. Here is a quick test for an abun-dance mindset: Do we believe the world is getting better or worse? If we believe the world is getting worse, we logically conclude that change is bad. We need to hold onto our ex-isting state. is feeds into a xed mindset. If we believe the world is getting better and expanding, then change tends to cre-ate an opportunity for growth and abundance. When a new employee is hired into our company or department, are we excited that they are bringing new capabilities and new capacity, or are we concerned that they could take our job? Are we eager to teach others our tips and tricks, or do we hold them close to the vest? Aer all, if we give away all our best knowledge, won’t our peers surpass us? ere are limited promotions, so if I make my teammates better, am I hurting my chances for growth? When a supervisor comes into “Do we believe the world is getting better or worse?”

Abundance Mindset 17my department to assist, am I grateful for the help or threatened by his or her presence? Equipped with an abundance mindset, we are not worried about what somebody else is getting because, as the world expands, there is an innite plentifulness of resources. e abundant mind knows that life is not a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game assumes that what somebody else gets must take from what we get. Someone spreading their blanket out on the beach does not reduce our sun rays even if we are lying next to them. I cannot overstate the importance of this mindset. An abundance mindset will put you in the top 10% of the general population.e value of this way of thinking is that it allows us to take risks, take chances that we might not take if we have a xed mindset. An abundance mindset means that if we do take a chance and fail, we will get another chance. Failure, from this perspective, is a given, because failure is a step in the learning process. Imagine the excitement of truly believing the world is getting better. Imagine how that might frame your pending retirement. e truth is, the ubiquitous belief that the world is getting worse is a trap, and it’s not even rooted in sound logic. Much has been written on the topic. e world is indeed getting better. A few quick stats on infant mortality, death during childbearing, famine, or harsh labor conditions can make a quick point here. People smell better now, too.

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow18e Mercedes contract with JCI is a great example of taking risks while having the abundance mindset. We did not have the capacity to do that job, but we knew that if we got the machine, we could gure it out. We could expand and learn. Sure, there were going to be failures, but they would simply be part of our learning and growing process.Life Is Not Fair As the future expands, opportunities will not be dis-tributed equally or pro rata, but that is okay. e reality is that life is not fair. But, what someone else gets does not take away from what we have. e abundant mind knows that we do not need per-mission from others or to depend on others to grow. e expanding world provides ample opportuni-ties for exponential growth without taking from others. Evolution has wired us to believe dierently. Scarcity is not as real as it used to be. We walk in a new light, and we may need daily reminders of this.A transformative step—I quit listening to all right and le leaning news sources in November 2012. I came to realize that everything I heard from these stations originated from their xed mindsets. My rule for myself then became “no more talking heads,” because I realized that, le or right, the extremes do “Scarcity is not as real as it used to be.”

Abundance Mindset 19not listen with a curious or open mind. e message is that if this side gets their way, then you are not going to get your way. is is evidence of a xed mindset. e polarization that results will always construct a xed-mindset world, which is a very limited world. ere is no win in that. ere is no happiness in that. And certainly, no perennial growth. To be clear, I do read the news but realize it is important to be cognizant of the attempts to spin a story that ts a specic agenda.Do Not Depend on FairIf we assume that life must be fair for us to expand and grow, then we are giving our power to someone else. Never give your light away.Have you heard of the “immigrant paradox”? ere are many unfair disadvantages of being a rst-generation immigrant, i.e., income, language, community, etc. From an early age, I’ve had the priv-ilege of knowing several rst-generation immigrants, and my personal experience is that they seem to do very well. ey seem to thrive in an “unfair” world.We may sometimes perceive unfairness as the world is growing and expanding around us, but that frustration comes from a xed mindset. An abundance mindset knows that the expanding world is the raw material for our growth and that we have the choice to step into that expanding world and take advantage of the opportunities presented.

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow20Technology Drives Abundancee expanding world shows up in the form of new technologies and innovation. In 1997, we started Protomet when the CAD system (Solidworks™) we were using was just being ported to a PC platform. Prior to 1997, engineering soware this powerful required an engineering workstation costing approximately $25,000. At that time, a powerful PC cost approximately $5000. is was a $20,000 drop in the cost to start our company.Aordable technology, as an instrument of the expanding world, made Protomet possible or at least feasible. is is another example of how the world is constantly changing and growing, providing new opportunities. Yes, that ongoing expansion means we are living in uncertain times. We always have, and we always will live in uncertain times. is is not new. Our food used to hunt for us while we hunted for it. Fortunately, the world has expanded and changed since that time.Does anyone want to live in a certain world? is means that in September the iPhone or Android phone we currently have does not change. e cars we drive never change. Technology and innovation only happen in an uncertain world. “e waves of change are coming, period. You can learn to ride them, or you can let them crash over you.”

