ike many promises of the digital age, online learning has loomed large—but not always lived up to its expectation. It seemed that surely the online medium could be used for learning, training, compliance, and onboarding, but no one quite figured out the right way to do it.
The content was dull, the effectiveness questionable. Andrew Scivally was attempting to figure this out as an online learning specialist for JP Morgan Chase when an opportunity arose for him to start a company with his brother, who was also in the online learning space for Wendy’s.
And eLearning Brothers was born. Now they offer a custom LMS, “gamification,” and even VR solutions to industries ranging from healthcare to FinTech to pro sports.
More information: https://www.elearningbrothers.com/
Andrew Scivally is the Co-Founder and CEO of eLearning Brothers. He has 20 years of experience in the learning technology space, including all aspects of course design and development, as well as leading Learning and Development teams for financial institutions such as JPMorganChase and Zions Bank. He holds a master’s degree in computer education and cognitive systems. Led by Andrew, eLearning Brothers has become a leader in learning technology solutions that enable organizations to conquer performance and development challenges.
The company offers a one-stop-shop for learning development and delivery, ranging from strategic consulting and custom learning development to content libraries and development tools for creating rockstar learning experiences, all paired with an easy-to-use platform for delivering and tracking learning. eLearning Brothers helps everyone create and deliver learning experiences that rock—and deliver measurable results.
TRANSCRIPTION
DISCLAIMER: Below is an AI generated transcript. There could be a few typos but it should be at least 90% accurate. Watch video or listen to the podcast for the full experience!
Andrew Scivally 0:00
Sometimes, it’s like, look for your biggest issue challenge you’re having in the business. And at times, it’s like, Look, find someone that’s been there done that, you know, that can just jump you three years ahead.
Alexander Ferguson 0:18
Welcome to UpTech Report. This is our applied tech series UpTech Report is sponsored by TeraLeap. Learn how to leverage the power of video at teraleap.io. Today, I’m very excited to be joined by my guest, Andrew Scivally, who’s based in Utah. He’s the co founder and CEO at eLearning Brothers. Welcome, Andrew. Good have you on. Alright, thanks. Now, eLearning brothers, you guys have products and services, you’re all focused on helping create more engaging and effective learning how we understand, let’s just start with the problem. Before we get to the history and learning all about what came there. What was the problem that you initially saw and set out to solve?
Andrew Scivally 0:54
Yeah, so basically, there are lots of companies that are trying to train their employees, right. And typically, you know, in the early days, they were trying to go from, you know, they were doing a lot of classroom type training in there trying to figure out how do we do that online? And or, actually, the question was, should we do it online? Should we even care? Does it work? You know, no one believed in online learning. So initially, it was all around, how do we help you build online learning, and then it became more around, okay, now you’ve done that, but the learning is really boring. And for lack of a better adjective right now, which is crappy learning. So it got all around, you know, how do we make that more engaging, more interactive? How do you build just online learning? That is just, it’s, that can be awesome, right? And so that was really the issue is, you know, how do you how do you get learning online? Where do you start? How do you do that? But then once you do it, how do you make it engaging, interactive, fun, inspiring, and all of that. And so that was kind of the evolution of it. However, now, it really became in the last, you know, year and a half with the pandemic and all that everyone got forced to do it online. So it was no matter. You know, should we do it online? It was like, Hey, if you’re going to onboard employees, or do regular, you know, regular regulatory training, compliance training, product training, any of the sales training, you don’t have a choice right now, right? Now you have to do it online. And so then it really got into, okay, everyone’s forced to do this. How do you get the content ready? And then how do you deliver that and get that out to the employees and customers?
Alexander Ferguson 2:31
And we’ll definitely get back to that whole conversation today. That’s where we, it’s no longer a question. Should we be doing it? It is okay, how are you doing it? But going back to the history doesn’t know that it that you started it? Is that correct?
Andrew Scivally 2:47
Yeah, we started the company in 2009. My brother and I did. Okay.
