Bo Parfet talks to Aaron Bare about how the biggest companies still are not "thinking big" on today's episode. They discuss Aaron's background and how to mobilize his Exponential Theory into your business practice. About Aaron: Aaron Bare is a Change Agent, Human Profit Center, Strategic Facilitator, and the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of Exponential Theory. Aaron leads Digital Transformation for Fortune 500 companies. Helping companies leverage AI, ML, the Cloud, Digital Experiences, and Strategy to go exponential.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:32:21
Bo Parfet
Hello, America. I'm Bo Parfitt, co-host of The Impact with Don Winter podcast. And today I'm here with Aaron Bear. I can't wait for this interview. I can't wait to get to know you better. And I know our audience is really excited about learning from you. So, Aaron, welcome.
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Aaron Bare
Thanks, Bo. Glad. Glad to be here with you today.
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Bo Parfet
Wonderful. You having a good day so far?
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Aaron Bare
It's. I'm out here in Phenix, Arizona. It's a little hot, right now, but it's been a good day to be on a podcast. Put it that way.
00:00:49:06 - 00:01:00:08
Bo Parfet
All right. And we have a fun connection. You and I both have. We're both Midwesterners. So in our youth, we both both grew up in the Midwest, which is kind of fun.
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Aaron Bare
Yeah, it's a good place to be from. Is I. I've always tell people.
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Bo Parfet
All right, well, good stuff. I kind of want to dove into it here. I know that our audience is is dying to hear more about you and your book. And let's start with this one. Aaron, what are your superpowers? What are you what do people reach out to you for? And, you know, just tell us. Tell us about your superpowers.
00:01:29:08 - 00:01:52:17
Aaron Bare
Yeah. So, Bo, I think over my life, I mean, I've sold a lot of things, so I'd say selling is one of those. I actually used to run the National Association of Sales Professionals, and during that I left that organization. I wrote an article that sales is dead. We all live in a buyer funnel, and with so much information out there, we kind of make our choices about how do we lead people to buying.
00:01:53:02 - 00:02:21:11
Aaron Bare
That led me into a career of facilitating. Which facilitation is to make things easier is really the Latin root of that. And my role has been to go in to organizations such as Daimler Mercedes-Benz at the board level and executive level and have conversations about how they can think bigger. And that ultimately led to me going in and out of 500 organizations, close to 100 countries.
00:02:22:06 - 00:02:47:06
Aaron Bare
So it got me to do the things I wanted to do and then ultimately led me to write this book that I have over my right shoulder here. Exponential Theory of the Power of Thinking Big, which is really a consolidation of all the exponential stories that I learned when I was in Tel Aviv and Shanghai and Singapore, and realizing that the whole world is in an exponential paradigm shift where no longer can we think linearly.
00:02:47:23 - 00:03:04:06
Aaron Bare
So it's given me that superpower those all together have molded together where I go into organizations to help them think bigger, be smarter, make decisions faster, and really execute on a true purpose, which is overall what organization is need to do to survive in today's world.
00:03:05:23 - 00:03:11:20
Bo Parfet
Fabulous. Fabulous. Any superpowers at home?
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Aaron Bare
Well, I.
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Bo Parfet
Know.
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Aaron Bare
I have two kids, daughter, Molly. She's 14, going into high school. I see her transitioning from my little girl to a a young young lady now. But I can say that I have a special relationship with with both my kids. I also have a son, Maverick, who's nine. And my daughter, though, in particular, as she's a little bit older, helped her really become an entrepreneur at a very young age, is a patent holder, recorded artist, was a Nickelodeon star.
00:03:45:04 - 00:04:07:17
Aaron Bare
Really just one of those those daughters that, you know, gave her the little bit of advice. And she took it to the extreme and and really has done well for herself in just advancing whatever she puts her mind to. And so I think a superpower is really thinking big and helping at home, helping my kids really think much, much bigger about their futures and and really stepping into that future themselves every day.
00:04:08:00 - 00:04:21:00
Aaron Bare
And that's what I do in my professional career. But at home as well, I can say my daughter's a testament to, you know, really living out that thinking big for herself. So it's it's a proud dad moment right there.