Abundance Mindset 21e key is to be adaptable. e waves of change are coming, period. You can learn to ride them, or you can let them crash over you. ere is no avoiding them, and there is little in the way of predicting their shape. If we cannot predict change, we absolutely need to be agile. Even more, we can be engaged in creating it. at is where these core values, such as maintaining an abundance mindset, can be applied. ey set us up to successfully engage in a world that will never be fair and where accelerating changes makes the future unpredictable.Our next mindset, Skills Beat Credentials, builds on our abundance mindset as we seek exponential growth along the perennial growth curve.

23Chapter ThreeSkills Beat CredentialsIf you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.— A  S-E, in e Little Prince

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow24As we just discussed in our exploration of abundance mindset, we cannot predict change. We must learn to embrace and adapt to change.Credentials Become StaleHaving credentials is great, but today more than ever we can see that credentials will become obsolete. If perennial and exponential growth is our purpose and goal, then credentials will take us only so far. ey are static and can give us a false sense of security. Our ability to adapt depends more on continuous and dynamic learning. In the age of the internet, there are opportunities to learn almost anything online. When interviewing potential employees, I typically ask them how they learn new things. e answer is almost always YouTube or the internet. It is understandable that recent generations may take this for granted. ey did not experience what came before, so they may not appreciate the signicance of having the world’s information so readily accessible. Pre-internet education was very dierent. e level of eort that it took to learn new things out of textbooks or by going to the library was a heavy li at that time. If you’ve always had the internet, it is understandable that this change may not seem as profound to you as it is for those of us who had to go the library to locate a physical book or spend hours to nd and read a microche. A microche is a black-and-white lm image viewed only

Skills Beat Credentials 25on a microche reader. is is a very dierent user experience than watching a YouTube video.Most take for granted the access we have to incred-ible amounts of knowledge. e rate of change in hu-man knowledge is growing exponentially, and this will accelerate as we integrate AI into our lives. e world is changing so rapidly that if our mindset isn’t geared toward continually learning, we will be le behind.Let’s remember that our sense of progress histori-cally comes from pre-digital humanity. Based on our historical frame of reference, we have little capacity to anticipate the profound exponential change coming. Our schools and their credentials were designed decades ago to encourage like-minded thinking and support traditional factory work. For twelve years of school, we were taught to sit back and be taught by the teacher. at’s not the future, and it’s not going to work anymore. Skills Grow StrongerAt Protomet, we have already made the shi. ere is no job in our company that requires a college degree or a technical certication. Since skills and knowledge rule the day, we encourage education and learning of all kinds. We do not require you to know how to do “Our schools and their credentials were designed decades ago… it’s not going to work a n y m o r e .”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow26everything yourself if you know whom to call to move your project forward. We encourage you to lean into every opportunity to learn new things. We call this “batteries included.” Ask why you’re doing something. Question everything. Seek understanding. Get hands on. And please, ask Google rst before you ask the teammate next to you.When given the opportunity, teach others to do your job. Teaching others is not only a great way to think more deeply about why and how you do everything, but it’s also a way to demonstrate that you are ready for the next opportunity.During my twelve-year stint at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I witnessed the plant’s pivotal role in helping the U.S. to win the Cold War while having the privilege of working on some very cool military and scientic hardware. We were the place to build complex hardware, and we secured opportunities that private industry considered too risky. As you might imagine in a nuclear weapons and military hardware facility, there was a lot of emphasis placed on credentials, but it was also the place where I rst witnessed how skills beat credentials. We were awarded the task of manufacturing a full-scale Seawolf Submarine propeller that private industry believed too risky to build. is was a four-year “ere is no job in our company that requires a college degree or technical certication.”