Alexander Ferguson 2:52
Did you guys just like talk one day, we do something like what did that look like?
Andrew Scivally 2:56
Yeah. So for us, I mean, we were both in the space. And this is where we we got started. And I was working at JPMorgan Chase doing online learning there. And he was actually over at Wendy’s that fast food place and working in their corporate headquarters, helping them build their online learning, doing things like the hamburger challenge, and the chicken challenge and all that kind of stuff. And, but really, through a big life event that that happened, kind of got forced into needing to figure out, you know, how could, how could he work from home and take care of the things that he needed to do. And we’ve always had this, this idea of creating a business like we, we’d love to do it, but we both, we just hadn’t done anything like that before. And so, you know, start thinking about, well, what maybe we could start a business of our own. And all we know how to do is online learning, you know, and he was more than the graphic multimedia side, and I was more on the instructional design and design side. And so we said why don’t we do that? Why don’t we start a company doing that and, and you would think that the name elearning brothers, was incredibly obvious. Easy, like, Hey, we’re brothers, they were both in elearning. So let’s call the company elearning brothers. It wasn’t, there were multiple other names that were suggested and all that kind of stuff. And then eventually elearning brothers came out. But um, so yeah, 2009 he was working full time in the business from his basement. I was still I’m employed at Zions Bank, making good money there and just had a had a nice job. And so I was helping out, you know, as much as I could and lunch and evenings and stuff, and then a 2010. I was able to come over full time. Yeah, I was working on our basements. That’s where it all started. And then hiring employees that would come to our basements and work at card tables and, you know, sit there so
Alexander Ferguson 4:53
if you look back now the past 12 years is that right now? Yeah. If you go back and tell yourself something that you know now, there’s there’s a lot that happened to them. But if you had to pick one or two things, what would that be?
Andrew Scivally 5:10
I think for us, we were so new to running our own business. We didn’t know anything, we knew we knew our craft, right? So we knew how to build online learning. We knew that that piece of it, but we didn’t know the business side of it. And I’m not talking just like, financial QuickBooks stuff, right? I’m talking more around like, your what the structure of like, how, who is your target customer? How are you marketing to that customer? How are you gathering nurturing those leads? What does your sales team or process look like you how do you standardize some of that digital marketing campaign? Like we didn’t know any of that? And so I think I would the mean not the advice necessarily, that I give myself, but kind of the direction I put myself in to say, hey, look, a business is more than just doing your craft, right? Lots of people are good at you know, whatever it is they do. But the business is more than so it’s like how are you going to take care of the other parts of this business? How do you create a lead flow that that you can sustain? Who exactly are you trying to talk to? And then another thing I realized over time is well, I’ve always known I’m not the smartest guy but you know, that’s okay. But the pieces that your as you hire additional talent, man, they can really help me if someone that knows their craft in a certain area can really take you to new levels. And so hiring the right people I obviously we all know that’s important. But um, sometimes it’s like, Look, look, look for your biggest issue challenge you’re having in the business. And at times it’s like look, find someone that’s been there done that, you know, that can just jump you three years ahead.
Alexander Ferguson 7:00
Could you have seen the value at the time of like, Alright, we need to hire someone knows what all they’re doing and bring him on board, but it’s our own cash. Could you have made that decision?
Andrew Scivally 7:09
No, that’s the that’s the issue right? When you’re bootstrapping every penny counts. And the challenge though, is when when to be frugal and cost conscious versus when do you say you know what, if we don’t go out here and spend this money, like we’re just not going to get there? Right so sometimes it’s like look, we’re trying to go here and we’re doing the exact same things every day that aren’t getting us there. What makes us think that we can keep doing that and get there Well, I don’t know maybe it’s just more time or learning whatever it is, but sometimes it’s like Look, you’ve got to do something different here and that might mean like going to pay big money to bring somebody that knows what the heck they’re doing but no it’s it’s a challenge right I mean, it’s you know, we started with two computers and again our basements and so there wasn’t a lot of cash needed however you know, especially now we bump into things where it’s like look we need more money that’s just that’s how you solve this issue we know what to do we just can’t afford it. So it there’s challenges on both sides
Alexander Ferguson 8:14
and the lessons learned on maybe raw tires I want to avoid and and what do you keep that your eyes out for now?