00:04:21:22 - 00:04:50:09
Bo Parfet
I love it. I love that proud dad moment. And Don Witter, our founder and CEO of DLP Capital, he had a proud dad moment recently. He and his wife Carly have two boys, so two biological boys. And they just adopted a son recently, Baby Jacob. And it's pretty cool that Don and Carla wanted to do that and have an impact because there's a lot of children that would grow up in the world and eventually enter the kind of the foster care system.
00:04:50:09 - 00:05:03:07
Bo Parfet
And so Don and Carla wanted to do something about it. So, so good news, proud dad moment. Just like you and Don and Carly got to adopt a baby. Jacob, which is awesome.
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Aaron Bare
Yeah.
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Bo Parfet
So speaking of kind of kids and fatherhood, a lot of our audience likes to kind of hear a little bit about, hey, what was Erin, what was your childhood like? And tell us tell us about that. Let's start there.
00:05:16:13 - 00:05:39:01
Aaron Bare
Yeah. So I had one of these, you know, idyllic childhoods. I grew up in South Fort Wayne, which was a very diverse community, really kind of a utopian vibe. You could say Midwestern cities that we don't we don't think about cities in the way that I think I thought about growing up. I could be home late after dark, you know, if I had a good reason.
00:05:39:01 - 00:05:57:18
Aaron Bare
There wasn't literally too many hazards that I could the thought I could get into my parents, you know. But I often, you know, traveled far from my own home with my friends and kind of explore and and really see the world. And I think that that all obviously led me to thinking much, much bigger about my own travel as I grew up.
00:05:57:18 - 00:06:26:20
Aaron Bare
And, you know, I started wondering what it would be like to see the world. And ultimately, I think one of the biggest shifts in my childhood from growing up in a, you know, kind of with a mindset of being very local to being very global, was a trip I went on called Semester at Sea in College, and I was able to circumnavigate the world and literally went to four different continents and visited, you know, 15 different countries and just had an experience where I realized that the world is much bigger than I thought.
00:06:26:20 - 00:06:48:03
Aaron Bare
But also much smaller. And at the same time and holding those two opposing thoughts has really helped me kind of decipher a lot of complexity. And in my career. But, but ultimately I think it's, it's grounded me to be very happy from where I grew up and what I, you know, where I lived two parents that I'd sit around the dinner table every night.
00:06:48:20 - 00:07:08:21
Aaron Bare
My dad owned a Subway Sandwich franchise as well as he ended up building a made franchise, a made company that basically was the largest made service in Fort Wayne. My mom was the CEO of a credit union. So every night I, I grew up, you know, basically in a mini board of directors of what went wrong that day or what little problem they had to fix.
00:07:08:21 - 00:07:32:18
Aaron Bare
And and ultimately, you know, I say it was very privileged childhood to have that experience. And it made me want to be an entrepreneur to kind of control my time and kind of grow, you know, what it did. But it also made me say, I want to skip the whole small business. I want to think bigger. So I ended up writing a book about thinking big just to make sure that I didn't get caught into the small business and started being in stuff that could make a real big impact.
00:07:34:07 - 00:08:06:03
Bo Parfet
Perfect and I want to get into that, you know, the the power of thinking big. But before we do that, often people will ask, you know, Don, I'm sure you is, you know, where does your two things where does your drive come from? Right. So where does your drive come from? And then secondly, tell us about kind of a moment in your life where maybe you got, you know, kicked in the teeth or you fell down in your skin, both knees.
00:08:06:03 - 00:08:09:00
Bo Parfet
And, you know, how how did you how did you overcome that?
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Aaron Bare
Yeah, I mean, I like to tell people that I have this mindset of really either win or learn. And, you know, failure is just something you need to learn. And whatever that obstacle was is how do you eat that obstacle? How do you overcome it? In my life, I've been an entrepreneur. I've sold 12 companies. People are like, wow, wow.
00:08:32:18 - 00:08:59:18
Aaron Bare
You must be, you know, super rich. But what I did is I took every company dollars and put it in the next. Sometimes I'd feel the next one and have to kind of build up from the ground up. So many times. I think, you know, a lot of people don't really learn a lot from success. It's it's part of the journey, but it's actually taking what, you know, what things that you may have fallen down on and actually turning that into something meaningful.