Skills Beat Credentials 27project, and it cost $72 million in the 1990s to build prop number one. As a relatively new engineer to the shop environment, I was assigned to a team of top-gun process engineers who managed all machining, welding, and assembly of this prop over the four-year build period. Other than our group leader, I was the only engineer with a degree. It was a humbling experience to be working alongside veteran process engineers who had generally started on the shop oor and risen through technical and managerial roles. To be clear, there were more than one hundred project and engineering professionals dedicated full time to the production of this 150-ton prop that looked like a twenty-foot-diameter piece of machined jewelry. With that said, all hardware was ultimately created by a skilled group of CNC machinists, welders, and fabricators and was under the technical guidance of this select group of non-degreed process engineers.I remember lamenting to one of our group’s veteran non-degreed process engineers named Sid that “engineering” had not yet designed our torque reaction xtures for the largest bolt we would install in the prop. e bolt weighed 37 pounds. ough we could install the bolts, we could not torque to the required specication, and this was my responsibility. Aer a moment of reection, he said, “Oh, just get that crane over here. We’ll be ne.” We had a 75-ton crane in our largest assembly area, and by attaching this crane via slings to our hydraulic torque wrench, we could easily

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow28react the torque in any direction and were able to torque all the 37-pound bolts to 11,000 foot-pounds using no special xtures. Problem solved.is same no-nonsense engineer once saw me dealing with a people issue, and he told me, “Remember, it doesn’t take all kinds—there just is all kinds.” He was referencing a colloquial southern saying that “It takes all kinds,” which is akin to another southern saying: “Bless his heart.” is bit of wisdom and the crane-hack episode have both stuck with me for over thirty years. Skills will always outperform credentials.And this leads us to our next perennial growth mindset: at’s Hard . . . Good.

29Chapter FourThat’s Hard . . . GoodWhen everything seems to be going against you, remember the airplane takes o against the wind, not with it.— H F

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow30Cultivating an abundance mindset that works together with a mindset and practice of dynamic continuous learning is foundational to the goal of perennial growth, but we need more. Our next two mindsets, at’s Hard . . . Good and e Second Mile, ask us to dig in, lean in, and go beyond. e rst of these for us to explain and explore is all about grit.Grit WinsLeaning in, digging in, embracing the obstacle—however we want to say it—this mindset acknowledges that just like it takes resistance to build physical muscle, we also need to apply resistance to develop emotional muscle. Indeed, just like our biceps, our emotional fortitude can be strengthened, and it can atrophy as well. Neurologists teach us about this as they research the anterior midcingulate cortex, an area of the brain connected to willpower. If you don’t use it, you lose it. at willingness to love and lean into the obstacle in front of us, to love the problem we need to solve, is the essence of grit. e gut punches, as I mentioned earlier, will come our way, and our success depends on how we respond.In the early days of Protomet, we could not aord an attorney, and I would review all contracts and execute any legal paperwork. Knowing this was not a great plan, in the early 2000s, one of our key advisors, the late Dan Kuban, put me in touch with his former

at’s Hard . . . Good 31attorney, the late Larry Perry. Larry was a very kind man who told me that he would not take me as a client if it were not for the connection with Dan. Larry was an accomplished businessman, an author of numerous books, and more of a philosopher than an attorney. On the rare occasion that he charged for his services, I knew that it was not the real cost, but that he was being gracious to help a struggling business.He observed our company in the very worst of times, and he was also there when things started to get less painful. When he observed that things were starting to improve and that we might survive, he would o repeat the statement, “Whatever you do, Je, don’t ever forget what brung ya.” While I thought I understood what he was saying at that time, I’ve come to realize over the years that it was a deeper statement. He knew that the further we got from our entrepreneurial roots, we would tend to forget, become complacent, and then vulnerable. Taking Larry’s advice and remembering the Mercedes seat belt contract helps me stay grounded.Embrace the ObstacleWe were forced to lean into the obstacle with our rst manufacturing contract—making a seat belt bushing for JCI. As mentioned in the introduction, JCI had landed a contract to manufacture seats for the rst-ever Mercedes Benz SUV. Our opportunity was that this part

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow32could not be manufactured using typical high-volume cold heading or stamping operations. e part could be fully machined, but this would require three CNC machines, and we did not even have one machine.Our “only” obstacles were that we had no machine, no shop, and no employees. We presented a slide deck to Johnson Controls with a picture of the machine we found on the new internet that could do the job. We communicated that this machine would be dedicated to the manufacture of the Mercedes seat belt bushing. We did not mention that we did not yet have this machine nor a place to install it.ere was an additional element to this story that I haven’t told you about yet. e agreement we signed when we took on the JCI contract stated that, if we shut down their line, we would pay them $30,000 per hour. As mentioned prior, we could not aord an attorney to review this contract. is was somewhat irrelevant considering we did not have the money to pay the $30,000 penalty regardless.is le us with no option but to guarantee 100 percent on-time delivery, which we managed to do, manufacturing 1,000,000 bushings (two per vehicle) for the rst model’s ve-year run. We succeeded only because we dug in and kept digging in for ve years.“Our ‘only’ obstacles were that we had no machine, no shop, and no employees.”