Andrew Scivally 8:22
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we’ve we’ve had some people that were um, were the right hire at that time. And then over time, weren’t a fit anymore. Or you know, things happen in life and so when you’re especially when you’re a small company, all the employees their their lives become your life, right? So if, if someone’s going through a really rough divorce, or if they’ve got challenges with the child medical things, or they just start making some choices in their life that take them down a path that isn’t isn’t jiving with your culture or your business or they’re not happy in life? I mean, whatever it is, that person’s life impacts the business in a big way when it’s 10 of you right i mean it’s just it does and so suddenly you know, there’s a times when you you have someone on board and you’re really relying on them heavily. And let’s say all of a sudden they they go through a really hard divorce and they’re just they’re checked out now right? They’re just broken for whatever reason, and you have to have a conversation say Look, I’m sorry this is happening but what can we do right can we make this work? And sometimes that person you know, might just be you know what? We can’t it’s not fair to me it’s not fair to the company like I need to check out or so they’re things like that happened. And what do
Alexander Ferguson 9:49
you do as a leader in those situations? Like how are you feeling? Are you thinking how do you address those?
Andrew Scivally 9:54
Here’s the thing I mean, again, especially when you’re small, these are these people become your friends, right? And in our case, a lot of times, there are families as well. And so for me, the number one thing is, it all comes down to, to the relationship of trust. So I’m really big on, you need to, you need to be able to trust the people that you work with. And you need to trust that they have your back, that they have the company’s back that they want to do what’s best for everyone. They’re not, you know, saying things behind your back that, you know, they, they wouldn’t say in front of your face, that they truly care. Now, you also need to trust that they’re competent in what they do, however, is that for me is that first trust, and that’s the kind of people that I’ve always looked for, it’s like, Look, we’re going to be working together a lot. Let’s actually trust each other. And if we can do that, then all the conversations we have, you know, what we can just say what we need to say, and we can talk about what the real issues are in the business, or whatever it is. And you know, I love you, you know, I care about you, I want the best for you. However, look, this is what’s happening, let’s talk about that. And, and when someone can’t do that, or when they betray that trust, that’s when it becomes really hard in the business because you need that that person needs to be genuine with you, you need to know who they are. And then if they can’t do that, and if they’re lying and hiding things, then it becomes really difficult to work together, especially in a small team environment.
Alexander Ferguson 11:24
What would you say? was a lesson learned? Or what were a tactic that really worked for you guys into be able to scale and start to acquire more and more customers?
Andrew Scivally 11:34
Getting a sales team? That sounds maybe sounds stupid, but again, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I still don’t know what I don’t know, right? Did you
Alexander Ferguson 11:46
hire like a head of sales? Like right out the gate? Or did you hire just Junior salesperson and try to like, show them and then they take it from there? What was your approach?