00:09:00:07 - 00:09:35:17
Aaron Bare
And oftentimes where some people may have trauma, I have a whole mindset around, you know, translating trauma into opportunity, meaning like, what did I need to learn? You know, as bad as the situation may have been, what was the situation created for that? What did I really need to learn in that? And often when people come to me to get coaching about their own business, you know, I work with CEOs of $10 billion companies and they'll come to me and, you know, we'll literally get to a conversation where we're talking about when they were seven years old and, you know, something happened that was horrific.
00:09:36:05 - 00:09:55:18
Aaron Bare
But it actually enters into their decisions every day that they're making it for a very large enterprise. And so, one, you have to have a better relationship with that trauma and really have a relationship to say, what did you need to learn at that stage? And what can you take from that, that actually you take a positive out of that.
00:09:55:18 - 00:10:18:21
Aaron Bare
And it's not that every situation, you know, needs to be washed with some positivity, but it said you have to be able to to be comfortable to talk about that trauma and overcome it. So I think when I've ever ran up against the wall or been with my back on the wall, I think the grit and determination I've had is, you know, really to think bigger is how do I think my way out of this?
00:10:18:21 - 00:10:40:20
Aaron Bare
By doing something that's bigger than people would expect me to do. And that's just always been something that's worked for me. I'm not going to say it's going to work for everybody yet. It's a mindset shift that, you know, there's been many times where in one in particular, I'll give you an example. I lived in an apartment when I first moved to Arizona and I was renting it.
00:10:41:05 - 00:11:09:16
Aaron Bare
I had a truck that I was leasing that I couldn't afford. I had $140,000 in credit card debt. I had $120,000 in school loans, and I had no job. And the previous year, I probably had made, you know, 60, $70,000. But spent $120,000 attempting to, you know, build my entrepreneurial dream with my back against the wall and all the circumstances kind of coming down.
00:11:09:17 - 00:11:30:06
Aaron Bare
I never missed a payment on my credit card. I've always partially because my mom, as I told you, was a CEO of a credit union. So I always learned how important the credit score was. But with my back against the wall, I just started thinking, how could I think bigger to think my way out of this? Where I really didn't see many options in the current situation.
00:11:30:16 - 00:12:09:17
Aaron Bare
So I had to reinvent myself actually when I'd fallen down and basically just talked myself into believing that I was a much bigger person and that I was making more money and I was able to get the deals that I wanted to. And I really shifted my mindset, belief and attitude to really create that. And within two years from the day I remember, you know, literally almost crying in my one bedroom apartment and thinking like, poor me, I literally kind of overcome and paid off all that debt and really had investments and, you know, really was was make a difference owned several condos did did some really unique things with that but it was all
00:12:09:17 - 00:12:29:14
Aaron Bare
about, you know, my own belief system in myself that helped me overcome some of that versus, you know, to get me into that, I likely fell into this cycle of trauma that the world's against me. And, you know, and I have in my book, one of my first universal truths is to think is to create. So when you're thinking that you're literally creating, that you're putting the energy into it.
00:12:29:14 - 00:12:40:10
Aaron Bare
So ultimately, learning that lesson and being able to kind of think bigger allowed me to escape, you know, kind of this, this really minimalist thinking that got me in that situation.
00:12:42:01 - 00:13:07:19
Bo Parfet
I love it and some fun parallels. So DLP, we talk a lot about grit, growth mindset, you know, the positive, positive thinking and and it's it's fun to see these parallels between your story and the DLP story and probably many of our viewers too. And it's just it's is such refreshing to hear because the, you know, positivity is contagious and so is negativity.
00:13:07:19 - 00:13:16:10
Bo Parfet
So I love that you have turned, you know, kind of your stumbling blocks into stepping stones, if you will. So great stories to share. Thank you.
00:13:16:16 - 00:13:38:07
Aaron Bare
I think that's the add on to your Yelp mix there, because you actually explained the formula very well of what I consider the exponential mindset. And it is the the attitude or the grit. It is thinking positive, it is the growth mindset. But then the last piece that if you added to that, you create what I call the exponential mindset is just thinking big.