at’s Hard . . . Good 33Bias the ResultsAs dicult as the situation with JCI and Mercedes was, we were destined for even bigger opportunities to demonstrate grit. Perhaps the hardest thing we went through happened during the Great Recession, when we were put in the position of having to acquire a nishing company at a time when we were already nancially on the ropes. A severe economic downturn may not be the best time for a manufacturing company to expand, but we had no choice because, like all the shops at the time, our process involved sending our parts out for nishing. We wrapped them, then packed them and sent them to the anodize shop for nishing. ey would unwrap them, nish them, rewrap them, and send them back. When we got word that our aluminum nishing company would be shutting their doors in four weeks due to the Great Recession, we realized that we had to acquire them. So, we bought the nishing company and ran it remotely for four years. Eventually, as part of an expansion, we were able to transfer this process in-house. is new and integrated capability provided a strategic advantage in subsequent years. While it was a very dicult situation, the acquisition turned out to be strategic because we were able to grow inside the industry and specialize in this work.

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow34My dad frequently referred to this type of grit-based outcome as turning our scars into stars. This was a common theme in my childhood as my mom also demonstrated incredible tenacity regardless of the circumstances.e underappreciated gi of grit is that persistence stacks the odds in our favor. is is explained by the Bernoulli Principle, also known as the Law of Large Numbers. Flipping a coin ten times can yield wildly dierent results. Flipping a coin a thousand times or more will eventually yield a clear 50/50 split. Using the same principle, sucient iteration of intentionally biased eorts, or leaning into a task until you succeed, will, by denition, yield the desired results. But we cannot quit. We can play the game with the odds stacked in our favor, but we are only guaranteed to win the game if we play it long enough. Stay in the game.For us, the leaning in and digging in with our in-house nishing operation was a multiple-year endeavor. ey did not teach anything about the nishing process at the university, and because much of the nishing process is manual, the whole process was rather artisan. Over time, we learned the chemistry and some of the technology behind nishing. But the growth had to be achieved organically, one step at a time. “We are only guaranteed to win the game if we play it long enough.”

at’s Hard . . . Good 35e nishing process has many variables that we learned on the job. Eventually, our people in the nishing department developed world-class skills in our industry, and our customers now rave about our nishing. e grit we showed by purchasing the nishing company, and then leaning into it, turned out to be a strategic win.While we may not always enjoy hard times, we recognize how important they are for our learning and growth. If we could erase dicult experiences from our lives but the learning we gained would also be lost, would we want that? Most surveyed audiences say no. What does this tell us?e obstacle is the way. is includes when we fail or come up short. When we own our failures, we can learn from them and grow from them. We can even seek out the hard stu and embrace it to gain new capabilities.is brings us directly to our next mindset, e Second Mile.

37Chapter FiveThe Second MileHelp enough other people get what they want, and you’ll have anything you want.— Z Z

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow38We can see how these mindsets and the core values they represent are progressing along a continuum. Each mindset represents an expansion of the mindset that comes before as it focuses on a key attitude or perspective. Skills Beat Credentials applies Abundance Mindset to our own limitless capabilities, encouraging and empowering us to keep growing and learning according to our unique perspective. at’s Hard . . . Good teaches us to engage obstacles as a mechanism to grow our capabilities, which is to lean in and dig in, to exercise grit. Now, with e Second Mile, we are expanding our perspective to include freedom to serve others in our own unique way—whether these are external customers for our products or internal customers as in our associates at work.The Freedom Milee second mile, of course, follows the rst mile, and completing the rst mile means that we have done what is required to meet the minimum expectations. e rst mile is transactional. A Second Mile mindset, however, takes us beyond that. e Second Mile builds upon the earlier mindsets and recognizes that a bigger future is not built upon merely meeting customer expectations. We want to be always growing and leaning into the expanding future. Many will recognize that the second mile has a biblical reference. In this context, Jesus was teaching that legalism is misguided.