Andrew Scivally 11:56
Not even that. I mean, what we did early on was we we built templates and assets. So we were selling things on a website. And so it was all just us writing blogs. And hopefully people would find our content, right and pay us you know, 50 bucks and download a template. So kind of fun and sort of addicting as well, though, because we use an old service called EA junkie, and I don’t even know if it’s around anymore. But EA junkie is like the perfect name for it. Because anytime a sale would come in, you get an email from a junkie, they’ll say, Hey, you got money. And it was almost like getting it. Getting the drug. Right guy got a sale. Um, but it was. That was our model early on, right? And it was helping people find that website, we go to conferences and stuff like that. And you know, we’d, you’ll wake up in the morning, check your email. Yeah, I made money while I slept last night. This is amazing. And I would often think about, you know, those late night infomercials. It’s Tony Robbins, whoever it is right there, like, you two can make money, you know, in your sleep, you know, with with only two hours of work every day, you know, whatever it was, but that’s fine, and all that. But as the business grew, it’s like, Look, you know, we’re doing a decent amount online. But there were a lot of other things we wanted to sell and other places we want it to go. So when I hired a sales leader and said, Okay, look, I actually we need a sales team of some kind, right? And when I was able to bring in a sales leader that just been there done that, it’s like, Look, I do sales all day long. I was like, Wow, you’ve opened my eyes to like, that’s a whole profession, right of sales. Like, oh, it’s more than just being a nice guy and getting on the phone. I’m like, there’s your actual things. You’re like, art again, arts of the craft. So anyway, that was a big step for us. Like getting some people in there that really know what they’re doing. Now, I couldn’t hire a $300,000 car. Oh, or whatever it is. We had to start where we could. But yeah, hiring a sales team was a big thing for us.
Alexander Ferguson 14:04
What year did elearning you see reflected take off? Or was it already paying off in 2009? Like, Was it easy sale? Like, Oh, yes, we want this.
Andrew Scivally 14:11
It was I mean, he was doing well. The I’m trying to think for us, you’ll probably you know 2012 2013 is where things started to click. And I guess I mean, you say click but you know if for any, any entrepreneur, I think that’s growing a business. It’s like, hey, it’s nice where we’re at, but you’re never content where it’s at, right? You’re always you always see the potential and you’re like, man, it could be so much more. So we are we’re always pushing for that side. You know, I’m never at ease feeling like it’s just working. I always see and I’m like, okay, that’s great. We got here, however, let’s focus on what’s next. And so there’s always this uneasiness inside that says, oh, man, we should be a lot further along than we are.
Alexander Ferguson 14:57
And we are and you think that’s a good thing to have that that unease and Yeah,
Andrew Scivally 15:01
I mean, I guess it depends how you handle it in your personal life. But I, I do I mean, I’m never just, I’m never content with where we’re at. It’s just, we should be a billion dollar business, right? But we’re not like, why aren’t we? You know, it’s like, the potentials there the markets, they’re the people that are talented. So I don’t I I always feel that, that urge inside to keep pushing
Alexander Ferguson 15:29
harder How big is your team today?
Andrew Scivally 15:30
We’re about 150 employees,
Alexander Ferguson 15:32
is there any tactics or, or ways that have worked well, for you to keep that the vision and culture together as a team?
Andrew Scivally 15:40
Yeah, I mean, that’s challenging move, we’ve acquired three companies over the past year of just under a year and a half. And so that is a challenge, and especially challenging right now, when we’re not able to, or haven’t been able to get together much, if at all, face to face and Dr. That so that is challenging. And, you know, I guess, part of what I, I guess the thought I prescribed right now is, look, you’ve got to come up with a vision and decide what you’d like to do. However, I always tell my team, I do reserve the right to change my mind. So it’s like, Look, let’s go do this. And that’s great. And we’re gonna go that route until something tells us that we shouldn’t do that anymore. Or that there’s a better way to do it, whatever it is, so we can we can deviate. But you got to choose something, right? And you have to go for it. On the culture piece, I think, again, for me, a lot of it boils down to lately is being able to pop around to different groups and keep reminding them of what we’re trying to do. And then also getting in there and, and not not a pep talk necessarily, but going in, and when, you know, we’re all feeling overworked. And we’re feeling like, you know, there’s just we’re pushing really hard, it’s sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work. But to be able to go in there and say, Hey, guys, look, just, I understand that we’re having lots of hard things, I get it, I’m with you. It’s hard for everyone. However, remember, like, where we’re going is this like, we’re like, it’s going to be amazing, and it’s going to be hard. And guess what we’re going to do more and more and more. And so it’s always going to be challenging. However, you know, like, we’re trying to be like the best learning technology business in the world. So it’s like, we’ve we’ve got amazing things we’re going after. And so I think people yeah, everyone in the thing is, hey, look, if you want easy and calm, and everything’s the same everyday, when you walk in, and you’re kind of doing the same job, and it’s just, you know, you sleep easily every night, this probably isn’t the business to be it, right, a small company as pushing really hard to grow. It’s crazy, and it’s chaotic. If you like that great. If you don’t well go hide in some big company somewhere and just, you know, work 20 hours a week and you know, eat lunch the rest of the time and hide there. But no, that’s not what you’re gonna do