00:13:38:20 - 00:14:02:00
Aaron Bare
And I know from being at your conference in Asheville you're surrounded by members that think big. The people that you work with think big. And it's exciting to see, you know, the rapid change and acceleration that everyone around you and that's connected to you is creating. But if you add that, you can help people think just a little bit bigger about what they're doing, which I think you're doing.
00:14:02:00 - 00:14:15:18
Aaron Bare
That's what I would say is the future is an exponential mindset, which ultimately will lead you guys to to all the goals and dreams to live and prosper, you know, to use your your DLP in the future. So yeah.
00:14:15:18 - 00:14:41:02
Bo Parfet
Thanks, Eric. Thank you. I love taking notes too while you're talking because you're this is a lot of a lot of good takeaways for me. And I know the audience feels the same way. I wrote down to have you said to have a better relationship with your traumas and you talked about how a lot of people, even as adults, make decisions based on that trauma they may have had earlier on in life.
00:14:41:13 - 00:15:00:19
Bo Parfet
And what a great way to phrase that. You know, like so a lot of people will overlook a trauma or sweep it under the rug or really want to not don't really want to get to know it. So, Aaron, I think that that's you know, that's bullseye perfect or something there. They said that's a chef's kiss. Perfect. I love that.
00:15:00:19 - 00:15:07:21
Bo Parfet
So just want to say it again, you know, have a better relationship with your traumas. That's that's a great takeaway. So yeah.
00:15:07:21 - 00:15:08:07
Aaron Bare
And I think.
00:15:09:13 - 00:15:34:02
Aaron Bare
To build on that, I think if you look at most of what we learn, our synapses are formed by the time we're 18. Our childhood and, you know, not everybody has an idyllic childhood. And and, you know, part of it that we start to make meaning of things that happen and we get we create limiting beliefs and we create doubts and fears and worries and anxieties and stresses about the future based on maybe past experiences.
00:15:34:12 - 00:15:53:01
Aaron Bare
If, you know, the reality is a lot of people will just relive that trauma over and over again if they don't figure out how to have a better relationship with it. And I think that's one of the coaching that I do with you know, really some very influential people that, you know, when you really get down to it is why are you making these decisions?
00:15:53:01 - 00:16:12:01
Aaron Bare
And when we ask why enough, we generally get to some story will come out, well, you know, maybe it was this or maybe it was that. But you start digging through when you made your mind up about who you were going to be, like your personality. And that often happens, you know, very young and, you know, to to your thing.
00:16:12:01 - 00:16:36:18
Aaron Bare
I work with a lot of foster kids that, you know, have really, you know, hard upbringings that how do they overcome that? It is having a better relationship with whatever trauma maybe they've experienced because you know what happens to you. You know, it's your obstacles, which is a stoic, you know, philosophy. Ryan Holiday wrote a book about it, I think, you know, is part of the grit you're talking about to overcome in the attitude.
00:16:37:03 - 00:16:58:07
Aaron Bare
You know, whatever happens, you know, it's happening for a reason to to learn something. I think if you can, you can latch on to that even further. That's going to help you propel you to whatever dreams you have. Because the reality, the only thing I know for certain and it doesn't matter if it's Don UBO or me, we're going to have obstacles that we're going to have to over, keep, continue to keep overcoming.
00:16:58:12 - 00:17:06:09
Aaron Bare
They just get bigger and bigger, which means that we have to literally get better and better to be able to overcome those.
00:17:06:09 - 00:17:23:04
Bo Parfet
I love it. I love it. All right. Let's let's dig into your book. Okay. So real quick, if somebody wants to read your book again for the audience or maybe someone is driving their car, so tell the audience again, hey, here's here's the name of my book and here's where you can, you know, kind of find it or download it.
00:17:23:14 - 00:17:54:03
Aaron Bare
Yeah, it's called exponential theory, the power of Thinking Big. It's on Amazon or Barnes Noble or many of the different places. You can look me up at my website, Aaron Broken Arrow and Barry dot com and there'll be more information there. But yeah it's it's a book that came out in March hit the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller list as well as is number one in Amazon for probably like, you know, 20 days literally as a business book, it actually hit number two overall.