e Second Mile 39He was presenting the idea that, in any situation, we have the God-given freedom to choose our response. Hence, theologians have oen referred to the second mile as the “freedom mile.”e second mile goes beyond what is expected or required. It has several interesting benets supporting our growth. e second mile tends to be shorter than the rst mile but has asymmetric impact. e second mile is not transactional, so it allows us to be creative in our response. Finally, it may provide a second chance for us to recover from a failed rst mile. is allows us to stay in the game.The Shorter MileWe know that the second mile will often take less effort than the first mile, but it has the potential to provide outsized leverage or an asymmetric impact. Asymmetric describes when a change or input has an outsized or multiplying impact. For example, there is only one degree of difference between 211 degrees Fahrenheit and 212 degrees, but that one degree of temperature means the difference between very hot water and the energy from steam that can power an engine. Technically, it is the latent heat added at 212 degrees that converts water to steam, but we get the point. “e second mile is not paved.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow40In a post-COVID world where customer service seems to be in rapid decline, answering the phone or getting someone’s order right can be the one degree of separation that makes us a superstar.When our team leader, supervisor, or department leader needs to be away from the department for any number of reasons, how do we react? Do we step up or step down? Do we look for opportunities to lean into those situations and take more responsibility?During COVID, we paid everyone to stay at home for a few days while we assessed the situation. Our leadership team and some maintenance personnel con-tinued to come into the plant, ensuring that essential processes were monitored while everyone was away. During this time, we had one associate call in to say that he did not want to stay at home, so he volunteered to come in and help however was needed. While everyone was being paid to stay home for a few days, he volun-teered to do something dierent. is second-mile act sent a clear message that he was ready to step up and has led to increased responsibilities as well as acceler-ating his growth within our engineering department.While there may never be another COVID, and even if there were I am not proposing everyone volunteer to come into work, the magic of the second mile is best accomplished when it is unique to us. I am proposing that we look for opportunities to lean into and accelerate our growth by taking the road less traveled. When everyone is looking at the oor to avoid

e Second Mile 41eye contact with the team leader, that might be the time to raise our hand and volunteer for the hard task. Keep your eyes peeled for short second miles. ey may be short and easy to run, and even so they will propel you to a bigger future. ey are short, but the longest levers you will nd on your perennial growth journey.A good way to visualize this concept is to realize that the rst mile is paved with bounding yellow lines. e second mile is not paved, providing innite opportunity for us to forge our own path.A Second Chancee second mile is also the opportunity for second chances, which can have asymmetric results.Perhaps the most obvious example of a second-mile mindset can be found in something most of us experience regularly: customer service. What would happen if you called your internet service provider and someone answered the phone and said, “Hello, how can I help you?” I would probably think that I had reached the wrong number. Why is this? Our expectations have reached a low where we do not expect to speak to a person.Our memories are ckle; we can only hold onto so much. We remem-ber stories and outlier events. Make your mark on the world with pow-erful moments, bursts of energy and “We remember stories and outlier events.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow42light that make you unforgettable. Run one fantastic sec-ond mile instead of hiking ten. Your chances for a fantas-tic second mile are oen highest aer a failure. Here, we don’t just get a second chance, we get the opportunity to convert a moment of pain into a lifetime memory.At Protomet, we recognize the second-mile opportunity in customer service, so our customer service folks know that their job is to answer the phone or email and “make it right.” ey have extreme latitude, and if they are ever in doubt, we will chat about how far we are willing to go to make our customers feel taken care of. Do we get taken advantage of? Probably. But we know that most customer issues, even angry customer issues, can be diused with listening and taking the time to go above and beyond what is expected. We are also willing to pay this price to get better, because engaging directly with our customers will improve our eciency and eectiveness, which will ultimately serve us (and our customers) in the long run.We never know what will result from a second-mile eort. Perhaps the greatest example of this came about as a second-chance second mile. Early in 2005, we were producing some hardware for the nuclear detector industry and ran into a signicant quality issue, which had a profound impact on our ability to deliver. Knowing the severity of the issue, I visited the customer to see what we could do to repair the situation. In the process of owning our responsibility for creating the issue, we stayed in front of our customer until the

e Second Mile 43issue was resolved. During this time, we learned of another contract that was being awarded in a dierent department of that company. We had not been initially considered for this other contract, but our response to the failure led to us winning the largest single contract up to that point in our company’s history. And in the next year, this contract played a signicant role in tripling our revenue. is turned out to be a critical win because, in October of that same year, we secured a monumental loan to build our rst facility, something that was made possible by the revenue from this new contract.External and InternalWe further see customer service in an expanded way that aligns with our abundance mindset and perennial growth goal. Many of our customers are the companies that design and make boats. Our challenge is to help accelerate the new product development process while providing a well-designed and manufactured solution. at is the rst mile, what is expected. We also attend and support their dealership meetings, which is also expected (rst mile). In 2019, we began discussing what we could do that was consistent with our company’s DNA and something that was above and beyond what is expected. Out of these discussions, we created events where we bring in engineers and professionals from other industries