Alexander Ferguson 18:10
you bootstrap for a long time, but then you you did raise some some funds with with the mentality of of acquisition, can you speak to that that plan, so we basically
Andrew Scivally 18:19
bootstrapped for about just over 10 years. And then, you know, we got to a point where the product that we were pushing really hard, it was kind of becoming commoditized a bit in this market. And it was, it wasn’t as unique and special as it used to be. And so, you know, we saw that and we either partnered with companies, and they had our product embedded or others were just, you know, building their own stuff, and they didn’t need us. So looking at that, it was basically like, Okay, well, you know, we’ve got a couple options, you can just take a product like that, and just milk it for all the cash you possibly can and just kind of write it, write it down. And or you can say, no, that’s not the route we want to go and we want to grow and you can build new products or acquire different things, or whatever it is,
Alexander Ferguson 19:07
do you remember that moment? You had this conversation trying to figure this out?
Andrew Scivally 19:11
No, I it’s more of an evolution, right? So sometimes it takes a bit to wrap your brain around what’s happening. Sometimes you’re so close, right? And so you’re pushing really hard on certain things. You’re like, why am I not getting the results I used to get and suddenly, you know, maybe you start looking at things and you start piecing together some information and conversations and all that. And you’re like, well, oh, well, maybe it’s this other thing then I just wasn’t thinking about and so for us, it was kind of a an evolution like that. And we had so when I when I kind of came to that that decision in my head, I basically said look, well I guess the decision to you write it you can kind of ride it to the ground a little bit and just kind of get the cash and sock it away. And You know, try to try to make sure that things work in the future. Or you could sell your business, right, you can sell it to a strategic or something like that and tuck yourself in somewhere. Or the other thing is I’m like, well, everyone’s getting purchased in this world. Why can’t we do that? Like, why? Why can’t we be the ones that go acquire the businesses and grow that way? And so instead of going deeper in our one product, why can’t we go to your more breadth? And instead of taking customers, you’re taking care of their learning right here? Why can’t we take care of all of their learning needs, across building all the content and also delivery tracking of all the content. And so that was where I said, you know, what, that’s what I would like to do. And, you know, I had to make some adjustments on our team. We got to partway with some people that I had to pull out of some other areas that we were doing some partnership stuff and just said, Look, we, as a business, we need to do this other thing. And that’s really where I want to take it. And if you love to do that, awesome. And if you can be on board with that phenomenal, then let’s go do it. If you don’t, if that’s not what you want to do, that’s okay, we can still be friends. But you need to go do something else. And so we did have some change, we exited some people. And I basically said, this is the plan I want to do. And then I went to the investors and said, this is the plan. And I was lucky enough to find an investment group, actually two investment groups that said, Hey, that plan sounds great. And so we went ahead and brought on equity,
Alexander Ferguson 21:35
if you already don’t already have these relationships with these equity companies, where are you cultivating? What did that? How did that turn turn on?
Andrew Scivally 21:43
Obviously, I mean, we’d have we’d had investment companies chasing us for years. But this particular one, I had met through a different process, and went back to them and said, Hey, here’s how we’ve restructured some things. And what do you think about this new plan? And they said, yeah, we like that one a lot better. So I learned I learned some good lessons on the first round that we we went through. But uh, but yeah, so I took it to them. And they said, Look, well, what companies would you like to purchase? And I said, Well, here’s the plan. And here are the companies. I’ve known these owners for many, many years. So all the companies that we’ve been buying, I’m I’m friends and I’m, I’ve known their companies for a long time. And so we’ve been able to go in there and say, Okay, how do we do this together, guys? And, and we are we have more acquisitions coming in. It’s, we’re not stopping.