00:17:54:03 - 00:18:14:16
Aaron Bare
I couldn't I couldn't overcome I couldn't overcome John Grisham. He just had too far of a lead for me. And then also spent time at the top of Barnes Noble as well. But but really has been received well and very excited to have people thinking bigger as they read it. And I'm getting lots of good feedback and it's create opportunities for me.
00:18:14:17 - 00:18:34:03
Aaron Bare
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy for me to think bigger. So I'm really attract those people that really want to take themselves to the next level. You know, they're coming into my life, including Don and, you know, just, you know, learning about how to grow, you know, your influence in the world. And that's what the book's done for me. It's it's got me on an exponential pace of growth.
00:18:35:10 - 00:18:58:20
Bo Parfet
I love it. I love it. So let's I've got a question. I'm going to answer two questions. And, you know, it's it's your choice. So you pick people pick which question. So the first one is, you know, it's you've worked with some very big companies you mentioned before, you know, Daimler-Chrysler, and you've probably worked with some smaller companies.
00:19:00:00 - 00:19:20:08
Bo Parfet
What what is it? Why why do companies in a matter of their size, why, how come they don't think big? You know, what are some of the common things that you see or question, too, is you you know, you can give an example of, hey, this is you know, here's a great example on why companies don't do it.
00:19:20:14 - 00:19:27:23
Bo Parfet
And you can launch launch into a good, tasty example for our audience. Okay. Yeah. So the first one or maybe both.
00:19:28:07 - 00:19:56:06
Aaron Bare
Yeah, I think I can cover both, but we'll we'll start with your first question. Is big or small people get complacent like it's easy to make decisions at the level you're you're making them. And what I see today more than anything in big companies and small companies is indecision and the reality. In an exponential world. It's better to make a decision, make a mistake and learn from it, and keep growing than it ever is to say, Hey, we'll just kick the can down the road and figure that out.
00:19:56:12 - 00:20:21:18
Aaron Bare
That happens in global companies, like literally companies I've worked with 270,000 employees, leaders that have to make decisions on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people down to small startups that are, you know, a dozen people looking to change the world. The fact is, is that we have to get into if we want to be innovative and we want to push the barrier of our own company and growth, we have to be willing to make mistakes.
00:20:21:18 - 00:20:57:10
Aaron Bare
You know, and I have a model in the book called VUCA, which many people have heard of VUCA, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. I've really there's a there's another person that kind of created this model that I've adopted, but it's around vision, understanding, certainty and agility and ah, clarity and agility. And those, those model, like a mental model for the future is how do you establish the vision, how do you establish the understanding, how do you get the clarity of your team and then really be agile to get to the goal?
00:20:57:10 - 00:21:18:16
Aaron Bare
Because no matter what, as long as you keep moving forward, making mistakes and learning, you know, and that's where I have this motto of learner win, you will get there. And that's, you know, the time is probably the uncertain thing. But the more and more you can focus a group of people on a very big goal, and that's what the book is really about, is I went in and saw all these people that changed the world.
00:21:18:16 - 00:21:36:13
Aaron Bare
I met with them, you know, spend time with interviewing them. It's been very small companies saying, well, this company is going to change the world because you just see it in the leaders. I see that. And you and Don, when I've experienced, you know, there's this there's this thing that just overcomes. And it really is that exponential mindset that we talked about before.
00:21:36:14 - 00:21:53:09
Aaron Bare
You know, you literally had the blueprint for something that you probably never heard of, but it really is is like, how do I not think linearly? Well, it's that you think bigger about your decisions today. So what would you do to be uncomfortable in a decision today is going to push you into a place that really creates growth.
00:21:53:21 - 00:22:12:09
Aaron Bare
You know, so much of what I said and it started with in my childhood and moving, you know, circumnavigating the world was me just getting out of my own comfort zone. Every time I went to a new location or every step further, I went out into the world. It was like a learning opportunity that I was choosing growth over comfort.
00:22:12:18 - 00:22:35:20
Aaron Bare
I mean, I didn't know anyone on this trip. I went by myself. I literally, you know, met a bunch of people and just kept moving further and further away from what you would call my comfort zone, only to come back a very much stronger man with a lot more purpose, a lot more intent, and really focused on, you know, to to your point about attitude and grit, really focused on making a make a dent in the universe.