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow44like Porsche to help teach our industry principles and practices that could benet our like-minded customers.In our rst event, we hosted a group of our customers and friends at a Porsche facility to engage with Porsche engineers. Porsche was very transparent with us because we are not in their industry and are not competitors. e event provided a signicant number of insights because there are a lot of similarities between how Porsche engages with their customers and how a boat manufacturer might want to engage with their customers.Benchmarking parallel industries is a great way to gain new insights. ese events have been very well received, and it is proof that we’re not just thinking inside our own walls. Likewise, individuals with an abundance mindset know that sharing information between departments can provide new insights, fueling individual and company growth.We also think of customer service internally. By that I mean that our second-mile mindset also extends to our internal customers, our associates. Inside and outside of work, we intentionally provide employee experiences that go above and beyond what is normally expected of an employer. For example, we take new associates to lunch on their rst day to help them feel a part of the team. We also sponsor family outings to events like Smokies games (Tennessee baseball team), Dollywood theme park tickets, and department get-togethers.

e Second Mile 45We also challenge our associates to see each other as customers and go the second mile. For example, the next process that takes your product is your customer. is means that we are going above and beyond to ensure the product makes it to the next phase in the production chain in a way that is benecial to our customer. In this ideal world, the saw team provides straight and square cuts so the cut stock ts squarely in the machining xture; the machine operator provides burr-free machined parts to the nishing department; the bead blasters provide a uniform blast surface; the anodizing or powder coat team keeps the tapped holes clean for assembly; assembly includes all parts in the assembly; shipping packs parts for shipment such that they can be easily counted and received—and so on throughout the entire process. If any of these steps is skipped or compromised, the downstream teams suer, and eventually everyone in the company pays the price.We now turn to the mindset from our book’s title, Don’t Touch the Marshmallow. As you will see, this mindset also builds from and includes all the previous mindsets.

47Chapter SixDon’t Touch the Marshmallowe rst rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.— C M

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow48You’ve likely heard of a Stanford experiment where marshmallows were used to evaluate a child’s ability to delay gratication, which was then hypothesized to predict later success in life. A child was given a rst marshmallow and then told if they did not eat it for een minutes, they would be given a second marshmallow. Delayed gratication is still part of the Don’t Touch the Marshmallow mindset, but we have a more expanded view of it. It is about redening gratication. Our mindset belief is that the marshmallow, the sugary reward for your eorts, doesn’t matter—or is at least not the real reward. As the cover suggests, the marshmallow representing any material reward may have a hook.Further, this is a continuation of our last mindset. In e Second Mile, we looked at how the second mile is not transactional, that meeting the expectations of the rst mile allows us to act purely for the sake of the service. e continued growth and learning are gleaned from the second mile. Focus on the Long TermFocus on the long term. This is the essence of Don’t Touch the Marshmallow. The focus is not necessarily on what we would transactionally get out of any one thing we do. It’s about building capability, which has a compounding effect over time. It is capability over cash, knowing that the cash will come. The monetary

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow 49rewards will come over time, but the real rewards are generally not commensurate with what we did at that moment. e magic is in the focus. When we rst learn to drive a car, we tend to focus on the lines immediately in front of us as we try to keep the car in between the lines. We tend to overcorrect, and the steering is erratic. When we learn to look down the road, the steering becomes uid. By not focusing on the marshmallow, we are focusing on the future. Maximizing the compounding eect of our growth means playing the long game and valuing the journey. e real takeaway of this mindset is that a near-term focus can be limiting. It’s not about getting two marshmallows. It’s about not worrying about them at all. I oen refer to this focus on the journey as work-life integration. A focus on work-life balance can be transactional. Work and life are not mutually exclusive. Seeking to achieve a balance between work and life assumes that we are not living when we are at work. Work-life integration challenges us to nd meaning in our job or occupation so that we are living and growing while engaged in our life’s work.“It’s not about getting two marshmallows. It’s about not worrying about them at all.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow50Play the Infinite GameSports and games are a great way to talk about this mindset. While team sports are great for learning lead-ership and teamwork, individual sports are focused pri-marily on building individual capability. e journey of improving our capability provides an innite runway for growth. Whether it is an individual sport like tennis or golf or a team sport like football or basketball, elite athletes use their short-term wins and losses to hone their long-term skill development.Most sports engage in what we would call finite games. There is a defined number of players and a time limit when each game is over. An on-side kick might be an appropriate strategy for a finite game, though it might never make sense if the game had no time limit. The game of life and business are different. These are more successfully played as infinite games.Innite games allow for focusing on perennial growth. At Protomet, for example, our purpose of peren-nial growth means that each new expansion or project matters in and of itself, but we can never take such things out of the overall context of Protomet’s continuing growth and improvement. e individual wins and losses are held within this larg-er game, which means that touching “If you look at Protomet’s strategic projects, you’ll nd that many of them simply do not make sense on paper.”