Alexander Ferguson 22:35
What’s your tally of where you’re headed? Like, what are you excited about? Why these these acquisitions?
Andrew Scivally 22:41
If you look at corporations, so we typically, I mean, we deal with businesses, yes, 95% of our business. So this is its companies, you know, a lot of our US base, but some are international as well. But they’re all trying to figure out, you know, how you train your employees in your, in your customers. One of their big challenges, though, is, look, you can’t right now you typically can’t go to one company to get all that taken care of right? You have you have all of this training content that you either have to build, or you have to buy off the shelf from somewhere, or you have to get someone to build it for you. So you have all these content needs. And then you also need to put it on a platform to host it, deliver it, track it and do all that kind of stuff. And then in the middle of all that. You say, Okay, well, man, I want to build like, really inner interactive type content, I want to build mobile learning, I want to do VR stuff, I want to try gaming, maybe there’s chatbot, you know, stuff you want to look at, like all these things you want to do. Right now in our in our world, there’s not one company that you let’s say you’re well, Walmart, right? Let’s say you’re Walmart, and you want to take care of all those trainings, you have to go to like five different companies is so for us, the story is, hey, look, let’s start building out this entire solution where it’s a company can come to us and say, Hey, elearning brothers, I want to build my own content. And we have, we have tools where they can build their own content, build your own VR, build your own games, or they can say, No, we want you guys to build it. So we’ll build it all for them. And so they can take all this content need. And then if they have a platform, awesome, we work with tons of platforms out there to, you know, to deliver content. But if they don’t, we can say hey, look, we also have a platform to deliver all that learning. And so we really wanted to create the whole solution where we could take care of all of that if the customer needed it. Our other belief is that I think a lot of companies say this, but I don’t know if they truly believe it. But, you know, we really believe that there’s tons of business out there, right? And we we fully understand that. Companies are dealing with lots of different learning providers, and we have no issue with that. So we would love to help you where we can. Chances are the other vendors you’re using. We probably know them well and we’re probably friends with them. And so we partner with our competitors all the time. And we’ll do webinars together, do different things. And I think you get more business from being friendly with each other and working together on things than you ever get being siloed and trying to, you know, fight against all the other people,
Alexander Ferguson 25:17
you know, you don’t worry about competition, he really could see that that way.
Andrew Scivally 25:21
Some people don’t. But, again, I’ve been in this industry, my whole life, basically, you know, over 20 years now, that’s all I do is learning. And I know a lot of the the owners that have built these businesses, they’re wonderful people. And, you know what, they’re all just trying to build a business like we are. And there’s plenty of spaces for us to collaborate and partner.
Alexander Ferguson 25:43
What are you most excited about in the future of E learning?