00:22:35:20 - 00:22:43:15
Aaron Bare
And I think that's you know, that's what Aristotle would say we're here to do is is is really find our purpose and live into it.
00:22:43:15 - 00:23:05:13
Bo Parfet
So I love it. I love it. And give us an example of, hey, I worked with a client. You probably maybe can well, maybe you can divulge or just, you know, you not answer questions like this. Yeah. Hey, boy, here's a client that they weren't thinking big enough. I came in and, you know, this is what happened. Give us an example.
00:23:05:13 - 00:23:14:01
Bo Parfet
And this is our this is our our last question. And so let's let's have it be the best question and the best answer. All right.
00:23:14:02 - 00:23:39:02
Aaron Bare
Well, there's a soda company. You can pick a blue one and a red one, but you kind of get the idea. And it was brought in to talk about 100, 100 leaders around digital transformation and really accelerating. How do they move to the future? And and part of it was just taking a cross-functional group of team members. So we had 100 top leaders from different areas, just broke them down into little groups.
00:23:39:02 - 00:23:57:13
Aaron Bare
So they worked across function and put them into groups and say, what could we innovate? And during this three day workshop that we were just looking to disrupt the mindset of the organization, we all similarly came out and we were able to document close to three and a half billion dollars in additional revenue we were able to create from that three day workshop.
00:23:57:23 - 00:24:26:03
Aaron Bare
So thinking big that I was thinking big and what we did is we found certain restaurant chain, you know, that had a certain beverage on a restaurant chain. Basically, we realized that they were in West Virginia and Arizona. If you deployed in all the different states, you'd get a 15, 16% growth in just beverage sales. All of a sudden you multiply that out, you kind of get some big numbers.
00:24:26:10 - 00:24:46:15
Aaron Bare
But we did this in literally several different areas and we were able to document true results from just getting together and getting people to think about what are the opportunities within the organization. And that's what I do is I go in organizations and create that, but also just give people the opportunity to think bigger. I mean, there's there's not a freedom in the boardroom really to think bigger.
00:24:46:15 - 00:25:15:16
Aaron Bare
It's like it's all about, you know, blending in, which causes a lot of problem for companies. And it's always the reason we making decisions is better to not make a decision sometimes for an individual or group. But that's where you got to get the collective illusion of a group where they're private opinions and public opinions aren't congruent. You've got to get them comfortable enough to kind of figure out what are the barriers we need to push on and what are the things not just in my best interest when the companies and how do we support each other doing that?
00:25:15:16 - 00:25:37:00
Aaron Bare
Because so many people are so vested in what their is important to them, it's really to think about the group and how they really grow that. So that's part of that superpower we started off with about facilitating is getting people in a room comfortable enough to have difficult conversations that lead to uncomfortable decisions that ultimately will lead to tremendous growth.
00:25:37:03 - 00:25:55:02
Aaron Bare
And it's it's something that once everybody's aligned, I never say we never go for consensus. We just go for action. And then we kind of build on the momentum of that action to kind of get that company. And then once you're once your momentum is going, then you'll see everybody kind of jump in line and say, I was there to push this decision over.
00:25:55:07 - 00:26:04:21
Aaron Bare
Everyone takes credit for that decision and which ultimately, you know, will change or transform an organization for the for the greater good.
00:26:05:07 - 00:26:36:06
Bo Parfet
Fabulous, fabulous. Well, again, co-host Bo Parfitt on the impact with Don Winner podcast. And we are just wrapping up a fabulous, fabulous interview with Aaron Barr, the author of Exponential Theory The Power of Thinking Big. Thank you so much. On behalf of all the DLP community and the world and all the world global citizens, if you will, that have that are plugged in and have learned a lot from this.
00:26:36:06 - 00:26:38:07
Bo Parfet
So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:26:39:02 - 00:26:44:12
Aaron Bare
Thanks, Bo. Glad to be glad to speak to you again and look forward to work with you in the future.
00:26:44:12 - 00:26:46:05
Bo Parfet
You bet. I'll see you soon. Thanks so much.