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow 51the marshmallow would be a kind of contradiction. If you look at Protomet’s strategic projects, you’ll nd that many of them simply do not make sense on paper. If we were in the game of quarterly earnings calls, we would be pressed to play a dierent game. In our in-nite game, we look for synergies that don’t play nice on paper, but that we know are highly strategic. We take risks and follow the rst principles that we know will be true in 100 years. Playing the long game is what is most benecial to everyone on the team, which in-cludes our customers.Invest in YourselfAs individuals and as a company, our game strategy is to reinvest. We continually reinvest in ourselves and in our company. is creates a momentum where the ywheel keeps growing and increasing in its capacity to produce. As individuals, our grit and our ability to stay in the game will encourage our continued growth. Yes, we can oen make a dollar more if we switch jobs. But ask rst if this new job will increase our capability. If not, are we taking advantage of the opportunities to grow new capabilities in our current job? In marshmallow terms, insisting on a reward for every good deed is transactional. Forgoing that reward for a bigger purpose makes us unique and, in the long term, will pay exponentially increasing dividends.

53Conclusion: Personal Leadershipe ve mindsets of perennial growth that we have examined combine to form an overall strategy for life. Each mindset, as we have seen, connects and overlaps with the others, eventually taking root in our individual desire to know and live out our God-given unique genius. Let’s review these mindsets briey.1. Abundance Mindsete mindset of abundance, the understanding that everything expands into the future to provide increasing opportunities for growth and learning, is the soil out of which the other mindsets grow. e contrasting mindset to an abundance mindset is a scarcity or xed mindset, which seeks to preserve the status quo and hold on to what we have. Simply put, the abundance mindset sees that the technology world is expanding

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow54and always providing more opportunities, while a xed mindset believes that the world has a limited number of growth opportunities. e abundance mindset understands that there is an innite pool of resources to draw from, and what somebody else gets does not take away from what we get.E: Share your secrets and tools, making your teammates better. eir success means your success.E: Team up with “A” players. “A” players are an opportunity for growth, not a threat.E: Embrace coaching, critique, and a helping hand. Coaching doesn’t mean you messed up. It means someone cares enough to invest in you.2. Skills Beat CredentialsUnderstanding that continually growing our knowledge, including skill, is the only way to engage the changing world, is the essence of Skills Beat Credentials. As perennial exponential growth is our purpose and goal, we must embrace continuous and dynamic learning. Credentials will become obsolete. e internet democratized and made the world’s information instantly available at our query. AI will accelerate our ability to access and use this information. Riding this wave of change means leaning into every opportunity

Personal Leadership 55to learn and grow our capabilities. We refer to this as “batteries included.” ere is no ceiling to our growth.As testament to our belief in hands-on learning, in the early days of Protomet, our current VP of Operations, Andrew Jenkins, and our current VP of Engineering, Matt Reid, loaded and ran the Mercedes seat belt bushings. On occasion, though Andrew and Matt would dispute this, I would also load and run the machine. Maybe someday they will write their own book.E: Whenever possible, promote from within the organization, from the ground up.E: Reject all established norms that you cannot trace directly back to rst principles. If a crane is the best torque wrench, then a crane is the best torque wrench. Traditions can be cultural cornerstones, or they can be like credentials—be careful.E: Find underutilized, undervalued streams of value. Some of our very best and most creative engineers wouldn’t make it past the credential-walled application lters of most organizations.3. That’s Hard . . . Goodis mindset helps us grow and learn by acknowledging that it takes resistance to develop emotional muscle. Hard times create strong people. It takes grit to push through the resistance. e challenges, the gut punches,