Andrew Scivally 25:49
So a lot of what’s happening now is, is what’s called upskilling and rescaling right, so we know that right now the labor, labor markets are tight, right, and it’s hard to find employees and, and, and things change so quickly now. So to be able to upskill someone into different jobs, right to be able to take someone and help them understand how do I how do we learn new skills to get into different areas, so or how do I rescale them because what you’re doing today, may be totally different tomorrow, right, the tech the tech that you use, the process you use, whatever it is, so you need to upskill your employees you need to rescale your employees so we’re seeing a ton of that and then the other big thing is learning in the flow. Now I believe and this is a Christian Weibull our Chief Product officer he talks a lot about this learning needs to be where you are right we shouldn’t have you go to a place to do learning, learning should be where you already live in your job. So for example, if your communication platform that you’re using everyday is slack well when you’re in Slack, you’re learning your next learning whatever it is everything should just be like right there one click and you’re in the middle of your learning or if you’re out in the field working on I don’t know maybe you’re working on oil and gas lines when you’re out there and you need help and you need to be learning in that moment. It should be in the flow of that job you should have a way to actually you know hold your phone up over something in the augmented reality just showing you like the different parts and pieces and you click right now to go get your coach help or you click right now to be able to see something and so we you know we believe in the learning again in the flow of your job learning should not be a separate event it should be part of your job and workflow
Alexander Ferguson 27:45
what has changed in where your time is spent the way the way you look at your your day and you and you go about it. How does it look on an average day for you today compared to where it was
Andrew Scivally 27:59
so the hours I spend at pretty much the same I’m really big on my dad would always say right you work to live you don’t live to work. Work is extremely important. But really at the end of the day work is what’s putting food on the table take care of the families all that kind of stuff and so you know, it’s my hours are fairly normal hours. It’s rare that I’m working on Saturdays and I’m never working on Sundays. And it’s it’s a it’s a balance you have to have I mean if you can only run for so long not taking care of a certain part of your life until it’s gonna implode. And you know, it makes me a bit sad I run into entrepreneurs at times and they’re like, man, I I live at the office I’ve got a bed under my desk and whatever it is and and I start talking to him more and I’m like, Yeah, they’re divorced their kids hate them and you know, they’re just not happy but business is doing well. Like Well okay, I mean I feel like you’ve kind of sacrificed probably the thing that you thought was most important to you and why you were actually doing the business was take care of your family, but it ended up you know, getting rid of your family. So I’m big on trying to balance that so for me, it’s there’s family responsibility, there’s business responsibility, and there’s your spiritual church type responsibility. And for me, those three legs need to be intact. And together all of those allow me to to take care of all the other ones. And so there’s a there’s a time and a place to do all of them. And you know, at times they encroach on each other and that’s fine. But that can’t be the norm right when it’s when it’s business hours I need to take care of the business stuff and try to get that done. If it’s if it’s Sunday, well for me personally then Okay, that’s not business time. That needs to be something else. And that’s family time and that’s your church spiritual time. In the evenings, that’s family time. And so are there exceptions do things happen? Well, absolutely right. Life is not this perfect. You know, thing it is snow globe, right? So that’s I mean, for me learning, you know, everything has a time and a place. And you can’t, I don’t think you can run too long, you know, not being able to take care of, for me those legs, it just won’t work and everything’s gonna be unhealthy.
Alexander Ferguson 30:16
Is there anything you’ve done, or help try to focus on to help that work life balance when everyone is?
Andrew Scivally 30:24
Well, I’m trying to think, you know, I think there’s, you, everyone reacts to stress differently. And, you know, for me, I guess Fortunately, the pandemic hasn’t been a stressful thing. For me, it’s been a, it’s been an opportunity to, to see my kids more and to try new things. You know, the business is always stressful anyway. So I mean, whether, whether it’s in business, that pandemic, I mean, it’s just, so my life is always stressful, but it’s, it’s okay. So, you know, I think it’s just, you know, look, do what you can try to get the stuff done. Don’t stress about it too much. It’s like, Look, it’s just, it’s just stuff. And so trying to remind ourselves that, look, there’s always more to be done. You could work all day, every day, and never get it all done. But do as much as you can put your heart and desire in the right place. Work with the team to you know, figure out, you know, hey, how do we get these things done? How do we make it easier on the business on ourselves, and then I’m, in this be open with people, you know, talk to people and say, hey, look, this is this is what I’m trying to get done. And it’s not working for me, and I’m feeling X, Y, and Z. And that’s where the trust comes in, you know, have I trust my team, and I’m not too worried about if they need to take a day off or whatever. It’s just, like, Look, you guys, we have a lot to get done. Let’s let’s figure it out.
Alexander Ferguson 31:54
You weren’t always happy. Like I wanted to put that balance with, like, under stress, but you do as much as you can see, they seem to be those who are at odds always with to every, like you want to grow, you’re like you don’t stress about it too much.
Andrew Scivally 32:10
Well, my, I guess just my personality is though, that I mean, there’s always a load on me anyway, so I just so I don’t know, I can’t remember, you know, we we obviously spoke before, but you have got nine kids. And so obviously, you know, there’s a lot of responsibility there. And, you know, my wife is amazing, she’s a saint, and she obviously helps out a ton. And, you know, we couldn’t do without each other. But um, you know, with the kids in the business, and, you know, like I said, I’m my belief in serving and being active and in some type of, you know, religious type thing as well. I mean, there’s just, there’s a lot of demands on time. But you can’t Oh, yeah, it’s a terrible life to feel terrible Life to Live, if you always feel like you’re behind on everything, right? It’s like, just accept that sometimes, you’re not going to be exactly where you want to be in all these places. That’s okay. Now, I always want the business to grow, but I don’t want I’m not willing to sacrifice some things to make it grow, though, right? I’m not willing to sacrifice all of my weekends, and all of that to do that. But, but there are ways there are ways to make it grow and still have life.
Alexander Ferguson 33:27
Has there been any, like key takeaways for you over the last 30 years that you’re like, wow, this doing this actually really helps the business grow, whether it’s in the marketing or team or culture? Like, is there any takeaways for you?
Andrew Scivally 33:41
Yeah, I mean, going back to something that we talked about a little bit earlier, finding the right people, right, if you find the right people that are actually identifying problems, and solving those for you, and actually looking for ways to, you know, help the business grow, and all that, that’s been incredibly valuable for us, you know, finding really good talented people that have the right attitude about it as well, right? It’s not easy, and, but if you have a good positive attitude, they can make things happen. Awesome, you know. And I also think that if, by keeping things balanced in your life, and I’m not, I’m not talking about like, shirking on your responsibility and saying, I’m not going to take care of that stuff. I’m saying, you know, get the things done that you need to get done. But by balancing out all the other things in your life, I think it actually makes you a more more level headed person and makes you a happier person, which actually means you’re going to be better in all the things that you’re doing. That’s one thing I’ve realized more and more over time is people are looking to you, and they’re watching how you respond to things, how you behave, what you think is important. And everything you say, whether you mean it or not it It carries weight. And so so just remembering like, Alright, what what’s about to come out of my mouth, someone actually is listening to Um and I chuckle sometimes I write I’m like guys I’m just a normal person like you like who cares what I say? But the maybe the stupid reality is if if you’re running the business people like put value on what you say you know maybe they should sometimes maybe they shouldn’t but um but remembering that and say hey look what you say and do can actually impact people so make sure you’re careful with what you say and build those relationships talk to them personally do what you can to help it gets harder when you have more employees you know I it’s hard for me to know everyone now like I used to and so you know doing that and I think another thing I’ve learned too is just belief in yourself everyone’s like, Oh, I love feeling this awesome feelings is blessing because then you can learn this you can like bullcrap. Feeling hurts, man. It hurts is it can be demoralizing. No one wants to fail. I don’t know people if I think they’re lying if they’re like, I love failing. This teaches me like, what, you know what I don’t need to do next time. Like, all right, well, good for you. I don’t I don’t think most people feel that way. So but believe me, it’s okay. Right? It’s okay to do that. Most your decisions might even be wrong. However, less you got to make a decision to move forward and then adjust when necessary. That’s a lot better than being wishy washy on some decisions. Like, just make a decision and then be be aware enough to know if it’s right or wrong. But I don’t know if you like is like, really like you love going out and failing. Like, that’s what you like to do. Oh, cuz it gives me one step closer to getting the right one like, Well, all right, that’s a good perspective. But I think in the moment it kind of hurts.
Alexander Ferguson 36:44
But those that want to learn more, you guys can head over to elearningbrothers.com and we will add to be able to get a taste of what they’re accomplishing. Thank you so much for your time, and you’re welcome. And we’ll see you all on the next episode of UpTech Report. Have you seen a company using AI machine learning or other technology to transform the way we live, work and do business? Go to UpTech Report calm and let us know.