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow56will come and our success depends on our ability to celebrate the obstacle, to lean in and dig in. e gi of grit is that leaning in like this will stack the odds in our favor because, stated simply, grit wins. Getting better at winning means leaning into the hard stu and embracing it.E: Live closer to the edge, but never risk dying (remember, staying in the game is number one). Take on one core advance/capability/technology for big projects, not more than one. It will ensure you grow and can weather the storm.E: Pursue some amount of suering. Walk up a hill, avoid food for a time, hold your breath until you remember you need oxygen. It will shape your brain.E: Make a decision, and then make it the right decision. Act, knowing that even if it turns out to be the wrong move, your abundance mindset will turn it into a valuable learning experience, a long-term victory. Act, knowing that you can easily turn your mistakes into second-mile moments.4. The Second Milee Second Mile, or Freedom Mile, mindset provides a framework for exercising our own creativity to simultaneously serve our customers and grow our capabilities. e second-mile mindset has four main

Personal Leadership 57qualities or characteristics that dierentiate it from the rst mile: it is not transactional, it is shorter, it has asymmetric leverage (give a little, gain a lot), and it may provide a second chance to stay in the game. ere are many second-mile opportunities in customer service, both for external and internal customers. Essentially, our second-mile mindset unleashes asymmetric power through our own unique and creative application of going beyond expectations—without expectation of reward. e second mile, more than any other mindset, fuels our growth.E: Most of the magic happens before shi starts and aer shi ends. In these windows you’ll nd the richest conversations, the relationship dierentiators, the most creative ideas. Don’t be transactional with the clock.E: Turn mistakes into delighters. Own your error, apologize with eye contact, and oer corrective action—that’s the rst mile. en make the process or experience better than it was ever intended to be—that’s the second mile.E: Jog; don’t walk. Smile; don’t be indierent. Lock eyes; don’t look down. Write a thank you letter, not a text. Seemingly, few do this.

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow585. Don’t Touch the Marshmallowis mindset, the title of our book, is all about avoiding making any short-term play for immediate gratication. Delayed gratication in the name of bigger rewards is not what Don’t Touch the Marshmallow references because this would still be a strategy focused on the endpoint. It is about redening the rewards in terms of the journey. We are in the innite game of continuous, perennial growth through the intentional focus of staying in the game and growing our capacity to do what God has uniquely wired us to do. Compounding growth is nature’s miracle; we need to let it happen.E: Reframe retirement. Retirement is not a carrot; it’s not a marshmallow. It may be a season you walk into, but it is still part of the perennial growth journey.E: Sure, buy the new car, but think three times about it rst. When deploying capital, ask if this move helps you stay alive and in the game, or if it’s merely a hedonic mechanism.E: Cut out talking heads from your life (aka, clearly biased sources of information). Either you agree with them, making them candy for your brain, or you disagree with them, making them candy for your vices. Either way is not healthy.

Personal Leadership 59So, where does this leave us? Our ve mindsets are a blueprint for personal leadership. ey teach us how to stay on task for the innite game of life, for being true to ourselves as we are forever discovering new ways to grow into our potential. e real power of these interconnected mindsets is that they are practical guides to doing the work in front of us strategically and successfully. And as we integrate these mindsets into our professional lives, they will also pay dividends in our personal lives. Moreover, this kind of personal leadership also prepares us and develops us for greater leadership roles in our professional lives.Leadership begins with personal leadership, with the desire and tools to manage our integrated work and life. In the blue ocean world of the future, there are innumerable opportunities for us to take on more learning and growing. Play the long game. Lean into our unique superpower. Go the second mile. Help others do the same. And please don’t touch the marshmallow.

61About the AuthorJe Bohanan founded Protomet in 1997 and has led with a strategic mindset for the past twenty-seven years. Je ’s passion for engineering and design grew during his prior tenure as an engineer for America’s military weapons complex. He subsequently built Protomet from the ground up, creating a world-class engineering playground that encompasses best-in-class innovation and design. Working inside the marine industry, Protomet has found like-minded individuals geared toward innovating new products, new capabilities, and making a cultural impact. Partnering with marine OEMs, Protomet has grown steadily through ever-changing economic conditions and has completed multiple expansions. Je believes the key to this growth is an abundance mindset—not just for Protomet employees but for everyone in the marine manufacturing industry. Je is a popular industry keynote speaker and is frequently invited

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow62to speak at the University of Tennessee and for local civic organizations.Je lives in East Tennessee with his family.

63Notes____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Don’t Touch the Marshmallow64____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________